Rickusty

The real problem with the AS.42 scout car is that its main weapons can't rotate on a fully 360° basis. This is a rather big *bug*, as indeed, the car depicted in the game is an altogether different animal compared to its real life counterpart, which was quite an effective scout car. Its main 20mm auto-cannon was able to traverse to a full 360° circle and was able to also engage incoming aircraft. In the game, the main guns (be them 20mm, 47mm or MMG) can only fire towards the forward part of the vehicle, which is quite wrong. Please , Battlefront, fix this! p.s. Oh well, I forgot I also wrote about this months ago... Here it is, my previous post

Yes, indeed, the dummies from the windows were a bit of a giveaway. The soldiers falling thogh were quite realistic in their moves. Interesting nonetheless to see the 47mm in action. I was especially interested in watching the 47mm HE shell exploding close by the tank. Also , the AB-41 turret mounted on the armoured train was a first for me in an historic newsreel. In another anti-partisan action, this time in Italy, against italian partisans, you can see, IMO, a non-staged action. At 2:15 we can see , on the very left of the screen, an hidden partisan being hit by bullets fired presumely from the MAB38 on the right (or others) and the poor guy falling down and incoming bullets hitting the ground nearby. If you go at 2:43, after the end of the engagement, you can see in that previous position a fallen man. Video There are some very interesting videos on the historic national archive of "Istituto Luce".

Hello everyone, I found out a very neat video on youtube, showing Bersaglieri Inf. and a Semovente da 47/32 in action against partisans , in Slovenia. The year could be 1942/43 it seems. At 2:06 there is a very interesting shot of a 47mm HE shell explosion very close to the tank, as seen from the self-propelled itself. The falling Bersaglieri are probably a re-creation of a real engagement. But some of them trip rather "heavily"... Could be real, could be not. The fact remains that guerrilla warfare in the Balkans was a rather crude and hard war for both sides. (a uncle of mine was there in Jugoslavia) At the end and in the beginning, you can clearly see German soldiers as well. Interesting also are: Beretta MAB 38s, Carcano Cavalry rifles and Breda 30 LMG firing. I hope you enjoy it. Cheers Riccardo

there are some very impressive short videos of the Macchi C.202 in action in 1942, including some strafing actions as seen from on-board cameras. Interesting to see the Brixia 45mm mortar rapid firing in action as well.

I found out a very interesting video this morning. It's a reportage of the re-taking of the Siwa Oasis in 1942 by Italian troops. (in that case, Young Fascists light inf.) There are very interesting footages showing a troop of AB-41 in the desert, coming under fire (from 25 pd?), maneuvering in the desert , and showing some seconds of the inside of the vehicles in action. It's interesting to see that , together with the cavalry squadron and their AB-41 there are some ex-british Morris vehicles with portee 75mm (or maybe 65mm) mounted on their rear decks. Then some images of Egyptian soldiers that cooperate with Italian troops in the Oasis. After that there is a very interesting in-action view on board a RM Torpedo-Boat in one of their convoy escort duties, showing 37mm and 20mm cannons firing at closing British torpedo and bomber planes, until the convoy reaches Africa. The video is uploaded in Youtube in a page which contains only WW2 Italian wartime newsreels. Its link is HERE

Hi John. It's been ages now since I've had a look into historical archives or such similiar institutions. But I should peek around in those once again soon. I hope at least! It's really my intention to finish a small study/research on a specific battle in March 1941 in Albania, but time is really lacking as work in this period is taking its toll on my life. The sad fact though is there are quite a number of very interesting books about this period in Italy, (for example many autobiographies) with many unknown pictures and informations that unfortunately are only available here and are only written in italian.

Excellent finds John! Thanks. Very interesting. IIRC that knocked out Semovente da 75 was put out of action during the battle against the Germans in Rome, not too far from where the FAO HQ is located in Rome nowadays. Interesting the neat hole from (it looks like) a rather small AP shell in its frontal armor. Maybe by a 50mm round? And the french turret was really new for me!

Wow John, thanks a lot. Amazing pictures and info.

Hello John, excellent finds about those websites and forums. I didn't look in their forum yet, but it really looks very interesting and some very unknown pictures. And the website http://www.dalvolturnoacassino.it/ really has lots of pictures about the battles fought from the river Volturno, north of Naples, to the town of Cassino. On the bottom of the main page, you can sort all the pictures by different methods (time period, battles, topics). If I select "The italians", this is what we get. http://www.dalvolturnoacassino.it/risorse/raccolta.asp?id=11#.Uc6iXPnOaSo There are pictures of either the Italian cobelligerant Army and the fascist RSI Army. Lots of very nice picture of the Italian cobelligerant army in action. Some of them are really excellent and of high quality. It looks like they went to fight at Montelungo near Cassino with their standard italian-made weapons; lots of pictures of Breda 30,37, Mod.91, 75/18 howitzers and even 105/28 Schneider Corps artillery. Really really interesting.

Hello everyone, while I was looking for additional informations about the anti-tank cannon 47/32, I found out this website on the net. ( http://www.italie1935-45.com/regio-esercito/materiels/item/238-canon-de-47-32 ) It is a french website about the Italian armed forces of ww2, which has excellent photos and lots of informations and datas about many of the vehicles/armaments/planes/ships that were in service during the second world war. (it looks like it is still under construction though, as lots of planes and materials are not there yet) Especially about photos and pictures, there are many of them, with some very rare. It's in french but it is easily "translatable" through google and in-browsers translators. The name is: Italie 1939-45. Here's the link to the main page: http://www.italie1935-45.com/

I made another small test, to see if in fact the main weapon of the AS-42 is somehow "fixed" and can't rotate. If I issue the "cover arc" order to one of the vehicles, and I make it face on the opposite direction, the main gun (in this case, the 20mm Breda) doesn't rotate towards the back of the vehicle, but it gets "stucked" pointing toward the front of the vehicle.

Hello Sublime, I understand the problem with the AI. In fact, as with the US H/T with their MGs on either end, there is the same problem with the 2x Breda 37 on either end of the AS42. The frontal pointing gun in fact fires only straight ahead, and the back facing one only fires on that direction. These 2xMG could maybe remain like this and not move around too much for the reason stated above. For a fast comparison: with the American M3 GMC it is basically right to have the vehicle turn itself toward the target to fire, as the main gun could not rotate indipendently all around the 360° arc, but just in the frontal arc of the vehicle. In the AS-42s instead, the main weapons were installed in the middle of the vehicle in a pivot mount in order to give them a 360° arc of fire, to be able to fire in any direction and against enemy aircraft. (which was a useful solution in the desert warfare) This was maybe the biggest advantage of this vehicle. It could be considered like an armoured car without the armor around it. (and in fact it was, as the AS42 was directly based on the AB40-41 series, without its armour) In the game, the main gun acts like it is fixed and it then can be fired only ahead. I tried to make a small test to compare it with a (somewhat) similiar vehicle, the german Sdfkz 7 with the 37mm flak36 or the famous flakvierling 38. The weapons in these vehicles can fire all around an 300° (or so) arc of fire, and it is possible in fact to just point the vehicle in one direction and make the weapon fire in the rear, or in the side, as it was in real life. Maybe we could simulate the same for the AS42? I tried to set up a small scenario with both vehicles (the italian and the german ones) and it really is a pain to see and wait for the AS42 to rotate all the vehicle to point its main weapon towards the rear. It really takes a long time and it is somewhat irrealistic. With the german vehicles it is different. Some pictures Here the german gins fire directly on their 6 o'clock, while the vehicles are facing on the other direction. Here, the only possible solution for the AS 42. They have to turn themselves to fire their main weapons I found some other pictures to show the layout and how these vehicles were built and used. (sorry if some of them are taken from model kits... not many pictures around about the AS42s and no surviving examples left unfortunately)

Nope Erwin, I wish I was that good.

Hello everyone, since in this thread we are pointing out some errors seen in the italian army in the game, I would like to add another bug that I found out today. In practice, all the italian AS-42 scout cars can fire their weapons only when the car is positioned towards the target/enemy. In most of the pictures seen about this vehicle, the guns are pointed usually ahead, like shown here. The pivot mount on these scout cars permitted the crew to fire their main gun (the 20mm Breda, 47mm AT gun, or 20mm Solothurn) in any direction wanted. Such a characteristic was of course needed and looked after in the operations in Africa, permitting the crew to fire around all the 360° arc even against air threats. In the game, when a "fire at target" order is issues to one of the AS-42, the vehicle just turns around towards it, and only when the car is facing the target , the gun fires. It looks like the gun/cannon/mmg can't rotate indipendently. Also, strange enough, the "side-weapons" 8mm Breda 37 MMG mounted in front or in the back of the vehicle have a very little arc of fire for them. I attach a picture of an AS42 with its 47mm gun faced toward the rear of the vehicle. Or here, as seen on a model kit.

Good points! And indeed, it looks like the standard infantry HMG have just 240 x 8mm rounds (instead of their full ammo load) and some cool american 60mm HE rounds (which could potentially be used as a barter should the occasion arise...) :cool: Good catch Cogust!

Of course, BF has already stated that they won't be implemented. But an interesting read, for those who would like to know a little bit more about the struggle of those who decided to fight alongside the allies against the germans is located HERE. (the page is in italian but it is easily translatable nowadays anyway...). The Battle of Monte Lungo, near Monte Cassino was maybe the real first big engagement of the italian cobelligerant army. A bitter fight there. Not too far from the battlefield there is the place where young men (who did not surrender) died and are now buried. HERE they peacefully lie. Interesting: it looks like someone was making a documentary or a film about it in 2012... More info HERE

Yes John, an anti-partisan operation. Interesting footage of weapons in action. Interesting especially to see the Breda 30 LMG firing. But I must confess I feel a sense of pity for those partisans that were taken prisoners. And those italians fighting for their german friends really have delinquent thug faces

How cool! I thought there was a grid somewhere in front of it, near the photographer, projecting shades into the AB41

Lurking around among the vastness of internet, I found out something which could be quite interesting to read for those interested. From the website "Lone Sentry" I found out two interesting small articles from the US Army's "Tactical and Technical Trends" series published during the war. 1) The Italian soldier The first paragraph reads: "...One of the first things to remember about the Italian soldier is that he entered this war without any strong personal conviction that it was necessary. Italy had no Pearl Harbor to unite her people and fill them with a relentless determination to win. A private belief of this kind can go a long way toward helping men to withstand the heavy psychological strain of combat. The American soldier has it; the Italian does not. As a result, a question commonly asked by American troops--"Is the Italian a good or bad fighter?"--cannot be answered in a single word. The Italian knows how to fight well. What offsets this is the fact that his moods are anything but predictable..." 2) Italian small-scale counterattacks The short article begins with: "...The inferiority of the Italian to the German Army is apt to obscure certain Italian qualities which it would be unwise to ignore. Among these is the skill and promptitude of Italian small-scale counterattack from prepared positions. During the battle of Keren in Eritrea, for example, the Italians, through this tactic, succeeded more than once in dislodging the British from newly taken positions. Since many junior Italian officers have not been sufficiently trained, these counterattacks do not always materialize. But, whenever the junior officer happens to be well trained and keen, he may prove to be a formidable opponent, and preparation to meet such action should be taken whenever fighting against the Italians...." Both quite interesting as they somehow reconnect to a post I wrote some days ago, where I pointed out that ,generally speaking, the "will to fight" was really scarse on the whole, but also pointing out about the curiousness of the small-team mentality among the italian armed forces (small army elite units like the "Folgore", small trained torpedo flying squadrons like, small naval intruders' units like the "Xth Mas") and the imagination in creating small ad-hoc units, with a far higher standard of skill and training compared to the huge mass of unskilled and untrained (and demoralised) mass of infantry. Also here, again from the same US Army's "Tacnical and Technical trends" series, there's an interesting article which discuss about the Italian Army Organization in North Africa and the peculiarity to create these kind of units. At the end of the small article, it's written: "... "Groups" Another feature of Italian organization which is worthy of mention is the passion for forming "raggruppamenti," or groups. This is a method of providing, for instance, a headquarters and administrative detachment for various independent batteries of artillery which are meant to operate together. Another example is provided by such formations as the "Raggruppamento Celere Africa Settentrionale" or "RACAS" (North Africa Mobile Group) which is a force of armored cars, mechanised infantry, portee guns and light tanks. The use of "raggruppamenti" is evidence of the Italian bent for improvisation and the desire to break the back of a rigid system of tables of organization."

Hello John, yes that book is really interesting, and what a "character" Borghese was. In fact, as I pointed out before, some posts ago, I think (my opinion and some other more knowledgable naval historians than myselr , take it as it is please!) is that the biggest feat of the Regia Marina, apart from its elite units as the X Mas, was the achievement of sending supplies, tanks, men and other valuable stuffs down there to Libya. The fight in the Central Mediterranean was hard, but both sides got a beating. If we want to talk about "pure" surface, daylight and night naval battles between similiar vessels, we can say that the Royal Navy most of the time had the edge. The underwater war instead was even, the British and Italian (and later German) subs all had sensible losses. Both Axis and Allied Air forces fought well IMO, the Royal Air Force sinking a lot of cargos, the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica trying to cover axis shipping while attacking when the large allied convoys passed through it. The Regia Marina' strategy of sending to Libya (and later Tunisia) very small convoys but very often was a strategically sound decision, given the low numbers of cargos available, the powerful Royal Navy which and the forces involved. And we should not forget that ULTRA played such an important role in the war. After all, for 3 years, the Regia Marina was able to supply decently the italian and german forces in Africa. This maybe was the biggest achievement of the Regia Marina. The decision of not taking Malta was really inexplicable. It must be said though that Kesselring and the Italian Comando Supremo were in favour of taking Malta in the summer of 1942, against the will of Rommel and ultimately Hitler and Mussolini, who decided to try to continue the advance on Alexandria. And to see two good units as the "Folgore" Div. and the "Ramcke" Brig being used as normal infantry in the desert just showed what a gamble the decision was in that time. JasonC, I agree with you generally. And I even think we can all agree on the fact that the italian armed forces didn't really shine or fight well in the last world war. I don't know if your comment about the "italians of today" was directed at me. But I can say that really, I have nothing to gain from this. In fact, nobody pays me to say otherwise, I am not a nationalist at all,I lived and studied in Canada, worked in Russia and for my work I meet and see everyday people from all the world. I really consider myself a citizen of the world. It's just that I am really interested in the history of our armed forces. Maybe because many of my relatives fought there, told stories, or maybe since I was 10 and started to buils my first model kits or whatever. Another passion of mine is the history of the Greek armed forces in ww2 and the battles against these 2 armies in Albania-Greece in 1940-41. I am a close friend and collaborator to a Greek historian and publisher as well. I think that in a discussion forum like this, it is quite interesting and useful to try to "asses" (after all, the title of this thread is named after this verb) and to "see" why it was like that, where the problems originated. To try to see as well what units were not behaving badly and to see , apart from the failures (of which, there were so many...) where and how some units achieved a success (call it moderate, modest or other). Possibly with a critical and curious mind. The Air-naval battles against the convoy "Harpoon" of Middle-June 1942 was a tactical success. The 1st and 2nd naval battles of Sirte were not victories for the Allies. We can call it a draw. In some cases, convoys which were protected were able to fulfill their missions. Capo spartivento battle as well. Operation Vigorous was a tactical and strategical victory for the Regia Marina. Or, as we said, the feats of the airborne troops, the torpedo bombers' pilots, the alpine troops. The losses were more than the victories, for sure, in many battles the losses were heavy (and inexplicable sometimes...),and that's why the war was lost (and luckily so...), but why we could just overlook the reasons for this , the times actions and battles were actually won (or quite so..), if we want to talk about the italian armed forces in this thread? The aerial-naval battles in the Mediterranean were bloody and difficults. But it's also very interesting to note that between the British and the Italians there has been, generally speaking and in given cicrumstances, a sense of chivalry in fighting the last war. The italian forces in Eastern Africa fought so well, that they were famously given the permission by the British to parade with still their weapons even as prisoners, Duke of Aosta ahead of his men. The Regia Aeronautica and the Royal Air forces' HQs in Malta, shared between them informations about pilots who were missing in the first months of the war. The Folgore Division had many praises , and even the man who sunk the Valiant in Alexandria, Luigi Durand De la Penne, had his "Golden medal" appointed to him by the commanding officer of the Valiant himself, Adm. Morgan after the war, in the Taranto naval base.

Thank you John, it's always nice to share our passion in military history with people who have have it as well!

Hello dieseltaylor, thank you, yup, that was what I am trying to say and to show. Also here, Air Force and Navy personnel feel and felt somehow superior to the classic land soldier. Maybe even more back then than now. IMO, the Regia Aeronautica fought very well with what it had on hand, mechanics and pilots were generally skilled. Planes were very few and always the same, but at least they were able to get their hands on pretty good machines from 1941 on, Macchi C.202 and 205 most of them. I think the Regia Aeronautica was the best Armed force we had during the war, the most efficient, the most respected, the most present and fought 'till the end. One quote from a british pilot , Group Captain Duncan-Smith DSO DFC on these Italian pilots fighting on Malta read: "In general the standard of flying of the Italian pilots was very high indeed, and in encounters with Macchi 205s particularly we were up against aircraft that could turn and dog-fight with our Spitfires extremely well." Or from a German pilot's point of view The Royal Navy, the Regia Marina, also was composed mainly of skilled men, or at least , being a technical Force,people who were more skilled than the normal infantry for sure, but their doctrines and mentality were fundamentally wrong, old-fashioned and very very prudent. We should keep this in mind just to make some math. If we lost 1-2 battleship or 2-4 heavy cruisers in a battle, we could have had our fleet almost cut in half, while the British could use a larger number of vessels and not suffer as much. It was mostly a "poor man's view" what made the Regia Marina commanders decide strategically: to not risk to lose any big ships and try to attack in different ways with smaller vessels and using the air forces and minefields as much as possible. I would like to write more about this in the future here.

Erwin and dieseltaylor, thank you! This is very interesting JonS. As I wrote earlier, this seems the case when we are talking about the italian armed forces' history in the last world war. Btw, I am not trying to praise the role of the italian armed forces during the last world war, but just to try to express a feeling from someone who is italian, who had many relatives who fought there, to try to asses it with a critic mind hopefully, and to see what good there was, and if there ever was. Not everything is pure black and white, and while we can all agree that the average performance of the italian armed forces was bad during the war, we could try to see why it was like that, where it originated, and when and why sometimes it was not and some units behaved very well. It's an interesting topic I think. And it has nothing to do with pride, country-bashing , apology or patriotism, My grandfather was a medic in the 180th Field Hospital attached to the 1st Infantry Division "Superga" who fought in the Tunisian Campaign in 1942-1943 and he had some amazing stories to tell, even though he rarely spoke about them, from being strafed by British fighters as soon as he arrived by transport planes to his last stand before his hospital surrendered to British troops and was sent to Gibraltar. To note though, that until his last day of life, he had the highest esteem for the British soldiers either as soldiers and as human beings. He worked closely for 2 years in Gibraltar in a british hospital. His brother was in Jugoslavia in anti-partisans duties there, and it's better not to write what he sometimes remembered about that cruel war there. Another relative was in Albania-Greece as a Leutenant in the Alpini "Julia" Division and then to Russia, and came back mostly on feet... An Army, a Navy, an Air force are big complicated organizations, which may or may not work efficiently, depending on a huge variety of factors. As a whole, it could not work efficiently on the battlefield , but it could create special elite units which shined when tested on the field. Apart from the units which I mentioned, almost all the Bersaglieri Regiments and Battalions fought really well (even Rommel praised them in one famous quote), but there were not many of them. Of course they were much more trained and their esprit de corp was higher than the standard infantry. As I tried and try to repeat here is that: out of all the armed branches of the Italian armed forces, the one who really was a failure was the Royal Army, the Regio Esercito. The Navy and the Air Force fought well IMO, considering everything. The Army just "collapsed" when faced with reality. For many reasons. One thing which I forgot to write as to one of the most important factor in our war was the Strategical Errors and the numbers of Fronts in which the armed forces fought. Strategical errors After the political reasons behind the failure of the armed forces'machine , which is undeniably the most important aspect of the reasons of the bad performance of the italian armed forces, the Comando Supremo made huge , incomprehensive, absurd errors since the 1st day of the war. ° As soon as the war was started, no plans were made to invade Malta, which could have been taken if a properly conceived plan had been prepared and carried out. This was maybe one of the biggest mistake ever. ° No plans as to "how" invade Egypt and as to what was really needed in that front, which equipment, which strategy overall. Marshall Graziani was just ordered to advance as much as possible with his mostly infantry divisions in the heat of the desert and meet the enemy. No plans whatsever as to what to do once Sidi Barrani was reached and what to do next ° The Eastern Africa contingent had a strenght and williness to fight which was (surprisingly) higher than elsewhere, and Gen. Nasi conquered Somaliland (maybe the real land based italian-only campaign victory of the war) using really antiquated weaponry (Fiat Cr.32 fighters had to use training bullets for WEEKS before a lot of new 12,7mm bullets arrived by air from Italy...) but their feats had no real outcome, as they were too far from Italy and could be supplied only by air. ° The attack on Greece was a folly. Unjustified, wrong, ethically ,military you name it. If it could have been a rapid victory, then at least it would have had a meaning and a justification, having been well planned and executed. Instead it was very badly planned (Ciano especially was among the main culprit here...) but the troops fought well. The few troops there managed to even keep the front stabilized (which is ironic I know... but given the situation it was half a miracle) in January - February 1941, after having been on the defensive against overwhelming and better supplied fresh greek troops. ° The Navy and the Air force acted timidly. The air force acted more aggressively though, and throughout the war its pilots mantained a high standard of fitness, flying qualities and skill, and this I think is quite undeniable. All of these reasons have somehow a justification. Of course not everyone was an idiot in the High command. The simple reason behind this sort of behaviour was that the war was already won in their minds. Few people in the world would have predicted France to fall so rapidly in 1940. Germany was attackind (and winning) everywhere. Mussolini thought that he could gain something by entering the war at the side of Hitler (and don't forget that they were being allies for quite a lot of years in 1940 , it was not a decision taken during a night) and not sacrificing entire divisions, ships, planes, soldiers. He once famously said to Ciano that "Italy needs just a thousand dead to sit at the winners' table" after he declared war in 1940. Mussolini thought that Greece could fall rapidly and easily as to gain something there also, but that was not the case with an attacking force of 6 (SIX!) divisions, composed as I said before by 2 infantry regiments each (apart from the Centauro "Armoured" division armed with L.3 iron coffins). In total there were 45 battalions against 39 greek battalions. Attacking with these low numbers with low trained troops was madness. When they realized that instead the war would have continued , they found themselves in the position of trying to "save what was salvageable", to remedy on the ineptitude of the years before, to do something. But it was really too late, the initiative was lost, the Army was on the whole inefficient from the start and everyone had progressed but the italian armed force had not. Too many fronts Given the limited resources of the Italian war machine, Mussolini and his entourage decided to wage war almost in all the theatres of war where Germany was already fighting. Our main front-line was not always in North Africa. We had lots of troops there, but also on the Eastern Africa colonies. We sent precious submarines in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, we sent planes against Britain, we sent precious troops in Russia, we sent small submarines there to attack their cargos, we waged war on Greece, on Yugoslavia, on France, we occupied these territories. The front-line was huge. And we just didn't have the materials to support something like this. Instead of grouping and massing elite units in a single front and use them at their best, they were used in a piecemeal manner everywhere. To make an example of the scarcity of the number of pieces of italian war materials, I should point out here that Italy produced a grand total of 12.100 planes from 1940-1943, but 650 were exported, so a total of 11.500 planes, of ALL TYPES! The British alone built more than 14.000 Hawker Hurricanes... just a single type of fighter! Can you imagine fighting in different theatres with very few numbers of planes and using them to cover all the theatres? That is the reason why I wrote earlier that, given the circumstances, actually the troops on the field didn't act too bad sometimes. It's hard to fight an enemy you know is more powerful, better armed, better equipped, and one that can kill you faster than you can kill him, ------- Following the assesment on the Regio Esercito I wrote earlier. Doctrines The Regio Esercito had a strange ToE organization in 1940. The majority of the Infantry divisions were in fact "reinforced" Brigades, composed of 2 infantry regiments + 1 artillery regiments + supporting arms. The "Pariani directives" of 1938 changed the organization of the Army thinking of creating a smaller, lighter, faster division by eliminating 1 infantry regiment, but retaining the numbers of artillery pieces in the artillery regiment. In theory these divisions were subordined to the Corps level, the one who really had the initiative on the field (the infantry division having lost it somehow) as to how to manouver the divisions on the field and "how to encircle" the enemy. The 3 axis of movement of a normal infantry division (one regiment attacking, another one supporting, another one possibly encircling the enemy) was now non-existant. The Infantry division was left with "two columns" of attack, with serious risks and drawbacks in the attacks and in the defences as well. In the attack, as it has been said, the infantry division could not operate indipendently with the 3 axis of movement, and had to rely mostly of the time on frontal attacks with 1 regiment with the other one supporting it in manpower, firepower and supply. After the 1st regiment would have advanced, the second one should have taken its place, but the third one was missing. In the defense, the lack of manpower per division was felt a lot, the divisions' fronts were narrower than standard. The idea behind this changing ideas was that the division could have been faster (on feet, mind you!!) and could have been more apt to rapidly advance against the enemy. But this enemy had to be really weak and much less powerful to allow the italian division to pass. Not all the high brass officers were idiot or blind though, and many were against this new directive. As soon as Gen. Soddu and then Gen. Cavallero took command they immediately tried to remedy on this error, by introducing finally a 3rd infantry regiment, the CCNN Blackshirt regiment. I already wrote how inefficient these "legions" were. They sometimes fought with fanatism, but their lack of training was always felt on the field. The "binary" division just didn't work well. Especially against the strong Greek divisions, it suffered. The Armoured Divisions, the Ariete, Littorio, Centauro especially, fought IMO well all things considered. The armoured troops' tactic doctrines were really very modern even in 1940-1941, and if one has the time to read them in detail, they really were maybe the most modern doctrines written and employed by the italian divisions in the war. ToE of these divisions was adeguate, the Bersaglieri regiments attached to them were good fighters, the tankers themselves were professional and fought well in their iron coffins, all things considered. They won battles, they had a weight on the battlefield, only ruined by the quality of the tanks they went to fight into. The Recce units were somehow standard in their equipments and training, same as the Motorized (the FULLY motorized, as there were the fake ones) ones. The Artillery was the star of the land divisions though. Artillerymen were quite well trained, fought bravely, most of the time dying near their guns and they won the respect of the enemy many times. Alpini units as I wrote earlier, fought very well. So well in fact, that Gen. Cavallero even tried to ask for only Alpini units in the Albanian theatre for the offensive of 1941, but only a single and then a second division fought there. All the rest was normal infantry. We must also add that Alpini soldiers were mostly recruited from the Northern part of Italy, the richest one. It was the standard "grunt" , the typical soldier in the normal division that failed the test. The normal infantry divisions were , well, sub-standard. The failure of the Army laid there, in the 90% of its force. Weapons While most of the weapons, especially tanks and the like, were derided, and rightly so, I think that in 1940 there was not much wrong with most of the equipment. It's in the way it was used that we should look upon further... An M13/40 tank or even an M11/39 one in 1939-1940 was adeguate. It was not the best of this world, but it had a decent gun of 47mm, 3 mgs, and a weak armor, not distant in characteristics from a British A.13, a Panzer IIIA, A Somoua 35. The problem with the italian tanks is that... they basically remained the same for all the three years! The M14 and the M15 were basically the same tank, but with different and slightly more powerful engines. The M15 had a better gun though, but still of 47mm caliber. The Semovente da 75/18 was a good weapon system, but nothing revolutionary. Its gun at least was good and able to defeat a Sherman (at last...) The rest of the light tanks, the L.6/40 for example, was a normal light tank, similiar in performance to a Panzer II. The L.3 was a joke though... But still, people went to fight the British in them. The P.40 took almost 3 years to have a proper engine installed... which speaks volume of the inefficiency not only of the political choices, but of the industrialists as well. The Artillery park was mostly outdated. And this was the greatest error. If Artillery is the King of the battlefield, well, a 90 year old King with a sword is pretty much useless. We had some special high quality pieces, the 149/35 was excellent, the 90mm AA as well, but the moajority of the Infantry diivsions' artillery regiment was formed of Austrian-captured or old italian weapons. Their caliber was obsolete as well... 24 guns in the artillery regiment were of 75mm caliber, while only 12 were of 100mm caliber. Too few, too old, too small. Anti-tank cannons: we had the 47mm, a decent piece which was very useful and originally conceived as an infantry gun AND an anti-tank gun if the case allowed. Not a sparkling performer, but in 1940 it was a good piece. But again... nothing was changed, no new weapons was introduced in 3 long years, we still had the 47mm against the Allies in Sicily. Crazy. We employed some German 37mm Pak 36, some german 88s , Soluthurn anti-tank rifles, even polish AT ones. Nothing revolutionary. I remember that we employed even some captured 75mm gun captured from the French by the Germans, but in very few numbers. There were many prototopies of all weapons, self-automatic rifles, 75mm AT cannons (some of which were used though..), fast Saharian tank, etc but most of them remained there, in their factories. The recce vehicles were generally good, the AB40 AB41 were quite modern and well armed, not too bad. What we had of very good quality though, (always IMO) were the.... trucks. They were modern, of high quality, reliable most of the time, quite big and powerful. I know many people just want to look at tanks and cannons, but they had an important role as well. Mortars: the 81mm was used almost by anyone and was a good weapon. And the Italian Army used a special heavy round for it of about 6,9 kg, which was very powerful and highly regarded. The 45mm Brixia was a strange weapon. I read some account of its use by veterans. Some of them wrote about it calling it useless, some of them not. AA guns were normal, up to modern standards, 20,37,75,90mm pieces. Infantry small-weapons were normal, average quality, standard bolt-action rifles, a bad LMG, a good MMG. The Beretta 38 SMG was very very rarely used, and it's an error IMO to see it in the game in so many units. Most of them were used by the "Folgore" Parachute Division and the PAI (Italian colonial Police) and other police and home-land units. They were really rarely seen up until the armistice in 1943. From then on, they played a huge role in the civil war that followed. So ironically, the Beretta 38 SMG was used the most by italians against... italians. All in all, it was not the quality of the armament that was bad in my opinion. It was just that the numbers were few, they were not replaced after 1940 and they soon became obsolete. More to follow... (given time hopefully!)

Hello everyone, as an Italian citizen, and coming SO much later than most of you here, I would like to add my small pieace of theory about this matter. The thread is very interesting, there are some very accurate datas and numbers, and all the ipothesis and theories are very very interesting. Unfortunately, as someone said in one of the post back in some of the 30+ pages, there are tons of italian-language only historical and very interesting books about our war effort in the last world war. It's quite a shame really that not so many people can read them. Well .. where should I start? In my humble opinion, and trying to be not patriotic at all (something which I am not by the way) , the italian armed forces did well in the war, given the circumstances, given the equipment, given their adversaries, given the political situations and decisions, given their leadership, given their logistics. What I find sometime very strange to look at here on the net, is the believing , by many people, that weapons alone or numbers of enemy destroyed or killed are the parameters to judge a campaign, a war, a result. The questions about these are relevant sometimes, but on a wider spectrum of a global war, there are other factors which played and play a much important role IMO. Which MGs or airplane or tank was superior to the other nation is a miselading thought most of the time. If we count , for example, as I read, which Navy lost more ships or sunk more enemy ones, IMO doesn't reflect "totally" the wider war theatre mentality. (if that would be the case, considering only the numbers , the Vietnam war would have been won totally by the USA, same as the Eastern campaign in ww2 by the germans...) I would like to start mentioning the "big" problems, apart from the single armed forces. Political Decisions This is the MAIN CULPRIT of the inefficiency of the italian armed forces. All that follows is related to this single matter. Mussolini knew the state of his armed forces. He knew that the British wouldn't have just surrendered. He knew the "megalomany" of Adolf Hitler, the mistrust he had of him He knew that Hitler would not have allowed any other leader to be on the same level as him, and that everything that was not german, was for them inferior. We can also say, he also knew the historic antipathy and mistrust of the italians towards the germans. He entered a war trying to gain something from the others, like in a gamble, thinking that the German armed forces could have destroyed anyone and anything, and trying to obtain something from them as well. IMO the italians knew this, and in the deep spot of their hearts, they just didn't like to play this role. Whereas in the Eastern Africa campaign the troops were eager to enter the war, considering that war a "just war", or even an act of revenge and civilization, now they felt like the 2nd rate army trying to shine well to look AS GOOD as the Germans. All the decisions of Mussolini and his people were awful. The worst of them all was maybe the declaration of war on Greece. A delinquent choice, without preparation whatsover, with very limited troops (they myth of the overwhelming italian army is pure fiction... i could digress much more on this...) in the wrong season, without preparation, and.... most of all, without even asking and talking to the Chiefs of Staffs of the Regia Aeronautica and the Regia Marina!!! From then on it was disaster. The Merchant Navy Mussolini entered the war while most of the italian merchant fleet was in foreign ports, 212 ships for about 1 milion and 200.000 tonnage of very useful cargos to supply the armies in africa and the balkans... The rest of the fleet was used to supply the fronts, especially the north african one, and... they succeded in it. For more than 3 long years, the italian Regia Marina and the merchant navy were able to resupply the front. They took a beating, an hard one we can say, but they won the most important logistical war on the sea. THIS is the main victory of the Regia Marina. (more to follow when talking about it later) When , in the end, the Regia Marina lost the control of the sea and the merchant navy had its majority of ships sunk, the war was definetely over. But for 3 years the Regia Marina didn't lose the control of the Central mediterranean sea. De-mobilization Mussolini had the bright idea to de-mobilize the italian army just a few days after the entry into the war (to give the civilians a feel of safety he said...). What this did was disastrous... Why it is seldom mentioned, I don't know. Most diaries and memories of officers talk of this. Entire divisions, regiments, battalions, which had for years created and coherently integrated soldiers in an efficient fighting force, were disbanded and everything had to be started over and over again. This created chaos, logistical problems, incoherent formations, soldiers that didn't know each other when they were re-assigned in their duties, officers not knowing their soldiers. Most of soldiers were somehow "each on their own". Weird... A crazy idea, really. Logistics Another huge problem of the italian armed forces was the in the logistics' departments. How important are logistics ,and good logistics, is IMO underestimated sometimes in wars and its studies. The italian logistics were aweful, aweful. Oil was scarce, the few drops of petroleum that we found in Albania was in those days being refined and discovered. Its quality was not great and the quantity very small. The oil in Lybia was not discovered much at that time unfortunately. There was a scarcity of oil for the Navy especially, and the Germans had to supply it from 1941 onward, with their own. Italy didn't produce and refine oil at that time in useful quantities. Not to talk about gum, iron, steel and important war materials which we simply didn't have, after years of "Autarchy" , or, a policy of building everything by ourselves and not depend on the other nations. All of this from the international sanctions after the Easter african campaign in Ethiopia of 1936.. In 1940 we entered a war with a severe shortage of everything, after 4 years of trying to be self-sufficient. War reserves were small, stocks of artillery shells were very old and most of the shells were from ww1 era and used in captured austrian weapons. 500kg bombs for the italian bombers were in theory there, but nobody saw them (and I am not joking...) because there were so few of them for example. Submarines were told to fire not full salvos of torpedoes to not deplete much the overall quantities left at their bases... While the early stage of the Balkan campaign must be called chaotic and aweful, even in the logistic field, with time it improved, also given the relative small distance between Albania and the southern Puglia ports. But initially the troops were sent with very few ammo, very few food, not winter-clothes equipments... a mess. The North African troops were relatively a little better fed, supplied and refuelled, but the convoys that tried to get through sometimes took a beating , and the distance between the motherland and Libya was bigger than from Albania. Mentality This is a tricky aspect, which can be confused and which is not always "correct", and is just my opinion of it. Please take this as an almost hilarious rant by myself... More than a feeling , than something real... ) Historically, and even today, I think we as Italians have been and are masters in everything, but in small teams, in small groups, in elite departments. From the Renaissance on, single artists , single sculptors, craftsmen etc have been always at the edge. When we work in group and in huge numbers, we are inefficient. When we work in smaller environments we are good. We can build Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini , Pagani cars, in very limited numbers... and they are masterpieces, mostly even created by hand. We can build brilliant machines like this. If we try to build something "for the masses", in huge numbers, we are not so great. Good yeah, but a little back there. This mentality is still here I think , as we have the highest number of micro-small to small companies in Italy compared to Europe and not very large ones. This mentality reflected in our elite corps and formations, which were very very good, efficient, brave, ruthless, very effective. The 10th Flotilla MAS , led by Borghese was an elite unit which was simply astonishing in its feat , as many have remembered also here. The same can be said of an entire Division, the Airborne "Folgore" 182th one, which fought really well at El-Alamain. The same can be said of the elite Alpini units, even their entire divisions, which fought very very well in Greece. The elite Ski-Battalion Monte Cervino was really an astonishing unit. Some cavalry units were quite good as well. The torpedo-bombers also were good, but they were a small group of pilots and specialists as well. And we must add a half-truth here: that italians are not a fighting and war people. I think this is quite true to be honest. And it's something not to be ashamed at all (in fact , it's quite the opposite to think about it). But really, the hearts of the soldiers was not much in the war, the population didn't believe in it, they didn't understand it, and most of all, WE ATTACKED, we didn't defend from anyone. We had not any "moral highground" to stand for in creating our propaganda. We didn't defend the soil from anyone, nobody tried to attack us first, nobody wanted to penetrate the Alpine border and destroy our peace. The population knew this, felt uncomfortable with this, didn't want to do anything with this, especially, they just didn't believe in this. Weaponry Now, it's best to single-out this matter for each armed force, as they had different varieties of quality in their armaments. In summary. The Regia Marina had very good weapons and ships in numbers (badly used...) The Regia Aeronautica had adeguate weapons and ships (with very low numbers though) The Regio Esercito had sufficient to bad weapons The Regio Esercito The main problems of the italian army laid... in the minds of their leaders and high-ranking officers. The junior officers, contrary to popular belief , especially in the english speaking world, were ,generally speaking , good or sufficient in fulfilling their tasks in a modern war. High ranking officers were most of the time and often in a different world. There was a distinct "separation" between those ranks. Often high rank officers had an old mentality, didn't adapt to modern war standards, were too obiedent on their superiors and generally were not "bright" in their decisions. Not always of course. Gen. Guzzoni acted well in Sicily in 1943, his pre-landing defensive plan was quite good in theory, considering the outcome and what we know today of sea-landings. The theory of Armored combat groups attached very closely to the beacheads and to act as fast as possible to "seal-off" the landing grounds, could be considered a good idea, as seen from today. (that the plan didn't work could be discussed at lenght as to why....) His pre-war plan to invade Greece (in the Plan-G) was actually wise and well studied, but not followed. Gen. Visconti-Prasca and his ill-fated decision to invade Greece had the impulsivity of a Rommel, without having his talented tactical beahaviour, and was generally a disaster and really a failure of a General. Awful. Gen. Gambara and his madness of an attack on March 1941 in Albania is a case of study of a very bad plan. Generally speaking, most of them, in the north african campaign, in the balkan campaign and the russian one, were sub-par, sub-standard, old-fashioned, not tactically bright, not modern. Usually they still had in their heart the mentality that the single soldier, the single rank, was a useless piece of meat, that it could be wasted and used without care to achieve something. The "frontal attack" and the "mass infantry attack" mentality was really still there. The junior officers were generally not too bad, it depended on many factors. Training of "di complemento" officers or , we could say reservist (not totally correct work though) were generally inferior than normal serving officers, but, IMO, they made the impossible with what and whom was above them. The soldiers. Italy was quite a poor country in 1940. Its middle class was not very numerous at all, the majority of the population was not literate, mostly paesants coming from all the small cities of our country, with very little technical background. This may seem simplistic, but it has quite a weight on a fighting force and its ranks. There were of course exceptions, but generally speaking the ranks were really not "mechanically-minded", not "industrialized" and not "modern" , if we can use the word. In comparison, the Red Army had maybe something similiar (even worst I guess),but as this is only one small part of the big problems, it didn't stop it from being an effective fighting force. (while in the italian armed forces many things didn't work well, in the red army this was just one of the problem, all the rest was working well and efficiently) Training. The training was VERY inadeguate. There are stories of soldiers being sent in Albania in 1940-1941 with 1 week of field training, after having been recalled at 28-30-32 years old, after years of civil life. Some diaries of soldiers and officers clearly speaks of this. The situation was so mad there that nobody cared and they were sent nonetheless. Usually these units disbanded easily at the first combat. Usually Alpini units were well trained , well grouped and cohesive, they had a strong esprit de corp and in fact they fought very well. Cavalry units had a good training and they behaved rather well. Infantry Divisions were generally sub-standards, all of them. Some divisions were really bad, especially the "Occupation Divisions" like the "Murge" Division in the Balkans which had a very bad history of combat. The training of their ranks was very very low. Even normal and , in theory , good divisions were not very efficient most of the time. CCNN , black shirts units were attached to the normal infantry divisions after someone realized finally that the "Pariani Ordinament", the 2-regiments-Division, was not working as some thought them to work. They were in even worse position with regard of armament and training compared to the normal infantry! They had a higher esprit de corp and cohesion, and sometimes this alone was able to create some admirable feats of arms in North Africa, like the Bir-El-Gubi defensive action of the Young Fascists in December 1941 and others. In the Balkans they didn't really fight too well, same as in Russia. And generally normal soldiers and especially officers looked down on them as "fascist thugs" and most were not happy about them. more to follow...

Thank you John. Very interesting.