C1 Ariete
Ariete
Type	Main battle tank
Place of origin	Italy
Service history
In service	1995–present
Production history
Produced	1995–Present
Specifications
Weight	54 tonnes (59.52 tons)
Length	9.67 m (31.73 ft) (7.59 [24.9] without gun)
Width	3.42 m (11.22 ft)
Height	2.50 m (8.2 ft)
Crew	4
Armor	Classified, steel/composite blend
Main armament	120mm 44 calibre smoothbore tank gun 42 rounds (15 rounds inside turret magazine with additional 27 rounds in the chassis)
Secondary armament	7.62mm coaxial machine-gun, 7.62mm AA machine-gun 2,500 rounds
Engine	V-12 turbocharged diesel FIAT MTCA 1,247 hp (937 kW)
Power/weight	23 hp/tonne
Suspension	torsion-bar
Operational range	550 km (341.8 mi)
Speed	65 km/h (40.4 mph)

The C1 Ariete is the main battle tank of the Italian Army, developed by a consortium formed by Iveco-Fiat and Oto Melara (aka CIO, Consorzio Iveco Oto Melara). The chassis and engine were produced by Iveco, while the turret and fire-control system were produced by Oto Melara. The vehicle carries the latest optical and digital-imaging and fire-control systems, enabling it to fight day and night and to fire on the move. The first deliveries were in 1995, and the last occurred 8 years later in August 2002.

Design[link]

Armament[link]

The Ariete is mounted with a 120 mm smoothbore Oto Melara cannon, autofrettaged and stress-hardened to increase durability over extended periods of fire, allowing the use of APFSDS and (HEAT) rounds.

Secondary armament consists of a 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun and another 7.62 mm anti-aircraft machine gun manned by the tank commander.

Crew and tank protection[link]

The Ariete's armour is a steel and composite blend, similar to the British Challenger 2 and the American M1 Abrams.

The Ariete features two side-mounted, electronically fired grenade launchers. Each launcher consists of four barrels which can be intermixed with either smoke or chaff grenades. The smoke grenades are capable of shrouding the tank from visual or thermal detection, while the chaff grenades disperse the tank's radar cross section. The tank is fully NBC protected.^[1]

Fire control and target acquisition[link]

The tank's fire-control system, manufactured by Galileo Avionica, is designated TURMS, and includes day and night panoramic capability for the commander's scope, stabilized gunner's platform including thermal optics and a laser rangefinder to increase accuracy and expedite target detection and targeting, and a digital fire-control mini-computer, which is capable of measuring wind speed, humidity, and exterior weather conditions, combining them with the turret's angle of elevation, attitude, and the barrel's physical wear to increase accuracy.

Powerplant and drivetrain[link]

The Ariete is powered by a 25.8 litre turbo-charged Fiat-Iveco 12-cylinder diesel engine rated at 937 kilowatts (1250HP) at 2300 rpm, with a max torque of 4.615 Nm at 1600 rpm^[2] driving through a ZF LSG3000 automatic transmission, with four forward gears and two reverse, allowing for a top cruising speed of 65 km/h. The transmission allows it to climb grades rated up to 60%, and can ford waterways of up to 1.25-m on-the-fly.

History[link]

Further development[link]

C1 Ariete.

C1 Ariete Front view.

During the first years of adoption, the Ariete MBT showed some deficiencies regarding the powerplant. While the original V12 1,250 hp FIAT-Iveco MTCA (Modular Turbo-Charged Aftercooler) was a coupling of two of the V6 engines used by several Italian Army vehicles such as the Centauro tank destroyer and the Dardo IFV, it produced less power than the most advanced contemporary western designs. The Ariete's engine had to run at a high RPM to perform well, thus reducing the operating time between failures.

Moreover, to retain a good power-to-weight ratio, the total weight of the tank had to be kept below 60 tonnes. The relatively light weight of the Ariete helped lower consumption and facilitated the transport and mobility of the MBT (especially over bridges). This was obtained partially at the expense of the thickness of the armour that, only partially compensated by the good ballistic shape of the vehicle, raised some doubt about its ability to survive in the harshest environments.

As an improvement, Iveco developed a new version of the MTCA engine. The stroke was lengthened, increasing displacement to 30 litres, with a new common rail direct fuel injection system along a new double turbocharger, increasing power output to 1,600 hp at 1,800 rpm (with an electronically reduced torque of 5,500 Nm, maintained from 1,100 to 1,800 rpm to reduce damage to the transmission) and further reducing fuel consumption. The new engine will be adopted during the first general revision of the existing vehicles. As for the armour, Oto Melara developed two different sets (with different thickness) of adjunctive armour, shown for the first time at Eurosatory 2002.

Operators[link]

•  Italy - 200
  • 20° Tank battalion "M.O. Pentimalli", 4° Tank Regiment of Bellinzago Novarese (NO), 41 Ariete
  • 3° Tank battalion "M.O. Galas", 32° Tank Regiment of Tauriano (PN), 41 Ariete
  • 8° Tank battalion "M.O. Secchiaroli", 132° Tank Regiment of Cordenòns (PN), 41 Ariete
  • 31° Tank battalion "M.O. Andreani", 131° Tank Regiment of Persano (SA), 41 Ariete

^[3]

See also[link]

Tank portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: C-1 Ariete tanks

• List of tanks

References[link]

Lisa Morpurgo Dordoni (Soncino (CR), 19 May 1923 - Milan, 9 May 1998) was a writer and astrologer.

Morpurgo, Lisa
Background information
Birth name	Lisa Dordoni
Born	(1923-05-19)19 May 1923 Soncino, Italy
Died	8 March 1998(1998-03-08) (aged 74) Milan, Italy

Lisa gained a degree in literature at the Università Statale di Milano. She started to be interested in astrology while working as a translator for book publishers. Lisa was first intrigued by astrology while translating the French book " Lo Zodiaco - Segreti e sortilegi " by François-Régis Bastide The translation of this book about zodiacal signs peculiarities awakened her curiosity for astrology, a matter up to that moment so distant from her cultural background. Thanks to her thorough study of this new form of knowledge she had been able to sketch the zodiacal map of some of her remarkable friends - mostly writers, such as Eugenio Montale, Dino Buzzati, Guido Piovene, Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa - an interesting work that considerably improved her knowledge and urged her to unveil the reasons why zodiacal mechanisms seemed to effectively work.

From this starting point on, an impressive amount of discoveries took place: she could no longer accept the obsolete and fideistic dogmas of traditional astrology. Therefore she set on the search for those astrological mechanisms – based both on observation and science - which lay under each phenomenon. Her unprecedented practice meant a real revolution in astrology as it had been considered up to that time and opened new roads to research, applied with seriousness and thoughtness. She was the starter of a new current of thought both through her lessons and her books, the real milestone for astrologers and for those interested in the zodiac.

In 1968 Lisa published her first novel, Madame andata e ritorno. In 1972 she publiched her first astrological book Introduzione all'astrologia e decifrazione dello Zodiaco, a real milestone for zodiac knowledge, that reached tens further editions, as a long seller, in several countries. In 1975 she published Macbarath, a science-fiction novel which anticipated her future astrological discoveries. In 1979 she published what was defined her most important astrological book Il convitato di pietra. In 1988 she published her fourth novel : La noia di Priapo. Between 1983 and 1992 she published Lezioni di Astrologia in order to further her astrological theories: La natura dei segni, La natura dei pianeti, La natura delle case, La natura dei transiti. Among other books, she wrote L'astrologia e l'amore and Bimbo astrologo.

In her theories Lisa applied a logical and rational approach to astrology. She revisited astrological theories reconfiguring the system of domiciles and exaltations of the planets. This approach gave more value to astrological theories which suggested the existence of two more planets. Lisa defined them as X-Demetra and Y-Eolo. X would signify the great female principal, in complementary opposition to the meaning of Pluto. Y would signify the great ruler of long and slow time and low frequencies - lord of meteorological and geological phenomena, in complementary opposition to the meaning of Neptune.

Lisa organised and directed 12 congresses of astrological studies. The first one in Laveno in 1976, others in Ferrara, Varese, Mantova, Verona, Riccione, the last one in 1993.

The main characteristic of Lisa's work was the attempt to link empirical observation to zodiacal symbology with the objective of denying or confirming astrological traditional beliefs and suppositions by means of rational observation of phenomena.

In a few words, we can say that Lisa Morpurgo achieved the complete zodiac deciphering on the basis of strict logical and geometrical principles, identifying all its components. But she was particularly brilliant at deciphering what was hidden inside that heavenly mechanism: the interpretation code of cosmic reality that, through two different zodiacal systems A and B (each with its two specific Zodiacs), completes the map of the real Cosmogony.

External links[link]

• [1] Studies and researches to decipher the zodiac - Site that spreads Lisa Morpurgo's scientific discoveries, in her original documentation.