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| Semoventi da 90/53 of the 10th Self-Propelled Gun Group |
The SPGs had begun the battle in twenty-four. On the third
day of battle, they had shrunk to fourteen; on July 19, there remained ten; on
August 11 there were three, but no longer able to fight. The last two, after
exhausting all the shots, managed to arrivare to Messina under the command of a
lieutenant who had replaced the captain, whom had been killed in action; one of
the vehicles barely moved, and the other had to be towed. They were
little more than wrecks and it was decided that it was not worth the trouble of
ferrying them to Calabria. The dead commander of the battery was called Carlo
Verona, and for him the Germans proposed the Iron Cross first class, posthumous.
Unpredictable recognition by an ally who already considered subordinate, and
unreliable, all Italian troops still able to fight.
This was all that remained of the 10th Self-Propelled Gun
Group, which had been one of the few Italian units equipped with modern and
effective vehicles, technically on par with the German and Anglo-American
analogues. The unit, which had been created to be used in antitank function on
the Eastern Front, was then sent to Sicily, where it had arrived on December
17, 1942. Divided into three groups, each with two batteries with four
self-propelled guns each, the 10th Self-Propelled Gun Group was commanded by
Colonel Ugo Bedogni and had been assigned to the XII Corps of general Mario
Arisio, stationed in western Sicily, between Calatafimi, Salemi and Caltanissetta.
The self-propelled guns with which it was equipped, mounted on hulls of M14
tanks, were built with modern 90/53 Ansaldo guns, and the General Staff
initially wanted for them to be used against the modern and terrifying Soviet
T34 tank, against whom the anti-tank guns of the ARMIR had become completely
useless. But now, what would they go there for? The retreat from the Don, in
December, was already a tragic rout. The 10th had just arrived in Sicily in
January 1943, when it was passed in review by King Victor Emmanuel III. In one
of the photos taken for the occasion, the king passes the lined-up unit aboard an
open car, with a large entourage of generals; on the right fender of the royal
car an evident dent is visible, absent in other photos from a few days earlier.
All the soldiers lined up in front of the self-propelled guns, gaze toward the king,
but one (third from left) looking slyly towards that dented fender. Is it possible
that even for the king nobody could find, in the whole transport fleet of the
Sixth Army, a car in perfect order?
And the dawn of July 10 came, with the sea in front of Gela
and Licata full of American ships that poured tons of projectiles on the
positions held by the 207th Coastal Division and its few artillery, which as
soon as they fired a salvo were located and blasted by cruisers, which had
approached the coast as much as the water depth allowed them. The regiments of
Patton took Licata and advanced on Campobello. The eight self-propelled guns of
the CLXII Group of the 10th were sent as a reinforcement to General Ottorino
Schreiber (Italian despite the German name), a veteran of the Russian front,
and manage to form a line of defense, in support of the other units that the
day after attempted a counter-attack. The American advance is, for the time
being, contained: the group had lost its first three vehicles but has knocked
out more than a few armored cars and Sherman tanks. The shaped charge
projectiles of 90/53 guns easily pierced the 60-mm frontal armor of the
American tanks, and even the 100-mm armor of the more powerful MkIII
"Churchill" British tank. Thus began the war of the 10th Self-Propelled
Group. Every day, a vehicle in less, while General Schreiber moved the line of
defense more and more towards the interior. Fierce fighting took place for
Palma Montechiaro. In front of Naro, the self-propelled guns managed to prevent
American tanks from entering the town. On 17 July, the Italian units fall back
towards Leonforte. On 18 July, the Americans passed Santa Caterina Villaermosa.
"At 7 o’clock – wrote General Schreiber in his report on the fighting from
July 11 to July 21 – the enemy artillery hammered the areas where the 90/53 were
deployed: they ketp firing throughout the day, and the losses were particularly
heavy among the personnel manning the 90/53 guns, but they managed to push back
to Santa Caterina armored cars and tanks which had arrived at 1 km from
Portella. On 19 July, four guns were hit and rendered unusable". The 10th
was reduced to just four self-propelled guns, and on 21 July it was dissolved
as an organic unit. The only remaining battery was aggregated to the 15th
Panzer Division "Sizilien", and continued to fight in the Nebrodi mountains
and Caronie mountains till that last shot, on August 6. In the end, the casualties
the Group were: three battery commanders killed out of six; four more officers killed;
two out of its three group commanders wounded; thirteen more officers wounded;
fifty soldiers killed and one hundred and twenty wounded. More than twenty received
medals, dead or alive; the banner of the Group was granted the Silver Medal of
Valour and the "privilege" of being quoted in the July 24 war bulletin,
the day before the overthrow of Mussolini.
(from an article of
“La Repubblica”)
Here is a brief description of the effects of one of these
90/53 self-propelled guns on an American Sherman tank:
As Company H of the
U.S. 66th Armoured Regiment, 2nd Armoured Division approached Canicatti on July
12th 1943, the M4A1 Sherman tank 'Hannibal' of the company commander Captain N.
H. Perkins inadvertenly fired tracers from it's coaxial machine gun while
masking enemy positions with smoke shells. A SMV90/53 crew of the 163rd Gruppi
spotted the tracer source and fired a round striking 'Hannibal' on it's 75mm gun
muzzle tip. This tore the gun from it's mount and spun the turret to the left.
As the crew bailed out another round hit 'Hannibal' and also some subsequent
rounds.
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