Very soon after their botched uprising of 17-18 July 1936, the Spanish Nationalist rebels asked for military aid from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The German units sent to assist France and his Nationalist followers were the Condor Legion and a few ground troops, while Mussolini sent the Aviazione Legionaria air corps, and later, a large expeditionary corps; the CTV. As far as the armoured vehicles were concerned, the Italians provided the Nationalists with a total of 149 Fiat-Ansaldo CV-33/35 tankettes and 8 Lancia-Ansaldo 1ZM armoured cars, but they kept them under their own control and command within the CTV.

Under the command of Lieutenant G Barbaglio, the first 5 Italian tankettes landed in the Galician port of Vigo on the 16 August 1936. Being barred from combat the Italian specialists began to train in the use of the vehicles. On 13 September, this tankette platoon entered San Sebastian together with Nationalist troops.

On 29 September, another consignment of ten tankettes -- three of which were flame-thrower equipped - also arrived at Vigo, together with two officers and twenty-five crew men, under the command of Captain O. Fortuna. The Italian personnel were nominally enrolled into the Tercio (the Spanish Foreign Legion) and went to Caceres, where a Nationalist tank training base was being installed. On 5 October, a Compagnia Legionaria Carri d'Assalto was formed by joining the ten new tankettes with the former five. After a short training time which lasted up to 17 October, the company was reviewed by General Franco the following day, then went to the front with mixed Italian and Spanish crews.

On 21 October 1936, the first trial by fire took place at Navalcarnero, a Republican outpost village on the road to Madrid. This was a successful entry onto the battle scene in Spain which was paid for with the loss of one tankette but earned the unit the honorary title of Compagnia Carri "Navalcarnero" conferred by the Nationalist commander. On the 29th, the company was involved in a brief but bloody clash against the Russian T-26 tanks which raided the villages of Sesena and Esquivias, where one more tankette was lost and another one badly damaged. This happened in an epic duel: fitted with a flame-thrower and commanded by a young tanker named P. Baresi, the tankette attacked a gun-armed T-26 tank. Hit by a shot, the tankette's crew was killed but the Russian tank was itself disabled by a field gun sometime later.

Additional tank skirmishes took place during late October and early November 1936, on the approaches to Madrid, but none were of significance to either side. On 6 November, the Italian-Spanish tankettes attacked towards the Princess bridge in Madrid but they were held in the Usera suburb. On the next day, the 7th, one tankette was blown up in Carabanchel. A copy of the Nationalist operational plan for the conquest of Madrid was found in the pocket of a dead Spanish officer. This permitted the Republican commander to move all his best troops to the threatened spots and to resist successfully the Nationalist dash against the Spanish capital.

The Nationalist frontal assault on Madrid definitively failed on 23 November and the tankette company went back to Caceres on the 26th, having lost a total of four tankettes, with three men killed, seventeen wounded and one missing, since their arrival n Spain.

A new consignment of 20 Italian tankettes landed in Seville on 8 December. Together with the former ones, these were organised into three companies which participated in the battle of Malaga, early in February 1937.

By this time, Mussolini was pouring numerous Italian troops and war material in Spain, enough to raise a 35,000 strong expeditionary corps, the CTV.Within it, there was a Raggruppamento Reparti Specializzati (RRS) which was formed on the 17 February 1937 at San Lucar la Mayor (Andalusia), under Colonel C. Rivolta. This unit included a tankette battalion, with four companies, a company of motorcycle machine-gunners, an armoured car company and a battery of 47mm anti-tank guns.

As a result of their walkover at Malaga, the Italians overestimated their chances for a quick and decisive victory. They launched a major offensive on a March 1937 towards Guadalajara and Madrid. They had advanced up to less than twenty kilometres from Guadalajara when, under the combined effects of deficient staff work, bad weather, Republican air attacks and the action of numerous Russian tanks, their four divisions were compelled to halt, then to retreat, suffering grievous losses. This failure was amplified by the communist propaganda, even if the Italians still held part of the terrain conquered during their offensive.

Sacked

Greatly irritated, Mussolini replaced the commander in chief, General M. Roatta, with General E. Bastico. The whole CTV was withdrawn from the front line to be fully reorganised and re-trained. Colonel Rivolta was called back to Italy and replaced by Colonel V. Babini on 25 April.

The battles of Madrid and Guadalajara had highlighted the fact that the ultra light Italian tankettes, armed with only two machine guns, could not match the heavier Russian T-26 tanks, equipped with a 45mm cannon.

The Italian armoured unit did not take part in the Bilbao campaign but was ready for another Nationalist offensive on Santander, together with the reorganised CTV. A special "distaccamento celere" (fast detachment), which brought together Italian tankettes, armoured cars and motor-machine gunners with Spanish cavalry and motorised infantry, helped to secure the critical Escudo Pass on 15 August and, on the following day, occupied Arija and isolated a Basque stronghold at Reinosa. On the 26th, together with Nationalist troops, the Italians triumphantly entered the port city of Santander. The Italian propaganda machine did not fail to present the capture of Santander as an "essentially Fascist and Italian victory", a victor which avenged the setback of Guadalajara.

In September 1937 two Italian tankette companies also took part in skirmishes around Zuera, in Aragon, during the last phase of the Republican offensive against Saragossa and Huesca.

On 15 October, the 'Raggruppamento Reparti Specialitatti' changed its title to become the Raggruppamento Carristi OMS (Oltre Mare Spagna = Overseas Spain) and was strengthened with various units, namely an anti-tank section of German 37mm PAK. 36 gun and an anti-aircraft unit. After a long winter period of rest and training the Raggruppamento Carristi was given the following make-up :

two tankette battalions, each of two companies;
a motor mechanised Bersaglieri light infantry battalion, with one machine-gun motorcycle company and one armoured car company.
a mixed battalion which comprised of a small detachment of flame-thrower tankettes, one motorised anti-tank battery and one anti-aircraft company.
an Agrupacion spaqnola, in fact a training unit for Spanish personnel, with a tankette platoon and an anti-aircraft machine-gun platoon.
a mobile recovery and workshop unit, with a reserve of two more tankette platoons.

Lightning Offensive

In March-April 1938, the Italian CTV and its Raggruppamento Carristi were involved into a large scale, lightning Nationalist offensive through Aragon, which took them from Rudilla to Tortosa in forty days. Just before dawn of 31 March, near the village of Calaceite, a fast column of Italian tankettes, armoured cars and truck borne infantry had surprised an International (British) battalion which was marching to where the front line was supposed to be. The Italians inflicted numerous casualties to the British and took 140 prisoners. The Italians then pushed ahead towards Gandesa and the mouth of the Ebro River and, during the rainy night of 17/18 April, performed a brilliant exploit to the credit of their motorised troops. A "colonna celere with the Raggruppamento Carristi ahead of lorry-borne infantry, motorised artillery, anti-tank and anti-aircraft units, performed a wide outflanking movement, over narrow and winding mountain roads, which ended some 200 km farther, at Mas deś Barberans in the Sierra de Montnegreto mountains.Nevertheless, the whole Aragon campaign cost the Raggruppamento the loss of thirteen tankettes and some crew men, among them Captain P. Paladini, the commander of the 1st armoured battalion.

Later, in July 1938, the Raggruppamento Carristi spearheaded the CTV in an offensive from Teruel towards Valencia. In five days, the Italians broke the Republican front and advanced 100 km, taking Sarrion and Albentosa, before coming to an abrupt halt on the 23rd against the well concealed, and stubbornly defended fortifications built by the Republicans through the mountains in front of Viver.

A further, large scale reorganisation of the CTV saw Colonel Babini promoted to the rank of divisional commander. In consequence, he relinquished the Raggruppamento Carristi to Colonel R. Olmi. The new commanding officer led his mechanized unit up to the conclusion of the battle of the Ebro, operating in accordance with Nationalist troops to clear the river's right bank.

The Raggruppamento Carristi was further strengthened in December 1938 with a last delivery of 32 tankettes from Italy, which allowed its commander to form a third, Spanish crewed armoured battalion.

By then, the Raggruppanento Carristi was reconfigured to become a full-fledged, 1,400 strong unit which included :

a headquarters
a Reggimento Carri (Tank Regiment) with:
two Italian tankette battalions, each comprising two companies.
one Spanish tankette battalion (Agrupacion Spagnola), of two companies.
a motor-mechanized battalion, with an armoured car company
a motorcycle company and a Bersaglieri company.
a battalion of Arditi (shock troops).
an anti-tank battalion, with a 65mm gun battery, a 37mm gun battery, plus 45mm and 47mm gun sections.

Offensive

The Nationalists began their offensive against Catalonia on 23 December 1938. Spearheaded by the Raggruppamento's tankette companies, the CTV rushed ahead for some thirty kilometres, creating considerable panic. However further advance was held up to 3 January 1939 by a crack Republican army corps which was hurriedly thrown into the battle. On 15 January, an Italian colonna celere, commanded by Lt.-Colonel D. Pace and including tankettes and motorized infantry, entered Tarragona almost without a fight, together with other Nationalist troops.

By then the Republican resistance had become isolated and uncoordinated, though erecting a heavy toll from their enemy. For example, on 17 January 1939, the Republican war communique recounted the heroic action of one infantry corporal named Celestino Garcia Moreno in the vicinity of Santa Coloma de Queralt he faced thirteen Italian tankettes and destroyed three of these with hand grenades. Having forced their hatches with a pickaxe, he took five prisoners while the ten remaining tankettes fled.

The first Nationalist,tanks arrived at the wharf's of the port of Barcelona, early in the afternoon of the 26th, followed later by the bulk of the Nationalist forces and an Italian motorised column detached from the CTV. Indeed for prestige and propaganda purposes, Mussolini had ordered the Italian commander, General G. Gambara, that a sizeable Italian contingent was to be among the first troops to enter the capital of Catalonia. This order was carried out by Colonel R. Olmi who led a detachment of his Raggruppamento Carristi -- one tankette battalion, motorcyclists and motorised Arditi. At 1900 hours radioed to Rome his arrival into the Plazza de Cataluna square, the heart of the city.

The follow up of the military operations ended as a walkover for the Nationalists and as a complete rout for the Republicans. On 3 February the Italians lost their last tankette in Spain and occupied Gerona the next day. By the 10th the French border was sealed from Le Perthus to Bou and was completely secured within the following two days. At the end of the campaign the CTV claimed the capture of 22 Republican tanks, plus 50 cannons and about 1,000 machine-guns.

On 28 February 1939, the Raggruppamento Carristi was reorganised for the last time, as follows;

a headquarters and a headquarters company
the Agrupacion Spagnola.
two nuclei celeri (fast) combat teams, each with one Carri d'assalto (tankette) battalion, one Bersaglieri company and one armoured car section.
a 65mm gun battery.

The teams could operate either separately or as a whole under a new commander, namely Colonel G. Manildo. A last prestige operation was carried out when a few triumphant Italian troops on four lorries entered Guadalajara, soon joined by the whole of Manildo's unit. The Italian tankers saw their ultimate hours of glory in Spain when entering Alicante on 30 March, and taking part in the victory parades in Valencia, on 3 May, and in Madrid, on 19 May 1939.

The Nationalist military authorities had recognised the gallant conduct of the unit by bestowing upon it several awards. Thus for its effective cooperation with his unit during the campaign, the Nationalist Colonel C. Alonso Vega authorised the 2nd Company of Italian tankettes to carry the insignia of the 4th Navarrese Brigade. On 23 August 1938 General Franco rewarded two years of wartime operations by the Raggruppamento Carristi with the Spanish Military medal.

In November of the same year, the Nationalist commanders of both the Navarrese Division and the Maestrazgo Army Corps authorised the Raggruppamento to carry the distinctive badge of their units. Out of twenty Hedaglie d'oro (Italy's highest decoration for military valour) awarded in the Spanish Civil War to Italian personnel, ten were to tank men (eight posthumously).

However, with the loss of a total of 56 tankettes and numerous human casualties, a heavy price had been paid.

With the sole exception of Guadalajara, the Italian motor-mechanized unit in Spain had, under its successive titles, done honour to its motto : " Ad Victoriam Velociter" ("Speedy to Victory").