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Officer Casualties
During the war Italy lost 68 Generals, 84 colonels, 10 admirals, 30 naval captains, 11 air force generals, 22 air force colonels. “Surely the sacrifice of one’s life imposes respect, but it is not a measure of professional ability.” Prof Lucio Ceva
Evaluation
Rommel: “The Italian soldier is disciplined, sober, an excellent worker and an example to the Germans in preparing dug-in positions. If attacked he reacts well. He lacks, however, a spirit of attack, and above all, proper training. Many operations did not succeed solely because of a lack of coordination between artillery and heavy arms fire and the advance of the infantry. The lack of adequate means of supply and service, and the insufficient number of motor vehicles and tanks, is such that during some movements Italian sections arrived at their posts incomplete. Lack of means of transport and service in Italian units is such that especially in the bigger units, they cannot be maintained as a reserve and one cannot count on their quick intervention.”
Equipment
General
The unsuitability of much of the Italian equipment was caused by multiple reasons. Equipment must be designed to perform the function demanded of it by doctrine. When doctrine is changed, it only follows that some of the equipment will no longer be suitable. Equipment must be designed to perform in the environment envisioned. When operations are conducted in areas not planned for and prepared for, some of the equipment will not be suitable. National pride, and balance of payments frequently see nations adopt an inferior design just because it is designed and produced “at home.” There are some reports of corruption and collusion within the Italian “military-industrial complex.” The armed forces of every nation suffer these problems to some extent, but Italy lacked the economic and industrial foundation to effect timely changes.
To ease his balance of payment problems, Mussolini had sold off his newest aircraft and weapons to foreign buyers like Spain and Turkey while equipping his forces with field guns from 1918. The army had to borrow trucks from private firms just to hold peacetime parades of its motorized divisions. Italian troops were also short of antitank guns, antiaircraft gun ammunition, and radio sets. Artillery was light and ancient.
Small Arms
The Beretta pistol and sub machine gun were outstanding weapons, but the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, a rather indifferent model designed in 1881, suffered from low bullet velocity. Breda M1930 light machine guns were clumsy to operate and jammed easily. The war caught Italy in the process of changing from the 6.5mm to a 7.35mm round. They tried to revert to the older and more common round. The Model 35 “Red Devil” hand grenades had a cute trick of exploding in the hands of their users.
CREW SERVED WEAPONS
Machineguns
The Breda M1937 was strip fed and complicated to the extent that the empty brass was re-inserted into the strips. Ammunition was oiled. This attracted dust and caused malfunctions. Ammunition was 8mm, different from the LMG and rifle ammunition.
Mortars,br> Italy’s 45mm Brixia mortar might have been quite useful in WWI, but, like small mortars of some other nations, was not well suited to conditions that developed during the Second World War. The 81mm piece was an excellent weapon and was well suited for mountain warfare, but was claimed by Tyre to be of little use in the desert.
Antitank Guns
The war in Spain had proven the 47mm Bohler inadequate, but the elderly (1913) 65mm infantry gun, once the Alpini’s pack artillery, had worked and was praised for its lightweight as well as its ‘omnipresence’. No attempt was made to improve this situation because Italy was indeed barely able to equip all units with the obsolescent Bohler. Italian officers failed to appreciate the true seriousness because they thought that Spain was not reflective of full-scale warfare. They expected more heavy artillery, more chemical warfare, and more well prepared fixed defenses than Spain provided.
Tanks
Italy began rearming earlier than the other powers. Unfortunately for their armored force, this was during the time when tankettes were in vogue. The L/3 was very reliable, quite mobile, and, with over 2000 in inventory, in an abundance that precluded easy access to funds for newer weapons systems. The 3.5 ton vehicle was, sadly, an under protected, machine gun-armed tankette with little business on a WWII battlefield. The underpowered and thinly armored M11/39 suffered from the main gun’s being hull mounted because narrow Italian roads and railway tunnels would not permit a turret width sufficient to accept a gun. The heavyweight M13 packed a turret mounted 47mm gun, but crawled along at nine miles per hour.
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