Fixing the Italian Military, 1933~1945

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Let's not brush to the side that Soviets have had a massive military (and other) industry to support the war, a lot of fuel, warehouses of war material full to the brim, and they were fighting a defensive war so the support of most of the Soviet citizens to the war was there.
Soviet tanks, aircraft, artillery and machine guns in 1941 were in the ballpark with what the Germans (or British) had, while Italian military hardware was mostly obsolete, while the modern pieces were available in handfuls.

Thank you for the excerpts.
Now onto them. I'd have anything that author is smoking, and presto. Throwing praises on the 'modern' army than defeated the tribesmen that fought with smattering of 19th and early 20th century weapons is very, very rich. Success in Spain had a lot to do with having Germans on their side and Italians burning their war chest, while the support to the Republicans vanned. See how the Italians gained next to nothing in May-June 1940 against the French.
That 'new and revolutionary' doctrine of combined arms was developed before Christ, where chariots and cavalry were doing what the tanks were doing in 20th century. If we want to focus on 20th century, it were at least Soviets and Germans that gotten that 1st, not Italians.

There is no doubt that Italians might've done their initial attack in a different fashion. There is also no doubt that M.11 was not a medium tank, but a light self-propelled vehicle, against whom even the Boys 0.55in AT rifle is a threat, let alone the 2pdr. Number of the tanks produced was pitiful.

History Learner said:
Surely one key factor was the Italian Army's deficiency in the areas of the army leadership, training level of the different organizations, leadership of the organizations, unit cohesion, logistics, and armored vehicles.
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'Surely one key factor', and then the author proceeds to count 6 (six) of them. Give me a break.
 
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A few nit picks
tomo pauk said:
Soviet tanks, aircraft, artillery and machine guns in 1941 were in the ballpark with what the Germans (or British) had, while Italian military hardware was mostly obsolete, while the modern pieces were available in handfuls.
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Soviet DP28 machine gun was not great is some ways but it was around 1/2 way between the German/British LMG and the Breda 30. From Wiki on the DP-1928.
The barrel itself is quick-detachable, partially covered by a protective shroud, and equipped with a conical removable flash hider (early models lacked both a flash hider and threading for it). The barrel was prone to overheating during intensive fire: due to its thin walls, it would heat up quickly (especially in later models where ribbed radiators were omitted for simplicity), and thus short bursts were necessary to prevent disabling the gun (combat rate of fire was up to 80 rounds per minute). Replacing the barrel during combat was difficult—it required a special wrench to remove the lock and protect the hands from burns
OK, a barrel is either quick detachable or it is not. You also need a least one spare barrel traveling with the gun (one reason for the assistant gunner). Even the Breda 30 didn't need a wrench and a glove/cloth to change the barrel. The handle may have been poor but it was there. The DP1928 may have had a user changeable barrel (didn't need armorer or workship) but it was not quick-detachable (change barrel in a fire fight).
The modern Italian artillery was not available in handfuls. You could balance modern available artillery on the thumbnail of your little finger.
tomo pauk said:
There is also no doubt that M.11 was not a medium tank, but a light self-propelled vehicle, against whom even the Boys 0.55in AT rifle is a threat, let alone the 2pdr. Number of the tanks produced was pitiful.
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True, a 12 ton "tank" with a 3 man crew is only a medium if you think the L3/35 of 3.2-3.5 tons is a light tank and not self propelled limited traverse machinegun.
I am agreeing with your characterization of the M.11 as light self-propelled vehicle.
Total production was 100 including 4 prototypes so the word "pitiful" is appropriate. Granted you can recover/repair broken down tanks when advancing but the number of M/11s available in any given day during an advance is going to be way less than 90 something.
As a combat vehicle it is a disaster. Looks good on parades though.
If the commander (guy in the turret) is firing the pair of machine guns (24 round magazines) he is not tell the drive where to go or telling the gunner where to shoot the 37mm gun.
It was supposed have a radio but Wiki says none were fitted(?) which is sort of problem for leading an armored advance. One wonders who was supposed to operate the radio?
The 37mm gunner? He can't fire the gun effectively while moving (only 15 degree traverse each way) so that would give him something to do while traveling or waiting to shoot?
It just has a lot of problems to actually use in combat so even 90 such vehicles are worth less than an equal number of British cruiser tanks.
The M/11 only looks good if you are attacking the British 6 ton light tanks and the British don't have any towed AT guns around.

maybe Marshal Graziani wasn't as dumb as he is made out to be. His "armored fist" is made of tin foil and armed with a tack hammer. British "armored fist" Matildas aside, is made of soup cans with large tack hammers. Most of the British tanks have radios.
the British have more trucks, not enough, but enough without stripping garrison units (which might become the reserve).
 

Agreed, that's why I specifically noted it in the full paragraph.


The Italians did most of the heavy lifting in Spain, from transporting most of Franco's forces around to contributing more forces into the battlefields than the Germans did. The Author's specific point is that Italy's experiences had allowed it to forge a modern combined arms doctrine which could've been used effectively. It wasn't, for a variety of reasons as he notes later; whether the Germans or the Soviets got it first is kind of irrelevant in that context. Japan was the first to deploy a Carrier Division in 1940, for example.


Well, when it comes down to it, it's a matter of what you have vs what your opponent has as well as how you use it. Plenty of examples of this at play in WWII. Case in point was how AFVs worked on the Eastern Front in 1941-1942 or the air war in the Pacific at the same time. If the Italians had effectively instituted their doctrine, even relatively poor AFVs can be used to achieve strategic results as part of a wider plan.

tomo pauk said:
'Surely one key factor', and then the author proceeds to count 6 (six) of them. Give me a break.
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I think his point is that it was collectively an issue from a variety of places.
 
History Learner said:
The Italians did most of the heavy lifting in Spain, from transporting most of Franco's forces around to contributing more forces into the battlefields than the Germans did.
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Agreed 100%.

History Learner said:
The Author's specific point is that Italy's experiences had allowed it to forge a modern combined arms doctrine which could've been used effectively.
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Here I disagree with him.

History Learner said:
It wasn't, for a variety of reasons as he notes later; whether the Germans or the Soviets got it first is kind of irrelevant in that context.
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I agree that Italians did try it with the 'mass attack', that failed. They would've probably done it better if they employed the best of their forces, and if most of their tanks had radios. Better enough to throw the British to Alexnadria - I'd say no.
That Germans or Soviets gotten the modern combined arms doctrine 1st is important when someone declares that 'the Italian Army developed a new and revolutionary doctrine of combined arms warfare in 1938'.

Agreed again.

History Learner said:
If the Italians had effectively instituted their doctrine, even relatively poor AFVs can be used to achieve strategic results as part of a wider plan.
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Seems like the Italian AFVs lacked firepower, protection, numbers for the required task, and radios. Expecting from such the force, even if deployed under a modern doctrine, to achieve strategic results against a peer opponent, will require heavily rose-tinted glasses, IMO.
 
History Learner said:
If the Italians had effectively instituted their doctrine, even relatively poor AFVs can be used to achieve strategic results as part of a wider plan.
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Perhaps in a "what if" scenario with somewhat different actual equipment.
Unfortunately in a historical scenario the Italians cannot effectively institute their doctrine due to lack of command and control.
They don't have the radios needed. In the tanks, in many of artillery units and even in some of the aircraft.

Maybe Marshal Graziani had a better idea of what he had for radios and other communications than the author does.

The British have got a lot more radios than the Ethiopian army did and more than the Spanish had. Not saying that the British couldn't or wouldn't make mistakes but the British abilities to use command and control of their forces is a lot better than anybody the Italians had faced. As far as some of the forces that would potentially be involved, In Sept 1940 the British had about 85 cruiser tanks (but about 15 were under going repair) with some assorted Light tanks and armored cars. The Italians had only what ever M11/39 "tanks" out of the 96 built and 72 deployed to Libya, the other 24 had been sent to Eat Africa and there was no way to get them back.

This is not looking good. 72 M11/39s with no radios against 85 British cruisers with radios with each side operating at reduced strength due to mechanical problems.
As a general rule of thumb the attacker needs 3 times the force of the defenders. I am not seeing it an mobile combined force doctrine needs good communications which the Italians do not have.
 

The mass attack doctrine was their old one, not the new one. In 1940, Egypt was pretty poorly defended and the Commonwealth was outnumbered; their success was less that of quality British performance but instead the Italians losing. Mussolini in the Summer of 1940 had went from seeking to mediate a deal to suddenly deciding to jump into the conflict, which left his commanders flat footed in organizing a plan of action into context. This exacerbated existing issues in Libya, in that there was already a degree of disorganization from the military reforms ongoing and then further hindered by the recent command changes caused by Balbo's death.

I think the PoD here would be for Balbo to live, mitigating command changes in Libya and perhaps slowing down Mussolini's impulsive decision to join the war to give the Italians time to prepare. The latter was especially critical and was a major factor in Marshal Graziani's decision making, as defaulting to the old doctrine was about the only realistic choice given the time constraints.

tomo pauk said:
That Germans or Soviets gotten the modern combined arms doctrine 1st is important when someone declares that 'the Italian Army developed a new and revolutionary doctrine of combined arms warfare in 1938'.
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It makes sense in the context of the paper, in that his point is that it was revolutionary for Italy.


In the context of WWII, we see this happen repeatedly even late into the conflict. The RSI, for a specifically Italian example, was able to launch a successful offense in December of 1944 under far worse circumstances. I would argue Desert Command in 1940 is a much weaker opponent than the U.S. Army of late 1944.
 
History Learner said:
The mass attack doctrine was their old one, not the new one.
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Yes.

History Learner said:
In 1940, Egypt was pretty poorly defended and the Commonwealth was outnumbered; their success was less that of quality British performance but instead the Italians losing.
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CW forces were indeed outnumbered when we account for all of the Italian units. But since we want quality and not quantity, that is a flawed math. As noted by SR6 above, number of tanks was in the ballpark for the opposing forces.
Let's not under-sell the British forces - they overcame a more numerous opponent, and in the enemy territory, too, once the initial Italian push was contained..

That's all good.
What that plan does not solve is the problem of the obsolete Italian equipment, and wishful thinking that British will be dealt with ease.

What date do you suggest as the appropriate for the Italians to enter the war (assume on the German side)?

History Learner said:
It makes sense in the context of the paper, in that his point is that it was revolutionary for Italy.
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In the paper, it is worded in the absolute terms, not just for Italy.


Just because Italians managed to snatch a tactical victory in 1944 does not mean that they will comfortably make a strategic victory in 1940.
 
tomo pauk said:
a lot of fuel
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The Soviets had a high-octane gasoline crisis before the war. It was more or less overcome only thanks to Lend-Lease deliveries, but even with the huge amounts of gasoline supplied, there was not enough to train pilots practically throughout the war. Pilots who trained new recruits at aviation schools grimly joked, "Here's a ton of gasoline - that should be enough to train one air fighter." The Soviet oil refining industry was very weak and did not allow efficient use even of the available natural resources.
The technological backwardness and weakness of many industries led to shortages of many industrial products in the USSR - for example, aluminum, but the list would be quite long. It is a myth that the Soviets had unlimited resources taking into account how difficult they were to access.
 
tomo pauk said:
CW forces were indeed outnumbered when we account for all of the Italian units. But since we want quality and not quantity, that is a flawed math. As noted by SR6 above, number of tanks was in the ballpark for the opposing forces.
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Sure, hence this paper and the author's argument about the possibility of the Italians improving their quality. Given they already had the advantage in numbers, matching the British in total quality need not be achieved; you only have to narrow the gap sufficiently that their numbers can then make the difference. In this context, it's worth noting that Italian performance in 1940 was the outlier, not the rule. Most of Rommel's successes in North Africa were won on the back of the Italians, who compromised the majority of his forces and whom Allied commanders by the time of Tunisia (At the latest) considered equals of the Germans.

tomo pauk said:
Let's not under-sell the British forces - they overcame a more numerous opponent, and in the enemy territory, too, once the initial Italian push was contained..
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Yes, but with a lot of innate advantages artificially granted to achieve that. Point is I do think one can say the Italians lost in 1940 more than the British won it given everything I've already mentioned it.

tomo pauk said:
That's all good. What that plan does not solve is the problem of the obsolete Italian equipment, and wishful thinking that British will be dealt with ease.
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I don't see obsolete equipment as a barrier since that can be-and was repeatedly in the course of WWII-overcome with things like better training, morale, organization and tactics. The Western Allies used the Thatch Weave to overcome Japanese tech advantage in air power in the Pacific while the Germans devised efficient anti-tank tactics in the USSR in 1941-1942 to overcome their more capable AFVs like the T-34 and KV series.

As far as the British, if it's already conceded the Italians have a numbers advantage and the issues that affected their quality could be addressed (at least in part) I don't think it's out of bounds to say they could be dealt with relatively easy.

tomo pauk said:
What date do you suggest as the appropriate for the Italians to enter the war (assume on the German side)?
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In general? 1941 or 1942, giving time for the reforms to be completed or at least much closer to doing so while perhaps signing deals with the Germans to catch up on tech. Say, laborer agreements in exchange for licensing deals and demonstration models of German AFVs and planes.

For our purposes though? You don't really need a delay so much as Mussolini committing to a coherent course of action. Had September of 1939 to June of 1940 been spent preparing instead of lurching from course to course the commanders could've had a well rounded plan prepared and the forces organized to implement it. Instead, you had such a ramshackle entrance that something like a third of the Italian merchant marine was lost in the opening days of the war because it was in Allied ports or interned by neutrals.

tomo pauk said:
In the paper, it is worded in the absolute terms, not just for Italy.
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I can see why in the abstract you can get that but in the paper itself I don't get that impression.

tomo pauk said:
Just because Italians managed to snatch a tactical victory in 1944 does not mean that they will comfortably make a strategic victory in 1940.
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In of itself, no, but it does show under much worse conditions than existed in 1940 the Italians could achieve results with the point being their performance is not set in stone.
 
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Unlike the Soviets, the Italians (as you mention) could have remained out of the war until they'd finished modernizing. Ideally, by the end of 1942, Mussolini would see the German offensive in the USSR being halted and ground to dust, Japan's Kido Butai wiped out at Midway, and the industrial and military might of the USA becoming apparent to all. Under these circumstances, hopefully Il Duce decides, screw this, I'm pulling a Franco. By 1944, a neutral Italy will have four Littorio class battleships, a modern Air Force (perhaps without licensed DB inlines) and updates to the army. What would happen to the older aircraft and ships like the Cavours and Dorias? The latter two classes of battleships were modernized, but remain hopefully outclassed.
 
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I don't think it can be taken as a given that the war will play out the same way without the Italians in, particularly on things like Midway which was definitely contingent on events that had happened in the six months proceeding it rather than pre-determined. Case in point, without Taranto as an inspiration and with the Royal Navy a greater concern for the Japanese due to the lack of a Mediterranean Theater, it's extremely likely the Japanese scupper Pearl Harbor in favor of a reinforced pushed in the Southwest Pacific. Per War Plan Orange, the U.S. Navy planned to go on a death ride into the Central Pacific which would, at best, lose them their carriers and at worst get the Pacific Fleet destroyed.
 
Comparing the Italian success in Dec 1944 on a very small scale to say the Italians could have managed a large scale operation the the summer/fall of 1940 is quite a stretch.
1. Pushing 9000 men about 25km max in 1-2 days is quite different than advancing 1-2 Divisions (even small ones) the roughly 400km from Sidi Barrani to Alexandra.
2. The Battle of Garfagnana didn't involve any armor on the Italian/German side so claims of combine arms tactics/doctrine are a bit lacking. It was an Infantry/artillery attack. Well executed by a combined Italian/German force of special units to be sure but combining mountain troops and Italian marines is not usually considered combined ops.
3. Aside from some limited information on the main tanks in 1940 other information is lacking on both the real 1944 battle and the hypothetical 1940 battle/campaign.
Comparing numbers of artillery pieces is a start but a crude one. The gun tubes are just the delivery system. The shells are the actual weapons and numbers of shells and weight is actually important. In mobile battles the ability to move guns, keep them supplied and keep them connected to the "net" are crucial. Often over looked 99% of the time in histories of battles.
4. even without constant fighting just the logistics needed (food, fuel, water) to move several divisions 400km is staggering. Even a small motorized division could use up 60-80 tons a day without firing a shot and that is on road/s.
5. Italian communications were not good in 1940. Nobody else was where they would be in 1942 and later so we have to be careful. But entire tank or tankette battalions with 4 tanks with radios out of 46 vehicles shows a real command problem. I don't know what the Battalion commander had to connect to higher command. A lot of 1940 tank radios had ranges of 3 -10km so forget calling in artillery fire. You need a special vehicle with a special radio.
6. As noted earlier, the Italians (and others) could write about combined arms or armored sweeps/thrusts all they wanted. Without better radios and command vehicles it was all theory.


Germans built about 180-190 of these, mostly new, not conversion for command vehicles and some were later used as forward artillery observation vehicles.
Germans in France started with 64 PZ III command vehicles with dummy cannon, a single machine gun (self-defense) and the turret bolted in place to make room for the extra radios, map boards and other command "stuff" (clip boards and paper work). Germans built/ modified over 400 more Pz IIIs with a single machine gun as command tanks after France and around 235 command tanks with 50mm guns (but no co-ax machine gun) and a lot less ammo. The Pz III command tanks were often used in units that had PZ IV gun tanks.
This was the importance that the Germans placed on communications and command. Germans also had a lot vehicles that were used as forward observers for artillery.
"You cannot just talk the talk, you have to walk the walk" as they say.
You can try to fake it by using radio trucks but that only goes so far.
 
Admiral Beez said:
The latter two classes of battleships were modernized, but remain hopefully outclassed.
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Those two classes had more money spent on them and were closer to more modern ships than any of the old ones including the Post Pearl Harbor rebuilds of some of the American battleships. (Americans did a lot but they didn't increase the speed of the old ships). The old Italian ships are hard to classify. They can out run (by a few knots) any of the QEs and they could outrange them in theory although there shells were much lighter. They should be well ahead of any of the Rs or any of the old French battleships. Against the Dunkerque's they were slower but the guns were almost equal except the Italians had 10 guns instead of 8. A lot depends on fire control, armor and luck.
 
The best time for Italy to join the war? Late 1941, then join the Allies . Sometime during the Battle of Moscow, Germany couldn't win, and with the Mediterranean an Allied lake, the British logistic situation is far easier.

After
 
History Learner said:
I don't think it can be taken as a given that the war will play out the same way….Case in point, without Taranto as an inspiration
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There's a tendency among armchair historians, thankfully in decline to posit that the Japanese can't come up with their own ideas. The notion that the A6M had to be a copy of a western design comes to mind. Postwar this thinking applied to Japanese made consumer products and vehicles. Anyway, the IJN's Kido Butai had the best naval strike and fighter aircraft afloat operating from a half dozen fast fleet carriers. If the US decided to move its Pacific Fleet to Pearl Harbor and maintain it at half readiness in full view of Japanese intel ops, I am rather sure that Yamamoto or someone else in the IJN will independently arrive at the notion that we could and should use our carriers to conduct a first strike (including sorting out low depth torpedoes), per history.
 
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swampyankee said:
The best time for Italy to join the war? Late 1941, then join the Allies . Sometime during the Battle of Moscow, Germany couldn't win, and with the Mediterranean an Allied lake, the British logistic situation is far easier.
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And once Mussolini sees fit to shun Hitler (or more likely Ill Duce is replaced) Italy could have made millions $ supplying food and kit to the Brits, and once the US enters the war the market potential is massive. And this presents the best scenario for seeing an improved Italian military. Put the Cavours and Dorias into mothballs, get all four Littiorio class into service, but most importantly update the army to secure your northern border with Austria, Yugoslavia and France, as the Wehrmacht may be sent to invade Italy before the Allies arrive.
 
I like the two rebuilds, and the level of upgrades in speed and armament is ahead of everyone else. But with limited manpower I'd move their operating budgets and crews to the four Littorios asap.
 
Admiral Beez said:
but most importantly update the army to secure your northern border with Austria, Yugoslavia and France, as the Wehrmacht may be sent to invade Italy before the Allies arrive.
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Admiral Beez said:
I like the two rebuilds, and the level of upgrades in speed and armament is ahead of everyone else. But with limited manpower I'd move their operating budgets and crews to the four Littorios asap.
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These are cross purposes.
If Italy does not go to war with Britain and France it has no need for the Littorios unless anybody thinks the German Navy can defeat the Royal Navy, most of the French Navy and force it's way past Gibraltar into Med to attack Italy. A lot depends on timing but the last 2 Littorios are a dead weight to the Italian military's effort.

Admiral Beez said:
And once Mussolini sees fit to shun Hitler (or more likely Ill Duce is replaced) Italy could have made millions $ supplying food and kit to the Brits, and once the US enters the war the market potential is massive
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Italy might be a better source for suppling aid to Russia with the British and Americans paying for it. A lot depends on Turkey allowing passage but Italy though Suez to Terhan seems do-able. Italy and the Soviets had a decent if not good relation ship though the 1930s with the Italians providing a lot of technical assistance to the Soviet navy for ship design and fire control. Italy may have had problems sourcing raw materials but Italy iron and steel production was about 1/40 US iron and steel production. While the US market was huge, shipping much of anything from Italy to the US and then back to war zone was too much of a burden on shipping. What could Italy make that the US could not make for it self?
 

It is worthy of note that Japan had a habit of starting wars with a surprise attack, most notably the Russo-Japanese war of 1904/05 when they attacked Port Arthur before they actually declared war.

In 1927 Japan's naval staff college wargamed an attack on Pearl Harbor with two carriers, one of which was lost. At that time the IJN only had Hosho & Akagi, with Kaga completing in 1928. Later that year Lt Cdr Kusaka Ryunosuke, later as a Rear Admiral to serve as Chief of Staff of the PH attack force, presented lectures on an aerial attack on PH. In 1928 Yamamato Isoroku, then a captain, gave a lecture at the Naval Torpedo School and said "In operations against America, we must take positive actions such as an invasion of Hawaii." Further studies in 1936 by the Naval Staff College produced an analysis which suggested that Japan should open the war with a surprise attack on PH.

Honolulu had been designated a "Naval Station" in Nov 1899 and its defences began to be built up. 1919 saw a USN decision to turn PH into a first class base for fleet units. That triggered a new phase of defence works that continued through into WW2. It was a hub for USN exercises interwar, but it was only in April 1940 that FDR ordered the Pacific Fleet to be forward based at PH to act as a deterrent against Japan.
 
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