Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12
Artillery
The artillery was equipped with WWI Austrian field pieces refurbished in 1933. A modernization plan was delayed for 10 yrs due to new naval construction and foreign adventures and thus was not to be completed until 1950! This meant that Italy’s gunners faced opponents with greater range, greater mobility, and a greater rate of fire.
Motorcycles
The idea of motorized infantry being mounted on motorcycles was a legacy of the bicycles and motorcycles used successfully by the Bersaglieri in the First World War. This also meant that a very competent and highly respected light infantry force would evolve into a rather inefficient motorized infantry, but, the Bersaglieri on his motorcycle with his plume blowing in the wind was a powerful image to Italians, including that old Bersaglieri himself, Benito Mussolini. Attempts were made during the war to carry some of these troops in trucks, but the Italian automotive industry was not up to the task.
Bicycles
“The bicycle had arrived as a military item in the 1880’s and 1890’s… The Italians raised the use of the military bicycle to its highest level. The bicycle troops were essentially a mounted infantry unit without a requirement for forage. They could be used as couriers, scouts, or in other traditional cavalry roles. The Italians prided themselves on the speed with which Bersaglieri-cycilisti could maneuver. Bicycle troops became almost a culture in the late ‘30s and early 40’s. The bicycle, on the basis of Italy’s WWI record, was competing with armored vehicles as battlefield transportation.
Communications
Reliance was on the landline. Even commo wire was in short supply. No effort was made to put radios in tanks until 1942. Italian units lacked armored cars with radios to keep tabs on enemy units. Radio equipment available to corps, divisions, and higher would not function on the move, required a long set up time, and didn’t work at all under conditions of the Russian front. Signal communications were, unique among armies, a function of the engineer troops.
Conclusion
The Hope
The mechanization of Italy’s army was a goal determined before the war. Only two armies in Europe envisioned a role for armored corps-Germany and Italy. Italy therefore began the war ahead of most other nations in doctrine. Britain and France did not have the armored striking force that Italy possessed. Only one brigade of quasi-armored troops existed in the United States. Only Germany had a superior armored force, but the Italian Centauro armored division, used against Albania, beat the Germans by several months being the first armored division to be operationally employed.
The “Guerra di Rapido Corso” would have dared to attempt mechanized warfare in mountainous terrain. Celeri units were envisioned as flanking units and pursuit units. They were combined with motorized infantry and armored divisions making the breakthrough and with the alpine divisions covering the flanks, it was a novel, and a heady concept. It remains an untested concept.
The Reality
In the cold, hard world of economic and industrial capability, Italy’s inadequacies limited the possibilities. Italy lacked the essential raw materials and industrial base to be a major power. Her annual production of 2.4 million tons of steel, for example, paled when compared with Japan’s 5 million tons, Britain’s 13.4 million tons, and Germany’s 22.5 million tons.
Italy’s financial difficulties were made worse by Mussolini’s mismanagement. His adventures into Spain and Ethiopia had been a tremendous drain on the treasury. His formation of Fascist Militia did not pay good dividends. Blackshirt units did not perform well and siphoned away material that the exiting armed forces needed desperately.
Italian armed forces had some serious problems. They were poorly organized, equipped, led, and trained. They had been prepared for the wrong war. This was certainly not unique among nations, but Italy lacked the favorable geography and the industrial might of the nations that were able to overcome similar difficulties. Marshal Badoglio, in an audience with the king in Mar ’43 explained, “When a war is made on the explicit calculation that it will be short and if the preparations are for a lightning war, it is lost as soon as the opposite happens.”
“Italy entered the war with old generals, no heavy tanks, mechanically unreliable and uncomfortable medium tanks, a lack of motor vehicles and drivers for them, old artillery and preparations to fight a war in the Alps against the French or to invade Yugoslavia — not for a war in the desert or in Russia. Her Navy was built to face the French not the British, and had been told not to expect to resupply North Africa. One of the first tasks assigned to the Navy was to resupply North Africa! Her Air Force was too small and, geared to Douhet’s doctrine of gas attacks against cities, armed with too few bombers, protected by undergunned and low powered fighters.”
Sources:
A Perspective on Infantry
Mare Nostrum: The War in the Mediterranean
Hitler’s Italian Allies: Royal Armed Forces, Fascist Regime, and the War of 1940-1943
Lippman, David H., Desert Dawn
On the Effectiveness of Military Institutions: Historical Case Studies from World War I, The Interwar Period and World War II. Volume 3
Ogorkiewitz, Richard, Armour
Solitario, Lupo Information from the internet
Mussolini’s Soldiers
U.S. Army, TM 30-420, Handbook of Italian Military Forces
Article by W. W. Turnbow
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12
Loading ...
Recent Comments
(2 days ago)
(3 weeks ago)
(8 weeks ago)