Thanksalways fun to get get some positive reinforcment
Got a question for you or for any other Italiophiles out there.
Having looked through the OOB and TOE for the Italian Army I was wondering of exactly what quality was the CCNN troops? From what I have read they were often poorly trained but with high morale and spirit.
How much training had they recieved? How well trained were they?
How good was morale?
How good was discipline?
From what age-bracket were they recruited? Were they young men ready to die for the Fascist cause? Or middle-aged men with beer-gut?
Any information about the quality of the officers? Same rubbish as the Italian army in general? Worse?
Did the army have any opinion about the CCNN troops? Did the army consider them amateurs that should be transferred to the army, as the German Heer thought of the Waffen-SS early in the war?
Anyone with any decent information not still tainted by wartime propaganda?
Regarding the CC. NN. divisions who actually took part to the Spanish civil war as C.I.V. (Italian Voluter Corp): I CC. NN. Division "Dio lo vuole", II CC. NN. Division "Fiamme Nere", III CC. NN. Division "Penne Nere".
These data refer to the 1936-1939 period.
The level and training was awful.
Most of the "volunteers" were people coming from economical depressed regions of italy (mainly south) because the pay for joining the corp was high.
There was not ANY ideological motivation in most of them.
Most of the equipment was Great-war level, only excepion being air force (which, however, IIRC was not part of the CC.NN. division).
Nothwistanding this, the moral was not bad as you would think, since they weer conscious they were granting a living for their families at home.
"technical" officers in the army despised them.
There were other CC. NN. divisions organized (mostly colonial militia), but I do not have any data about them.
After italian collapse of september 1943, I think the politicization of the CC.NN. corps become a lot more important