Italian Forces and Industry in Early World War 2

---Copyright---

---Description---
The Italian soldiers are often blamed for their performance in World War 2, but usually nobody takes a close look at the state of the Italian Armed Forces in World War 2. This video takes a look at the Italian Army, Navy, Air Force and Industry in 1939 and especially 1940.

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---Sources---
--English Books--
Germany and the Second World War: Volume III: The Mediterranean, South-east Europe, and North Africa, 1939-1941

Buchner, Alex: The German Infantry Handbook 1939-1945

--Deutsche Bücher--

Schreiber, Gerhard: in Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Band 3

Buchner, Alex: Das Handbuch der deutschen Infanterie 1939-1945; Gliederung – Uniformen, Bewaffnung – Ausrüstung, Einsätze

--Websites & Links--

---Credits & Special Thanks---
The Counter-Design is heavily inspired by Black ICE Mod for the game Hearts of Iron 3 by Paradox Interactive

---Song----
Ethan Meixsell - Demilitarized Zone (the Irony :D)

[Reddsoldier]

Italy was basically doing the HOI equivalent of deploying divisions at the 20% minimum to make their army look bigger!

[TimeTraveller]

Evidently the quality of Italian armoured vehicles were so poor that once pierced by British ammunition, the tank metal melted, immediately. They were death traps. Anybody that says Italians were poor fighters have no idea what they are talking about. British historians have credited Italian WW2 soldiers as brave in almost all instances. And they fought fiercely when they could, when they couldn't there was the choice of execution on the spot, or surrender as a P.O.W. Yes, the British surrendered on a few instances too. And brave or not brave, a man fights when he can. When he can't there is the choice to be taken as P.O.W. There are laws in governance and protection of soldiers during battle.

[Badpak.]

They should have built more civilian factories.

[evilthemonkey]

Excellent video as always sir. My great-grandfather served in North Africa and he always had respect for the Italian soldiers he faced in the desert. He would say how impressed he was that they would continue to fight despite their lack of good kit (especially tanks and air cover). I think he would have liked this video, so I'll like it for him. Keep up the good work!

[sam-]

A great book to read about the Italian Divisions in the Eastern Front is called Sacrifice on the Steppe by Hope Hamilton. Really gives you an insight to how badly the Italians were supplied and also how many Germans treated them.They and the Romanians were very often looked at as mere cannon fodder by German High Command.

A very good example of Italian Bravey on the Eastern Front was the Battle of Nikolayevka.

[jacopomangini]

Some notes: the Regio Esercito had heavy artillery, but it was assigned to the army level, not to the single divisions, probably because of the state of the industry.
The Regia Marina was indeed the best branch of the armed forces; it lacked air cover, and the decision to build a carrier, which was brought up several times, even during the Sudetenland Crisis (1938!) was taken too late. The radar issue is very similar. Already in 1937-38 there were some prototypes of radars, but the budget was very low, until Matapan; at that point the Gufo radar was produced, but in too small numbers, and too late.
For the Regia Aereonautica, there were some brilliant machines, like the P.108, the Re.2005, the G.55 or the M.C.205, but Italy lacked the industrial capability. There was even a jet prototype, the so-called C.C.2. Apparently, we were good at producing prototypes, but we sucked at standardized mass production. :D

[StGene]

"Mussolini had a tendency for premature...declarations."
;)

[Anlushac]

Regia Marina had started on a carrier conversion but never finished it. The Aquila was converted from the liner Giuseppe Miraglia. Would have been about 28, 000 tons loaded, 772ft long and carried 52 aircraft. Aircraft depicted are usually Fiat G.50's or Macchi MC.200's.

Many WW2 Officers on both sides said the Italians fought very well WHEN LED BY CAPABLE OFFICERS AND NCO's. Duke Of Savoia in East Africa campaign to hold back Brits comes to mind. The Italian Folgore paratroopers who stayed and fought at El Alamein after Germans took their transport were praised for their skill and courage by the Commonwealth Officers who fought against them.

[TuesdayNightTaped]

This was REALLY interesting. Can you do one on Romania?? It probably doesn't show up in Hearts of Iron, but it would be interesting to see for the history.

[FrazzP]

My great grandfather was a officer in the Italian Army. He somehow managed not to get sent to the Eastern front, many of his close friends died there. He then, because he was a officer, got captured by the Germans and forced to march towards the Alps in the North to some camp i think. But then on the way the Italian partisans attacked the German convoy and saved him and my grandfather who was under a year old.

[TheRomanRuler]

You forgot that Italian tanks, tactics, doctorine and units were all designed to fight warfare in mountainous terrain of Italy, not in desert plains of Africa. Italy actually had really good mountain infantry and alpini (basically elite mountain infantry), and had war been fought in Alps of Austria like in WW1, Italians would have done a lot better. Also don`t forget Bersaglieri. Rommel said "German soldier has impressed the world. Italian Bersaglieri has impressed German soldier".
In general, Italian special units performed well. Worst performers in Italian armed forces were officers and commanders, who believed too much training might be harmful. It sound stupid, but to be fair, those officers had a point: if you train your men very hard to fight according to proper model, and it turns out that way you are fighting does not work, it can do more harm than good. And when you look at light infantry units of all armies of all times, they performed better when not drilled too hard, and letting them fight more flexibly without set pattern. And light infantry should be ideal for mountains of Italy.
And worst of all, Italians were bad at rotating their soldiers. British would not keep their units in front lines for more than 12 days, even on quiet periods, and then they god 4 days of complete rest. Italians on other hand, had to stay in front lines for months without relief. Some units actually had been in front lines for more than 24 months. In comparison, American and British experts believed maximum limit of physical and psychological resistance in battle, after which soldiers become exhausted and inefficient, was 200 days.
Italian mountain army found itself in middle of plains of African desert, badly trained, supplies, equipped, lead, Italians actually performed somewhat better than you would expect. Italian soldiers were actually generally willing to suffer worse conditions than most other soldiers of the war, but of course, they could not do so forever.
Fact that Italians performed horribly actually means that Italians performed far better than they should have been able to.

[carter]

The fact that an Italian infantry division had only around 600 NCO's is a testament to their armies poor performance overall in the second world war. At the end of the day though; there are no poor soldiers, only poor officers. Keep up the quality work dude! o>

[ottopike]

so it was Italy, not the Italians. it's so hard to get good information on this subject. thank you for your contribution to my brain.

[alessandropangia]

The problem with Cape Matapan isn't only attributable to radar, but also with the high incompetence of that moronic "Admiral" called Iachino. He knew he had messed up so bad that he spent the rest of his life writing books as to how he couldn't have possibly known of the presence of British big ships, when in reality Italy had intercepted and decrypted those messages. Also, his decision to rescue Pola and leave basically a squadron of cruisers to be slaughtered is something that would have deserved court martial. Everything else I absolutely agree, unfortunately I have lost family members because of that war and recalling Italian leaderships just makes me scream in anger, just think of Mussolini's statement: "Give me 1000 deaths and I'll sit at the peace conference".

[nattygsbord]

Italys warproduction also failed because Germany took most of the Axis valuable resources (such as Romanian oil) for their own consumption, and thus leaving little over for Italian consumption. One could say that Germany was a bit parasitical on Italian warproduction, rather than co-operating. More than 2 million italians worked as guest workers in German industry 1944-45. And when Italy gained some German resources, it was never gifts, but rather exchange under harsh terms from the Germans. Germany never gave italy any StuGs or so, because they prioritized their own needs first.

Italys warproduction was like you say a failure even from the start of the war, and lack of resources was their largest handicap. And not only that, Italian industry was non-existent in World War I, and Mussolini took the lesson and tried to build up an industry, but progress was slow and Italy was not really an industrialized country making ships, planes and automobiles, but instead it was a poor country with a textile industry.

Anyhow, the needs of war forced Italy to pool her resources into building her own industry as best as she could for the sake of victory. She lost the war, but she won the peace, because those investments made Italy come out of the war with a stronger industry than she had at the outbreak of the war. Many Italians had became trained into skilled industrial workers, and the loss of human lives in the war was light, especially in comparison with her losses in World War 1.
Most of the war damages was suffered in southern Italy, while most of the industry was in northern Italy, and Germany kept control over these areas and tried to expand warproduction there as best as they could.

[mijnkampvuur]

The Germans choice in allies turned out to be poor.
The Italian army was not exactly the yellow of the egg and Japan did not only fail to engage Russia in the east, but instead declared war on the Americans.
America entering the war, Russia only having to fight on 1 front and the offensive and defensive weakness of the Italians were game changers.

[theophrastusbombastus]

Thank you very much for covering Italian situation, history books never mention thing other than "the army was unprepared".

Also as I know it Mussolini entered the war so early in comparison to the readiness of italian forces because seeing the rapid defeat of the French trought that the victory was near and he needed some deaths to put on the negotiation table of the winners, quite the irony.
Thanks again for all the good work!

[waufo]

Excellent video. 50 years of reading military history has given me a good sense of the subject matter dealt with here and I think this is quite accurate. Great job.

[micheleagresti]

it's a great video and it perfectly reveals the key point of tragic Mussolini bet, bringing a totally unprepared country to war hoping war would have ended quickly and it would have stayed within Europe. Let me just amend the part I didn't actually liked, despite your reasoning at the end of the video I can't accept listening the word coward associated to Italian soldiers, the same soldiers sent into the Russian winter wearing cardboard boots, same soldiers who didn't step back in El Alamein overwhelmed by British artillery, with no water to drink, no ammunition, no fuel and no transportation. Regarding ww1 turning against the former allies, let me remind that alliance was a defensive pact, the moment war was initiated by Austrians and Germans, Italy was not bound to any alliance. The broken pact was rather the invasion of a neutral country, such as Belgium, by the Germans.

I read something in the comments below I do appreciated, a simple and great piece of truth: there is not such a thing as bad soldiers, there are only bad officers.

[GrosserHund]

First view, first comment, first like, heh.

This is actually also the first time I see any analysis on the Italian armed forces during WW2, thanks.