Why did they do so badly? They did ok in Ethiopia, where they had aircraft and the good guys had spears, but the Greeks kicked their butt as did the British when outnumbered three to one in Africa.
Their aircraft were severely under-armed, for one thing.
Most fighters of that era carried 3 or more weapons; usually machine guns, and frequently auto-cannon that fired explosive rounds.
Italian aircraft, in contrast, rarely carried more than 2 machine guns, often of relatively small caliber. They often had other problems, like lack of armor or low speeds.
Italian tanks had small caliber main guns–the most common tank in their service had a mere 37mm weapon. In contrst, the Russians fielded several models of aircraft that carried multiple 37mm auto-cannon. The Italian tank, needless to say, lacked autofire capabilities.
Overall, the reason the Italians did well against the Ethiopeans, and badly against everybody else, was that the Ethiopean Army lacked artillery, tanks, aircraft, and even small arms, like rifles. They couldn’t shoot back.
The Italians lost to everybody that could.
The Italians were crap in Ethiopia. A load of untrained tribesmen armed with spears, swords and antique rifles embaressed a modern army with tanks, aircraft and poison gas, intent on an “easy” conquest of one of the last idependant countries in Africa.
Also, to answer the question, the Italian army was made up of conscripts fighting to support a goverment and policys which were not universally popular.
And let’s not forget the wonders of Italian craftsmanship, shall we? The Italians are great at a lot of things, but building things with any degree of mechanical reliability is not one of their strong points. (Roman ruins not included, of course!) Much of their equipment was prone to failure, poorly designed, or just simply inadequate for the job at hand. The Italian air force built a three engined fighter for reasons that escape me at the moment, but I believe that it was because either they couldn’t build a single or twin engine fighter capable of competing with the Allies, or because their engines were so unreliable that the third one was an insurance policy that the damn thing would be able to make it home.
In any case, one only has to look at the history books to see what bad engineers the Italians were during WW II. You’ll find tons of books on German and Allied inventions, but I have yet to see one on the Italians.
Supposedly, there’s an old saw in engineering circles: If you want it to look pretty, hire an Italian designer, if you want it to work, hire a German one.
They do make a damn fine motorcycle though.
Not to mention cars, small arms and bicycles (where they are second only to the French).f
Pretty much, if you wanna go fast, go italian.
No, Tuck. It was a bomber, actually a series of bombers, that were 3 engined. They worked fairly well. The best Italian aircraft of the war was a 4 engined heavy bomber, as good as anything the Americans or British built.
They abandoned the 4 engined plane, mostly because the owners of the company were “politically suspect”–i.e. they didn’t payola.
In addition, the 4 engined was never used properly–enmass, for heavy attacks. They used it for long-ranged patrol of the sealanes. So it didn’t have the major impact it might.
I must also dispute that the Italian small arms of WW2 were outstanding. The infantry support machine guns were particularly prone to failure, including bolt blowback & explosion. My source was a former Italian officer, a veteran of North Africa, that came to America after the war to live with his granddaughter.
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*Originally posted by Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor *
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Hey, look, I don’t question it. I’m sure their WWII era bicycles left a lot to be desired as well but I was refe rring to what the Italians do today. I’m not much of a gun expert but I hear the name Beretta is well respected amongst gun nuts and the like. That was an example of what I meant by excellent Italian technical ability.
Did anyone have autofire (I’m assuming this is the same as an automatic loader – correct me if I’m wrong) in World War II?
As has been mentioned before the average Italian did not want to be in the army and carrying out the crackpot schemes of Mussolini. When they were involved in fighting they beleived in , that is driving the Germans out of their country, things were very much different. The Italian Partisans fought bravely and courageously against the Germans (and against the remnents of Mussolini’s supporters).
Okay, I stand corrected on the fighter issue, but, everyone I know who has owned an Italian made car, has needed to own two of them. One to drive, and one to keep in the shop. Yeah, you can go really, really, really fast in an Italian car, but you’re going to spend a lot of money to keep the thing running. (That may have changed since the '80s, of course, but ever since I was a little kid I’ve always been told that FIAT stands for Fix It Again Tony.)
Dont know about cars, but the motorcycles are very reliable
I was refering to autocannons in aircraft.
You don’t know me, but I drove an Alfa GTV 2000 in the early 1980’s. The car was mechanically superb but rust on the bodywork could be a problem.
The Italians have sorted this out in the past 20 years.
Nostradamus, hmm, I had a buddy with one of those and he was alwaysworking on it. Maybe he got a lemon, or maybe you got lucky. I dunno. I know that from my conversations with people who’ve owned Italian made cars or have worked on Italian built equipment that reliability never came up in the conversation (other than something lacking).
I remember reading that when the Italians invaded Spain, in the Spanish Civil War, their commanders used old Michelin Road maps to plot out their military manoevers. Such was their reputation then…
Were’t many of the Italian military officers politically promoted? I mean being cozy with the fascists was perhaps more important than actual training and experience. Hitler, at least at first, could put up with a general like Rommel who might not have been a hard core Nazi, but was a skilled commander. I don’t think Mussolini could.
Also Italy was sort of caught off guard, first by Poland, then by Germany’s invasion of France. Mussolini had prepared to go to war in 1942, but he suddenly felt the need for an “easy” conquest. So he went at Greece.
The Italians even bribed some of the Greek military officers, but Metaxis was a much more skilled leader than any of the Italians who went into Greece.
So I would say corruption was at the root of it. And incompetence, and a lack of faith in the fascist cause by ordinary soldiers. These three things went hand in hand.
A major problem faced by the Italian armed forces in WWII is that they built up their forces too soon. Military technology like aircraft and armored vehicles were still in a state of developemtn in the pre-war period. Germany was prohibited by treaty from modernizing up its army; Britain, France, and the United States foregoed doing so for economic reasosn; and the Soviet Union lagged for a combination of economic and political reasons. So Italy essentially got a five year lead on every other power in Europe. In 1934, Italy probably had the most modern force in the world. Unfortunately for them, the war didn’t start in 1934. By 1939, the other powers had built up their forces and had been able to take advantage of the advances in military technology during this period.
The individual soldier knew the secret to Italian incompetence in WWII: his leadership. The Italian officer corps (except the Navy) was absolutely the least professional in Europe. There were a couple of decent (not great, mind you) division-sized formations in North Africa (Folgore Parachute, Ariete Armored), but these were the notable exceptions to an almost universally, comprehensively rotten military. And even these had equipment so poor that sending them against even numbers was simply murder.
His equipment was bad, but the Japanese soldier had equally poor small arms, artillery, armor and anti-armor capability, and he was ferocious!
If you ever see a contemptible fighting force, look to their leadership first. It almost ALWAYS contributes more than any other factor to defeat.
For instance, despite what everybody THINKS, individual French soldiers fought VERY bravely, both before and after the fall of France. But his leadership, military and political, betrayed Monsieur Poilu (the French version of our GI Joe, or Britain’s Tommy) utterly. The guys at the top were cowards, NOT the man with the rifle.
Hell, as bad as the Italians were, at least they only switched sides ONCE during the war.