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(history) WTF ITALY.

Raghar

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I tried Italy in HoI2 and the result was...
1. I killed French fleet without significant loses all BB survived, French Richelieu survived as well, but French fleet stopped to play any factor.
2. I lost 5 battleships in first year.
3. I lost tree TAC squadrons in first year.
4. I lost all NAV squadrons in fist year somehow I looked away just for one month... And they were gone.
5. I managed somehow make ONE tank division by extremely careful allocation of tinny Italian industry. I lost it. I managed to make it again. I lost it. I managed to make one again. I lost it.
6. I lost 3 carriers.
7. I lost 4 CAS squadrons.
8. Then US and UK tried to strat bomb Italy, and I had 40, or was it only 38, industrial capacity. That means bye bye research teams, was one of that research 86 percent?

After UK and France barricaded themselves in Alexandria, I managed to split my transports, one transport attacked Tel Aviv, rest of the transports empty moved back, in case someone would attack invading force and kill all transports. I would be without ANY transport capacity. ... AI attacked these transports that were going back empty. This meant I managed to capture Tel Aviv second time (first time AI had motorized brigade nearby and while CAS thought they would kill it motorized brigade managed fast night attack and captured airport thus destroyed all 4 CAS squadron), and after reinforcing it by that one surviving transport, I managed to conquer Suez.

In year 42 I finally spared enough IC to manage to build more than 40 divisions. And in 45, I got my first TAC (after these I lost in early years of war). With more than 40 divisions I finally had enough to push into Iraq and I managed to capture Baku and bit force Russians to relieve pressure on Germans, then I found Germans are lacking oil, and I send them 1000 from my reserves. That refreshed Germans and they started to do offensive yet again. (I had three divisions on Russian front to help Germans, and two furious fighter squadrons that did theirs best to fight against Russians...)
In 44-45 Italy started to have more infantry divisions than Finland, which was an accomplishment. Of course US poured into Africa 30 divisions, but luckily they stopped after they captured Tunis and started sending strats against Italy.

I consider incredible that I was still alive in year 46. Considering playing Italy is like being raped into rectum by a metal object. (Actually it's called rectoscope and it's rather painless examination.)

First part of war went amazing I destroyed French fleet, and Japan was able to CONQUER Hawaii. Of course Japan lost it in second year of it's war with US, but in 45 they destroyed US 3-5 carriers in single month.
Middle of war went BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD.
End of war looks much better, as long as US will not git gut and swarm US with numerous tank divisions and nukes. Well, Giblartar is still UK in year 46. And Malta has still one UK tank division garissoning it. And 30+ US divisions are near Tunis which still can cause problems, but it looks they don't think they can take on fortifications in Alexandria, or be able to conquer Suez back.




So question is why was real world Italy so BAD, and why a game as Italy is so hellish?
 

Raghar

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Sure it's legit question.

Even HoI4 Italy is quite hard to win (especially when Germany coup Hitler and go democratic). There must be some real world reason why Italy was so bad... Something reasonable. In theory Italy should be easier than Greece, it isn't.
 

Dayyālu

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So, the age-old question of why Italy sucked in WW2. The question must be approched properly, because the reasons where many and interlocked.

First of all, there is a huge tradition of mostly anglo-saxon propaganda that has to be reconsidered: the Italian fighting man was on the level of most soldiers in the conflict, and when in a proper situation with proper support managed to push his weight. Italians weren't worse at war than the Rumenians, the Greeks or even the British (early war), if we consider the individual soldiers. It's simply that the single soldier was put into the shittiest situation.

Let's start with the basics: Italy was a poor country, only barely industrialized. Even Germany wasn't well-industrialized compared to the US or even the Union: Italy was an agricultural country with no natural resources , ferociously dependant on foreign import for most of the needs of modern industrialization and with a population that was mostly illiterate. Recruits with technical aptitude were rare. This means that Italian weaponry was more expensive, slower to produce and often of inferior quality if compared to others. But we'll discuss the equipment later.

One thing that the backwardness of Italian society worsened was a clear social divide between the ranks. Italy has never been good in being "unified", and it has been even worse at being a coherent Nation State. There was, and there still is, a ferocious sense of local belonging amongst most Italians: and the Italian officers had in most cases nothing but contempt for the "country bumpkins" that were in the ranks. Italian officers developed into a system that richly rewarded "office warriors", meaning Italy had a shitton of administrative officers and lacked trained field officers and NCOs, and the reserve dumped people unfit for service. This meant that for the field officers you had people that lacked training, grit and sense of responsability: and the higher ranks were mostly promoted out of family connections or political support. Furthermore, they were a different social class: Italian officers enjoyed the perks of their rank, had different food and lodgings, and that caused negative morale consequences for the rank-and-file. R&R instead for the common ranks was atrocious (some men in North Africa or in the Balkans fought for three years straight with no relief or pauses). In short, Italian officers were badly trained bourgeoisie that often lacked the loyalty of their own men if not for military discipline, a thing harshly enforced. Furthermore, Italian society, despite twenty years of Fascism, utterly lacked the motivation for "total war" and openly despised the Germans: OVRA reports are an amusing read as the common view of the German Ally was terrible. Admired for their technical prowess, considered brutal barbarians in all other regards. With such allies...

Wait, you can ask, how the heck Mussolini in TWENTY YEARS failed to build enough support for a good war and for his regime? The thing is two-fold: first, the Fascist Regime had the support of the population in a very.... Italian way, so as long as the population got enough gibsmedat everything was good. When that failed to keep up only the True Believers stuck with the Duce, a stunning minority. Second, the Fascist Regime was outwardly powerful: in reality, Mussolini had a stunning amount of problems caused by opposing powers inside Italy: the King himself, the Church, the industrial powers, his own party organization.... the propaganda painted the Duce as an all-powerful figure, but in reality you had this schizophrenic situation where everyone technically followed Mussolini but at the same time the real power of the Fascist State was limited. Lemme explain with an example: tank production. Italian tanks were shit. FIAT-ANSALDO , the main industrial conglomerate that built Italian tanks, managed for more than 15 years to keep an iron grip on Italian tank production sinking all opposition, be it Czechs, other italian designers or even German models: the Italian leadership knew that the product was shit, but "nothing could be done" as you could not directly oppose FIAT-ANSALDO because if you bought other tanks then FIAT would have closed their factories and you would have gotten strikes and a loss of popularity that Mussolini could ill-afford. Yes, i'm literally telling you that the fascist State bought shitty weapons because it was hostage of corporate interests. Same applies with the Navy and the Air Force, with a bunch of hilarious examples of subpar prototypes or corruption scandals.

It's weird, but ... Mussolini was the main power everyone referred to (the biggest strategical mistakes he did single-handedly) but at the same time his power to really influence the Italian society was incredibly limited, propaganda boasts aside. Furthermore, the fascist party had never managed to do a proper "revolution" despite claims: until 1943 and the RSI, Fascism pretty much protected the old elites, worsening the traditional italian problems of backwardness, corruption and nepotism. Scientific research and weapon development were secondary to political and family considerations: for example, Italy threw out a shitton of bomber prototypes, most of them clearly unviable, just to give chances for embezzlement. You can say that all countries had such things (the "feudal" industrial system of Nazi Germany or even the initial crony corruption inside the SU) but the problem in Italy was so common that it actively fucked up weapon design and production.

Furthermore, Italy lacked resources or stockpiles for a modern war. Italy in 1940 had already burned considerable resources into colonial expeditions (Ethiopia) or in the Spanish Civil War, with thousands of trucks and hundreds of artillery pieces sent to fight campaigns that had little impact for Italy itself. The commercial blockade that the Allied powers forced on Italy started strangling the war economy almost immediately, and the Fascist State was ill-organized: they failed to plan for such a blockade, and if someone planned he wasn't heard because no one wanted to tell Mussolini the bad news. This takes us to another peculiar thing: Mussolini had a lot of limits, but in the end everyone deferred to him for the ultimate decisions, and Mussolini utterly lacked a trained cabinet, being surrounded by self-serving sycophants that inevitably failed to tell him the truth of the situation.

So, for the basics, you had a poor country with no resources , shitty allies, and a schizophrenic political system. That can't go wrong, no?

If we want to 'sperg on equipment, the Italian Army had hilarious problems with their equipment. Their logistics were a mess, meaning the troops were often underfed, under-equipped and under-supplied: not particularly their fault though, as the ammunition needs of italian weapons were a mess, with five to nine different calibers employed by a stunning array of borderline-functional weapons (the infamous Breda 30 LMG or the Brixia mortars). Grain loads for the guns could not be trusted (as the ammo factories had shitty checks), meaning that the already underpowered Carcano rifles had unrealiable performance. Sure, Italy had some great guns, like the MAB SMG, but this takes us to another of the basic problems of the Italian industry: it was underdeveloped. Let's take the MAB. It's a great SMG, sure, if we compare it to a PPs-43 or something. I am going from memory here, so the true data is probably different: a single MAB required more than forty hours of work done by a skilled artisan, while you could equip a squad with the same man-hours for PPs SMGs: Italian production was badly organized and tragically slow, meaning that even good designs could not be produced in numbers or replaced fast enough (case in point, the Royal Air Force). And often you had shitty designs that were kept into production for political or "Whatever we don't have anything else" reasons.

Tanks were developed by a single guy. I am not joking. All the Italian tanks were developed by a single man in a single office at the FIAT-ANSALDO, and whatever he made got okayed because reasons, fuck performance. Sum that with subpar tech and you had those beautiful riveted tankettes with the worst engines you can think of. Sure, Italian doctrine didn't focus on tanks much (it was commonly believed that the war would have been fought like in WW1, mountain front) but they were still crap.

Navy was borderline adequate (good training, some good units) but the command (SUPERMARINA) was scared of everything and lived under a costant psychological inferiority against the British. Think of..... I dunnow, Navy depression: "We can't win we can't even try if we try we're gonna lose" and thus they lost or did atrocious mistakes or suffered hilarious reversals like Taranto. The only bright spot for the Italian Navy were the frogmen, but that's a desperation weapon.

The Air force would require several paragraphs, so whatever. Let us say that it wasn't terrible, but it lacked staying power, Italian training wasn't adequate, and the Italian machines were often horribly under-armed. Go play War Thunder or something, and check how many machineguns the Italians get. Two at best, and with shitty fire rates and ammo loads. And the Italian air industry could not replace combat losses.

Do you know that Italy had an equivalent of the SS? The MVSN "Milizie Volontarie per la Sicurezza Nazionale", or commonly known as the "Camice Nere". Most of them had horrible equipment, terrible logistics, and were composed of old men that performed horribly under fire. There was a reason Hitler purged the SA as "unreliable", but Mussolini could not afford such things, so he got the shit-tier of political military units. Some of 'em weren't bad (youth units in particular) but pearls before swine.

And at last, the strategical problems. See, now we have a poor country with bad industry. What we are going to do, focus on a few theatres were we can leverage our limited strength?

No, we're Fascist Italy, we're going to send troops randomly around in Africa, in the Balkans and in Russia in a desperate attempt to ape the Germans to mantain internal support and international legitimacy. And thus you get from waging a parallel war (Greece and Africa) to be a subordinate of the Germans (Africa and the Balkans) to be a slave of the Germans (Russia, Italy, RSI). Because you sent your troops into situations they could only lose, and thus you start a negative spiral of self-crippling choices and political disasters. Italy in WW2 is the direct opposite of the concept of "concentration of forces": it was literally "dispersion of forces" at its best.

Now I'm fucking tired and I've sperged enough on the subject. If you have specific questions, go wild, if I can I'll reply. All typos and mistakes are mine.
 

Dayyālu

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Who are the worse, italians or french
discuss

The Italians.

In regards to logistics, equipment, efficiency, industrial potential and most importantly colonial possessions France wins. Demographically they are pretty even, around 40 millions each, but France enjoys a productive colonial empire and full access to the main global trade routes. Italy has jack shit.

French industry and logistics are superior to the Italian ones, pretty much every single piece of French equipment was superior, the French Navy would have floored the Italian one with British support, etc. etc.

The Italian attack against French fortifications in the Alps was an abject failure, but the campaign by itself was too short to prove anything.

I'd never understand why France is considered so badly: yeah, it lost against Germany, but everyone did bar the Soviets. And the Soviets managed only thanks sheer brutality and trading space for time. Hell, French troops performed better than the BEF, and in WW1 France was the top-dog in the Entente, providing leadership, equipment and managing to have the best K\D ration of all the Entente armies (roughly 1:1 with the Krauts, a record!).
 

laclongquan

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I'd never understand why France is considered so badly: yeah, it lost against Germany, but everyone did bar the Soviets. And the Soviets managed only thanks sheer brutality and trading space for time. Hell, French troops performed better than the BEF, and in WW1 France was the top-dog in the Entente, providing leadership, equipment and managing to have the best K\D ration of all the Entente armies (roughly 1:1 with the Krauts, a record!).

it's probabbly something to do with their colonial regimes and the backfires of blames.

See, Colonial capitalists in France was a pretty successful and powerful group. They invested a lot into colonies, in order to exploit sure but invested nonetheless. They got a pretty good lobby power (Ho Chi Minh negotiated for Vietnam to be a part of Franco sphere, directly under France but not directly commanded, yet to be refused). They got a pretty good local self-determination: even if main country's progressive policy call for reduction of colony exploitation, the colonialist regimes could and did say fuck it and go at it anyway. And they harm the independence of the ex-colonies a fuck of a lot.

What it mean, in short, is that the colonialists become a curse word in ex-colonies of France. With a spit and snarl. It's up to very recent years, with a lot of games appeared, that I can see colonialists word with something resemble a neutral expression.

France was top dog in term of colonialism and it paid for it in term of fame. same as Britain. Though Britain got good exit strategy, much better than France.
 

Falksi

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I agree with a lot of the above, but according to my Italian nan the Italian people she knew simply did not want to fight in a war which they had no real vested interest in. They were happy, they thought Mussolini was a cunt, and didn't think there was anything to be gained by fighting.

She ended up working for the Italian Partisans, and killing Nazi soldiers who had invaded her village after the war had finished.
 

Dayyālu

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France was top dog in term of colonialism and it paid for it in term of fame. same as Britain. Though Britain got good exit strategy, much better than France.

I disagree. It was a rethorical question: the reason why the military accomplishments of France aren't known is mostly thanks to forced Anglo-saxon perspective. It's fairly understandable considering how messy pre-war, war and post-war French history was (I'd personally consider Italian postwar politics less muddy and more straightforward than French ones) and again pop history hates complexity. Furthermore, one cares for his own, and the media is Anglo-dominated so you get a disproportionate role for the BEF and the American expedition. Hell, in Battlefield 1 the French are DLC. DLC. It's like making a WW2 shooter in the Western Front, 1944, and making the US an optional faction.

Then of course there's the matter that they lost and had a collaborationist govenrment, and it wasn't as meme worthy as Italian Fascism.

Colonialism has little to do with it (no one really cares about the colonies) and it amuses me to no end that I was taught that the French Colonial model was inherently less exploitative and genocidal than the British one. Exit strategy is one hell of a drug indeed. My experience with former French colonies don't seem to confirm a negative view of France: subsaharan Africans that I've met in RL from former French possessions have a veritable veneration for the French.

(And an endless hatred for North Africans, but that's another subject :lol::lol::lol:)


I agree with a lot of the above, but according to my Italian nan the Italian people she knew simply did not want to fight in a war which they had no real vested interest in. They were happy, they thought Mussolini was a cunt, and didn't think there was anything to be gained by fighting.

Yeh, that's the failure of twenty years of government and a supposedly efficient propaganda machine that did jack shit. The common italian fighting man was fighting first for his own, then for the King, and maybe afterwards for Il Duce. A surprising lack of penetration, well, maybe not that surprising if we consider the Italian character.

Italians get a lot of flak for supposedly "betraying the German ally", but let's be honest, when you are losing that badly there isn't anything shameful in surrender. When a government fails that hilariously the correct line was to take it down and start negotiations: and it was the Gran Consiglio Del Fascismo itself (the highest organization in the Fascist Party) that shot down Mussolini and started the surrender. It's a sign of sanity the desire of not having to fight in the rubble of every goddamn city when you have no chance of victory.

What happened afterwards, the 8th of September (the day when the armistice with the Allies was publicly revealed) was a day of eternal shame, as the entirety of the Italian political system betrayed (and this was indeed a true betrayal) his own people and escaped leaving the nation leaderless. King and officials deserve nothing but scorn for being a bunch of spineless cowards, that first enabled through their mediocrity the terrible choices of Mussolini and then escaped the consequences.

At least the postwar Republican politicians (Togliatti and De Gasperi, just to throw out some names) were men of skill and grit. Italy lost the war but won the peace, as they say.
 

Dayyālu

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any insights into modern Italy?

Define "modern". Post-1948? It's hardcore political history, and Italy actually managed to leverage its advantages and become a almost-adequate member of the Western sphere (a status that we are losing today, I may add). We had a fairly brutal age of political terrorism (Brigate Rosse and fascist terrorism) and a quite fossilized political system until the early 80ies. Craxi may be a fun story to tell, though: how many Western politicians died in exile?

Post-1990 it's Berlusconi and everyone knows bunga bunga man.

9270031-ee7c23a2546a46de1c8eddaae516b624.jpg


The man truly had a weird taste for underage North African prostitutes. Well, I can share a passion for big underage tiddies, but some dignity!

Post-1948 military history is boring as fuck, though. NATO membership means Italy had jack shit to do, outdated equipment and the draft-based military was inefficient and bloated, plus worse problems with hazing than even the Soviets, I bet. To amuse yourself, even in the WarPact military plans the forces that should have broken into Italy proper (after tactical nuking of the main US bases in the area) were the Hungarians.

Post-1956 Hungarians
.

Let that sink and consider how bad the Cold War Italian military was. There are some amusing corruption scandals (akin to the Western Germans ones, buying crap US equipment in exchange for bribes) but it's kinda boring. I can sperg about specific equipment but do you truly care about some semiauto rifle that was never used in a war?
 

laclongquan

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Colonialism has little to do with it (no one really cares about the colonies) and it amuses me to no end that I was taught that the French Colonial model was inherently less exploitative and genocidal than the British one. Exit strategy is one hell of a drug indeed. My experience with former French colonies don't seem to confirm a negative view of France: subsaharan Africans that I've met in RL from former French possessions have a veritable veneration for the French.

(And an endless hatred for North Africans, but that's another subject :lol::lol::lol:)
No one really cares about the colonies except for the locals, you means.
As for British model, they caught the flaks for the entire Indian fiasco. Which they deserved, mind you. Thus why people dont really remember that USA is the most successful of British colonialism, then Canada, then Australia.
I dont know about Africans but I do know that Algery is a successul case of French thanks entirely due to the fiasco related to De Gaul. The Algerians and the French got good reason to think well of each other.
I do admit that we Vietnamese have some veneration for French culture. But that is quite different from admiration or veneration for colonialism indeed. And that veneration, in Vietnam is waaaaaaaay lesser than what we have for India and China.
 
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9270031-ee7c23a2546a46de1c8eddaae516b624.jpg


The man truly had a weird taste for underage North African prostitutes. Well, I can share a passion for big underage tiddies, but some dignity!

i know her! isn't she mubarak's niece?


for all those who don't know her:

the man truly said that she's not a hooker and that wasn't an orgy, he was having a party for her because she's mubarak's niece
 

nobre

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Regarding Italy in Hoi2: Close the Med. Sea ASAP by occupying Gibraltar and Suez. Hopefully, you can destroy a good chunk of Commonwealth army somewhere in Egypt. Let Italian East Africa rot btw, nothing of value will be lost. You will be back eventually. After Suez go all the way east to Persia or even take out India. This should get you enough breathing room to defend against USA and you can either assist Germany stomping the USSR or you could attempt an Italian Sealion.

Don't bother with panzerdivisions, infantry is good enough for Italy.

Be careful with naval operations, you really can't replace huge losses.

Italy is a fun country to play with in Hoi2, with lots of possibilities, but can indeed be brutal if you botch things.
 

Raghar

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First of all, there is a huge tradition of mostly anglo-saxon propaganda that has to be reconsidered
7Z9mhhY.jpg

Then we need some random Japanese history buff to tell us facts. The trouble is according to him the reason for Italy's incompetence is: PASTA.
RSDRf13.png


Let's start with the basics: Italy was a poor country, only barely industrialized. Even Germany wasn't well-industrialized compared to the US or even the Union: Italy was an agricultural country with no natural resources , ferociously dependant on foreign import for most of the needs of modern industrialization
That's what I don't properly understand. Why didn't they industrialize?

Recruits with technical aptitude were rare.
This has more to do with Italian aptitude for self-education. During Roman era people were proud to teach theirs children a lot more than a standard education. Seems this tradition completely disappeared from Italy.

One thing that the backwardness of Italian society worsened was a clear social divide between the ranks. Italy has never been good in being "unified", and it has been even worse at being a coherent Nation State. This meant that for the field officers you had people that lacked training, grit and sense of responsability:
That's common for societies that prevents smart poor people to get into high positions, or for societies that prevents self-educated to get into high positions.

Furthermore, they were a different social class:
No classless society?

Italian society, despite twenty years of Fascism, utterly lacked the motivation for "total war" and openly despised the Germans: OVRA reports are an amusing read as the common view of the German Ally was terrible. Admired for their technical prowess, considered brutal barbarians in all other regards.
I wonder why Musoliny went into war, when Italians looked this way on Germans, wouldn't be best when Italy would stay neutral?

Wait, you can ask, how the heck Mussolini in TWENTY YEARS failed to build enough support for a good war and for his regime? The thing is two-fold: first, the Fascist Regime had the support of the population in a very.... Italian way, so as long as the population got enough gibsmedat everything was good. When that failed to keep up only the True Believers stuck with the Duce, a stunning minority. Second, the Fascist Regime was outwardly powerful: in reality, Mussolini had a stunning amount of problems caused by opposing powers inside Italy: the King himself, the Church, the industrial powers, his own party organization.... the propaganda painted the Duce as an all-powerful figure, but in reality you had this schizophrenic situation where everyone technically followed Mussolini but at the same time the real power of the Fascist State was limited. Lemme explain with an example: tank production. Italian tanks were shit. FIAT-ANSALDO , the main industrial conglomerate that built Italian tanks, managed for more than 15 years to keep an iron grip on Italian tank production sinking all opposition, be it Czechs, other italian designers or even German models: the Italian leadership knew that the product was shit, but "nothing could be done" as you could not directly oppose FIAT-ANSALDO because if you bought other tanks then FIAT would have closed their factories and you would have gotten strikes and a loss of popularity that Mussolini could ill-afford. Yes, i'm literally telling you that the fascist State bought shitty weapons because it was hostage of corporate interests. Same applies with the Navy and the Air Force, with a bunch of hilarious examples of subpar prototypes or corruption scandals.
Frankly both Chinas fared better. The number of warlords Chiang kai-shek was forced to negotiate with, popular support he needed, all that shit was what ultimately prevented easy win, even with Russian help. In addition, his government siphoned away nearly all money he got from US. Mao on the other hand managed to pull out from nearly impossible situation, and with help of capable people in Communist China government he managed to rebound from bottom.

I think if he had enough courage, he could force industry to make proper automation, and quality tanks. Less menial workers, more machines... Italian manufactured... That would help him a lot in his position.


Tanks were developed by a single guy. I am not joking. All the Italian tanks were developed by a single man in a single office at the FIAT-ANSALDO, and whatever he made got okayed because reasons, fuck performance. Sum that with subpar tech and you had those beautiful riveted tankettes with the worst engines you can think of. Sure, Italian doctrine didn't focus on tanks much (it was commonly believed that the war would have been fought like in WW1, mountain front) but they were still crap.
You woudln't believe how many people are actually doing stuff like compilers and design of programming language, or CPU development. Someone should add anti-spal armor to protect inside from rivets flying at high velocity. If Italian industry was not able to do reliable welding anti-spal armor and rivets was better choice. Of course nobody expected quality tank made by Italian, not even Mussolini.
Naval bombers on the other hand were critical for control of Mediterranean sea.

Navy was borderline adequate (good training, some good units) but the command (SUPERMARINA) was scared of everything and lived under a costant psychological inferiority against the British. Think of..... I dunnow, Navy depression: "We can't win we can't even try if we try we're gonna lose" and thus they lost or did atrocious mistakes or suffered hilarious reversals like Taranto. The only bright spot for the Italian Navy were the frogmen, but that's a desperation weapon.
I heard Italian ships were tin cans. How much of these rumors are facts? Also when they remedied these initial problems with submarines? Did Italy have decent night vision optic as Japanese?

Also why wasn't Italian fleet better protected against aerial torpedo raid? Sitting in easy accessible port on South wasn't smart idea when facing UK navy.

The Air force would require several paragraphs, so whatever. Let us say that it wasn't terrible, but it lacked staying power, Italian training wasn't adequate, and the Italian machines were often horribly under-armed. Go play War Thunder or something, and check how many machineguns the Italians get. Two at best, and with shitty fire rates and ammo loads. And the Italian air industry could not replace combat losses.
Looks they need to either German help, or licence production of czech biplanes. Or at least machineguns.

What's weird is when they attacked Ethiopia they got only mild embargo, which nearly everyone ignored anyway. And Italy could simply stay out of problems by staying neutral.
 
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Dayyālu

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That's what I don't properly understand. Why didn't they industrialize?

Because in the real world it's far harder than it seems. Industrializing from an agricultural society is a tad harder than it seems: even Germany, the premier industrial power in continental Europe, data at hand, barely managed to equal Britain and was far inferior to the US (the only "proper" industrialized powers). As much as we dislike it, mid-20th century European powers still had a shitton of work to do. And Germany had its own peculiar approach to industrialization, and it worked fairly well.

Italy had two "minor" waves of industrialization before true development (post WW2, thanks fo foreign capital) and both focused on basic needs in the northern regions. You had a basic industry of textiles and heavy industry, but it was small and a weird blend of artisan models, paternalistic capitalism and pseudo-German systems. Italy wasn't the Union: Mussolini could push somewhat for development (carefully and without angering his supporters from the industry barons) but could not go full Stalin and brutally reorganize the industrial output of the nation. The social and political price he would have to pay would have been insane. Simply not possible.


This has more to do with Italian aptitude for self-education. During Roman era people were proud to teach theirs children a lot more than a standard education. Seems this tradition completely disappeared from Italy.

Utter gibberish. Comparing Roman tradition and Italian education in the 20th century is like comparing Prussian military tradition with the Germanic warriors of the 2nd century A.D.. Makes no sense. Alien societies with nothing in common, not even genetics. In regard for recruits with little technical know-how, problem was similar for all the "lesser industralized" powers, like the Union, Japan, Romania and others. When a tractor is a rarity, and literacy is limited, you get what you get. Also, Italy was significantly crippled by a education model that ironically enough always focused on the humanities: venerating the ancient is all good and fine, but a man schooled in the classics makes a poor artillery officer if he can barely understand a range table.

No classless society?

That's kinda common: being from "The city", "The mountains", "the farmland" all gave already social stigmas, before even getting to the matter of education and money. Fascism tried to plan for a common school curriculum and some basics for everyone, but results (and there were results, particularly for the poor classes) were uneven.

Frankly both Chinas fared better. The number of warlords Chiang kai-shek was forced to negotiate with, popular support he needed, all that shit was what ultimately prevented easy win, even with Russian help. In addition, his government siphoned away nearly all money he got from US. Mao on the other hand managed to pull out from nearly impossible situation, and with help of capable people in Communist China government he managed to rebound from bottom.

I think if he had enough courage, he could force industry to make proper automation, and quality tanks. Less menial workers, more machines... Italian manufactured... That would help him a lot in his position.

I am ignorant in Chinese history, so I can't compare. I dimly know that Mao's industrialization was a shitstorm of epic proportions, but that's it. Again, Fascist italy wasn't the SU. Because a state is totalitarian doesn't means it's omnipotent. There's basic political support to obtain, and the laws of economy are always on for everyone. You need resources, know-how, foreign funding, machinery....


You woudln't believe how many people are actually doing stuff like compilers and design of programming language, or CPU development. Someone should add anti-spal armor to protect inside from rivets flying at high velocity. If Italian industry was not able to do reliable welding anti-spal armor and rivets was better choice. Of course nobody expected quality tank made by Italian, not even Mussolini.
Naval bombers on the other hand were critical for control of Mediterranean sea.

The problem is, sure, Italy could only manage to produce riveted tanks due to industrial limitations. The problem is that even minor powers like Hungary or Czechland managed to leverage their knowledge and get up some interesting stuff: Italy crippled itself by keeping in production shitty models due to political corruption. I can write a lot about how FIAT-ANSALDO managed to keep his monopoly, it's fascinating. What I mean was that there were better choices and they weren't taken due to political ineptitude. You know that Hitler tried to send machinery, plans and equipment for producing Pz-IVs? And that the project was shut down thanks to direct FIAT intervention? Italian corruption, strong enough to defeat even Hitler!

And in regards to naval bombers, it's funny: the go-to Italian piece of equipment (one of the "things" you think about when you say Italy in WW2) was the S.M. 79 Sparviero, a fine bomber that was already outdated by the start of WW2. If Italy did not squander a TON of resources in useless bomber prototypes maybe modernization and replacement programs would have given better results. Mistakes were made, as the entire model was crippling.


Also why wasn't Italian fleet better protected against aerial torpedo raid? Sitting in easy accessible port on South wasn't smart idea when facing UK navy.

Incompetence, plus no one expected air power to be that decisive. Taranto is pre-Pearl Harbour, pre-Bismarck, pre-Prince of Wales. Daring on British side and utter surprise on Italian side. I can do an entire write-up on Taranto, it's kinda funny. Like, the alarm systems were hand-powered bells. DING DOG THE BRITISH ARE ATTACKING

What's weird is when they attacked Ethiopia they got only mild embargo, which nearly everyone ignored anyway. And Italy could simply stay out of problems by staying neutral.

The Franco way. It's an interesting alt-history scenario, and frankly plausible, but the responsability of war is truly to be given to Mussolini, the King, and a bunch of spineless cowards than enabled them. Bad choices mean consequences.
 

rezaf

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Dayyālu: Thanks for your writeups on the matter, I always find such historical minutae strangely fascinating. You should write a book on the matter or run a podcast or something.
 

Commissar Draco

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So you are saying Italy lost because Fascism was not nearly authoritarian and ruthless enough? Russia would probably loose WWII too if not (((Bolsheviks))) forced social upheaval and Saint Comrade Stalin directed industrialization or one could argue that we could modernize anyway under more capable Tzar and not loose millions of people in process but seems that Mussolini was really to soft on old regime. Its good that Communists forced Savoy Monarchy out they betrayed their nation and Mussolini and almost ratted their way out the way Japanese Emperor did. Going Franco would change nothing Italy would end up as demoncracy and NATO puppet anyways with millions of rocket scientists and blacks from Lybya and Somalia/Ethiopia as bonus; in our time line those at least came to Sweden instead.
 

Dayyālu

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Dayyālu: Thanks for your writeups on the matter, I always find such historical minutae strangely fascinating. You should write a book on the matter or run a podcast or something.

There's a fair amount of historians in the 'Dex (some professionals like JarlFrank or Garfunkel, or well-informed people like Lone Wolf), interestingly enough. I was an historian by education, but you know, I don't live in some kind of North European Welfare Paradise and I prefer to eat sometimes and so I got a Real Job instead

:lol::lol::lol:

Still love to sperg, though.

Lemme find some interesting\outright weird threads. I remember some.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/best-tanks-of-ww2.95184/

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/lets-read-tigers-in-the-mud-as-manga.96128/

This made me re-read some of my books, both on paper and on pdf. I found some juicy details, like the fact that Italy kept asking Germany for an insane amount of equipment both as a stalling strategy ("We can't act now we need more material") and as an excuse for failure ("Can't win, our equipment is shit"). Let's take a late list, from February 1943, sent by Vittorio Ambrosio (Italian Chief of Defense Staff in 1943):

- 750 tanks
- 7,400 trucks
- 750,000 anti-tank mines
- 500 aircraft
- 326 radar sets
- 40 sonar sets
- 8 frigates
- 12 motor torpedo boats
- 30 fast minesweepers

And some months later they asked officially for 2000 aircrafts, 800 tanks and 2100 artillery pieces. Anyone with a borderline knowledge of the real requirements of the German Army would find this hilarious and obscene. The Italian High Command and Mussolini did not.

This one is awesome, it's from the works of Giacomo Zanussi, an Italian general. I'll roughly translate it from Italian, pardon any mistakes. The setting is a "friendly" match of German and Italian tankers.

"So we had a match up of the German Pz-IIIs, at the time the mainstay of the German Armoured Forces, and our first M-13, a result of years of relentless work and study, the best of what our industry could make.

Speed test: at the same time, the German and the Italian tanks, from a starting line in the desert, should have ran towards the sea at full speed. But when the starting signal is given the four swastika-painted tanks immediately start at full speed: of our tanks, two fail to start wholesale, one manages to desperately advance for some meters before stopping, and the last one heroically manages to truck on at such a limited speed that it can barely ran half as fast as the German tanks.

Sharpshooting test: the four German tanks and the four Italian tanks open fire at the same time against the burned out hulk of a British Tank near the seaside. Well, I write "at the same time" but that can be applied only to the Panzers, that managed to mantain a more than adequate ratio of fire, while our M13 instead of the 6 shots allocated, thanks to unexpected jamming, barely 2-3 manage to hit the target. Well, 2-3 shots out of 24 isn't such a great result, isn't it?

I can't even describe the utter rage of General Roatta (another Chief of Defense Staff, this time in 1942) that without even stopping to talk with our tank officers (that had no guilt bar to have used such terrible weapons given by the High Command, managed by Roatta himself). Roatta fled the place blubbering to his entourage and swearing that he would never visited Rommel again and would have never stopped until he managed to give to the Italian Army an adequate tank. The first oath he kept, as he never saw Rommel again: the second one, he didn't kept, because despite all the effort our tanks were the same, or barely upgraded models, for all the remainder of the war."

A direct example about the Italian procurement process, from the memoirs of General Mario Caracciolo (Chief of Technical Designs):

" Late summer of 1940. One day the Secretary of State sent me an illustrated newspaper, with the image of an impressive-looking Soviet tank: nearby, written in the typical style of Mussolini with a blue lapis, the words "Farlo anche Noi" ("We need to build something similar"). The Secretary explained to me that Mussolini wanted as soon as possible a new heavy tank, far more powerful than the M-13. I had full responsability about the details of the work. I sent the request to the ANSALDO conglomerate, the only industry in Italy that built tanks ..(....).. three months later, I had the projects. One day I went to Villa Torlonia (private residence of Mussolini in Rome) with the Secretary and a colonel. I made a presentation to the Duce about our new tanks, the M13 and the L6, that Mussolini did not know, then I took the projects of the four new heavy tanks and tried to explain the differences amongst them, what could be the advantages of each type.

At that time, I finally realized how extremely important decisions were managed in Italy.

Mussolini checked once the main drawing of each of the four tanks; he then focused on me and my explanations, then checked again the drawings. He pointed out to one of them with his finger and said "Si faccia questo." ("Build this one.").

And we tried to do so. Fiat lux et lux fuit.


Then we need some random Japanese history buff to tell us facts. The trouble is according to him the reason for Italy's incompetence is: PASTA.

I legit tried to watch Girls Und Panzer. It's incomprehensible. I firmly believe that Eng. Giuseppe Rosini (the man that developed ALL WW2 italian tanks and armoured cars) would find awesome that his works are now employed as background for scantily dressed anime ladies. At least they don't kill anyone that way.

So you are saying Italy lost because Fascism was not nearly authoritarian and ruthless enough?

Yees? I'm trying to translate, but your point is somewhat correct. Fascism started as a "revolution", but in the end it focused in mantaining the status quo of the Italian political and social structure (pretty much a counterpoint to the pro-Soviet movements that started in Italy from 1919). Fascism became "declawed", as we can say, despite being a somewhat brutal regime nonetheless.

Ideological purity was re-estabilished, and only theoretically, with the RSI, the Repubblica Sociale Italiana, the German puppet state that Mussolini managed from late 1943 to his death in 1945. Literature and political programs from the RSI are mightily interesting, because despite being completely and utterly delusional (the RSI was nothing but a way for the Germans to exploit the Italian people) they show a fascinating ideological "purity" and overall brutality. It's a feverish dream of a pseudo-socialist Fascist State built by aping the Germans: a feverish "new beginning" in the middle of the ruins. All very fascinating in an almost romantic sense.

I disagree with the theory that a post-WW2 Italy under Mussolini would have managed as well in an alt-history scenario. Italian economical growth and relative international weight were a direct result of a new leadership and new economical opportunities: both of them not available under Mussolini. Stagnation would have been the likely result.

Oh gosh, I'm going full sperg.
 

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"So we had a match up of the German Pz-IIIs, at the time the mainstay of the German Armoured Forces, and our first M-13, a result of years of relentless work and study, the best of what our industry could make.

Speed test: at the same time, the German and the Italian tanks, from a starting line in the desert, should have ran towards the sea at full speed. But when the starting signal is given the four swastika-painted tanks immediately start at full speed: of our tanks, two fail to start wholesale, one manages to desperately advance for some meters before stopping, and the last one heroically manages to truck on at such a limited speed that it can barely ran half as fast as the German tanks.

Sharpshooting test: the four German tanks and the four Italian tanks open fire at the same time against the burned out hulk of a British Tank near the seaside. Well, I write "at the same time" but that can be applied only to the Panzers, that managed to mantain a more than adequate ratio of fire, while our M13 instead of the 6 shots allocated, thanks to unexpected jamming, barely 2-3 manage to hit the target. Well, 2-3 shots out of 24 isn't such a great result, isn't it?

I can't even describe the utter rage of General Roatta (another Chief of Defense Staff, this time in 1942) that without even stopping to talk with our tank officers (that had no guilt bar to have used such terrible weapons given by the High Command, managed by Roatta himself). Roatta fled the place blubbering to his entourage and swearing that he would never visited Rommel again and would have never stopped until he managed to give to the Italian Army an adequate tank. The first oath he kept, as he never saw Rommel again: the second one, he didn't kept, because despite all the effort our tanks were the same, or barely upgraded models, for all the remainder of the war."
I must say, this makes me feel sorry for the Germans.
Just imagine trying to wage a war, coordinating some efforts with your allies and THIS is what you have to deal with...
What do you even tell to your superiors? "Yeah, about our Italian friends..."

Funny enough, modern day Germany kinda feels the same way about modern day Italy - just replace war with economics :(
Hilarious times ahead!
 

Commissar Draco

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Well here in Russia we had fortune to have semi competent leadership who chosen to built the correct tanks and planes... after of course building 20 000 or so light already absolute* models.

*Absolute which is mighty relative; I remember how glad I was to be given T-26 and Char 1 bis in Italian campaign of Panzer Corps; both were miles above the M11/39, M13/40 and M14/41 I was forced to fight with. Still I renember Italian fighter planes, Alpini and Bersalieri units were surprisingly effective, so its not like Italy could not fare better when lead by competent officers.
 

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