Italian Army

That doesn't fix their retarded cartridge loaded machine gun issues and shitty Carcano rounds though

>Operation Harpoon
>google 'operation harpoon' wanting to learn more
>results are all pics of fat chicks
genuinely laughed desu

I heard that in Eritrea they had such a massive shipment of gear and other stuff to prepare for war that they had to dump it in the sea.

You have to have high levels of trust to operate a military. Meds don't have that.

Didn't have enough time to prepare there military needed 4 years to do so. Then Germany declared war on Poland for being a dick, Mussolini was pretty much dragged into it so now you have a bunch of fags saying shit like >Italy bad at war XD. Yeah they could've been good who knows? They might even win in Africa.

>there
their*

I fucked up there not even gonna blame it on autocorrect

>They won some battles in North Africa and Russia, right?
Haha, oh boy.

What?

Good points made user.
I'm not an Itaboo by any means, but another key factor was leadership at the company grade.
Italy was thrust into a modern war against several neer-peer (and better) adversaries without the time to effectively train the smaller levels of the army; platoons, companies, etc. how to effectively win battles. Whatever experience was gained in Ethiopia was quickly pissed away by the massive casualties suffered during the invasions of France and Greece, leaving the replacements even more clueless.
By the time Italian troops were seeing action against Britain and Russia, almost all junior officers and NCOs with prior combat experience had been killed or invalided back to Italy- the end result being what people usually think about Italian combat performance.
Eventually there were hard lessons learned, and by the time of Operation Husky the Italian army was able to punch well above it's class, but the damage was done.

Meds?

Their incompetence is, I think, somewhat exaggerated. Italy's military leadership was often pretty corrupt and incompetent but sometimes things like the invasion of Greece were also stalled and hurt by factors like heavy rain and poor intel gathering, largely caused by them being overly ambitious. They produced some fine trucks and cars which the British would sometimes keep and even a few decent aircraft, which Italy didn't really have the industry to output a good number of. Italy suffered bad logistics and resupply like lacking ammo which bogged them down. Italy had some calvary success in Russia and launched successful long range bombing campaigns over Bahrain and Malta and their navy was reasonably formidable, it even forced the British to resupply Malta with submarines. They were not ready for the war at all and Mussolini was over ambitious but it's almost become a bit of an exaggerated joke about how badly they preformed.

Mediterranean
As in European taxonomic group, such as Alpine and Nords.

they were the first to utilize air raids in history
wwi italo-turkish war (invasion of libya)

Motivation was fine. Equipment was literally worse than the Japs.

It took them over 300k soldiers and poison gas sprayed from planes to wrestle down fucking Ethiopia. Should be all that you need to know.

Their perfomance in the Balkans was embarassing and they depended on Germans keeping the order in occupied lands. Many deserted and joined Balkan freedom fighters.

What?
They literally dominated in Yugoslavia and Albania, those were basically their best offensives of the war.

Yugoslavia was a German invasion with Italians piggybacked. Albania could've been arrested by the police. No feat here.

Could you elaborate on their small arm issues? What was with the cartridge system?

and with germany doing most of the work in yugoslavia, they took just 500 casaulties while the italians took over 3,000...

Most of the anti-partisan work was done by the italians, who remained in the balkans with some armoured division to keep things at bay, of course they're going to suffer more casualties.
Not to mention that they took control of the Tara bridge in no time and basically forced them to retreat.

In Albania they outnumbered Albanians by almost 3:1 and still had a couple hundred losses, shows their military quality

6.5 Carcano was not bad at all, and was a mistake to switch away.

>At Izbushensky they outnumbered italians by almost 3:1 and still had a couple thousand losses, shows their military quality.

wtf even against the worst country of ww2 the russians STILL lose tons of men

Breda had to lube cartridges before being chambered and was really a POS.

OTOH, the Carcano was not a bad rifle, the M38 was one of the best SMGs of the war, and the M1934 pistol was damn good too. Carcanos get shit on because of progressive rifling being cut down on sporter rifles after the war and wrong bore diameter by commercial ammo manufacturers which is why it has such a bad reputation in the States.

>russians dying like flies
>an argument
Kif, show them the medal I won.

I posted it just to show that that argument simply doesn't work.
There's too many things going behind a battle, numbers have no meaning.

>numbers have no meaning.
Neither do Italians in WW2

I'm sure Germany would've had fun trying to repel limies at sea as they were surrounded in a couple of weeks.

I wonder what you are trying here. Finding pride in your ancestors' deeds? Are you that identified with the country you happen to be born in that you have to find gems even in historical blunders?

Not really, considering I'm not even italian.
I wonder what you are trying here.
Can't you just accept that Italy wasn't completely useless during WW2 and at least helped Germany unlike their fellow jap comrades?

No, I can't. They were a burden

Could you at least explain how they were a burden?
Oh, right, the Afrika Corps.
As if Italy didn't send 250.000 italians on the eastern front, of which few returned.
Or maybe you were talking about the invasion of Greece?
Of course, that was completely useless, unlike Pearl harbour.

Their delusional Adua revenge tied down a lot of troops in a useless place.
They delayed Barbarossa with their incompetence.
They failed to control the Med Sea despite having a massive fleet.
They switched sides when things got rough.

>They delayed Barbarossa with their incompetence.
That's a myth, since Barbarossa was already delayed by 5 months because of the bad weather.
>They failed to control the Med Sea despite having a massive fleet.
Except they did.
>They switched sides when things got rough.
An armistice was signed, followed by a civil war and italian soldiers fighting with german soldiers and producing weapons for them.

OMG we have different opinions! REEEE

This is not about opinions, rather history.
If you want to "discuss" opinions, maybe you should go back to /pol/.
I'm sure they'll welcome you into their circlejerk as they scream about aryan superiority, jewish corruption and liberal boogeyman.

You certainly are projecting a lot of things into my posts. Where do you get anything about jews or racial superiority? Could it be you who cannot in2 differentiation?

You certainly are afflicted by a lack of reading comprehension, as they were all referred to /pol/, a place I'm sure you'll fit in quite nicely judging from your consideration of historical debates as a clash of opinions.

> a place I'm sure you'll fit in quite nicely
Yeah, the question was, where do you get that from my posts.

>judging from your consideration of historical debates as a clash of opinions.
You lack reading comprehension alright.

Did the Italian army use any special helmet-cover on the eastern front?
The M33 and SSh-39/40 have pretty much an identical shape, surely that must have caused a lot of blue-on-blue incidents.

>you should go back to /pol/.
>referred to /pol/, a place I'm sure you'll fit in quite nicely
That's what you wrote mate. Additionally to posting Italian propaganda pictures. Could it be that you're the one fitting there? All I did was taking down your silly ideas of Italy playing a heroic role in WW2. They sucked badly.

They were easy to tell apart because the Italian would be nearly dead from cold in his shitty fake wool uniform

>OMG we have different opinions! REEEE
Does your attention span last only five minutes or what?
As I've already stated, history is not about opinions, it's about facts.
And again
>All I did was taking down your silly ideas of Italy playing a heroic role in WW2.
Those are not ideas, that's history.
Something you'd learn from reading books rather than talking out of your ass and calling the falsities you spew "opinions".

Truth is a matter of perspective.

I'm sure you're one of those guys that keep saying "history is written by the victors" everytime you get called out on your bullshit.

Is that Italian tank being attacked by Italian soldiers with grenades and bottles of olive oil?

What's the bullshit though? You posted one cavalry charge as evidence additionaly to claiming Yugoslavia was an Italian operation, the rest is just opinion.
Italy's fleet sat mostly in ports. Didn't even take Malta, couldn't keep the supplies running, signed an armistice and went into civil war. Where are the great accomplishments you're insinuating? The whole war was an unjust ginormous shitfest, where is your motive of arguing for Italy's military accomplishments?

It's a simulation for anti-tank grenades.

>You posted one cavalry charge as evidence
>I posted it just to show that that argument simply doesn't work.
>additionaly to claiming Yugoslavia was an Italian operation
?
>Where are the great accomplishments you're insinuating?
What accomplishments did I insinuate?
I just corrected you on your incorrect "opinions".

Do I confuse you with OP?

why did you quote me?

It was mean for , sorry.

It's training to make up for the lack of anti-tank guns

No answer, apparently I don't. So much for the insinuating

I did not answer because I didn't want to drag out this fruitless discussion that only accomplished to ruin yet another thread.
No, I'm not OP.

I agree. Thanks for posting a valuable contribution.

From what I’ve gathered their soldiers fought well enough, especially light forces like the Bersaglieri. Their main problem was a lack of decent junior grade officers and a disastrous lack of NCOs, along with supply issues

>numbers have no meaning.

Just like R*ssian lives.

They had cool uniforms, fuck the spaghetti haters

...

...

Yeah. I am not sure if it was Veeky Forums or /pol/ meme.
I bet on /pol/ as Veeky Forums is into 'no' homo and thicc.

Also check orkposting.
Another good laugh.

I'm sure that gave them solace when they were freezing their arse off in that imitation wool

>They won some battles in North Africa and Russia, right?
Yes. Examples include:

>Battle of Petrikowka
>Capture of Stalino
>Capture of Gorlovka
>"Christmas Battle"
>Battle at Krasny Lutsch
>Charge of Izbushensky
>Action at Serafimovich Bridgehead
>First Defensive Battle of the Don
>Kasserine Pass
>Operation Agreement
>Raid on Alexandria
>Operation Harpoon
>Italian participation in the Atlantic
I recommend "Regio Esercito: The Italian Royal Army in Mussolini's Wars, 1935-1943" for a good summary.

One thing people need to realize about the Greco-Italian War was that the Germans were able to sweep in and capture hundreds of thousands of POWs so easily because the bulk of the troops who would actually fight were in the Epirus Army. The 200,000-300,000 reservists in the rest of Greece and along the Thracian border had less than 100 artillery pieces between them and chronic shortages of basic things like rifle ammunition and uniforms. The British correctly guessed that those units would not be able to mobilize and provide effectively zero resistance. And even the Epirus Army itself, having suffered some 100,000 casualties, was an exhausted force by that point. It had less than a month's worth of artillery ammunition left.

are you such an asshole you have to demean a nation of people who gave their best against overwhelming odds? (not him btw)

you just showed with this post you're a complete buffoon who should fucking leave

>Kasserine Pass
The Germans won that one.

Honestly. The Turin offensive started out well, but then they ran out of supplies, and Britain reorganized.
Mussolini sent an army to assist the Germans in Russia, but Germany basically all the work on the eastern front

>How good was Italy's army in WWII?

Shit in both world wars honestly, should have been natural in both and kept their colonies.

The italian army's failures can all be attributed to Mussolini, honestly.
Figures such as Italo Balbo, the fascist air minster, had been advocating for less, but equipped with the most advanced and highly trained in amphibious operations, divisions rather than the 72 binary divisions (which were closer in size to a british brigade or a german regiment than an actual division) which Mussolini pushed for.
He thought he would shock the world with his "eight milliong bayonets", but we all know how it ended.
All that wasted manpower could've gone to the industry instead, while having a small, but very efficient, infantry.
Then there was Stefano Di Simone's "Guerra di Rapido Corso", or fast-paced war.
Stefano Di Simone was an artillgery general, before being assigned to the first armoured division in 1930, and ending up with the second armoured division after the first had been split to be sent to Spain.
He had observed very closely the situation of the armored forces during the spanish civil war, and had come up with a flawless construction of the armored divisions quite similiar to that of Guderian.
But, again, because of the inexperience of the industry at producing motorized vehicles, a lack of interest from the population with a consequent failure by Mussolini to improve the industry and ready it up for an industrial war, and conscripted generals that had fought during the great war and showed to be completely inadequate and refused to follow Di Simone's strategies, it failed.
Finally, there was Mussolini's ignorance in warfare, overconfidence and lack of trust for his subordinates, which is something shared between Mussolini and Hitler, and lead to the army being costantly overextended, always on the defensive and completely lacking the resources to put up a fight.

>but equipped with the most advanced
I meant: "but equipped with the most advanced weapons"

What do you guys think about the tankettes? Any combat value?

you want to give me examples of Italy punching above it's class? I'm not familiar.

The tankettes fared well against ethiopians, but that's it.
They were easy to produce and extremely cheap, which lead to the army having too many of them and slowing down development for further AFVs as the CV33 had already taken up all the space.
It allowed Italy to sustain fully armored divisions and train tankers while also giving experience to the industry.
Later verssions were also exported to some countries such as Brazil.
Many versions were made, some equipped with 20mm solothurn AT rifles by the soldiers on the front to take down lightly armored AFVs and others equipped with flamethrowers, which enjoyed some success against ethiopians.
Their biggest issue was a lack of turret, so the M11/39 was made to fix that issue and was equipped with machineguns in a fully rotating turret and a 37/40 gun in the hull to destroy enemy fortifications.
The CV33 and CV35 would later see service in the balkans and Italy against partisans who didn't have many means to take them out.
Tankettes were destined to fail and didn't have any true combat value during the war, but they gave way to IFVs and some very important ones were made such as the british "universal carrier".

11.01.1941 Italian Air Force disables HMS Ilustrious, allowing the safe arrival of the Afrika Korps.
24.01.1941 BCS fight the first sucessfull action against a British armoured force near Derna.
25.01.1941 Bersaglieri fight a sucessfull delaying action near Derna.
27.01.1941 Bersaglieri mount a very strong counterattack on the Australians, buying much valuable time.
??.04.1941 Ariete captures Msus
08.04.1941 Ariete captures Mechili. Bersaglieri capture 3,000 Allied troops.
01.05.1941 Ariete & Brescia capture overrun 7 Australian strongpoints ( R2, R3, R4, R5, R6, R7 and R8) outside Tobruk
04.05.1941 Australians counterattack but the Trento, Pavia & Ariete defeat the attacks.
17.05.1941 Brescia penetrates the sectors of the Australian 2/9th and 2/10th Battalions, forcing the Australians to abandon the S8, S9 and S10 strongpoints.
24.05.1941 Brescia defeats an attacking infantry force, supported by tanks.
02.08.1941 Bersaglieri defeat the 2/43rd and 2/28th Battalions, in a final Australian attempt to recover the lost strongpoints.
15.05.1941 Bersaglieri anti-tank gunners derail the British offensive, known as Operation Brevity. A German Colonel later praised the Bersaglieri anti-tank gunners, saying they defended Halfaya Pass "...with lionlike courage until the last man against stronger enemy forces. The greatest part of them died faithful to the flag."
Mid-June 1941 Italian anti-tank gunners under Major Leopoldo Pardi destroy several British tanks, derailing Operation Battleaxe in the process.
27.05.1941 Ariete overruns the British-officered 3rd Indian Brigade.
29.05.1941 Ariete successfully defends the Afrika Korps rearguard
30.05.1941 Trieste successfully delivers food and provision to the Afrika Korps preventing their entire capitulation.
05.06.1941 Ariete again successfully defends the Afrika Korps rearguard
26.08.1941 Italian troops repell several Russian attacks on the Don front.

27.10.1941 Italians repell strong Russian attack in the Donets Basin, capturing several hundred.
10.11.1941 Italians defeat a Russian attempt to cross the Don River.
19.11.1941 Ariete blunts British offensive named Operation Crusader. 40 Crusader tanks are knocked out.
19.11.1941 Pavia repell column of British tanks in the area of El Adem. British forced to retreat.
20.11.1941 Bologna infantry and anti-tank gunners derail advance of the British 7th Armoured Brigade.
21.11.1941 Bologna defenders of the 'Tugun' strongpoint derail the advance of the British 70th Division
22.11.1941 'Tugun' defenders successfully defend their postion again.
23.11.1941 Pavia defeats British attempt to smash through the Bologna
25.11.1941 The Trento successfully defends the 'Bondi' strongpoint outside Tobruk.
26.11.1941 Bersaglieri defeat renewed British attempt to smash through the Bologna
29.11.1941 Ariete overruns the 21st New Zealand Battalion.
29.11.1941 Bersaglieri capture 1,800 Allied wounded, medical staff & guards. 200 German POWs are freed.
01.12.1941 Trento defeats an armoured attack outside Tobruk
01.12.1941 Trieste cuts off the link the New Zealanders had established with the Tobruk defenders.
04.12.1941 Pavia and Trento recapture ‘Plonk and ‘Doc’ strongpoints outside Tobruk.
06.12.1941 Pavia makes a successful stand on Point 157
07.12.1941 Bologna covers the retreat of the German Afrika Division
10.12.1941 Brescia covers the German retreat from Acroma Hill.
12.12.1941 Bologna, Brescia, Pavia, Trieste & Trento successfully hold the Gazala Line
13.12.1941 Trieste successfully defends Point 208
15.12.1941 Brescia, Pavia & Trento repell a stong Polish-New Zealand attack
15.12.1941 Ariete overruns The Buffs
12.06.1942 Trieste helps destroy the British 2nd & 4th Armoured Brigades by cornering them.

16.06.1942 Italians overrun & capture 6, 000 Allied troops outside Tobruk.
17.01.1942 Savona surrenders. It had defeated several Allied attacks. Rommel is very impressed.
11.07.1942 Bersaglieri overrun part of the Australian 2/48th Battalion.
14.07.1942 Colonel Angelozzi's 1st Battalion from the supposedly destroyed Sabratha recaptures Tel el Eisa from the Australians.
15.07.1942 Colonel Angelozzi's men defeat the Australian 2/23rd Battalion's attempt to recapture the position.
15.07.1942 Pavia & Brescia successfully defend their principal positions on Ruweisat Ridge. New Zealander battalion caught out on the open as a result and is captured with the arrival of German tanks.
17.07.1942 A battalion of the Trento overruns part of the Australian 2/32nd Battalion.
21.07.1942 Trieste & Brescia sucessfully defend their main positions on Ruweisat Ridge. Several hundred New Zealanders are captured thanks to their efforts, that allow German tanks to mount a counterattack.
27.07.1942 3rd Battalion of the 61st Trento Infantry Regiment derails the attack of the 2/28th Battalion.
27.07.1942 Armoured car squadron of the Brescia encircle and capture the Australian 2/28 Battalion
30.06.1942 Littorio surrounds Mersa Matruh & Bersaglieri capture 6,500 Allied soldiers.
01.07.1942 1,000 New Zealanders captured
??.09.1942 Bologna overruns defenders of Point 211 during the Battle of Alam el Halfa.
??.09.1942 Trieste, Brescia, Ariete & Littorio force British & New Zealanders to retreat several kilometres.
04.09.1942 Folgore defeat the 6th New Zealand Brigade & capture 200 attackers, including Brigadier G.M. Clifton.
14.09.1942 San Marco Marines defeat Allied seaborne landings aimed at recapturing Tobruk. 1,000 Allied killed, wounded or captured.
30.09.1942 Fogore defeat 131st Queens Brigade, over 300 British killed or captured.

24.10.1942 Ariete, Brescia & Folgore successfully hold the Alamein line.
25.10.1942 12th Bersaglieri overruns the Austalian 2/17th Battalion.
28.10.1942 Littorio overruns part of the British 133rd Brigade
29.10.1942 7th Bersaglieri derails the advance of the Austalian 26th Brigade and creates a salient in the Australian sector.
30.10.1942 7th Bersaglieri defeats several Australian attacks to force them out of this salient.
03.11.1942 Ariete successfully covers the retreat of Rommel
03.12.1943 Bersaglieri capture part of the British 2nd Parachute Battalion.
12.12.1942 Italian troops attack Russian battalions capturing prisoners a much equipment
18.02.1943. While the Germans fail taking Sbiba Pass, the 7th Bersaglieri smash the US lines at Kasserine Pass.
18.02.1943 Centauro Division overruns the US 19th Combat Engineers Regiment.
24.02.1943 5th Bersaglieri successfully covers the retreat of Rommel

I remember this thread. It's too bad this guy stretched so much. It could have been a better list.

What happens here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Compass

Nope. The Italians penetrated Kasserine Pass to flank the Allies after the Germans were repulsed at Sbiba Pass.

Why was it that the only Italian generals in both world wars who didn't suck were from the poor south, while the guys who screwed up everything from the north? You'd figure it would be the opposite given their relative levels of development.

You forgot.
11.11.1940 Italian Navy shoots down two British planes.

That's why Spanish tercios dominated Europe for almost two centuries.
>inb4 they wuz nordic n shieeet
Neck yourself.

The Breda models had this absolutely ridiculous system where it lubricated the rounds and dust or dirt getting into it (a major possibility in the desert) would completely fuck it, the Breda 30 had no sights on the barrel so when you changed barrel your accuracy is gone, the Breda 37 had the exact same issues with oil and dust and some fucking idiot thought a heavy machine gun should be fed in 20 round stripper clips which the spent casing were fed back into putting huge stress on the mechanism. Honestly I don't even know why Breda kept getting contracts

The problem was that 6.5 Carcano's manufacturing quality varied a lot. You could fall on a box of rounds that would fire cleanly and another where it could make your rifle blow up.