The need for 60-80 OTOMATIC never materialised, and the Italian army was even evaluating using a L70 Bofors with a Leopard 1 as a stopgap measure. The Italian army needed another turret used with a Leopard 1 chassis (the turret was to be adaptable into many 40 ton vehicles, like the Leopard or the OF-40), but the amalgamation never happened, as the SIDAM 25 quad 25 mm gun was already in production and, despite being inferior and not all-weather, almost 300 SIDAMs were bought.
Still, it is much cheaper to fire a proximity-fused high-caliber shell versus a cheap ISR UAV or single use UAV, compared to launching an anti air missile. The Otomatic was never put into production because the already widespread presence of anti-aircraft missiles reduced the need for a long-range AA gun on the modern battlefield. The barrel was strengthened in order to hold greater pressures, so it can fire not only HE, but also APFSDS ammunition. The gun could also be useful against lighter armored vehicles or older generation tanks. OTO Melara offered it as a long-range SPAAG that could outperform systems like the Gepard and similar versions with the British Marksman turret that mounted much smaller, but rapid-fire, 35 mm guns. The whole turret was built of steel (roughly with the same thickness of the one used in early Leopard 1s) and weighed 15 tonnes. It also included an optical fire-control system with periscopes for search and aiming, with a laser range-finder. The design combined the chassis of an OF-40, with a new turret mounting the Otobreda 76 mm gun along with associated search and targeting radars and their fire control systems: an S search radar SMA VPS-A05, with around 15 km range against aircraft and 8 km against helicopters in hovering and a fire control unit SMA VPG-A06 (Ka band). Designed and built by OTO Melara, it was armed with a single 76 mm naval gun. The OTO Main Anti-aircraft Tank for Intercept and Combat (shortened as Otomatic, a play on Automatic and OTO) was an Italian self-propelled anti-aircraft gun (SPAAG) prototype.
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