Germany supplies Italy with industry before WWII

[Reflection]

Italy in WWII has always been a joke, even a proto-meme among war historians, and one of the reasons was their equipment. As a general rule, much of their equipment was actually good at the time they were introduced (early '30s), but by WWII was very much outdated. Let's imagine a scenario where Germany does their own equivalent to the Lend-Lease program, supplying them with German industry such as weapons, vehicles, and technology in preparation to the war. So instead, Italy has better materiel to work with.

Is this particularly likely in OTL? I don't think so, because from what I've heard Germans and Italians actually hated each other and their alliance was one of practicality. Germans apparently saw Mediterraneans as beneath them on the totem pole, not to the level of Jews where they had to be exterminated, but still second class. Italy of course was not unaware of this, leading to a situation that wasn't exactly cordial. Yes, both were white fascists, but that didn't mean they liked each other.

But let's say that the Germans realized the Italians were poorly equipped before the war, and in a moment of clarity and pragmatism decided that needed to be fixed if they were going to act on the Axis' behalf.

So by the time Italy plays a role for the Axis, they are far better equipped. Italy uses the German supplied materiel to create new and better weapons, vehicles, armaments and so on (I'll let you imagine what that would look like). Then they invade Greece with a technological edge, perhaps allowing them to capture the nation without direct German help. It should be noted that Italy had a great numerical advantage but was disadvantaged at everything else, leading to them being unable to take Greece. Likewise, in the East African Campaign front they are now better armed to fight. In general, an Italy with better equipment and coordination with Germany could be dangerous because Italy had great numbers and unlike Germany, had a proper Navy.

Does this a better armed Italy supplied via German materiel make a big difference in the long run, and is there any other long term effects to consider? Let me know what you think.

 

[Thomas1195]

The problem is that Germany was barely able to supply itself IOTL, even after it had the whole Europe under its boots. It was not self-sufficient in a lot of war materials, and had to either import from SU, loot invaded countries, or make synthetic substitutes (synthetic production was not that efficient) themselves.

 

[Oda]

Yeah Nazi germany economy is teetering at the brink of collapse before ww2 even started. Even if Germany support Italy economically it does not changed the fact Italy is still a primary agricultural country meaning to say Italy does not have the capacity Nor the capability to fight mordern warfare. Not to mention Italy have a problem of mediocre office corps and soldiers with Low morale .Best case for Italy is to stay out of the war in the First place industrialise heavily and passed much needed reforms

 

[Garrison]

The German economy in the 1930's was basically a series of measures taken to prop up military spending at the expense of the civilian economy and export industries. They simply cannot afford to spend resources building up the economy that was not an ally until quite late in the day.

 

[michael1]

Technologically Italy was fine, its problem was a combination of productivity and raw materials. Germany could not "supply productivity" to Italy. The biggest single step Italy could take to raise its productivity was an improvement in the education system, but this would take a generation.

For Germany to supply more raw materials or additional military equipment to Italy it would either have to control more itself (implausible) or divert some from its own use, which seems undesirable from Germany's point of view.

Lend Lease was optimal because 1) initially the material supplied to the UK would have a bigger impact on the war than material retained by the US since the US wasn't in the war/ was barely in the European war (which was the priority) 2) later on the UK and the US were roughly equally militarily effective and the US was arguably more productive (at least in certain areas) so a division of labour where the UK devoted a larger share of manpower to the fighting forces and the US to production made sense. I'm not sure that either of these apply to Italy-Germany

 

[michael1]

Having said that it's not going to happen, let's think about what happens if Italy had greater military resources (but the same degree of competence).

Greece probably still holds the Italian invasion, so no change there.

Greater resources can be deployed forward in the Western Desert in 1940, but a shortage of shipping (which Germany can't really help with) and trucks probably means no successful invasion of Egypt (especially given a stalemate in Greece). So let's say the Western Desert is a stalemate until Crusader in late 1941. The Mediterranean campaign is plausibly unchanged from then on, although with fewer German troops deployed until some point in 1943.

The impact elsewhere in 1941: it depends where the additional Italian resources come from, if they come from existing German resources then Barbarossa goes worse than OTL, if they are somehow additional to OTL German resources then Barbarossa goes better since there fewer German resources are diverted to the Med.

Basically British-American resources are sufficient to overmatch any plausible additional Italian resources, especially as these will be offset to some extent by fewer German resources in the Med.

It's been interesting to think this through, it made me realise just what a mistake Mussolini made getting involved in the war at all (unlike Hitler, where defeating the western powers was fundamental to his goals).

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

It's been interesting to think this through, it made me realise just what a mistake Mussolini made getting involved in the war at all (unlike Hitler, where defeating the western powers was fundamental to his goals).

To be fair to Benito it was a reasonable decision at the time it was made.

The war appeared to be all over bar the shouting and by bar shouting I mean negotiating the peace treaty.

 

[marathag]

The Moose wanted Italian companies to have the edge over foreign companies.

So he, unlike Germany, USSR and Japan, rebuffed Henry Ford on setting up a vertically integrated factory complex to build Cars and Trucks.
That protectionism made FIAT and Ansaldo happy

Would not be any better for the Germans to try

 

[BlackDragon98]

I mean, the only thing that could possibly save Italy in WW2 is the discovery of oil in Libya right before the war, say 1937 or 1938.
2 years of development and by the time Italy enters WW2 in 1940, they will have a good supply of oil for their military needs.
Also, instead of launching a stupid offensive into Egypt, the Italians will be more inclined to fortify Libya and stay on the defensive.
Infrastructure used to transport the oil such as railways and ports can be used for military purposes as well, thereby boosting the defense of Libya.

Germans supplying the Italians with "industry" will do them little good if their doctrine is outdated or if they're in the middle of a logistical nightmare (switching calibers for their rifles because the 6.5mm Carcano is just awful)
Italy's problems were primarily of an internal variety, and the only way to fix them is to do some serious cleanup.
And it's not like the Italians were incapable of cleaning things up.
After all, Mussolini did break the centuries old power of the Italian Mafia.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

I mean, the only thing that could possibly save Italy in WW2 is the discovery of oil in Libya right before the war, say 1937 or 1938.

The O-word is the second worst thing that can be written on this website.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

They were. Especially with coal. Italy used much of that to fortify it's northern border against France and Germany.

Alpine Wall - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Vallo Alpino del Littorio - Wikipedia

it.wikipedia.org

Economic shortcomings often forced the use of inadequate materials: the use of steel was rare due to the difficulties in finding raw materials, due in part to the sanctions imposed on Italy for its invasion of Ethiopia and in part to the autarky imposed by the fascist regime which created production and procurement difficulties. To cope with the shortage of raw materials, Adolf Hitler sent huge quantities of goods to Italy. The steel that arrived, which was used for cannons and generally for weapons, was melted again in order to obtain armored girders and slits for the use of fortified works. Even the coal that was used to power the blast furnaces of the steel industries responsible for the production of armor, armored doors and for the production of concrete was sent from Germany. [21]

Add in the wasted money used in the Spanish Civil War:

Corpo Truppe Volontarie - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Italian military left behind roughly 3,400 machine guns, 1,400 mortars, 1,800 artillery pieces, 6,800 vehicles, 160 tanks, and 760 aircraft. But, while the military equipment represented a loss to Italy's war inventory, most of the equipment was obsolete. The financial cost of the war was more debilitating. The cost of the CTV to Italy amounted to between 6 and 8.5 billion lire. At 14 to 20 percent of annual expenditure, this represented an immense drain on the Italian economy. The high cost of Mussolini's Spanish adventure severely handicapped Italy in the period leading up to World War II.[4]

Had Italy not gotten so heavily invested in the two above projects they'd have likely been ready for WW2. The SCW would probably still have been going on in 1940 without Italy, but Italy would have been better off. I mean if Mussolini was still dumb enough to get involved in WW2.

Ethopia too was a giant waste of money and resources as well, which despite under Mussolini's grand imperial ambitions making sense to that project, did more to hinder his long term goals in hindsight. In the end it was cut off and conquered with relatively minimal effort, costing Italy a great number of men and much material that would have been extremely helpful in Libya. Speaking of which all the investments poured into East Africa would have been vastly more useful in WW2 if put into Libya to build up the rail infrastructure, not to mention much more sustainable.

Of course had that been done then Mussolini might never have allied with Hitler, which might have prevented WW2 given the role that Mussolini specifically played diplomatically in helping Hitler 'peacefully' expand in 1938-39.