Centauro

The independent suspension used on this machine became the basis for the development of an independent front suspension for the Iveco Stralis .

• B1 Centauro - Basic serial modification. In the 1980s the Italian army has developed tactical and technical requirements for a promising family of tracked and wheeled armored combat vehicles, which were planned to be put into production in the 1990s. It was envisaged to include four types of such vehicles in this family: the Ariete main tank, the Dardo tracked infantry fighting vehicle, the Centauro wheeled tank destroyer with the 8 × 8 wheel formula and the Puma multi-purpose armored vehicle (with the 4 × 4 and 6 × 6 wheel formula). The requirements for a wheeled tank destroyer were formulated in early 1984. It was planned to create a highly mobile wheeled combat vehicle with a 105-mm rifled cannon of NATO standard. At the same time, Centauro had to have high speed on the roads to increase the strategic mobility of troops, a large cruising range, high cross-country ability and a computerized fire control system for the OMS , which has much in common with the OMS of Officine Galileo for the main Ariete tank. The first prototype tank destroyer was ready in January, and the second in mid-1987. In December, four vehicles were already tested. A total of nine prototypes were built. One case was used for ballistic tests. In parallel, a pre-production batch of ten cars was produced, which was completely ready at the end of 1989. Production of the first Centauro batch for the Italian army began in late 1990 and ended the following year. Initially, the army planned to order 450 vehicles, but then the order was reduced to 400 units. Serial "centaurs" were significantly different from prototypes. In particular, they had improved armament, improved combat deployment, changed the configuration of the rear of the turret, instead of a folding ramp in the stern, a door was equipped, the crew was more comfortable. In 1993, the British companies BAE Systems and RO Defense developed dynamic protection for the Romor-A remote control for light class cars. In the same year, 20 sets of this DZ intended for Centauro were ready, with ten sets delivered to Italy and the rest to Somalia. Subsequently, it turned out that the proposed RomZ-A package for light-class cars really does not work. Later, specifically for Centauro, they created a new package of passive armor mounted on the hull and turret of the machine to increase its protection against small arms fire. As it turned out, we were talking about ceramic armor panels, developed by the IVECO-Otobreda consortium together with companies from Germany and the Netherlands. The last deliveries of wheel-mounted Centauro tank fighters to the Italian army were made at the end of 1996. In mid-1999, the Spanish Ministry of Defense entered into a contract for $ 70 million with the IVECO-Otobreda consortium, which provided for the supply of 22 Centauro tank fighters, their service and specialist training. New machines were delivered to Spain at the end of 2000 and received the designation VRC-105 there. They entered service with the 8th light cavalry regiment of the Spanish rapid reaction force. Spain initially planned to order another batch of such machines, but then changed its mind. The hull and turret of the wheeled tank destroyer are all-welded, made of 8 mm thick armored steel. From above, panels of ceramic armor with a thickness of 38 mm are mounted on bolts to the armored hull and tower. According to the developers, in the complex it provides protection for the crew from the fire of the main types of small arms and shell fragments. The frontal projection of the machine is protected from armor-piercing shells of automatic guns with a caliber of up to 20 mm, the remaining projections are protected from 12.7 mm bullets. However, it does not indicate at what ranges. By the way, a similar domestic-designed package on the BTR-80 provides protection against 14.5 mm BZT and BZT-44M bullets from a distance of 30 m. The driver is located in the car body in front of the left side, to the right of it there is a power compartment, fenced off from the inside car spaces fireproof bulkhead. The driver has a hatch, the cover of which opens to the left. Three periscope observation devices are used for observing the traffic situation, the middle of which can be replaced by a passive night vision device MES VG / DIL. The tower is installed on the roof of the hull closer to the aft of the machine. The commander of the machine is located in it on the left side of the gun, the gunner on the right, the loader is in front and slightly lower than the gunner. The commander’s position is equipped with four periscopic observation devices, providing a view forward, on the sides and back. A panoramic commander’s sight is mounted in front of the commander’s hatch. It provides circular observation without turning the head. The gunner can leave the car through the loader’s hatch, the lid of which opens back. On the right side of the tower there are five periscope observation devices that can be used by both the gunner and the loader. The Centauro Tower is designed as a single module. It is manufactured by Otobreda in Pa Spezia and comes fully prepared for installation on the chassis. The main weapon of the Centauro tank destroyer includes a 105 mm Otobreda rifled cannon with a barrel length of 52 caliber and a long recoil (maximum length 750 mm). For firing, all types of standard 105-mm NATO rounds for L7 and M68 tank guns can be used, including shots with armor-piercing-subcaliber (APFSDS) shells. The gun has a vertical wedge gate with a semi-automatic, which remains open after extraction of the sleeve. In addition, it is equipped with a multi-chamber muzzle brake, a heat-insulating casing and an ejection device for purging the bore, as well as a control system for its bending. The barrel is made using autofretting technology. The ammunition of the gun is 40 rounds, 14 of which are located in the tower, and the rest - in the machine body. The twin 7.62 mm MG 42/59 machine gun is mounted to the left of the gun. Another same machine gun is located on the roof of the tower as an anti-aircraft gun. A block of four 76-mm smoke grenade launchers is mounted on both sides of the tower. Firing grenades is carried out using electric trigger. Gun and turret drives are electro-hydraulic, with manual duplication. The elevation angles of the gun are from -6 ° to + 15 °, which is slightly less than on the main tanks of Western production due to the accepted location of the tower and its low profile. The Centauro is equipped with the Officine Galileo TURMS (Tank Universal Reconfigurable Modular System) - the same as the Ariete main tank. Its main components are the commander’s panoramic day sight with a two-plane stabilized aiming line, a periscopic combined (day / night) gunner’s sight with a stabilized aiming line and an integrated laser range finder, a digital ballistic computer, a set of firing condition sensors, a barrel bend accounting system and control panels commander, gunner and loader. The commander’s sight has a fixed 2.5x and 10x magnification. The swing angles of his head mirror are from -10 ° to + 60 °, the angle of rotation of the head of the sight horizontally is 360 °. For observation and firing at night, the commander has a television monitor, which displays an image from the gunner’s thermal imaging sight. The gunner’s sight mounted on the roof of the tower combines four main modules (stabilized head mirror, optical day channel, laser transceiver and thermal imager) in one housing. The day channel has a 5-fold increase, and the thermal imaging channel provides the output of two fields of view - wide and narrow. The digital ballistic computer calculates the initial settings for firing, controls the operation of all the LMS subsystems (optical sight, laser range finder, servo drives), as well as firing condition sensors, built-in health monitoring systems of the SITE LMS and crew training. It also provides reconfiguration of the system operation algorithms from the normal mode to the duplication modes in case of its partial failures. The fire control system includes three main sensors for firing conditions: meteorological, course angle and barrel wear. The gunner has a telescopic Officine Galileo OG S-102 telescopic sight with a 8x magnification and three aiming scales, which are switched manually, as a backup. Although the Centauro 105 mm cannon is stabilized, in the Italian army the main way to fire this machine is to fire from a short stop. The reason is banal: ensuring high accuracy stabilization of weapons on a wheeled chassis is a more complicated problem than on a tracked one. So far few have managed to fully solve this problem, and Italians are not among them. The Centauro is equipped with a V-shaped 6-cylinder 4-stroke multi-fuel turbocharged IVECO VTCA liquid-cooled diesel engine, developing 520 hp. at 2300 rpm. For a machine with a combat weight of 25 tons, it provides a good power density of 20.8 hp / t. The engine is connected to the German automatic transmission (AKP) ZF 5 HP 1500, providing five forward gears and two reverse gears. The automatic transmission, in turn, provides the transmission of torque to the ZF transfer case. The transfer case and automatic transmission are made in Italy in Bolzano under license. The entire Centauro power pack can be replaced within 20 minutes. From the transmission, the torque is transmitted to the differential, from which it is distributed into two streams. To each side of the machine, it is transmitted to wheel gears by means of cardan shafts, cardan gears and bevel gears
• B1 Centauro 120 mm - An upgraded version with a 120 mm smoothbore gun and an improved chassis and a modified turret, more modern electronic equipment than the Centauro 105. A wheeled tank destroyer with a 120 mm smoothbore gun was first shown at the international arms exhibition IDEX-03 in . Abu Dhabi. As the main weapon it uses a 120-mm smoothbore gun Otobreda 120/45 with a barrel length of 45 calibres and a short recoil. Unlike its predecessor with a 105 mm gun, two anti-aircraft machine guns are installed on the roof of the tower of the new machine, of which one is 12.7 mm remote-controlled. The OMS remained unchanged. When used as a guard car, four infantrymen can be accommodated in it, and the ammunition load is reduced to eleven shots.
• B1 Centauro II - modification with 120/45 mm gun in the HITFACT turret, two MG 42/59 anti-aircraft machine guns, more modern electronic equipment compared to the Centauro 120 and Centauro 105. The first Centauro II prototype was completed at the headquarters of Oto Melara in La Spezia fall of 2015 and is currently undergoing testing. The development of the new generation Centauro II cannon armored vehicle (also designated as Nuova Blindo Centauro) with an 8 × 8 wheel arrangement is carried out by the CIO under a contract issued by the Italian Ministry of Defense in October 2010, and is an ideological development of the famous Italian armored B1 Centauro armored vehicle with a 105-mm gun created by CIO , which has been in production since 1987 (more than 500 units were built, of which 400 were delivered to the Italian army, in addition, deliveries were made to Spain and Oman). A number of countries showed interest in the B1 Centauro, and in 2000-2002 16 cars were tested in the US Army, and in 2012-2014 two cars (in versions with 105 mm and 120 mm guns) were tested in Russia. Currently, the Italian army plans to purchase, if appropriate funding is allocated, more than 100 Centauro II vehicles to replace part of the Centauro fleet (of which about 300 remain in the Italian army). The Centauro II armored vehicle has a chassis based on the chassis of the Freccia armored personnel carrier (8x8), but with a new armored hull and a new Iveco Vector 8V diesel engine with more than 720 hp. (versus 520 hp for the old Centauro and 560 hp for Freccia). The combat weight of the Centauro II is officially 30 tons (versus 24 tons for the Centauro), but in fact, in fully equipped form, perhaps more. The length of the Centauro II hull is 7.4 m, the width is 3.14 m, the clearance is 0.4 m. The machine has an increased level of ballistic and anti-mine protection. Centauro II is equipped with a specially designed for it new turret (fighting compartment) Oto Melara HITFACT II (Highly Integrated Technology, Fire Against Combat Tank), made of aluminum armor with an additional overhead composite ballistic protection. The calculation of the tower includes three people (commander, gunner, loader), placed in anti-mine seats. The Centauro II HITFACT II turret is equipped with a 120 mm / 45 smoothbore gun developed by Oto Melara (an optional 105 mm / 52 cannon can be used). The 120 mm / 45 gun has high ballistics, a muzzle brake and recoil reduction mechanisms, and is also equipped with a sensor for measuring the initial velocity of the projectile. The 120mm armor-piercing armor-piercing projectile designed for this gun is claimed to have armor penetration of 600 mm homogeneous steel armor (RHA) from a distance of 3000 m (angle not communicated). The 105-mm armor-piercing armor-piercing projectile of the Centauro armored vehicle has an armor penetration of 480 mm RHA from 2,000 m. The shells in the HITFACT II turret are located in the aft compartment behind the fire barrier with a lockable door. It is reported that the Italian army is considering the use of modern 120-mm rounds produced by the German Rheinmetall group used in Leopard 2 tanks - armor-piercing armored DM53A1, multi-purpose DM11 with programmable fuse, high explosive fragmentation RH31 (simplified version DM11 ) and practical DM78. Successful test firing of these shells from a Centauro machine with a 120-mm cannon was carried out in early 2015. With a 120-mm cannon on a Centauro II machine, the 7.62-mm MG-42/59 machine gun is paired. A 12.7 mm M2 machine gun is mounted on the roof of the tower in the remotely controlled Oto Melara HITROLE Mod turret. L2R, and a 7.62 mm machine gun on a manual turret. The HITFACT II is equipped with a digital electric guidance system, duplicated by the commander and gunner. The commander and gunner have a modern system for displaying information on large screens. The commander has nine optical periscopes for all-round visibility. The duplicated new automated architecture modular fire control system of the open architecture includes a digital computer, an automatic target tracking system and weather sensors. The commander has a new panoramic stabilized sight Selex ES Attila, which includes a digital camera with the ability to 10x zoom, Erica-FF thermal imaging camera and a laser rangefinder. The gunner has a new stabilized Selex ES Lothar-S sight, which, in addition to the digital camera, the third-generation Tilde-A thermal imaging camera and laser rangefinder, also has a redundant optical sight. The tower also installs the equipment of the Oto Melara SICCONA tank information management system (SIstema di Comando, COntrollio e Navigazione). A variant of the HITFACT II turret with a 120 mm / 45 cannon loader was also developed. The machine contains six ready-to-fire 120-mm shells and six more additional shots in the feed system at the rear of the tower. Italian sources are controversial as to whether the automatic loader will actually be used on Centauro II machines. The Centauro II machine is equipped with new equipment for electronic suppression of radio fuses of explosive devices. Four round integrated integrated antennas of a communication system, an identification system and a navigation system (also not shown on the published official images of the first prototype) should be installed on the machine’s tower.
• VBM Freccia - wheeled BMP
• Centauro VBM Recovery - wheeled ARV
• Centauro 155/39 LW Porcupine (Porcupine) - wheeled self-propelled howitzer ^[1]
• Draco - wheeled ZSU, equipped with a 76-mm automatic gun and radar . В 2010 году была проведена демонстрация Centauro с новой башней Draco и системой активной защиты Scudo. Опытно-конструкторские работы планировалось завершить в 2012 году. Первый серийный образец может быть поставлен в 2014 году ^[2] .

•   Италия — 259 B-1 Centauro, по состоянию на 2016 год ^[3]
•   Испания — 84 B-1 Centauro, по состоянию на 2016 год ^{[4] [5]}
•   Оман — 9 Centauro MGS, по состоянию на 2016 год ^[6]

•   Rooikat
•   AMX-10RC
•   Каскавел

• К. Рукавица. Самоходная противотанковая пушка В1 «Чентауро» // «Зарубежное военное обозрение». — № 7, 1994. — С. 34
• Суворов С. «Тараны» и «Кентавры» для новых центурионов (рус.) // Мир оружия : журнал. — 2005. — Апрель ( т. 7 , № 4 ). — С. 42—47 . — ISSN 1607-2009 .

• Centauro Wheeled Tank Destroyer, Italy (англ.) . army-technology.com . SPG Media (2008). Дата обращения 11 декабря 2008. Архивировано 19 мая 2012 года.
• ФИАТ Ивеко/ОТО Мелара В1 «Кентавр» (неопр.) . М. Никольский, В. Ильин . Техника и вооружение (1999). Дата обращения 11 марта 2009. Архивировано 22 марта 2012 года.