Italian Army composition

[Rubicon]

I did some research mainly through niehorster.orbat site on the Italian army for it's exact composition for anyone to use in case they're interested.

Infantry Regiments: 91 (90 in infantry divisions, one independent)
CCNN battalions (cohortes): 105 (63 attached to infantry divisions, nine to autotransportabile divisions, 24 to CCNN divisions/militia divisions etc., nine independent)
Alpini regiments: 16 (10 attached to Alpini divisions, six to independent brigades)
Alpini battalions: 11 (all attached to independent brigades)
Autotransportabile regiments: 24 (six attached to Autotransportabile divisions, 18 to north-african autotransportabile divisions)
Bersaglieri regiments: 14 (two attached to motorised divisions, three attached to celere divisions, three to armoured divisions and six independent)
Motorised regiments: 4 (all attached to motorised divisions)
Cavalry regiments: 13 (six attached to celere divisions and seven independent)
Tank regiments: 6 (three attached to armoured divisions, three independent)
Tank battalions: 17 (three attached to celere divisions, nine to north-african autotransportabile divisions and five independant)
Parachutisti battalions: 2 (all independant)
Artillery regiments: 75 (all attached to various divisions)
Artillery battalions: 8 (all attached to independent alpini brigades)

There is also enough divisional support units to support 75 divisions (such as medical, signal etc.)

Question: Do anyone know if the various independent Alpini brigades were training cadres or if they were actual combat units?

Idea: Trinary Italian divisions

Infantry divisions: 36, solution is to include and transfer the various CCNN cohortes as a third infantry regiment into the infantry divisions and transform them into regular army units. Feasibility? Dunno, but shouldn't be impossible.
Alpini divisions: 6, solution is if possible to transfer the independent Alpini brigades into the regular alpini divisions and to create a sixth from the various remaining independent brigades. Feasibility? Unknown, unsure on combat value of the independent brigades.
Motorised/semi-motorised divisions: 9, skip the various different types of motorised divisions, add an tank battalion to the OOB. Some will be more motorised then others. Feasibility: Quite high. No troops need new training, strength of all units within the divisions are known.
'Celere' divisions: 4, solution is to simply just remove the bersaglieri, attach a thrird cavalry regiment and two tank battalions, and you have a cavalry division with tank support. Feasibility? High, no new training required.
Armoured divisions: 6, solution is to have each division with one tank regiment and two regiments of bersaglieri, damned powerful unit. Feasibility? Only problem is the three new divisions that have to be organised.

Total: 64 divisions (all trinary)

Remnants left: Two alpini battalions, one autotransportabile regiment, two bersaglieri regiments, one cavalry regiment and two parachutisti battalions and enough divisional support, including artillery, for 11 more divisions.

What to do with the remnants? Retrain the two bersaglieri into parachutisti and you'll have a division of paratroopers. The cavalry can dismount as can the autotransportabile and you have 2/3s of an infantry division.

Question: How hard would it be for Italy to raise 28 regiments of PBI and thus reach a total of 46 infantry divisions (trinary)? Remember just infantry, no raising of support units would be required?



Anyone with any other thoughts or opinions on this?

 

[chris N]

I would say that you would have created an Italian Army that has more combat capability and staying power. However one is still going to need more support forces.
Still this Italian Army would be capable of getting the job done but with a smaller number of divisions the Italian Political Leadership would have to realize that they would have to limit their commitments to 1 or two fronts maxim.

 

[Some Bloke]

Depending how early these changes are made these leftovers might not be leftovers in the roles described, you therefore may have the following options.

1 Use this surplus manpower to raise extra divisions (perhaps a dedicated amphibious assault division?).

2 Have the leftover men and/or the money they represent used for extra training

3 Use the support units for Corps level units similar to a British AGRA or maybe a halfway decent Intendenza system.

Eitherway, promising material for a timeline.

There was a timeline called
"A Fitter Italian Military" on the boards a while back but this was based on an earlier discovery of Libyan oil.

 

[Hkelukka]

I usually dont bump old threads. But since this was linked to a new thread as a "I wrote something about this earlier". I'll respond to here, instead of hijacking another thread.

Anyway, the minimum to get a good system is at least 3 regiments with strong attachments, as you pointed out.

I would additionally perhaps disband about 15 post-reformation divisions worth of units and cycle their best members and equipment to the other units and sell or scrap the left-overs. Use the money saved/earned to train the Italian soldiers and motivate them better.

The released manpower would lower labour costs in the private sector.

Assuming mass unemployment remains due to massively bad economic decisions, I would shift the worst soldiers and unemployed people and low level criminals to work gangs to improve the infrastructure.

So, perhaps there would be a total of roughly:

40ish infantry divisions, all significantly stronger than OTL Itl infantry, with significantly lower costs. Combined with a better infrastructure.

Would still be chewed to pieces in almost any WW2 conflict but at least have a realistic chance to stand on their own.

I've been thinking about it too from time to time and I've even played with the idea of going with the 4 Regiment system but those generally dont work well with the Italian system and infra.

I would personally go for a strong 3 reg system with each div having strong support elements. Have you given any thought to how each division in 3 reg system that you propose would compare with the OTL 2 reg system in terms of performance?

How would such a heavy division survive in the low infrastructure conditions, would their supplying be even more difficult than similar number of men organised in the present system? Was it really so that the Italians "puffed up" their army by going to a 2 reg system even thought it was a military mistake?

Would it also not be better from a historical viewing of Italian performance to raise a smaller, better motivated and trained core, and spend the extra money investing both in continental Italian infrastructure as well as the Infrastructure of the colonies? If you reduce the number of divisions to 40-50 at most and have say, 50.000 paid workers improving infrastructure, especially around ports and the desert for 10 years. You will see a significant improvement.

But, if we focus on the military aspects only, I feel that having to raise the extra men would put a far too great a strain on the already strained Italian economy. Especially the Military sector, better to have less guns and more ammo for said guns, than more guns and no ammo for any of them. Then again, I believe in logistics and long term planning.

Thoughts?

 

[von Adler]

Even if you make tertiary divisions, you have a lack of mortars, MGs and above all AT guns for a modern, strong division.

The other main problem is artillery. Most of the Italian artillery rely on 75mm krupp cannons from 1904 or captured Austrian 100mm howitzers from 1914. While the Austrian piece is decent, it was usually only one battalion of three.

That is the second problem - your tertiary division will have only two light artillery battalions and one medium. You need at least four battalions of artillery to make an effective ww2 infantry division.

Right now you have, in your tertiary division;

24x75mm cannons
12x100mm howitzers
12x47mm AT guns
12x65mm Infantry guns
162x45mm Mortars
45x81mm Mortars
8x20mm AA guns
114xLMGs
72xHMGs

The German division at the same time has;
36x105mm howitzers
12x150mm howitzers
72x37mm AT guns
18x75mm Infantry guns
6x150mm Infantry guns
81x50mm Mortars
54x81mm Mortars
452xGPMGs

Your Italian division has no recon element, has only an engineer company (a German division has a battalion), it has half the MGs of a German division (and that is if you manage to equip your CCNN battalions with mortars and MGs, which they did not have OTL).

It is extremely weak in artillery, AT and MGs. Not to speak of AT rifles and SMGs. The only thing it has going for it is a high number of light mortars and 20mm AA guns in the artillery regiment

The Finns went from a triangular divisional organisation to a biangular one in late 1942 - because they were able to procure heavy arms enough to equip more divisions with heavy artillery and a AT battalion.

The big problem of the Italian army is the lack of heavy support that allows the infantry division to fight back at other ranges than point-blank. Going from biangular to triangular divisional organisation does not solve the problem of too few AT guns, MGs, modern medium and heavy artillery. Your resolution only places more infantry in one division for British tanks to over-run in Libya, I am afraid.

What you NEED to do in order to create better Italian units in ww2 is ensuring more heavy equipment and better training.

1. No invasion of Ethiopia. The cost far outweighted the benefits and reinforced the Italian military doctrine at the time (fighting against natives tend to be counter-productive for learning to fight a modern enemy).
2. No involvement in the Spanish civil war. Lots of costs, very little (if any) benefits.
3. Stay neutral longer - bring all the merchant navy home with sweet rare raw materials. Build up an oil surplus.
4. Produce and sell arms as OTL, but keep some for your own military.
5. Disband units so that you may have a 6-gun AT company in each infantry regiment and an 24 gun AT battalion in the division. Make one of the 75mm artillery battalions a divisional AT company (firing directly as AT guns).
6. More mortars and MGs in the infantry battalion.
7. AT rifles for the infantry platoon.
8. Artillery regiment should be one battalion of 75mm guns, two of 100mm howitzers and one of 149mm howitzers.
9. Disband some cavalry and motorised infantry and make a divisional cavalry battalion (for Europe) or motorized Bersaglieri with armoured cars (for Libya).
10. Make sure each division has a full engineer company (for building/repairing roads and bridges, lay mines, clear mines, build field fortifications).

 

[Rubicon]

Even if you make tertiary divisions, you have a lack of mortars, MGs and above all AT guns for a modern, strong division.

Thanks for the reply, but

A) I'm not building any timeline out of this, it's merely meant for support and research for others to use.

B) I'm quite well aware of the deficiencies of the Italian artillery in WW2 and I actually wrote a summary on most of the Italian weaponry https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=153483&page=2 here (post 69) , ages ago

 

[Hkelukka]

I read your link, impressive work gathering up that info. I'll use it for a project i'm working on.

If you dont mind, I'd have a few questions about the equipment that you listed in that thread, instead of necroing it too i'll stick to one thread.

Do you have any statistics on the number of goods produced per year for each of those? Or at least one of every category.

In other words.

Do you have any numbers on how many rifles or heavy AAA or trucks Italy could build in a year in 1930-40?

 

[Rubicon]

Do you have any numbers on how many rifles or heavy AAA or trucks Italy could build in a year in 1930-40?

Not readily available I'm sorry to say, but I might know where to look, give me a week or two, and I might have something for you.

 

[Hkelukka]

Thanks, no rush, what ever you come up with will be appreciated.