What if the Italians were equipped like the Germans in ww2.

I was recently just thinking that, for the most part, the Italian troops during WWII were poorly under equipped, often using weaponry from WWI, and were poorly undertrained. There are, of course, several examples where this was not the case, and there were several Italian units whose performance was on par with that with other elite troops during World War II.

So, my question is this: How different would things have been if the Italian Armies were on equal footing as the German Warmachine in regards to a universal level of training and quality of equipment?

Now, this topic is not open to the debate that 'the Italians were never capable of producing such modern arms in time for their entry to WWII' etc - that is the beauty of the What If, that we can make believe and focus on the specific question at hand.

My own thoughts are the following:

-The Italians initial offensive in North Africa goes according to plan, quickly pushing the British back, rendering them incapable of forming a solid line of defense until Tobruk.

-The Italians do not get hung up for nearly as long in Greece, capable of dealing with everything the Greeks throw at them. (I am not as well versed into the British move to help the Greek, but would imagine this either hastens it or causes it to never occur).

-Reinforced by Rommels Afrika Korps for that final push, the Italians are able to pass Al Alamein and into Egypt, putting the Suez Canal at high risk.

Your thoughts?
 
For N Africa, you need a better spirit, cohesion and command structure for the Italian Navy. It was SUPPOSED to be able to control the sea, but it failed.

Rommel was OK with the Italian heavy armoured units in Libya and actually thought them quite decent, it was the infantry that were generally shit and a burden

The Italian airforce certainly allows more room for improvement, the planes were too slow and if made better should have been able to support better both at sea, and in joint operations
 

Coulsdon Eagle

Monthly Donor
The Italians initial offensive in North Africa goes according to plan, quickly pushing the British back, rendering them incapable of forming a solid line of defense until Tobruk.

Tobruk was well behind the Italian side of the "wire". Do you mean the El Alamein position? Mersa Matruh?
 
The Italians didn't just have inferior equipment or inferior training, they had inferior leadership at the level of junior and senior officers. Rommel made the comment that when properly lead, the Italians were great soldiers. And doctrine was also important, but different from general training. The Japanese had great training for their troops, but their doctrine was poor and this lead to heavy casualties later in the Pacific War. And it doesn't improve the capability of Italian logistics which requires proper economic infrastructure like ports, roads, and railstock, the proper industrial capability to support, and its own special skill system.

As long as Italian leadership remains poor, I don't see them performing much better than OTL. When the Italians invaded Egypt and stalled at Sidi Barrani, it wasn't because of the Italian soldier's quality or lack of equipment. It's because General Graziani decided to sit on his ass and assume the defensive. True, this was partly because he felt his forces lacked the mechanization to challenge the British, but if you give him enough tanks then you have to keep them fueled and supplied well enough to do so. I don't think the Italians were capable of that.

If you want to handwave the quality of Italian leadership as well, then this truly becomes magical thinking and should be moved to the ASB forum.

Of course, the Italians did have some great soldiers during this period. Their elite troops like the Alpini and Bersagliere were always praised. But if you take elite mountain troops and put them on the plains to fight Russian tanks, they aren't going to do you much good.
 

Deleted member 1487

I was recently just thinking that, for the most part, the Italian troops during WWII were poorly under equipped, often using weaponry from WWI, and were poorly undertrained. There are, of course, several examples where this was not the case, and there were several Italian units whose performance was on par with that with other elite troops during World War II.

So, my question is this: How different would things have been if the Italian Armies were on equal footing as the German Warmachine in regards to a universal level of training and quality of equipment?

Now, this topic is not open to the debate that 'the Italians were never capable of producing such modern arms in time for their entry to WWII' etc - that is the beauty of the What If, that we can make believe and focus on the specific question at hand.

My own thoughts are the following:

-The Italians initial offensive in North Africa goes according to plan, quickly pushing the British back, rendering them incapable of forming a solid line of defense until Tobruk.

-The Italians do not get hung up for nearly as long in Greece, capable of dealing with everything the Greeks throw at them. (I am not as well versed into the British move to help the Greek, but would imagine this either hastens it or causes it to never occur).

-Reinforced by Rommels Afrika Korps for that final push, the Italians are able to pass Al Alamein and into Egypt, putting the Suez Canal at high risk.

Your thoughts?
Check this out:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/a-fitter-italian-military.68257/

Effectively an Italian military half the size not counting garrison divisions and not commitment to Russia would all be enormously helpful. They tried to punch at the weight of France while really being effectively capable of having a military half the size. Plus Mussolini kept overcommitting them to really stupid missions (Greece, Russia). Had they stuck to fewer fronts, had somewhat more daring generals in terms of trying mobile warfare, and had a smaller, higher quality military they'd have been a pretty solid ally. As it was the Italians had a number of excellent troops and divisions and had the military been kept smaller it would have have an great reputation in combat.

Actually Germany had the same problem later in the war, they overexpanded their military from late 1941 on had a lot of poor quality divisions, while their experienced formations never got replacements of men and equipment, while supply was overburdened by having to keep up with all these extra formations with limited combat ability. You also got a situation where divisions had a lot of rear area personnel, but never enough infantry and combat personnel replacements; had they just not formed new divisions and kept replacing combat personnel before trying to form new divisions they'd have made far more rational use of their manpower, especially as rear area personnel ended up having to fight as combat troops anyway once they were the last ones left in the division, but lacked the experience, organization, or training to be combat troops.
 
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