What if Italy had been a capable air/naval power?

sounds very logical....again, much thanks...you put it well and concisely....very interesting and enjoyable reading for me....

I had forgotten about Italy's part there.....and pilots there also.....adds ammo to everyone's thoughts here about Italy's WW2's deficiencies...I would think they would've gotten vital combat and learning experience
...even if they did, it appears it wasn't enough to overcome their 'problems'

 

The Italians learned the wrong lessons in the air war in Spain, the discussion between the "pilot party" that stressed manoeuvrability, and the "engineer party" that wanted speed was not just in Italy, they could have ended up with something like the Zero, that didn't have that much more engine power, though the Sakae was lighter, but the air force was dominated by the "pilot party".

One element that crippled Italian design practices was the "autarchia" (independence from imported goods) that was adopted by Mussolini, partly in response to the sanctions, and that played into the hands of the industrialist that were more than happy to sell inferior home grown designs rather than pay royalties on better foreign ones as might have happened if foreign competitors had been allowed to bid for contracts.
Corruption in procurement was also an issue and acceptance testing was unrealistic and led to bad design choices.

Some deficiencies were never made good, Italian forces lacked modern anti tank guns, sonar, radar, infantry weapons, fighters throughout the war. Quality control and production process were also bad so the production numbers were low. The naval AA guns were also unimpressive for different reasons, the 37 lacked a recoil system so could not be mounted on thin hulled ships like destroyers, the 100mm "ginocchiello variabile" DP AA main batter was obsolescent and the defects of the stabilised 90mm mounts were never truly ironed out.




Training was also a major issue, there was a lot of emphasis on "parade" attributes over combat proficiency.

Reforming the officer corps was something Mussolini never even attempted, the class system that existed in the units with officers having different food and better equipment didn't help unit cohesion and morale and was another major weakness.

 

that quickly brings up a memory of when I was in Tunisia.....their mortar squad did a ''parade' mortar set up as we did a combat set up....theirs was really clumsy and of course very slow...I seem to recall a Tunisian tell us that was just for show....but I don't even recall doing something like that....then they didn't know how to level their mortar.....unless they were ''faking''........? I doubt that though
again, all good and interesting points for me to read....I can see major problems occuring if the officers were 'apart' from their soldiers

 

Elite Italian units like the paratroopers or frogmen were very effective; these were the ones which attracted the most motivated soldiers and stressed cameraderie between officers and men. Most nations have some proportion of men who are inclined to make good soldiers - Italians were among the leading practitioners of the military arts in Renaissance times, when wars were fought by small companies of professionals - but organizing and operating mass, mechanized armies is another story.

 

The Italian navy was almost never if ever capable of doing what it wanted in the Med in WWII. Early in the war they were seriously outgunned. Even after France surrendered they lacked the ships to really contest the sea with the RN until the VVs came out. But even when they got near parity in combatants they were seriously restricted by the amount of fuel available with impacted not only training but what operations they could perform. Leadership was the issue but the critical part was in the lead up to the war.

In answering the original question it becomes vital to determine just how Italy became a "capable air/naval power". I can't see any way of doing so that doesn't make some fairly significant changes to both the Italian government and military and likely the economy as well. What those changes are could be critical to answering the question.

 

Italy had the 4th largest navy at the beginning of WW2. Outgunned? No unless you discuss age of assets. What they lacked was modern technology and air cover. Update those two and they had the guns to very well bottle up their surrounding waters and Red Sea access from the Mediterranean..

http://www.naval-history.net/WW2CampaignsRNMed.htm

What Italy failed to do was control Gibraltar which was a logistical problem. They mistakenly tried to take on the Allies in the Red Sea to control Ethiopia.

The war was about oil or better put, the lack of it. “Above all, petrol governed every movement.” – Winston Churchill

 

Yes outgunned.
When Italy entered the war they had what 4 12" gunned battleships no one of which was really a match for even the RN battle cruisers much less the 9 WWI 15" battleships the RN still had. The first two Littereo class helped even the odds some but were roughly on a par with the KGV or Nelson class ships but by the time the third was out they were pretty much out of oil and the US was in the war as well. So clearly they are outgunned in battleships. And of course for a time the French Navy was a threat to them as well.

As for cruisers they had 8 heavies and around a dozen lights, maybe the 4th largest navy in the world but they simply weren't in the game when compared to ether the British or the US. In the med they had air cover as well and no one had much in the way of radar early in the war and they still had rather limited success. By mid war the real problem was fuel. When you are taking fuel out of the tanks of battlships sitting in port to allow your DDs to operate you have problems.

They never made it to the Red Sea and never really had the firepower to challenge the RN in the Med.

 

Maybe you missed this: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/78142253

The US also fought a lot of old Japanese ships in the Pacific.

If you read my premise is: Italy had some fire power to control her part of the Mediterranean, but she didn't have the technology. A lot of her assets were in fact old. I did say this. I also said she lacked air cover.

Technically once hostilities started with the US, the Axis was never really in the game outside of the mixed results of Coral Sea. So what is your point?

Italy could have been a force to reckon with. They lacked leadership and a complete military....sort of like the Germans...and oil, sort of like the Germans and Italians.

So if I say red, you will say white.

I believe the Italians had 3 operational Littorio class battleships which had the same gun size as the Bismarck and slightly less armor. Speed about the same. Seems the Bismarck did sort of OK against the Royal Navy.

 

When did those DDs leave Italy for the Red Sea? My guess is that it was pre war. Lots of Italian ships were caught at sea or in neutral or worse hostile ports when Italy declared war. A few DD's had no hope of contesting control of the Red Sea and those stranded there had no hope of making it home. Thus they were scuttled.

Indeed the US did fight older Japanese ships in the Pacific but I'd take any of the IJN BB's over any of the Italian WWI BBs and while Mutsu and Nagato might be roughly on a par with the Littirios the Yamatos were clearly superior to even the new Italian battleships. Indeed Washington showed rather graphically what could happen to an old BB when it encountered a new one. Indeed San Francisco showed what could happen to an old BB when it ran afoul of an 8" cruiser at close range.

Italy simply didn't have the firepower at any point in the war to control the Med or much more than her local waters. As long as France was in the war the Italians clearly had no chance at all. Once France was out Force H still had 3 15" gunned ships to match the the 12" gunned Italian BBs except of course for a while after Toronto the Italians didn't have 3 battleships so the British had a clear superiority in numbers as well as firepower (and note the British usually had a carrier in the Med during this period). So exactly when do you think the Italians had the firepower to control the Med or even a significant portion of it any distance from Italy itself?

You ask what my point was about the US. It is of course that there was no significant period of time when Italy had the strength to do as you suggest. Clearly they didn't prior to Frances surrender nor after the US got in the war. So that limits the period to a year and a half. But the RN at least had rough parity until the Torronto raid after which it had a clear superiority for several months. So I don't see it happening anytime in 1940 or the first quarter of 41, Britain did keep a fair number of ships in home fleet but these could easily be dispatched to the Med if needed and after the demise of Bismarck it was even easier.

The Italian Navy didn't have all that bad of leadership what they lacked although once you get above that however it's questionable. The Italians simply couldn't afford to loose ships so avoided decisive battles which could easily end in pyrrhic victories if they ended in victory at all. They did lack oil especially later in the war. Much more so than Japan or Germany in part because they were dependent on Germany for their oil.

As for the Littirios indeed they did get 3 operational but the key is when? The first two weren't operational until August of 40 and Littirio was out of action for ~4 months starting in Novemeber. The third one wasn't completed until 6 months or so after the US entered the war. If she took about the same amount of time to work up as her sisters she wouldn't really have been operational until the end of 42.

As for comparison with Bismarck. Bismarck got a lucky hit on Hood and was mission killed by PoW which was not even worked up yet. After which she was dispatched by carrier aircraft and a couple of British battleships. I would hardly call that "OK". By shear luck she was traded for an old battlecruiser not a trade the British would want to make but clearly to their benefit. The Littirios were indeed roughly on a par with Bismarck, the KGVs, and Nelsons and once they got into the war the US fast battleships (one could I suppose add the Colorado's as well if one wished). However due to lack of training (which after the war started was seriously inhibited by a lack of fuel) they would have suffered from crew quality issues. PLS note also if you go to compare the Italians vs the Japanese that the IJN had planned and trained extensively for a naval war and wasn't pretty much fully worked up with lots of time at sea when the war started. Their oil problems didn't really start until August of 41 and even then were nothing like those that the Italians suffered.

Also by the time radar was making any serious difference the US was in the game and the weight of material simply negated any chance the Italians had at that point without even looking at technology.

 

You would be correct.

The destroyers mentioned in Ilhawk's newspaper clipping were part of the Regia Marina's Red Sea Flotilla(or Fleet) which was based at Massawa, Eritrea. The Red Sea Flotilla was centered around seven elderly destroyers of the Sauro and Leone classes, and the eight submarines of the 8th Submarine Group, as well as several smaller vessels. The Italian naval forces were greatly hampered by being completely cut off from resupply, and were almost always critically short of fuel and spare parts. The Italians engaged in some minor skirmishes, but for the brief period of service were mostly a "fleet in being".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Sea_Flotilla
http://www.icsm.it/regiamarina/redsea.htm
http://www.regiamarina.net/detail_text.asp?nid=43&lid=1

 

Again, my point was that with air cover and more modern technology, their Navy had capabilities with the right leadership combined with air cover and updated tech. Across the Atlantic? No. In the Mediterranean? Possibly. Then again, the Ethiopians put up pretty good fights against the Italians.

The Bismarck's lucky hit? Maybe. A random shell onto the mobile command center of a Panzer Lehr regiment (killing all but the commander) probably kept the the Germans from exploiting gains at Marvie and on into Bastogne. The Germans had tanks behind US lines on the outskirts of Bastogne and command never knew about it.

I do enjoy the conversation. Nice analysis.

 

Regretfully this point is not much of one...

Air cover? The Italians had it...What they lacked was close cooperation, or, for that matter, cooperation between the Regia Marina and Regia Aeronautica. So, this devolves back to the leadership issue. You can give the Regia Aeronautica the best bombers and the best fighters. But, if the leadership of the two armed forces are not willing to cooperate, the Regia Marina is still going to be without air cover.

Up-dated Tech? No navy in 1939-40 was really "modern", with the majority of all warships having been in service for some time.

However, even in these early Med naval battles, when the Regia Marina was the equal of, if not in some engagements, superior to, the RN, the best the Marina could do was fight to a draw. If, the Regia Marina cannot succeed in battle when they are the superior force, I can't agree that giving them better technology will turn the tide of battle. Having better technology is not going to make the Italian admirals more willing to risk having their ships sunk or heavily damaged in battle.

But, then again...No amount of better technology, more air cover, or better leadership is going to overcome, the Regia Marina's oil crunch that began early in 1941. You can't burn technology, aircraft, or admirals in a ship's boilers.

 

There is no proof that Italy was not a capable air and naval power .

 

Except the verdict of history

 

Some of you guys would argue if it's cold in the arctic.

This article pretty much surmises the Italian situation.

Lack of cooperation is a lack of air cover either way, but nice point.

The British did have carrier protection and superior radar, however primitive at the time.

http://www.historynet.com/battle-of-cape-matapan-world-war-ii-italian-naval-massacre.htm

For sure oil an issue.

 

Contrary to what the article states, radar was not "unknown" to the Italians.
http://www.regiamarina.net/detail_text_with_list.asp?nid=103&lid=1&cid=7

 

The key difference I got from the article was the intel available to the two sides. Interestingly enough both admirals seemed to appreciate the reliability of their intel.

 

Based on Carronade's idea, if Italian leadership including Mussolini had determined to change, a small but elite division-sized troops could be deployed when needed. The Corpo Truppe Volontarie participated in the Spanish Civil War; Of the approximate 78,500 men sent to Spain, 2,989-3,819 were killed and about 12,000 (10,629) were wounded. The Spanish Legion participated in the rebel side that included Franco and is now about 8000 strong. Although the numbers are borrowed from English Wikipedia, their treatments of either vastly reduced in strength in numbers by casualties or cut-back after the Spanish Civil War showed that a non-war declared nation did not prefer a standing troops that would be ready to deployed at least in Europe. Considering Italy was crunched in oil, let alone financial struggle, maintaining a standing and elite troops would be constant drain of resources.

Maybe a Finnish model in 1920s and 1930s that some military fractions of its army engaged in fighting the Red Army for Karelian separation from the SU could lend an idea to an Italian elite troops fighting in harsh conditions against an ideological enemy. Or reviving the shock troops tactics of WW1 for Italian in 1930s training to infantry would allow ad hoc combined arms of infantry with RPGs, anti-tank guns and artillery including tank destroyers/assault gun hybrid vehicle. In weapon development and Finland, Germany is the only major European major power interested in the area since ww1 and Russian Civil War. However if Italian troops learnt a wrong lesson in the Spanish Civil War, they could still learn a wrong lesson in the Winter War. Italian anti-communist volunteers deployment in Finland or Romania would yet create another proxy war for Italy to adopt Germany weapon designs and Romanian petrol industrial technology to exploitation of Libyan oil. Note that in 1930s, the existence of Libyan oil was acknowledged but remained unexploited on a large scale. Romanian technology could acceleration that exploitation process.

A source: The History of the Development of Libyan Gas and Oil Resources www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/libyanoil.htm

Italian development of Libyan oil in 1930s would be a game changer that Germany would actively help improving Italian military, leadership and parts of industries to exploit oil and gas. Reasonably, would the British attack from Egypt right after the Italian DoW ?

 

The frogmen are really "special forces" so that model will not scale up in any way. The pre armistice X MAS flotilla contained an large number of skilled high initiative people but was very small in overall numbers, I don't have figures but I believe it was less than 1000 men overall.

The parachuters are a better example of what could be achieved with a more elite/volunteer rather than cannon fodder/conscripts" approach. The mountain units (Alpini) were also comparable to their foes due to the regional recruiting had much better officer to enlisted relations than the regular army.

But Italy had to plan for a possible war with France, and you needed a lot troops for that, so a small "old contemptibles" style small highly professional force was an impossibility, they had no option but to go for a large conscript army.

But even with that constraint they could have done better, early equipment failures like the air poisoning of some submarine crews, that lack of aircraft machine gun ammo and sand filters in North Africa, deploying totally useless planes like the Breda 88, lack of contingency plans for an early Malta invasion and the like could have been avoided with just some realistic training/testing.

More challenging failures like the lack of night fighting training/equipment in the navy (they had no illuminating rounds for the main guns so major Italian warships carried some additional obsolete guns just to shoot flares) or the lack of modern AT guns would be more difficult but still possible.

Some deficiencies could be made good by imports, radars, sonars, modern fighter aircraft and tanks could not be produced locally in sufficient quantity and what little was produced was not particularly good. Unfortunately for the Italians Germany did not have excess production early in the war.

Other issues like the poor infantry weapons, low production capacity, shortage of technically proficient personnel, interservice rivalry and a half rotten officer corps were probably not doable unless the process had been started well before the war.

 

Hardly surprising, as I don't think any navy had starshells for their battleships' main armament. The Americans certainly did not, the largest caliber US starshell was for the 6-inch guns, but for the most part the 5-inch guns were used for starshell duty. However, while the Italian battleships use a variety of calibers for the secondary armament of their battleships(152mm on the Littorios, 135mm on the Andrea Dorias, and 120mm on the Conte di Cavours). IIRC, the Italians had no starshells for their 152mm guns of the Littorios, there were starshells for the 135mm guns of the Andrea Dorias - but this may have been a post-war development, and they did have starshells for the 120mm guns of the Conte di Cavours. Still, the Italians did have starshells for the 90mm AA guns of the Littorios and Andrea Dorias, but the 90mm was considered to small to be very effective.

Further, considering that the secondary guns of the Littorios and Andrea Dorias were mounted in triple gunned turrets, the use of obsolete 4.7-inch guns to provide illumination is not that bad an idea, as it would allow the secondary armament to continue to be used against surface targets.