I read your request needing information on the Italian 65mm mountain gun.In the Mazarrasa book on tanks of the Spanish Civil War it says that it was used effectively as an antitank gun. Also the book "La artilleria legionaria italiana en Espana" mentions this function using eventually a perforating round, although in the description of this gun and its ammunition rounds there is no round of that kind described. Only ordinary rounds with their percussion caps. But where it is stated in is the book "Direccion General de industria y Material. ARTILLERIA" edited by Servicio de Recuperacion de Material de Guerra, Jefatura Centro, Seccion Tecnica , which describes almost all the ammunition types used in our War. There is in fact a perforating round described. Figure 71 shows a round with the following technical data: WEIGHT (with fuse): 4100 g HEIGHT: 281 mm SHELL CASE WEIGHT: 696 g HEIGHT: 172 mm FUSE TYPE: in the rear WEIGHT: 187 g HEIGHT: 74,5 mm PROJECTION CHARGE TYPE: balistite WEIGHT: 160 g CONSTITUTION: in a bag NUMBER OF THE CHARGES: normal VELOCITY: 348 m/sec. PRESSURE: 1600 kg/cm3 EXPLOSIVE CHARGE TYPE: trilite WEIGHT: 165 g CONSTITUTION: melted SHELL + SHELL CASE WEIGHT: 4956 g HEIGHT: 430 mm It was painted in a light grey, with its front painted in orange and more or less in the middle a white strip and also a green strip above the friction strip. In the Military Museum in Valencia there is one shell of this kind. As an anecdote this book shows also a "rompedor" shell build by Republicans. This is logical because of the captured guns during the battle of Guadalajara. It used a Garrido mod.24 fuse or a French one. It was painted black and yellow. Also the Nationals manufactured such a shell in a grey colour but on top with the red-yellow-red stripes. Back to Abanderado Vol. 3 No. 3 Table of Contents Back to Abanderado List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 by Rolfe Hedges This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com