One of the smallest armoured fighting vehicles to see combat, the L3 embodied Italian interwar doctrine: speed, economy, and numbers over protection and firepower.
The L3, designated a light tank by the Royal Italian Army, was in practice a turretless tankette whose armour and armament proved inadequate for modern warfare. Cheap to produce and mechanically reliable, it became the most numerous Italian armoured vehicle of the Second World War, serving in reconnaissance, policing, colonial warfare, and supply roles.
Type: Tankette
Crew: Two
Primary armament: Machine guns
Service: 1935–1944
Italian tankette development began with the import of four British Carden-Loyd Mark VI vehicles in 1929. The first indigenous derivative, the CV-29, entered limited production before further refinement led to the CV-33 and later the CV-35.
In 1938, Italian tankettes were redesignated L3 (Leggero), reflecting doctrinal classification rather than battlefield capability.
Early production model, approximately 300 built.
Improved armour attachment and twin 8 mm machine guns.
Torsion bar suspension and single 13.2 mm Breda M31 machine gun.
Anti-tank variant armed with a 20 mm Solothurn rifle.
Flamethrower variant using an armoured fuel trailer.
Command vehicle fitted with radio equipment.
Bridge-layer capable of deploying a 7 m bridge.
The L3 saw combat in Ethiopia, Spain, the Balkans, North Africa, the Soviet Union, and mainland Italy. While effective in early colonial conflicts, it was rapidly outclassed by contemporary tanks and proved vulnerable even to infantry weapons.
After 1943, surviving vehicles were used by German forces, puppet regimes, and resistance movements, while others served only in training roles.
Between 2,000 and 2,500 L3 tankettes were produced and exported worldwide, serving in armies across Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa. Many users modified the vehicles with locally sourced armament.
Notable users included Italy, Hungary, Spain, Brazil, China, Austria, Bulgaria, Iraq, Greece, and Venezuela.