Fixing the Italian Military, 1933~1945 (1 Viewer)

[Shortround6]

The basic but very fundamental problem for Italy is that it's industrial base truly sucked. It doesn't matter which company did what or who was in bed with who.

Italy's two best years of steel production were 1940 and 1941 with 2.1 million metric tons. Things dropped a bit in 1942 to 1.9 million metric tons. Hungary was producing about 0.7-0.8
million metric tons from 1940-44. Japan hit 8.0 in 1942 and higher in 43 then things started crashing. Canada hit 2.5 Metric tons in 1941 and bounced around in the high 2s for the rest of the war.
So basically Italy was trying to play world power with an economic power a bit under 3 times that of Hungary and less than Canada.

Italy could have done better, but it wasn't going change much in long run and it would require some major cuts from somewhere (like the Navy) if you want a stronger army.

Italy was dependent on German coal for much of it's power and/or steel making.

The Italians did need better tanks, not SP guns trying to act as tanks.
Even if you stuff a longer gun into the Semovente da 75/18 you still have a very flawed vehicle.
Compared to a Stug III you have one less crewman so the commander is acting as the gunner which means we are contending with all the problems of a 2 man turret, except we don't have a turret. We also have rather limited ammo (44 rounds for the short gun) and the machine gun is mounted on the roof. The mounting limits effective range and if you have a crewman playing machine gunner you aren't firing the main gun.
Until you get the 75 mm L/34 gun mounted in the thing the anti-tank capability is rather limited.
Shape charge projectiles help with penetration but you have to hit before you can worry about penetration. Low velocity shells have limited effective range due to the curve trajectory.
You also need a new engine. You don't need 30mph but 19-20mph is not enough.
SP guns can make good support vehicles but trying to use them as tanks can lead to disasters. SP guns are better at defense than offence.

 

[yulzari]

A large factor contributing to the inadequacy of Italy's artillery was due to them basing their ground strategy off the mountainous terrain the country was surrounded by. This mountain-based thinking bled into tank design, weapon design, artillery design and so on.
However I think the biggest problem is something I alluded to earlier in the thread - Fiat-Ansaldo held an iron grip monopoly on weapon / vehicle design. If Italy wants to ramp up production numbers, that monopoly cannot stand.
My suggestion would be divert heavier artillery piece design and manufacturing to OTO given that they already had extensive experience building weapons of similar classes for ships. Then increase the presence of Lancia and SPA (possibly Breda as well?) in regards to the heavier military trucks and prime movers in order to ease the strain on Fiat.
I'm unsure on where to expand tank design and production however, as the only options that come to mind (Isotta-Fraschini, Piaggio, Alfa Romeo) would already be burdened with other tasks.

The mountain issue was a very reasonable one in terms of defence against an attack with the most likely land threat being from across the Alps etc. and allowed a focus to make best use of resources to protect Italy. However the army was actually used to invade outside metropolitan Italy which needed a totally different focus. Essentially the Italian army was designed to contain and repulse an attack across the Alps etc. from Austria, France or Yugoslavia. All backed up by the experience of the Great War which was fought across exactly that sort of terrain.

 

[swampyankee]

I guess that lightning some fire under the corporate seats of the big companies might've produced some results. OTOH, Italian government seems like being in the hot bed with the rich industrial 'caste', so to speak, so that attempt on improving the things might've been a long shot.

As for the tanks/AFVs - I'd again suggest that focus is on the Semoventes, rather than on the flimsy tanks. Neither the 37 nor 47mm gun was that good in either AP category, nor as the HE throwers, so a 75mm gun that does 500+ m/s and has a 6.5kg HE shell is a major upgrade. Accept the fact that the gun traverse is as limited as it is and start making these. The gun will also do well with the HEAT shell, once available.
Get the better design (more powerful gun, better armor, better engine etc.) in the pipeline once the design and testing of the 1st generation is done.

As for the lighter tanks/AFVs, I'd try to have a SP AA vehicle, armed with the 20mm gun (again, not the 1st time suggestion). Crew of 3, engine next to the driver, two men in the turret, at least 75 deg elevation. Splinter- and bullet-proof armor. As with all SP AA guns, these can be used in ground combat.

AB-41 was a good, if not a great light armored car, more of these will be very useful. Here the 20mm gun with high elevation would've also been useful.

Army will also need the bigger light AA guns, Breda has the 37mm for the navy, so piggy-back on these. Great if these can be part of the SP AA system (on a 'medium' tank), but also as towed or on the bed of the trucks.

"Being in the hot bed with the rich industrial 'caste'" was a tenet of the fascist government. <snark>I'm sure the opportunities for graft and corruption had were completely irrelevant</snark>.

While a lot of the equipment of the Italian Army was somewhat sub-par, and the AFVs were actively bad, I think the army's worst problem was training, likely complicated by the relative differences in educational infrastructure, wealth, nutrition, and even language between north and south. Many of the "dialects" of Italian aren't mutually intelligible, with the standard Italian being based on the dialect used in Florence and frequently acquired as a second language, a process complicated by the poor educational in the rural areas, especially, but not only, in the south.

 

[tomo pauk]

The Italians did need better tanks, not SP guns trying to act as tanks.

Italians seem to have produced 100+710+750 plus 80 to 290(?) of their 'medium' tanks, for the total of ~ 1740 to ~1950, including the 1st tank type that was actually a bad SP gun, and the tanks produced under German control. They also produced 60+(162 to 300) +173+11+200, for the total of ~500 to ~660 of the 'StuG minus', the last number is for the 105mm armed ones.
(numbers from Italian Wikipedia)

Applying the zero sum math, would it be better for the Italians to keep the tanks as is, or to make another ~1800 od 'Stug minus' instead of their mediums, or to make 1300 of the better tanks? How should the better tank looked like? Is the industry capable of making the tanks comparable to the Pz-IIIN in 1939? Suitable engines and transmissions for a 20 ton tank?
Perhaps making the "Italian Valentine" would've been the most realistic approach - it will take the 6pdr to kill these? Or a 'big Valentine', a 20 ton design with a good armor and a 75mm gun?
Or perhaps a real Stug-III equivalent?

Even if you stuff a longer gun into the Semovente da 75/18 you still have a very flawed vehicle.
Compared to a Stug III you have one less crewman so the commander is acting as the gunner which means we are contending with all the problems of a 2 man turret, except we don't have a turret. We also have rather limited ammo (44 rounds for the short gun) and the machine gun is mounted on the roof. The mounting limits effective range and if you have a crewman playing machine gunner you aren't firing the main gun.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Italians can have a tank/AFV the industry can make, that is reliable, has a good firepower and half-decent protection. Neither the industry nor the budget can give them the same amount of 20 ton all-singing-all-dancing tanks as they gave them the 'mediums'.
Semovente gives them the protected, decent firepower, something their tanks were not capable of. One HE shell from the 75mm is equivalent of perhaps 3 47mm shells, and the AP shot might harm even the Matilda or Valentine, unlike the 47mm cannons Italians had.

Until you get the 75 mm L/34 gun mounted in the thing the anti-tank capability is rather limited.
Shape charge projectiles help with penetration but you have to hit before you can worry about penetration. Low velocity shells have limited effective range due to the curve trajectory.

Germans were managing to hit the moving targets with a 385 m/s weapon. Italians will be fine, even with the 75/18.
Making a Semovente with a more potent 75mm gun is a far easier job than up-gunning the Italian tank with that gun.

You also need a new engine. You don't need 30mph but 19-20mph is not enough.

And now imagine the engine required for a 20+ ton tank.

SP guns can make good support vehicles but trying to use them as tanks can lead to disasters. SP guns are better at defense than offence.

Using the lousy tanks in offense was also a bad idea. These tanks were also bad in defense.

 

[Shortround6]

The Italians sometimes could not decide on what they wanted and the Ethiopian war and Spanish civil war sucked up a lot of money and manufacturing effort.

For the first the requirement that lead to the 11/39 "tank" was issued in 1936 but the production order was not issued until mid 1938 and first production machines didn't show up until July 1939 and production was not as fast as planned for. The 11/39 was a stop gap as they worked on the 13/40.

In 1935 the Italians sent about 12 divisions to join the existing forces already in Eritrea and Somalia with artillery and other support equipment.
The Ethiopian war over lapped the start of the Spanish civil war and while they gave the Italians a lot of experience in some ways, some of it was wrong. Most of it was against forces with less/poorer equipment that the Italians had.
The Italians sent hundreds of artillery pieces to both countries, thousands of machine guns, and hundreds of the CV 33 tankettes, plus planes. What may be important here is not so much combat losses but operational losses/wear and tear. And the ammunition consumption. Italy sent a lot more "stuff" to Spain that Germany and spent a lot more money. $335 million compared to $215 million and the Germans got a lot more raw materials in payment. Spain didn't finish paying off the Italians until 1962 which was way to late to help out in WW II

Between the foreign adventures and building up the Italian fleet there wasn't a lot left for the Italian army at home or in Libya.
Although we can all agree that building over 2000 CV 33/35/38s was a major mistake. Several hundred were exported so exact number is hard to figure out.
Germany had been selling 37mm AT guns around the world like beer at a free pretzel festival (even Ethiopia had a dozen or so). Soviet tanks had 45mm guns in Spain in 1936-37 so thinking that armoring against 20mm guns was enough takes a lot of explaining.

From Wiki so................
"In total, Italy provided the Nationalists with 660 planes, 150 tanks, 800 artillery pieces, 10,000 machine guns, and 240,000 rifles. The Italian CTV would, at its peak, supply the Nationalists with 70,000 men"
"By the end of the conflict the Aviazione Legionaria had logged a total of 135,265 hours' flying time on 5,318 operations, dropping 11,524 tons of bombs and destroying 943 enemy air units and 224 ships."
The damage inflicted may be up to dispute but the Italians had spent a lot of money and materials on these two wars which had to affected Italy's ability upgrade in 1938-39.

But Mussolini does not appear to have looked at the profit and loss statements from these two wars before trying to double down on the war for profit strategy. While the invasion/takeover of Albania worked (just) Mussolini's attempt to get much profit from France in 1940 failed and the Italian attempts to take British territory (Egypt and British Somaliland) were also too much for the Italians to attempt. Perhaps if they had some of the stuff they had lost in late 1930s?

 

[Shortround6]

Germans were managing to hit the moving targets with a 385 m/s weapon. Italians will be fine, even with the 75/18.
Making a Semovente with a more potent 75mm gun is a far easier job than up-gunning the Italian tank with that gun.

Semovente gives them the protected, decent firepower, something their tanks were not capable of. One HE shell from the 75mm is equivalent of perhaps 3 47mm shells, and the AP shot might harm even the Matilda or Valentine, unlike the 47mm cannons Italians had.

The low velocity guns have a real problem with range, and the dessert offered a lot of long range possibilities (dust was a limiting factor at times).
British 2pdr at about 800m/s has about twice the point blank range as the low velocity gun. It is not so much the movement of the target but the amount you have to aim off (high) to get hits at long range.

Another problem is the Italian vehicles have a poor rate of fire/rate of engagement. It is not a tank to tank dual. It was company or battalion to company/battalion engagements.
Who is going to hit first (HV guns have an advantage), who it going to be able to correct fire (turn near misses into hits), here we have a conflict. British shoulder aim hurts but having a commander spotting the shots to correct the gunner vs the commander being the gunner helps. With a faster rate of fire the British tanks can be firing their 3rd or 4th shot when the Italians are firing the 2nd. British commanders can also be taking a few looks around to spot new targets/threats. Italian 3 man crews can't (depending on the driver spotting the enemy only works if he is not actually driving the tank.)
Both sides can kill each other given hits but the British with 3 man turrets are going to get more hits in a given period of time and the battle is going to increasing go their way.

Tanks have other missions that just killing enemy tanks. The machine gun/s in the tank were a very useful weapon against infantry, field guns, transport and some supply dumps.
Italian SP guns, as built, had some real problems. So did the German Stugs and many allied SP AT guns.

model

8mm M 38 gun on the model.
The MG was often stowed inside the vehicle to cut down on the dust/dirt screwing the gun up in travel.
The Pintle mount seriously affects usable range. Unless a 2nd crewman sticks his head and shoulders out the rate of fire is not great (truly lousy with the Breda M 30).
And again, if the commander is playing machine gunner he is not telling the driver where to go and his awareness of threats (AT gun off to the side) is limited.
The 8mm M 38 co-ax in the 13/40 turret is not great, but it is aimed using the main gun sight, it doesn't bounce around anywhere near as bad and the commander/gunner is much less likely to be shot at 200-300 yds by a rifleman laying in a ditch.

 

[yulzari]

Re the British shoulder elevation control. It was not, in itself, a disadvantage. As guns got larger and heavier it became impractical and abandoned but it worked fine until then and did allow fire on the move. Hardly a war winner and only possible in the brief window before guns grew too large (unless you can grow new bigger gunners….) but not a negative thing. The only negative was the need to have an internal mantlet to balance the gun. An analogue single axis gun stabiliser……

However, the thread is about the Italians not the British so I digress somewhat.

 

[yulzari]

Given the structure of the Italian army was focused upon defending/assaulting the Alps etc. the CV33 makes sense given the tiny tracks, roads and bridges in the battle area. They could reach places where medium tanks could not and saved the weight of a turret by being able to turn the vehicle to bring the target within the traverse of the machine guns. For the given task I would actually suggest they should make more, but as gun tractors bringing medium artillery forward and carrying ammunition in support.

What went wrong was using such a specialised army for a completely different role.

As far as the language issue is concerned; the French found this to be an issue in the 1870 war so used their centralised education system to force an understanding of a standard Isle de France French. The Austro Hungarians solution had been 'Army German' which was a limited key vocabulary German which was taught to all recruits. The Belgians found language an issue in 1914 with principally Walloon officers and Flemish troops. The Bavarian army in 1914 also had an issue whereby the aristocratic officers spoke French habitually whilst the rank and file spoke local German.

One thing that made the Italians able to function with different local languages was a certain degree of crossover between them and 'standard' Italian and also, by 1940, the influence of the film industry and radio gave almost all Italians the experience of hearing 'standard' Italian spoken in context. Much as film, media and the internet has spread a working understanding of English across much of the globe. To the extent that an educated Dutch, Dane or Swede for example can speak better English than many of the English. We should remember that one does not need to be fluent to be able to communicate and the combination of being able to speak bad 'standard' Italian together with the limited specific military vocabulary made most Italian soldiers able to communicate functionally with each other and their officers.

Accent is another matter. I recall my East Midlands TA Regiment at one time recruited it's efficient signallers from Corby whose transplanted Scottish miners accents made them unintelligible except to each other. I have always wondered what the NVA and GSFG signals intelligence folk thought they were hearing. Actually a bad security practice as it gave the unit a unique signals fingerprint.

 

[SaparotRob]

However, the thread is about the Italians not the British so I digress somewhat.

I may not agree with your digression but I will defend to the death your right to digressment.

 

[z42]

As for Italian tanks, the P26/40 looks at least potentially promising. Alas, too little too late.

 

[TM06]

As for Italian tanks, the P26/40 looks at least potentially promising. Alas, too little too late.

The final design of the P40 would've been a perfectly adequate, potentially even good tank in 1941. However there are some important wrinkles regarding the design of the tank.
When it was first being prototyped in 1940, it did not have sloped armour or the 75/34 gun - in fact the hull was almost exactly the same as the M13/40 and it was fitted with the woefully inadequate 75/18 gun. While the 75/18 worked well in the Semovente assault guns, ~50 mm of penetration at point blank with a mere 425 m/s muzzle velocity from its APCBC-HE shell was quite frankly horrible for a proper tank.
To compound this, there was a conflict between the designers and the military staff who both wanted different engines (petrol and diesel engines, respectfully) which delayed the tank's production until about 1942. It also didn't help that there were no engines in the 300 hp range and the design of one to reach that goal took far too long.
When they fitted an actually decent gun to the tank - the 75/32 - it was much better but still had the same outdated and terrible hull design. It was only when they received a captured T-34 did they improve it on that front. This second delay resulted in the tank being pushed back all the way to 1943, about two years out of date by then.

If the P40 is to do anything noteworthy during the war, the design needs to start much earlier than it did, and the engine problems need to be dealt with swiftly. Easiest solution for the latter is to modify some aircraft engines to use in armoured vehicles, similarly to how Rolls-Royce made the Meteor.

 

[Shortround6]

What is a bit damning for the Italian planners is that they had run into the Russian T-26 tanks with 45mm guns in the fall of 1936. The ship with the first 50 arrived in Cartagena on 12 October 1936. By the end of the civil war the Soviets had supplied 331 tanks of which 281 were T-26 tanks Most (all?) having 45mm guns. These guns had a MV of about 760m/s.
The adoption of the 37mm in the 11/39 and the low powered 47mm in the 13/40 puts the Italians 3-4 years behind in gun power. There is no technical reason that the Italians could not have built a higher powered 47mm gun in 1939-40. Or started experiments with old 47mm naval guns.
Now such guns would need larger fighting compartments or larger turrets which means larger/heavier hulls.
French tank development should have provided an incentive even if the exact thickness of armor or exact ballistics of the newer 37mm and 47mm guns were unknown (I have no idea of what the Italian intelligence service knew) but the Italian tanks were aimed at a rather low bar.

 

[TM06]

What is a bit damning for the Italian planners is that they had run into the Russian T-26 tanks with 45mm guns in the fall of 1936. The ship with the first 50 arrived in Cartagena on 12 October 1936. By the end of the civil war the Soviets had supplied 331 tanks of which 281 were T-26 tanks Most (all?) having 45mm guns. These guns had a MV of about 760m/s.
The adoption of the 37mm in the 11/39 and the low powered 47mm in the 13/40 puts the Italians 3-4 years behind in gun power. There is no technical reason that the Italians could not have built a higher powered 47mm gun in 1939-40. Or started experiments with old 47mm naval guns.
Now such guns would need larger fighting compartments or larger turrets which means larger/heavier hulls.
French tank development should have provided an incentive even if the exact thickness of armor or exact ballistics of the newer 37mm and 47mm guns were unknown (I have no idea of what the Italian intelligence service knew) but the Italian tanks were aimed at a rather low bar.

That's not exactly the fairest shake to the 47 mm. For its class it was quite decent, and the 47/40 was borderline exemplary.
However I do acquiesce that Italy was far too slow on their overall development of higher powered tank guns. The biggest offender being the 75/46, which was very good for its class and was ready in 1934, yet remained in pitifully low quantities throughout the conflict. Hedging their bets on the 75/46 and designing tanks around it earlier would open up way more options for actually capable tanks - perhaps something like the base P.43 with the 75/46 by 1940~1941 or so?

 

[Shortround6]

That's not exactly the fairest shake to the 47 mm. For its class it was quite decent, and the 47/40 was borderline exemplary.

No, the Italian (Austrian) 47mm gun was not a decent anti-tank/tank gun.
It might have been decent considering it's size/weight but since it was designed to come apart into 5 loads for mule (or man?) packing it had some constraints that other AT/tank guns did not have. Granted it had no shield but the whole thing was about 1/2 the weight of the Czech 47mm AT gun. However useful that may have been for the Italian army in general when you are designing 13-14 ton tracked vehicles maybe they should have gone for a more powerful gun and not grabbed the available mountain/infantry gun for ammo compatibility.

I will agree that the 47/40 was much better. I have my doubts about the how much stuff was the same. Perhaps some of our European members may know more. The 47/40 doesn't seem to have been used in a ground/towed mounting so pictures of the breech end of it are almost (?) non existent. But there is one on this page.

Cannone da 47/32 Modello 1935 - Tank Encyclopedia

The Cannone da 47/32 Modello 1935 was the main support/anti-tank cannon of the Italian Royal Army before and during Second World War.

tanks-encyclopedia.com

Which shows a longer breech block and a longer cradle.
I also have doubts about the actual performance of the 47/40.
The increase in cartridge size from 47×195mmR to 47×328mmR is substantial but Czech 47mm used a 47×405 mm R case and yet is supposed to have had lower velocity than the 47/40 and yet the Czech gun claims a much better armor penetration?
There may be some confusion as there was also an experimental 47/48 gun and some websites may have taken the velocity of the 47/48 and applied to the 47/40 gun?

 

[bf109xxl]

What is a bit damning for the Italian planners is that they had run into the Russian T-26 tanks with 45mm guns in the fall of 1936. The ship with the first 50 arrived in Cartagena on 12 October 1936. By the end of the civil war the Soviets had supplied 331 tanks of which 281 were T-26 tanks Most (all?) having 45mm guns. These guns had a MV of about 760m/s.

Just to remind: the 20K was a modification of the 37mm German Rheinmetall-Borsig AT gun produced since 1928 and purchased by the Soviets in 1929. The 20K gun suffered from many shortcomings, which were not eliminated until the end of its production. As AT gun the 3.7cm R-B was superior to the 45mm 20K.

 

[Elan Vital]

47/32 had a muzzle velocity of 630 m/s, somewhat below the 47 SA35 and Belgian FRC mle.31, so it's in the same class as the 600-ish 47 and 750-ish 37s.
47/40 did 755 m/s actually, so a little below the Czech 47.

1941-42 designs for 47/46 and 47/52 gave respectively 815 and 840 m/s which are superior to the Czech gun and the closest thing to the French HV 47.
Ansaldo also designed a boatload of different long 47mm guns in the 30's and as early as 1927. The 47/32 was very much a lowball.

The 37mm Vickers Terni in the M11 was very inefficient, even weaker than the French 37mm SA38 which was limited by the need to fit in the APX-R turret with no modifications to the turret. Yet Ansaldo had mooted a 37/44 with a muzzle velocity of 800 m/s for a 1932 design for a heavy tank for the USSR, along with a 76/21 which shot a 6kg projectile at 550 m/s. Both would have been acceptable for the 1930s.

It was recommended to give greater priority to the 75/32 which is in the same class as the 75mm M3 (630 m/s) in November 1940, but this was rejected.

Development of the M11 didn't start until 1936. M13 was officially requested in December 1937, but Ansaldo had been working on it on its own funds some time prior.
But overall if you look at their characteristics, they are in the same generation as the SOMUA S35, Vickers A9/A10 and LT vz.35. Their development really should have started no later than 1934-35 and production should have started no later than 1937.

Both OTO and Breda tried to get approval for an extra tank factory before and during the war. But Ansaldo-FIAT always managed to quash the competition.

 

[Shortround6]

Italy spent too much money on the Navy and on the overseas 'adventures'. Scaling back the Spanish involvement to even 90% would have saved 33 million dollars.
Italy's need for 4 Roma class battleships was rather questionable if the goal was to match the French Navy. The French had invested far less money/resources into their 5 old battleships than the Italians spent on the 4 Cavour/Doria's and the actual need for four 15in gun ships was questionable. Only building three 15in battleships might have freed up substantial resources in 1938-41.
The Italians had also spent a lot of money on light cruisers (6in) with 12 built from 1928 to the start of the war compared to Frances 11 from 1922 to 1938. The 4 French cruisers with 6.1 in guns were a bit short ranged (by about 3000 meters) and the Jeanne D'Arc was a combination cruiser/training ship with a max speed of 25kts. The Italian Capitani Romani class was also a questionable investment. 12 laid down in 1939, 8 launched in in 1940-42 and 3 completed in 1942/43 and one was scuttled incomplete by the Germans in 1943, salvaged and refitted/completed in 1951-55(?). Laying down only 6 Capitani Romani class in 1939 may have been a lot more realistic.
Italy's GDP was about 75% that of France in 1938. It was about 1/2 of Great Britain's. Problem here is that many of the British colonies actually contributed to the Commonwealth's military strength and manufacturing capability so GDP of the home country is a bit misleading.

The Italians could have done better, but there was only so much they could do. The Army was not given the money/attention to get it up to the needed level of fighting actual real world powers and not native tribesmen or small Balkan countries like Albania.

Italians rather failed in assessing their potential opponents (Britain and France) and were several years behind what the British were doing in armor for most of the 1930s. They were even further behind France.
British MK VI light tank was a powerhouse compared the Italian CV.35 so the Italians had about 4 years to come up with something better by 1939. British were also relying on the Boys AT rifle in the late 30s (too much?) but the CV.35 was an ideal target for the Boys ATR.
Italians had built a few CV.35s with 20mm ATRs or Breda 20mm cannon but not very many. The Italians took way too long to build even 3 man tanks with revolving turrets and 20mm/37mm guns. For most of 1940 the British tank battalions/regiments were about 1/2 MK VI light tanks. Not having a tank that could take them out even if not as good as an A9/A10 was a major failing.

Italian artillery was lacking. Skilled and brave can only go so far. Lack of modern guns and lack of good communications were major problems in landing shells were they needed to go. The vast majority of the Italian artillery park was stuff left over from WW I (or before) and tended to be short ranged and having limited traverse (slow to shift to out of arc targets).
Italians had some decent trucks, just not enough of them.

 

[bf109xxl]

Skilled and brave can only go so far.

The Soviet command estimated the resilience and skills of Italian units much lower than those of the Germans, and tried to strike precisely in those parts of the front where the Italians were defending, which, in particular, led to the successful surrounding of German troops (together with the Axis allies) in the Battle of Stalingrad. This estimation was probably due to the Italians' lack of war experience under conditions of harsh climate and extremely difficult logistics.

 

[Shortround6]

The Italians in the 1930s and WW II depended on a lot of pre WW I and WW I artillery, a lot captured.

Italians had acquired almost 2800 of these 10cm Austro-Hungarian Howitzers (captured or reparation's ) during/after WW I and these made up the bulk of the Italian field artillery. Around 1700 were still left in 1939?
8100-8400 meters range? and 6 degrees of traverse without shifting the gun/s. Ability to shift fire to cover neighboring units was limited even if the radio/field phone network permitted.
Number of rounds per gun available?
German 10.5 cm leFH 18 ranged to 10,675 m and had 56 degrees of traverse. Ability to shift fire, communications permitting was much much greater. Digging guns out of frozen ground and re-emplacing them was hard.
There was an assortment of German or Austrian designed 75mm field guns but a lot them were not in service in large numbers (much over 100 each) And Italy only built around 600 of the Obice da 75/18 modello 34 field guns. Which were nice but 75mm howitzers that could only range to 9560 meters were bit lacking in firepower.

There were some 105/14 of French design and Italian manufacture but the design dates to 1906 and had the same basic problems as the Austrian guns.

Italians showed great innovation (desperation?) in mounting guns on trucks for mobility.

Using 10cm howitzers as mobile AT guns shows a lot of both. Also shows lack of effective real AT guns.

German Allies were pretty much dependent on the German transport system (rail transport) of supplies in Russia.
Keeping the guns functioning in Russian winters was not easy.

 

[Shortround6]

Going through the Italian artillery listings makes for some dismal, depressing reading.
The Italian army in 1939 was pretty well set for going into combat in 1914 as far as artillery goes.
This was the 'standard' Italian 75mm field gun in WW II. A licensed version of the Krupp 1906.

Fitting solid rubber tires and pressed steel wheels to a pre- WW I gun does not make it a 1939 gun. Max range with gun the level (the museum example is slightly tilted) is about 6.8km. This is a combination of MV (502m/s) shell design and low max elevation. If the gun is elevated above 16-18 degrees the gun will strike the trail. Unless you redesign the carriage you stuck. (Box trail like British 25pdr?) and the other failing is the max traverse of 7 degrees total.
The Italians had more modern designs but their industrial base meant that the modern guns were only a fraction of the guns fielded during the war.
A Soviet 76mm F-22 field gun can cover over 36 times the amount of ground (area) without having the shift the gun(change emplacement) due the much greater range and traverse of 60 degrees.
A British 18pdr MK V of 1923 could cover about 16 times the area of the Italian gun so this was not anything really new. The British had about 10 years to adopt the split trail.

Italian failure to see the Vickers 6 ton tank as the way of the future was also a major problem.

Granted the British army didn't buy it either but a 7 ton tank with 3 men, two men in the turret, and small cannon and co-ax machine gun and sold to at least 6 countries even in the single turret version 3-4 years before the Italians built the M11/39?
Short 47mm used in these tanks.

Sometimes replaced by a high velocity 37mm in Finish tanks and the Polish Built 7TP (heavier) also used the Bofors 37mm gun.

Not asking for an Italian Sherman in 1939/40. Just something that shows they weren't doing a 3-4 year long nap.