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IVECO Freccia

2006 MODERN

History of Iveco Freccia

Iveco and OTO-Melara are fixtures of the modern Italian defense industry. Not surprisingly, the two teamed up to produce the highly efficient Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) "Freccia". Wheeled armoured fighting vehicles are growing in popularity and are losing their dominance over military tracked vehicles year after year changing the face of the future battlefield in the process.

Freccia's design was completed in 2006 - based on the early "Centauro" 8x8 wheeled tank destroyer (detailed elsewhere on this page) - the Italian Army used 253 of the type on the then aging VCC line to replace the Cold War era . 2 Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) were subsequently deployed. VCC-2 is a tracked localized variant of the long-running US M113 APC.

As standard, the Freccia is a 28-ton vehicle with a total length of 7.6 meters, a width of 2.9 meters and a height of 3 meters. It consists of a crew of three, including a driver, a vehicle commander and a dedicated gunner, with room for an additional eight to ten passengers in the rear of the fuselage.

Armor protection is welded steel and ceramic plates to reinforce certain sections. Power comes from an in-house Iveco 5HP-1500 V6 diesel engine with 560 hp driving an 8x8 wheel arrangement with a speed of 105 km/h and a range of up to 1,000 km. The hydropneumatic suspension combined with the vehicle's excellent ground clearance allows the Freccia to travel off-road and traverse certain water sources, slopes and obstacles.

Iveco supplied the engine, suspension and airframe components.

Primary armament is a 25mm OTO-Melara high-quality turret automatic cannon (called "HitFist Plus") mounted next to a 7.62mm (coaxial) machine gun mount. An optional 7.62mm machine gun can be mounted on top of the turret as an anti-aircraft weapon.

Carry 8 smoke arresters for self-shielding if needed. The main gun has 200 rounds and the machine gun can use 4,000 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition.

Access ports are located on the hull roofline and turrets (2x). Powered integrated entry/exit doors/ramps are located on the rear fuselage fairing. The rider sits on the front left of the fuselage with the power pack to his right (the grille is marked on the right side of the fuselage). This allowed to retain the rear of the hull for transporting infantry elements.

Passengers sit in two rows of five seats along each fuselage sidewall, with the team facing each other.

Survival features include a reinforced underbody, well-sloped glacis panels above the bow and run-flat tires.

In addition to the basic infantry support model, there is an ATGM (anti-tank guided missile) missile carrier, a field ambulance, a reconnaissance vehicle, an armored rescue vehicle (ARC), a mortar carrier vehicle (120mm TDA type - 2R2M) and Command Post (CP) vehicle.

The Italian Army currently allocates its Freccia stock to two mechanized brigades ("Aosta" and "Pinerolo"). So far (Dec 2017) the product has not been exported.