DARDO


DARDO originally known as Breda Type-70, also marketed as the OTO Twin 40L70 Compact, is a close-in weapon system built by the Italian companies Breda and OTO Melara. It is composed of two Breda-built Bofors 40 mm firing high explosive shells, a fire-control radar and a fire-control system. It is the last of a long series of Italian anti-aircraft weapons derived from the Swedish Bofors 40 mm autocannons.

Purpose

The system's primary purpose is to defend against anti-ship missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and other precision guided weapons. It can also be employed against conventional and rotary-wing aircraft, surface ships, small water-crafts, coastal targets and floating mines.

Installation

DARDO is installed in an enclosed turret with two different mounts: the Type A with 440-round internal and 292-round under-deck magazines; and Type B with only the 440-round internal magazine. However, the most recent OTO Twin 40L70 Compact's brochure nominates 736-round magazine for Type A and 444-round magazine for Type B, both feature deck non-deck penetration or with deck penetration.
The newest Marlin 40 variant has no deck penetration, having a sole internal magazine for 80 ready-to-fire rounds.

Other versions

Compact

The OTO Twin 40L70 Compact is the current marketing name for the DARDO. Option for a stealth cupola is available to reduce the gun mount's RCS. They comes in Type A version with 736 round magazine & Type B version with 444 round magazine. Both the Type A and Type B mounting can be installed above-deck or with below-deck magazine. The compact mounting has maximum fire rate of 600 round/min. A kit to upgrade Compact mounting to Fast Forty standard is available.

Fast Forty

The Fast Forty is an improved version of the Compact mounting with a higher fire rate of 900 round/min, dual magazine and dual feed mechanism to allow switching from High Explosive rounds to Armour-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot rounds when a target gets within 1,000 meters from the vessel. Produced in both Single-barrel and Twin-barrel forms, the Fast Forty include a revision of some parts of the loading and breech mechanism and the use of titanium material to improve the performance compared to the Compact mounting. Ammunition magazine and feed arrangements of the Twin Fast Forty remain the same as the Compact but operate at a higher speed. The gun laying and acceleration rates were increased, while the barrel/barrels, are secured in a barrel guidance frames to improves accuracy.
The Single Fast Forty has on-mounting ammunition capacity of only 144 round and are available in three types of mounting:
  • Type A: unmanned mounting, with all operation are done via remote control,
  • Type B: manned mounting, controlled and aimed by an on-turret operator,
  • Type C: unmanned mounting, feature an integral Micro Fire Control System with automatic tracking and fire-control computation.
An optional 'Stealth' cupola that provided a significant reduction in the radar cross-section of the mounting are also available.

Marlin

The OTO Marlin 40 is the single-barrel, light-weight and no-deck-penetration derivative of the DARDO family, succeeding the Single Fast Forty variant. It is designed with high autonomy and fully-digitalized systems. The mounting used to be known as OTO Melara Forty Light naval gun system.
The system comes in a basic version called "Remotely Controlled", which can be managed by an external firing control system and in the advanced version called "Independent Line Of Sight", which can be operated autonomously via a local control console in addition to be fully controlled by Combat Management System. It also has selectable rate of fire ranging from single shot, 100 round/min and 300 round/min. The Marlin 40 may be fitted with an integrated hoist below-deck to enable the ammunition loading from covered position.

Operators

Operators