Colorful Story of the Italian Army vs Britsh/Australian troops in North Africa

[William amos]

Desert Dawn

North Africa Before Rommel

by David H. Lippman

"It is not a question of aiming for Alexandria or even Sollum," the message read. "I am only asking you to attack the British forces facing you."

This pleading message from Italy's Benito Mussolini was addressed to his supreme commander in Libya, Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, a firmjawed officer with a reputation for reckless offensive spirit -- earned against rebellious Arab tribesmen.

Against the British Western Desert Force, Graziani was far less resolute this 17 July, 1940. He led the numbers game on the Libyan-Egyptian border. His army of 250,000 faced a British force of barely 30,000. Italy fielded 400 guns to the British 150, and 190 fighters to the British 48. 300 Italian tanks faced only 150 British. On paper, Britain had no chance.

Weakness

But behind the numbers and glittering Fascist regalia lurked serious weaknesses that Graziani himself knew. The Italian 10th and 5th Armies in Libya marched on foot, while the British rode in trucks. Two of his six divisions were Blackshirt militia outfits, clad in fancy black uniforms but poor soldiers. His army as a whole was badly trained. Officers strutted about like gigolos, neglecting their men. Italian troops had done badly in Spain against Republicans and badly in Ethiopia against tribesmen. Also, Italian divisions had been reduced from three regiments to two, a paperwork shuffle that created more Italian divisions but weakened their strength.

Just as importantly, the Italian forces had poor equipment. Armored cars dated back to 1909. The L3 tank only mounted two machine guns. The underpowered and thinly-armored M11 was little better -- its 37mm gun could not traverse. The heavyweight M13 packed a 47mm gun, but crawled along at nine miles per hour. None could match the British Matilda with its 50mm armor and 40mm gun.

Italian troops were short of antitank guns, antiaircraft guns, ammunition, and radio sets. Artillery was light and ancient.

Sold Off

To ease his balance of payment problems, Mussolini had sold off his newest aircraft and weapons to foreign buyers like Spain and Turkey while equipping his forces with field guns from 1918. The army had borrowed trucks from private firms just to hold peacetime parades of its motorized divisions.

The Beretta pistol and machine gun were outstanding weapons, but the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, 1881 model, suffered from low bullet velocity. Breda machine guns were clumsy to operate and jammed easily. The Model 35 "Red Devil" hand grenades had a cute trick of exploding in the hands of their users.

By comparison, the British troops used the reliable .303 caliber Lee Enfield rifle, the superb Bren and Vickers machine guns, the 25lbr. field artillery piece, and the safe and deadly Mills grenade.

Italian ration packs included pasta meals that had to be cooked in boiling water, which was a scarce commodity in the North African desert, requiring even more water trucks and panniers that Mussolini simply did not have.

..................

More here Before Rommel

[ May 06, 2003, 11:05 PM: Message edited by: William amos ]

[manchildstein (ii)]

could the m13 'shrug off' the british 40mm frontally?

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by manchildstein II:

could the m13 'shrug off' the british 40mm frontally?

It had riveted armor. The rivets, if struck directly, had a nasty habit of turning into projectiles inside the tank.

Michael

[Andreas]

Originally posted by manchildstein II:

could the m13 'shrug off' the british 40mm frontally?

A rough search indicates that the 2-pdr would penetrate the M13 frontally beyond 1,000m range. Googling found that M13 frontal armour ranges from 30mm@30 to 30mm@12. Salt's Snippets indicates that the 2-pdr penetrated 40mm@30 at 1,000m (or yards).

The 2-pdr was contrary to folklore a perfectly good gun, that only became outdated later in 1941/early 1942 with the appearance of German bolt-on armour, increasing standard frontal armour from 50 to 50+20. These fairy-tales about it being outdated in 1939 are just rubbish. I once believed that too, but it just has no basis in reality.

According to Salt's Snippets again, it should be comparable to the German 50L42, and superior to anything less than that, and the 75L24 KWK37. It certainly outperformed the PAK35 quite easily in the AT role.

The problem was that the ammo had no HE burster, meaning that whether penetration had occurred or not was hard to assess, and post-penetration damage was much less. I have also heard that the tracer had a habit of breaking off on impact and ricochetting, even if the round penetrated, leading the gunners to believe their round had struck and ricochetted as a whole. No idea if the latter is correct.

The other problem was of course that there was no HE for the 2-pdr in the western desert, meaning that engaging anything but tanks was a bit of a bother.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Andreas:

The other problem was of course that there was no HE for the 2-pdr in the western desert, meaning that engaging anything but tanks was a bit of a bother.

I thought so too for a long time and it is somewhat true, but HE in anything smaller than 75mm doesn't seem to have a lot of effect anyway, aside from encouraging enemy troops to be a bit more cautious. A direct hit against a gun with the AP would stand a good chance of disabling it and maybe causing a casualty or two among the crew. Of course, a gun, especially a small AT gun, is a hard target to get a direct hit on, but then you'd almost have to attain a direct hit anyway to do any good with the small bursting charge that a 2pdr would carry if if had one. Doctrine was that against soft targets you used the coax and whatever other MGs were aboard, and all in all I doubt that was far wrong. Of course, a bigger gun with HE is the even better solution. It's noterworthy that the 6pdr when it arrived had an HE shell.

Michael

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

Doctrine was that against soft targets you used the coax and whatever other MGs were aboard, and all in all I doubt that was far wrong.

That is fine out to, say, 500-750m. But beyond that I guess it will be pretty in-effective, while a round from the main gun would still be quite well on target.

[K_Tiger]

In the Book about the 37mm Pak from Wolfgang Fleischer, he wrote statements from german soldiers where they held those small guns in high regards for her ability to "score" after the first round in the anti-infantrie role.

Its allways hard to put those imaginations from front-soldiers with the view from today. Maybe i would say the same if i hade only a rifle. If you can attack your ennemy out of theyr range....ill take the gun..every time. I belive, those 30-40mm would have some relative good results when exploding in closed rooms.

Btw. what with the genevua convention, isnt it forbidden to shoot with higher caliber weapons at humans? I mean directly. Those exploding Heads like in SPR arent funny...

[Jack Ryan]

i heard or read some where that the italians tank designers came up with quite a few designs for tanks, one for different purpose etc (so diff arm, guns etc) they showed the designed to mr dick...i mean Mussolini and he looked at them for a couple of momments(just long enought o play ip dip dip) and just picked one.

Could this be a reason there armour got there arses wooped? coz there leader just picked a design and not asked questionS?

[JasonC]

The Italians sucked, but it wasn't mainly due to equipment deficiencies - other than transport and logistics, where indeed they were bad off. But claiming it was poor weapons is a crutch. Command was the largest problem, logistics and doctrine next, then training, and not surprising as a result of all of those, morale.

The M13/40 and Semovotes were perfectly servicable AFVs for the early war period. The rest of the Italian armor was light armor, but in the desert that can be useful - as halftracks and armored cars were for the Germans.

The comparison to the Matilda is misleading, because in 1941 the Brits in the desert mostly had Crusaders or even early models in the "cruiser" series. They were automotively better, no doubt. Matildas and Valentines were better in gun and armor terms, but there weren't many around, they were at least as slow, and they were relegated to infantry support work because of it.

There was nothing wrong with the Italian artillery park in caliber or technical capabilities. Their artillery training and doctrine were abysmal. They did not use FOs in the conventional sense. Most fire was map fire, pre planned and conducted without any real time communications link. Field guns could fire direct with better responsiveness, but doctrinally were usually kept in rear areas. The gunners preferred the safety of staying off the line, even at the cost of tactical ineffectiveness.

As for infantry weapons, their mortars, LMGs, and light AA were all servicable. Their ATGs weren't strong or numerous, but the tanks they faced weren't any great shakes either. The main problems the infantry encountered, though, were command and logistical. Deprived of combined arms and anything like continuous fronts, leg infantry in a desert is rapidly surrounded by more mobile forces, and then basically impotent.

Italian infantry divisions had transport assets for their guns, HQs, and service elements only. The army as a whole was woefully undersupplied, and transport assets went mostly to the already thin supply services. To achieve any operational mobility, transport assets had to be pushed forward to "lift" single regiments at a time in shifts from one position to another. If they weren't to starve as a result, they needed dumps forward to make such moves.

The result is that Italian infantry formations fought "positionally", in a theater that screamed out for a war of movement. If forced to walk away from their dumps, leg infantry in the desert was still entirely at the mercy of mobile forces surrounding them, cutting off any flow of trucks to them, thus any water or ammo etc. In other armies, the artillery helped infantry protect itself by providing a large "envelope" of influence against vehicle mounted enemies. But Italian arty practice could not match that effect.

They did have some motorized infantry, in their armor divisions and later on a few motorized infantry formations, divisional or smaller. Those could work with their tanks. But this was a tiny portion of the total force, and had no numerical superiority over the Brits opposite them. The Brits beat 250,000 men with 30,000, handily. But the *mobile* forces on the two sides were basically the same size.

If you look at the sequence of the campaign, what you find is the Italian losses came in chunks as large as the whole British force, to about half its size. A series of divisional and corps sized disasters, in other words.

In each case, the usually preliminary is the Brits just drive around the Italians and surround them. Some then shell them and probe their positions. The Italians either collapse and surrender, or try to get away and get "bagged" by the mobile forces already behind them.

What is especially noteworthy in all of it is that Italian command does essentially nothing, throughout the campaign. The front line units are abandoned in their forward, coastal positions, at their supply dumps. No serious attempt is made to use the mobile forces to protect these, or to manuever around them, or to spread them away from the coast, add mines, etc, to form useful positions to support the mobile forces. The infantry are just garrisons of coastal supply dumps, in effect.

Once they are sent reeling back to the rear, the Brits cut across the desert to the coast south of Benghazi. The Italians all collect in Benghazi, a disorganized rabble, whoever survived the campaign up until then all mixed together, pell mell. They cannot all be supplied through the limited port, so they head south trying to break out.

The Italian armor leads. Rather than supporting it with their enourmous numerical strength in all other arms, everyone else basically waits and hopes the tanks cut a way through for them to run. Doctrinally, there is next to no arty to armor coordination. A handful of British tanks and guns astride the path of the whole force blow up a third to half of the Italian armor. The rest run, are abandoned, run out of fuel, break down, etc. The Brits then ride around unmolested with MGs and herd the rest of the Italian force into captivity.

All of this happened without the army field commander bothering to leave his rear area HQ. He was in Tripoli the entire time, as his entire command of a quarter of a million men was annihilated. He sat on his ass, read depressing reports, and no doubt had fine dinners with excellent wine at his hotel. After his entire command was lost, he simply resigned. The British could not have been better served if he had been on their payroll instead of the Italian government's.

You cannot begin to understand the whole problem of the Italian army in WW II until you grasp just how little the officers of the army cared about their men, their profession, the war, any of it. Rank was a sinecure, its duties purely bureaucratic and its rewards purely personal. Captain Renault in Casablanca was a wild eyed, fiery idealist compared to these characters. They were deeply stupid men promoted purely for their political loyalty, which in 1930s Italy meant their cynicism.

[ May 07, 2003, 03:06 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[William amos]

Found these parts in story about Italian Armor

The Italians counterattacked with nine tanks and hundreds of infantrymen. Private O. Z. Neall knocked out three Italian tanks with his Boyes anti-tank rifle, a feat that astounded everyone -- the Boyes rifle was noted for its uselessness. But the Italians continued to advance until two British Matildas rumbled up. At that point, the Italians ran, Australian infantrymen charging after them.

While the Australians sorted out Tobruk, 7th Ammoured was on the move. Wavell approved the advance to continue to Mechili and Dema, 11th Hussars leading the way. They ran into 50 M13s on the track and in the battle, destroyed nine for the loss of seven British. Clearly the Italians weren't done yet

As usual, the Italians reacted slowly, hampered by a byzantine chain of command and a lack of radios. But Babini fought hard on the 23rd at Mechili, ripping up the 11th Hussars light tanks and knocking the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment off balance. In a desert tank battle that looked like battleships maneuvering on the high seas, 2nd RTR counterattacked, caught the Italians skylined on a ridge, and picked them all off.

At dawn, patrols told Caunter the Italian column, stretching for miles, was moving south. Caunter's men stood to. 2nd RTR, with 19 tanks at the edge of a slope, faced 60 Italian machines at the Pimple.

But as the Italians attacked, the British got in the all-important first shot, their guns ripping through the Italian armor, turning M13s into burning coffins, wrecking eight. Before the stunned Italians could return fire, the British had withdrawn down the slope, to repeat the example, destroying seven more tanks with no loss. The Italians opened up with artillery and committed their reserves, as did the British.

The Italian numerical advantage was no help. Most Italian vehicles had no radios. The British instituted a drill movement right out of Salisbury Plain training exercises. With the snap order,"Hello all stations. Tanks left and attack the Pimple," the British counterattacked.

The Italians, lacking the effciency of radio, stolidly moved to their predetermined objectives, and waited for orders. The Italians fought with great determination but in total disarray.

But the 1/RTR finally arrived, and rumbled towards the sound of the guns, driving the Italian tanks northwest. Bergonzoli was halted. 2nd RTR had destroyed 51 M13s for a loss of 3 tanks and seen men. Other outfits destroyed 33 tanks. 10,000 Italians had surrendered.

[ May 07, 2003, 03:38 PM: Message edited by: William amos ]

[demoss]

Matildas and Valentines were better in gun and armor terms, but there weren't many around, they were at least as slow, and they were relegated to infantry support work because of it.

I believe you have cause and effect reversed here. The Matildas and Valentines (and still later, the Churchills) were designed for infantry support work, so speed wasn't considered necessary; armor was more important, as was ability to cross trench lines, which is why the Churchill in particular was so long. I suspect (but do not know) that they were designed to stand up to something comparable to the French 75 - not that the Germans actually built such a gun, though I think the PaK 38 has roughly the same penetrating power.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Andreas:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael emrys:

Doctrine was that against soft targets you used the coax and whatever other MGs were aboard, and all in all I doubt that was far wrong.

That is fine out to, say, 500-750m. But beyond that I guess it will be pretty in-effective, while a round from the main gun would still be quite well on target. </font>

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by demoss:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Matildas and Valentines were better in gun and armor terms, but there weren't many around, they were at least as slow, and they were relegated to infantry support work because of it.

I believe you have cause and effect reversed here. The Matildas and Valentines (and still later, the Churchills) were designed for infantry support work, so speed wasn't considered necessary; armor was more important, as was ability to cross trench lines, which is why the Churchill in particular was so long. I suspect (but do not know) that they were designed to stand up to something comparable to the French 75 - not that the Germans actually built such a gun, though I think the PaK 38 has roughly the same penetrating power. </font>

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

True, but what were they going to shoot at?

88s? 10cm K18? 155mm howitzers? You don't need a lot of either of these to stop a massive number of tanks that can not engage you at a distance and are to slow to close before you shred them.

[Andreas]

BTW - does anyone actually have the numbers of tanks fielded by the Pommies against the Italians before the German arrival? ISTR there were still a fair number of Vickers, and probably Matilda I around. I don't think the Western Desert Force defeating the Italians had much to do with the superiority or otherwise of their tanks.

Here is some techy and other information on the tanks of the UK forces in North Africa.

Equipment used by the Tank Regiments

BTW - the whole site appears to be written a lot better, and more with an eye to historical accuracy than providing stirring stuff, than the sites William is dredging up (where does he find them?).

Ian Patterson's Desert Rat Site

[ May 08, 2003, 05:09 AM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

[Knaust]

Italians lost the Desert War because they carried spaghetti as the main food reserve...you know that spaghetti need water to cook!

What can we do?...we Italians like spaghetti more than war

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Knaust:

What can we do?...we Italians like spaghetti more than war

That appears to be a very commendable attitude to me.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Andreas:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael emrys:

True, but what were they going to shoot at?

88s? 10cm K18? 155mm howitzers? You don't need a lot of either of these to stop a massive number of tanks that can not engage you at a distance and are to slow to close before you shred them. </font>

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Andreas:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Knaust:

What can we do?...we Italians like spaghetti more than war

That appears to be a very commendable attitude to me. </font>

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

I'd say that the Italians were by and large probably the sanest troops in the war.

Michael

Indeed. Surrendering to a civilised opponent beats getting killed in action anyday, in my view at least. I'd rather read about my 'cowardice' in the newspaper over a bowl of Spaghetti than have my relatives read my orbituary about how heroically I died.

No pasta on Orkney though, I guess. They still have the chapel for the Italian POWs, who helped to build the Churchill barriers to protect Scapa from other further U-Boot incursions, there.

[Nestor]

Since we're talking about the pre Afrika Korps days of the desert campaign, I was looking at an interesting historical document the other day which dealt with the attacks in and around the Italian camps at Tummar in December 1940.

According to what I was reading, the 1st Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers (I think) were taken into battle by bus on 8th December 1940 and didn't de-bus until within 70 yards of Italian machine gun positions!!!

Oh alright, I'll come clean, I was 'reading' a 1976 issue of the Victor comic that I happen to have kept over the years (along with about 350 others). However, it was one of their 'True story of men at war' cover stories, so I'm guessing it has some basis in fact, especially since the detail dealt with a DCM awarded to a Corporal Cotton on that day. The buses depicted in the 'story' were your typical London buses of the time, but perhaps this was artistic licence.

So, does anybody know anything about this? I haven't been able to find any references to it on the web (my search for 'buses at war' drew a blank) and most importantly, of course, if true will the buses be modelled in CMAK?

[ May 08, 2003, 07:29 AM: Message edited by: Nestor ]

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Nestor:

Since we're talking about the pre Afrika Korps days of the desert campaign, I was looking at an interesting historical document the other day which dealt with the attacks in and around the Italian camps at Tummar in December 1940.

According to what I was reading, the 1st Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers (I think) were taken into battle by bus on 8th December 1940 and didn't de-bus until within 70 yards of Italian machine gun positions!!!

Oh alright, I'll come clean, I was 'reading' a 1976 issue of the Victor comic that I happen to have kept over the years (along with about 350 others). However, it was one of their 'True story of men at war' cover stories, so I'm guessing it has some basis in fact, especially since the detail dealt with a DCM awarded to a Corporal Cotton on that day. The buses depicted in the 'story' were your typical London buses of the time, but perhaps this was artistic licence.

So, does anybody know anything about this? I haven't been able to find any references to it on the web (my search for 'buses at war' drew a blank) and most importantly, of course, if true will the buses be modelled in CMAK?

Er...ahem. Until someone comes up with some very hard proof of this, I think I will just file it under "fiction".

Interestingly enough though, at least until the Six Day War in 1967 (and probably later than that) some parts of the Israeli Defense Force went into battle in busses. That is, presumably they debussed before getting into gunshot of the enemy, but they made strategic movement in busses. Beats riding in the back of an open truck, I say.

Michael

[JasonC]

My guess is somebody read the comment "debussed", meaning got out of the trucks, a little too literally, and imagination did the rest.

[JasonC]

Andreas - there is a good operational history here:

http://www.btinternet.com/~ian.a.paterson/battles1940.htm

The answer to the question of tank numbers and types varies with the date. When Italy entered, the Brits had 275 tanks in the western desert. By December 7 AD had 167, and after the whole campaign but before the Germans counterattacked was down to around 50 runners.

There were 7 battalion sized armor units at the start of the campaign - 3, 7, 8, and 11 Hussars, and 1, 2 and 7 RTR. The average tank strength of these was 40-50, but I haven't seen a detailed breakdown.

7 RTR had Matilda IIs (there were no Matilda Is, those only saw action in France, around Arras) and supported the 4th Indian (infantry) division, until it was withdrawn.

2 RTR was the only other formation with Matildas, at the start anyway. It was part of 4th Armoured Brigade of the 7th AD. But after the first round of fighting, it shows up with Cruisers (A9 and A10) rather than Matildas. Probably its remaining Matildas were turned over to 7 RTR to support the infantry after the Sidi Barrani battle.

After the 4th Indian was withdrawn, there was a brief period when the 7th AD was basically alone. That was the period of the Bardia battle. Then the 6th Australian arrived to replace the 4th Indian, in time for the fight at Tobruk.

The standard procedure was for the 7th AB portion of the 7th AD, lead by the divisional recon armor in 11 Hussars, to loop round the desert flank of each successive position and block the route of retreat. The 4th AB portion attacked up the road. If an infantry divison was available, it took the road role, or it and 4 AB took out the forward position from two angles or sides.

The 7th AB portion had Mark VI lights and some Cruisers, which early on were mixed A9s and A10s, and by the end of the campaign had transitioned to the faster A13 model. A9 is 15mm armor and a 2 pdr. A10 is 30mm armor and a 2 pdr, slow. A13 is faster again, 30mm still, 2 pdr still. These are all predecessors of the Crusader. The A10 was roughly equivalent to an Italian M13/40, the A13 better only in the speed department.

But the majority of the tanks were Mark VI lights, which are MG only main armament "tankettes". They outnumbered the cruisers by about 2 to 1. (E.g. December 15, the 7 AD has 106 Mark VI and 59 cruisers). The standard Hussar formation is therefore a light armor unit, mobile MG nests behind armor only meant to stop small arms fire.

8th Hussars (7th AB's core) had cruisers from the start of the battle, and 2 RTR (4th AB's core) transitioned to them after Sidi Barrani. I suspect 1 RTR also had cruisers but do not know it for sure; I see little about it. Each AB thus had mixed gun armed and MG armed tanks, but only the 4th had heavy armor and only for the first round of fighting at the border.

Mostly, flocks of Mark VI lights (and armored cars, motorized arty, etc) scouted and herded infantry and soft vehicles. While a battalion's worth in each brigade had pre-crusader cruiser tank designs about equal to the M13/40 in most respects, to provide armor fighting power and the hard "core" of the light armor and all arms stuff. The remaining Matildas, acting as "arty invunerable" assault tanks worked with infantry up the coast road.

The early fight at Sidi Barrani is not really an exception to this. The 4th AB just acted more like part of the infantry side of the force for that first round, while it had Matildas in 2 RTR.

At the decisive "cork in the bottle" fight north of Benghazi, when the Italians are trying to fight their way out led by 50 or so M13/40s, the best British tanks in front of them were A13 cruisers. In gun and armor specs, there is little to choose between them. The Brit crews were better, they had radios, the A13 is somewhat faster. The rest of the British armor was only useful after the cruisers beat the M13/40s, because it was only MG armed.

[ May 08, 2003, 02:32 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Firefly]

Well there are plenty of photos of British Army buses in WW1, but I admit it's the first I've heard of them in the desert. Did the troops have to wait ages for one and then 5 turned up at the same time?