WI/AHC: Mussolini's Army is actually competent

[Genmotty]

If Mussolini and his army was actually competent they would have sided with the British and French against the rise of Nazi Germany and used Facism/Falangism as a counter-ideology against Nazism. Getting Mussolini to actually use what political prestige he had going to back both Franco and the Yugoslavian nationalist groups in the lead up to the second world war and realise that with the such foreign backing he had much more legitimacy for an independent Italian position.

One which could be bargained with to support the Allies for actual physical returns...either in territories in Africa or similar.

 

[Gannt the chartist]

Couple of things.

The disaster for Italy was the, massively popular, Ethiopian campaign - 20 ish division deployment that burns bridges with the UK and France but mainly runs through the war reserve stockpiles and trashes a lot of kit, (amazing number of motorised artillery units in the OOB) That basically scuppers any chance the Italians have of modernising at all. The Deployment to Spain is comparatively minor 1 regular 3 CNN divs and much closer to home.

The forces in Ethiopia during ww2 are 2 regular divs, one of which raised for african service and a lot of colonial troops and CNN oddments.

Genmotty says it the best chance for a more competent Italian Army is one aligned with their traditional allies in UK and France, doing the job it was trained to do and acting in Italy's, not Germany's interest with respect to Yugoslavia, the Balkans and bits of Austria.

There is even an outside chance of a Falangist bloc surviving the war and lasting until the cheap package holiday

 

[BlondieBC]

1) Dictators tend to build "Regime Defense Forces" not "Armies to win wars". If Mussolini fills more secure, he may be willing to allow the Italian army to become more of a true army. Don't know enough to give details.

2) Italy entered WW2 with too many older weapons (early 1930's) that were not up to the job. It appears that Italy did some debt fuel building early, then had a bit of a bust. More level buying patterns give you more modern Military in 1940. Also, a consistent buying pattern should lower costs.

3) If you are willing to go to WW1 time frame, then have Italy attack less often and have fewer deaths to war. Or have Italy gain more valuable things after the war, be it land or reparations.

4) You can have interwar improvements to the economy. Yes Italy has issue with lack of coal for example. But you can build hydroelectric dams as a way to help find other energy sources. You can focus on energy efficiency. You can try to subsidize support industries for war efforts. You can look for new mineral deposits. Build up strategic material reserves.

5) On #4, the oil in Libya was technically recoverable as far as I can tell. It is not too deep, and I have not seen any other issues that would prevent drilling. Likely a plan to find domestic energy sources would find this oil.

6) Good War Plans. Why was there no good war plans already prepared like. War Plan - Invade Malta short notice. War Plan - Defend Libya. Many of the insurmountable problems from OTL are trivial to solve is some field grade officers work through the details in the interwar years. Italy clearly was not ready for war in 1940, at least on a mental level on the senior military commanders.


Like many things in life, there is no miracle cure. Hundreds of little things were not as good as they should be, and to get better, one just has to start improving the little things. One caliber of rifle ammo. Better financial planning on arms purchases. More merit based promotions (notice - not merit based, just less political). Once alliance with Germany, be willing to do some licensing deals both ways. Send naval officers to work with RN until relations get too bad. Get someone to build good TDS on Battleships. Build more RR in Libya.

 

[ingemann]

The Italian problem is less competence per se, than size. In 43 for example the Italian army total strength is 6 million the US army 7.5m from a much greater population base. There comes a point at which talent runs out, the Italians designed that in to their system.

But the Italian armies in the field, ARMIR, North Africa, Ethiopia all performed creditably up to the point they were destroyed by obviously superior forces (bigger, better equipped, supplied etc) its difficult to see how a smaller Italian army would be ‘better’ as it will face the same enemy and a smaller Italian army would not be able to provide the occupation forces for some significant guerrilla wars in the Balkans where they were reasonably successful.

What you are not going to be able to do is turn the Italian army into a Blitzkreigy panzer force - thats prevented by the geography of Northern Italy and fundamental levels of industrialisation.

The Germans had around as many soldier per capita under arms as Italy if not more, and even for all the stupidity of the German command, they still had the best army in WW2.
I personal think that the Italians beside their industrial and structural weaknesses suffered from a weakness we often see in modernising regimes. They build their army so it superficial looked like a modern army in it had the structure and planning. But they forgot the indepth reforms. The Germans didn't do well because of their general or their political leader. They did well for the same reason Israel do well today against Arabs. They had NCO which was taught to take iniativ and act on their own. We tend to see Germans as a people obsessed with control, planning and hirachy. But in both WW they did well because they were excellent in delegate the responsibility out to the people on the ground. If a German unit was ordered to stop the enemy at some position, the higher up didn't care how they did it, just that they did so. While in many other armies, they would have gotten precise order how to do so. Of course it was only possible because German NCO and lower officer was educated to do so.

I'm not sure how Italy can get around this. First they need to recognise this weakness. But even if they do so, it's not necessary possible to change it. But the Egyptians which to large degree had the same problem, showed in 1973 there was ways around. It only demand that forces are given very detailed, but also ahort terms goals. Goal like invade Egtpt and beat the British is too big, but move over the Egyptian border, occupy area between x and y at the border and build defensive fortication would be better. Afterward they could plan for a new goal.

 

[Some Bloke]

I think that might be a bit much after all, NATO's NCO led force was an idea taken from Germany after the war. But maybe if they got rid of the older generals rather than slashing the officers' training budget we might see competent (for that era) leadership on the part of the Junior officers.

With Benny the Moose in Charge I can't see the generals being anything other than his or the King's placemen.

 

[Gannt the chartist]

Ingemann, I think we are agreeing in the end the Italians built an army too big to sustain.

And what you are describing is exactly how they planned to fight and were quite good at it. The problem is in the Western desert is one you have done phase 1, a mobile force (7th armoured) is able to break through the defensive line and sit across the main supply route giving the italians a choice of die of thirst, march off in a random direction trying to find an enemy that is faster and more heavily armed than you or defend, until 7th RTR breaks in and you find your AT guns bounce of the Matilda's armour.

To stop that you need a smaller more mobile army - but that would be of limited use in defending Italy against its known threats at any time up until the Summer of 1940.

 

[Gannt the chartist]

Oh and the italians fought their guns to muzzle

 

[Gannt the chartist]

Blondie:

A lot of the thinking generally on this thread is how to create a mechanised army able to compete with or alongside the German and Anglo American armies in North Africa or Russia. That’s a situation that presupposes amongst other things France has been conquered in a single campaign. My question is why plan for that in the 1930’s. Its only from 1936 on that the UK and France are even remotely hostile prior to that if not allies certainly accommodating and supportive friends. But specifically.

1) Yes sort of. The sort of being fragile dictators don’t want an efficient army able to overthrow them, which is an argument against efficiency and for really cool uniforms and a dependent, politically reliable, officer class, but the Italian army was a true army trained and organised to defend Italy from attack along its land borders - all mountainous.

2) All true – but the critical point is the Ethiopian war in 35/6 i.e. prior to the remilitarisation of the Rhineland and while Germany is actually a rival against who you have territorial claims. It’s that that makes reequipment unaffordable.

3) Attacking less often probably a good idea but any gains would come at the expense of the Central Powers and make Italy much more of a target for German aggression with the rise of Hitler (war over the Italian occupied parts of Austria?) or dependent on Anglo French support for the possessions in the middle east.

4) 94% of Italy’s OTL electricity generation in 38 was hydro. The Italians were major arms exporters between the wars in all categories and even with an overstuffed armaments industry unable to reequip through lack of money. Same with strategic reserves, if you have to have to buy them you need cash from someone else because the strategic materials are owned by people who don’t want Cr42’s and tankettes they make their own or need cash money.

5) Not sure it is technically recoverable in that era, and if it was you need either UK or US expertise to do it. The major problem though is finding it. It took the French a decade to prove the Algerian reserves and that’s using late 1940’s technology- long range aircraft to support the effort. Nobody looked at Libya until after the Algerian reserves were found. Even then its not immediately exploitable. It took from 46 to 63 to get production out of Libya. To get a working field by say 38 means the Turks have to start looking when they owned it. Speed that up is probably impossible and in any case the fields are not economically viable until after the Suez crisis and the Arab embargo on France.

6) There were good war plans – to defend Italy. A war plan to Invade Malta at any time prior to 1940 is a plan to go to war on your own against the combined British and French Empires who outnumber you at sea by 8:3. The result of that plan is inevitable defeat. Defend Libya against a first rate power - Why? I know it’s main export is esparto grass which is real useful for making paper and rolling ciggies but how many lives is cigarette paper worth?