This thread follows on from Zarkov’s ‘WI The Italian Army Had Managed to Reach the Nile:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=66746
The key POD’s are;
1.That Italy benefited from a sudden advance in technology that enabled it to extract sub-grade oil from the Libyan fields. While the overall impact is not overwhelming, in terms of the small base of the Italian economy, such an advance is relatively stimulatory. The militarised Fascist state under Mussolini creams the bulk of the oil off to develop Italy’s war industry, and to the specific benefit of the Army and Air Force.
2.That the Italian Commando Supremo made several key important doctrinal and technical changes;
a.It developed its tanks with the Fiat 3000 as the base rather than the Vickers 6-ton. Furthermore it came to a different set of conclusions about armoured deployment in the inter-war years, and analysed the Spanish Civil War in a different way. It develops a better medium machine gun and re-rationalises the development of the air force.
b.It rejected the Grandmaison thesis of infantry mass attack earlier and specifically the tenures of Gens Baistrocchi and Pariani were longer and more substantial in terms of evolving doctrine.
c.It did not implement the change from ternary to binary divisions. This means it enters the war with fewer divisions, but these divisions are larger and more flexible.
d.It modernises the instruction of its main military academy in Modena, resulting in more effective leadership.
The TL initially looks at the campaign of Tenth Army in Libya/Egypt up until Dec 1940. It will then backtrack and examine in similar detail implications for the Albanian/Greek and East African campaigns, the siege of Malta and implications for naval matters in the Mediterranean.
Croesus