Italian army ww2

How could the Italian army been more sucesful during ww2?

They had Binary Divisions after a 1938 reorganization, each division had two regiments.
Why?

Made the Italian Army seem larger on paper, (more divisions) and had the benefit that the Moose had more officers to be promoted to lead those divisions.

Downside was being smaller in manpower, could be overwhelmed by larger allied divisions that had 3 or 4 regiments. Not enough firepoer, couldn't control as much frontage

Italians never mastered the adhoc RCT or TaskForce like in the US Army
or German Kampfgruppe to bulk up in the field

Stick with three regiment divisions, things would have gone slightly better
 
I want to start by stating that I'm not an expert by any means like some of the people on this board. That said, there are some things that I have picked up over the years that might help to answer your question.

The Italian military that entered WW2 was a trainwreck waiting to happen. It had so many defficiencies that even Mussolini wasn't blind to some of the problems (as evidenced by his famous quote about only needing a few thousand dead Italians to sit at the peace table). Marathag covered the organization problem pretty well. Other problems the Italians faced were outdated equipment, lackluster leadership, and poor morale.

The Italians were aware of the first problem, and had a modernization program that would theoretically make them a modern military by late 1942 (they had even stipulated in the Pact of Steel that no wars were to be started before 1943). In order to solve the equipment problem you'd really need to either begin their modernization program sooner, not have Mussolini give away a ton of their stuff to Franco, or somehow delay the outbreak of war by another 2-3 years (probably all three, to be honest).

The leadership problem, unfortunately, is unlikely to change as most of the upper leadership had their positions for political reasons rather than military competence. They were largely given their commands either because they were obviously not a threat to Il Duce or (for more distant commands) to remove them from the political scene in Rome. There would have to be some serious (almost ASB) hand-waving to fix that particular problem as it seemed to be heavily intertwined with Italian domestic politics at that time.

The morale problem seems to be a combination of the first two problems as well as not really believing in the cause they were fighting for. Restoring the glory of Roman Empire is great for speeches but it's not something that most people in the modern era were willing to die for. Giving the Italian soldiers better equipment and leaders would go a long way towards remedying this last problem but they would still never have the utter determination displayed by some of their opponents (like the Greeks) since they weren't fighting for something concrete like defending their homes (referring to the initial offensives here).

In short, it would definitely be possible to improve the performance of the Italian military but for the most part it would take major changes to the timeline to get meaningful improvements.
 
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Italy entered ww2 on the wrong end of the re-equipment cycle . In the early 30's much money had been spent on technology and equipment yet by the time ww2 broke out it was obsolete and with Italy's small manufacturing base and treasury the opportunity to rapidly retool was not their . Italy managed to design some incredible pieces of kit yet putting it into production was a problem .
 
Here a world war II joke about the italian army:

12670492_1707296916153913_2881567175427798170_n.jpg
 
French version from circa 1914 was: If Italy is against us we will send ten divisions, if Italy is with us we will send ten divisions. Either way we will send ten divisions.
 

Deleted member 1487

Here a world war II joke about the italian army:

12670492_1707296916153913_2881567175427798170_n.jpg
It raises the question of what would have happened had Italy been in the Allies, something tells me its not as simple as the comic suggests. For one thing France probably wouldn't have surrendered. Though if Germany gets lucky and they get OTL victories then Italy might end up another Greek campaign for the Allies.
 
Joke I heard was:

Hitler to Churchill - "Italy will be on our side in this war."

Churchill to Hitler - "That's only fair we had them in the last one."
 
. Though if Germany gets lucky and they get OTL victories then Italy might end up another Greek campaign for the Allies.

Even at worst with the Moose as an Ally,
Nazis never set foot in North Africa, unlikely to hold enough of Italy to control the Mediterranean.

That frees a huge number of troops and resources
 
It raises the question of what would have happened had Italy been in the Allies, something tells me its not as simple as the comic suggests. For one thing France probably wouldn't have surrendered. Though if Germany gets lucky and they get OTL victories then Italy might end up another Greek campaign for the Allies.


There is a timeline about this, it is called Stresa revived, it is my favorite TL
 
As for the re-armament program .....
WI Italy gave all their older tanks and airplanes to Franco?

Then Italy would have an excuse to replace its early-1930s vintage tanks and airplanes with late-1930s vintage airplanes. Keep a steady flow of new arms rolling out of Italian factories.
On paper, many Italian small arms and airplanes were first-rate. The problem was producing enough to equip front-line troops.

The other problem was the political nature of fascist arms production. The Moose was far more interested in buying-off factory owners with small contracts, than standardizing on a few decent weapons. For example, Italy flew something like a dozen different types of fighter planes, each better than the last, but no one design available in large numbers. They also had three or more factories building similar designs, with no interchangeable spare parts. The huge variety of spare parts drove supply officers to drink!
By mid-war Italy was buying engines for fighter-planes from Germany, but never in large enough numbers of affect the outcome of battles.

The Moose could have learned from his German protege. During the 1930s, the Luftwaffe invited three or factories to submit prototypes for fly-offs. Whichever factory won the fly-off won the production contract. Losers were reduced to competing for sub-contracts to build the winners' design. The British and American aircraft industries followed the German pattern.

If the Italian Air Force only bought the winners' design, they could force factories to streamline production and send sufficient numbers of airplanes to front-line squadrons.
But that is not how fascist politicians buy-off industrialists .....
 
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