Italian Troops

I can only agree with assesment that one of the major problems for Italy was economy. With addition to their economic problems one also has to consider that GCE (Spanish civil war) was a very costly affair for Italians who had very limited resources. If you compare help recived by Franco you will find that German continget was very small comapring to the Italian help sent. This is especcialy true for airplanes as Frankistas were operating mostly Italian planes. One of the contributing factors was also costly modernisation of italian army and especcialy their Regia aeronautica which came too soon as most of their planes were quite modern in the time of GCE but outdated at the beggining of WW2.
Their Industry was quite capable to produce good planes, weapons etc. but not in huge production numbers needed to wage a war. This is especcialy true for mechanised transport without which manouver warfare in desert is impossible. Thus Italian armed forces were definitly not ready to go to war. War itself was pushed by Mussolini who wanted to get a piece of victory pie as he wrongly concluded that war will be short. Italians as a nation still remembered the sloughter of Soča (Isonzo) front and incapability of their officer corps there.

Traning of the soldiers was also their weak point. Ussualy reservists were mobilised and sent into the combat with little in a way of additional traning, which affected morale of the troops. One has to admit that certain units did fight well ( Arditi, Barsaglieri, Folgore PD, various special units...).
Officer training was also a bit problematic. They did have number of capable officers but at higher C2 level they had a number of incompetents. IMHO main reason for that is prevailent thinking that they did win the WW1 and they did not change much in the way of command and control of the army.

 

Good analysis TISO.

 

Italians seemed to fight well after the armistice.

 

That was because they got better equipment.
Italians always fought very well. They fought as good and as tough like the Americans and British. Only thing is, their weapons were outdated and overclassed. That's why they couldn't win

 

The fascist republic of italy from 1943-45 fought extremely well. In some areas the allies couldn't dislodge them. They also used largely italian weapons.

 

Whilst I'm not too sure about the situation on the ground, AFAIK in the air the best equipment was largely in the North already where it was used by the Facists, whereas the south largely had the less capable types (Under lend-leased some better kit by their new allies). I believe after the armistice the majority of the more ideologically indoctrinated Facists made their way north too or were already there.

In any case, even the poorest troops can fight determinedly when dug in and on the defensive.

 

This is my first post on this forum, so I have some catching up to do. In answer to the original question about Italian troops, over the years I have interviewed over 900 former members of the DAK and not one of them had a bad word for enlisted Italian soldiers in Afrika, however, their opinion of Italian officers differerd somewhat.

MF

 

Welcome.

The Italian military suffered badly due to poor leadership along with a lack of good equipment.

Were Italian officers fascists personally or political appointtees? If so, that could explain part of the problem.

 

Company and Battalion officers were very good and they had a great deal of respect for their men. But above that nothing, even Rommel had a dislike for them. Very few had seen the front line and most of them did not want to anyway.

The Italian army that had invaded Libya in 1911 and which would later face the Western Desert Force in 1940 were no-where near the calibre of the Italian troops that fought with Rommel. Their half-hearted invasion of Egypt and final capture at Beda Fomm labelled all Italian troops the same, which in truth was very wrong.

Time and time again Italian gunners fought to the last man, and it was Italian troops that broke into the Tobruk perimeter during its capture from the British in 1942. and the Ariete Division were excellent despite thier weak armoured vehicles.

MF

 

Halfhearted invasion of Egypt was due mainly to lack of trucks and other mechanisation needed to operate in the desert. Sending infantry on foot without adequate supplies is simple idioticy.
On the other hand Italian troops in A.O.I. (Africa Orientale Italiana = Italian east africa = Ethiopia+ Italian Somaliland) fought well. At first their invasion of british Somaliland did couse trouble for the british as they had to retreat. Italian troops were completly cut off for entire duration of the campaign (they did recive very limited supplies trough air bridge) in latter half of the capaign without any air cover but did managed to fight until november 1941 which is basicly for 1,5 years. They gave a good account of themselves.

 

The fact that the Italian force vastly outnumbered the British (by 10:1 if I remember correctly) may have been a factor there.

 

That would include Italian AS ( Libiya) army. not just Italian troops in AOI. On the other hand British could rotate and ressupliy their troops at will Italians couldn't.

 

given the situation, i can't see how the italians could do any better. Their material was mostly inferiour against the british.

 

Not really. Their bombers were much better ( SM-79, SM-82, SM-84, Br-20M, Z-1007, P-108) fighters were comparable. Problem was it was not nearly enough of them around.

 

i was talking about their material on the ground

 

There is that. The Italian tanks were sadly outdated; even the best of them were obsolescent. They might have done better had they been fighting the Japanese, whose tanks were at least as bad, IMHO, if not worse.

 

however, their designs were good. the P-40 tank was planned to be build in 1940 but was delayed to 1943.
Imagine the Italians invading Egypt with P-40's. I doubt if operation Compass would be succesfull.

 

... or the Italians would have made a series of massive tactical blunders which would have led to the British acquiring a large number of very useful P-40s thus effectively ending the desert war.

What ifs are fun.

 

Yep. Given the massive command failures of the Italian generals in 1940, it's unlikely, IMHO, that the P-40 tanks would have been enough to save the Italians from defeat.