Sgt. Carmello’s Rattletrap Tank

[Trommelfeuer]

Sgt. Carmello’s Rattletrap Tank

( or the Day We Knew Italy Would Lose the War ) by Mark McLaughlin

Sgt. Carmello and his company of crack Carabinieri had been pinned down in the mountain pass for two very cold, uncomfortable and frightening hours. With his captain dead, casualties mounting and their advance stalled by heavy machine-gun fire from the heights above them, Sgt. Carmello and his only surviving officer, a young cadet lieutenant, called for armor support. The path to retreat was still clear, but none of the soldiers wanted to go back. After all, Carmello told his comrades, the men shooting at them were wearing skirts. Surely such men would not stand up to Italian tanks.

The sergeant was wrong. As he has often related in his halting yet clear English, that was the day he knew Italy would lose the war. It was also the day he vowed he would someday go to America, if only to get away from such idiots as Benito Mussolini.

In 1938 Carmello and many of the other men in his company of Sicilians had joined the Italian national police, the Carabinieri, to escape being drafted into the Italian army. Unfortunately for them, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini militarized the Carabinieri. Some of the Carabinieri were selected to serve as field police while others were formed into crack commando units. Mussolini, or “Il Duce,” as he preferred to be called, had personally reminded the Carabinieri of their regiment’s glorious history as an elite heavy cavalry regiment during the Risorgimento and Reunification of Italy in the previous century. The Carabinieri, Il Duce had proclaimed, had always been at the forefront of battle. Now they would lead the army in retracing the footsteps of the ancient legions to rebuild Mussolini’s New Roman Empire.

Those footsteps had taken some Carabinieri into Ethiopia, Libya and now Egypt, where they were confronting British General Archibald Wavell’s small Middle East Command. Carmello’s company had been spared the desert campaigns. They had been sent into newly conquered Albania, where they were selected to be the very tip of the spearhead of General Sebastiano Visconti-Prasca’s invasion of Greece in late October, 1940. The Carabinieri were to clear the difficult mountain roads along the Greco-Albanian frontier of “light resistance.” So far, however, like their brethren in the Alpini, Bersaglieri and other elite regiments in the advance guard of the Italian army, the Carabinieri had met with nothing but heavy fire.

Greek General Alexander Papagos had had many months to prepare for Visconti-Prasca. Papagos had built up a series of strong defensive lines in the difficult mountain terrain along the Greco-Albanian border. Although not as well-equipped as the modern, mechanized Italian army, Papagos had nearly as many men (150,000 vs 162,000 Italians), and he had positioned them well.

The men Papagos positioned in the mountain passes wore light olive green skirts, knee socks and shoes with little fluffy tassels. These were the “men in skirts” that Carmello say firing down on his Carabinieri. Little did he know at the time that these skirted warriors were the Evzones, the best shots in the Greek army. Tough, native mountain fighters with a tradition not unlike that of the Scottish Highlanders or the Italian Alpini, the Evzones manned the first line of defense: the mountain passes.

Carmello had lost too many men dueling with the Greek snipers. He ordered his soldiers to take cover in the rocks and cuts alongside the road. He saw no sense in exposing his men to danger when victory would be assured once the tanks arrived.

An hour later, he heard the telltale clankety-clank, rumble-rumble, whirr-whirr of bogie wheels as the Italian armor approached. His men began to cheer as the lead tank in the Italian armored column turned the corner and came up the road behind them.

The tank was alone.

One tank. That was all the Italian Tank Corps had sent. Carmello was a little downcast, but he did not let his men see his disappointment. At least it was not one of the little light machine-gun tanks (like the Carro Veloce 35). It was a real tank. A big tank. The best the Italians had made to date: an M.11/39 medium tank, with a real cannon -- a 37 mm gun.

The Evzones poured fire down on the M.11/39. Carmello’s Carabinieri jeered as machine-gun and rifle bullets bounced off its armor plates. The turret rotated to allow its 8 mm light machine-gun to spray the heights. The tank turned on its treads so that the main gun in the body of the tank could bear. It fired. A great “boom” echoed in the pass. Rocks flew in the air where the shell hit.

...and Sgt. Carmello remembers that there was also another strange banging sound, like a rattle, coming from the tank.

The tank fired again, and again and again. Each time the gun fired and recoiled, however, Carmello recalls, the rattling got louder. Then he notice that the armor was coming loose.

Italian tanks were not solid-cast. Plates of thin armor (30 mm in the case of the M.11/39) were bolted on to a metal frame. Unfortunately, the bolts tended to come loose, especially when the tanks were jostled going over rough terrain or when they were subjected to stress -- like the recoil of their gun. The tankers knew this; they carried special wrenches to tighten the bolts during rest stops.

Carmello tried to crawl to the tank, but the Evzones were still pouring fire down on his position. The tank fired again, and again and again....and then a plate fell off. The tankers were probably too excited or too busy choking from the dust and smoke to notice, and they fired again and again....and another plate fell off.

That is when Carmello heard another sound he has never forgotten: laughter. The Greeks stopped firing. They were laughing. As the dust began to clear Carmello could see why: there sat the tank, a half a dozen of its armor plates lying about, and the turret gunner sitting there, unprotected, for all to see.

The gunner kicked down and yelled to the driver to put the tank in gear and retreat -- but it would not go. One of the plates that had fallen off had become jammed in the bogie wheels. The turret gunner scrambled out of the skeleton turret and ran for the rocks. The driver and cannoneer jumped out and followed. As they cowered behind Carmello the sergeant looked around at the bewildered faces of his men ... and like a single man, they all stood up with their hands over their heads.

The rattletrap tank had been the last straw; it had convinced them all that Italy would never win this war.

source

http://63.249.242.39/wsarc05.htm

Greetings, Sven

[ November 15, 2003, 07:52 AM: Message edited by: Trommelfeuer ]

[Nelson 1812]

Great read!.......best for months.

[Sergei]

Now that was amusing... I just wonder if this "feature" will be modelled in CMAK?

[Maj. Battaglia]

Thanks for the post, Trommelfeuer. Interesting read.

[JonnyBlademan]

Talk about having a bad day.

Great read!

[Stavka_lite]

How many gears does an Italian tank have?

4, 3 reverse and 1 foward

The 1 foreward is in case it gets attacked from the rear

[Aries]

Wrong Stavka,

almost all italian tanks have been destroyed fighting against overwhelming forces. Take a minute to read something about the desert war.

I know, it could be hard for you to read and learn but do yourself a favour. You could even learn to respect men dead while doing their duty. Respect for others is a great thing

[Pugilist]

Great story.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Actually, I believe Italian engineers were way ahead of their time. They were the first ones to invent the blow out panels on their tanks in case of being hit except they got it slightly wrong and designed them as blow out panels when trying to do the hitting. Still, you've got to admire their foresight if not their application.

Regards

Jim R.

[Newbtler]

?

Actually there weren't M11/39 in the Greek front AFAIK.

IIRC there was a Battalion of "M" tanks, but they were M13/40, armed with a 47mm in a rotating turret.

All the actions of this unit are described in the book "Il Ponte di Klisura" (The Bridge of Klisura)by Lt. Panetta, and I've never ever read anything like that. This unit fought quite well, it went almost destroyed in the attack against the Bridge of Klisura and against the "Hill 731" in March 1941.

Our tanks were so bad I even could believe in what is said.

Another strange thing is that the author doesn't mention where this encounter happened; not a name of a mountain, city, pass.

"...Although not as well-equipped as the modern, mechanized Italian army..."

:eek: :eek: :eek:

[ November 17, 2003, 02:10 PM: Message edited by: Newbtler ]

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Newbtler:

Another strange thing is that the author doesn't mention where this encounter happened; not a name of a mountain, city, pass.

Umm, I thought that story was meant to be fictional...

Send Us Your War Story

We will pay $50.00 to any story that we use in this section. So if you consider yourself a fair to great writer, send us your stories! The only rules are that the stories must pertain to war or wargaming.

[Stavka_lite]

Aries, I think you have misconstrued my post about Italian tanks...

Its a joke!!!!! :eek:

It may not be a very good joke, but its a joke none the less.

we can all laugh now

[British Tommy]

Lovely little story, well written as well!

I for one take my dented steel helmet off to the Italian tank crews.It takes a very brave man to take on British and American armour knowing that your main gun and armour is inferior to all but the lightest of Allied armour.

I have visited the Bovington tank museum and studied the Italian tanks and even the M13/14's look puny next to the Allied tanks :eek:

[Aries]

Italians had even the chance to product (under license) the good Panzer MkIII but Ansaldo preferred to project and build those tin cans on their own

"Mutatis mutandis", same thing happened for the good Macchi C.205V fighter. Fiat preferred to produce their CR42 biplanes and G.50 old monoplanes and small quantities of the excellent G.55 ....

Bloody italians politicians and Agnelli family

NP Stavka, but stereotypes are hard to die

[ November 18, 2003, 03:51 AM: Message edited by: Aries ]

[Newbtler]

The M11 sucked, but you can't beat the mighty L.3.

I mean... what the hell did our engeneers have in their minds?

It sucked beyond suck.

Oh well.

Aries, I've read that the Pz3 could be produced under license, it would have helped a lot.

Fiat really screwed everything.

The same thing happened when the Reggiane 2000 and 2001 appeared. They were good fighters, superior to Fiats (but not to Macchis) but they were not produced in big quantities.

And regarding the Cr.42: even our pilots preferred a biplane with an open cockpit over a monoplane (G.50 or C.200) because they considered it more agile and maneuverable! :eek: :confused:

They didn't even consider speed, armament, etc.

This speaks volumes about our Regia Aeronautica's philosophy in fighting the next war.