WI US army's World War 2 performance as bad as the Italians

OPERATION COMPASS - 30,000 to 40,000 total British troops take something like 130,000 Italians prisoner. I would say that says something about the overall competence of the Italian Army.
 
I'm tempted to just say "switch MacArthur and Marshall" but that is a thread in itself.

My guess is that things don't go much differently until the Salerno landings, which are thrown back and the result is an outright defeat.

At this point the ball is in the court of the politicians. Do they step in and try to figure out what is wrong with the army and fix it, or do they decide that the US should really just contentrate on the Pacific? Or is the decision to press forward with Overlord after a few patches?
 

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OPERATION COMPASS - 30,000 to 40,000 total British troops take something like 130,000 Italians prisoner. I would say that says something about the overall competence of the Italian Army.
They were fighting 4 infantry divisions with a highly mobile corps. The Italians were immobilized by logistics issues after Mussolini talk Grazziani to advance into Egypt as deeply as possible regardless of supply issues and military preparedness so that when the soon-to-come peace deal happened he could bargain from this position. The problem was peace did not come and the British counterattacked in a very good supply situation with a totally motorized force.

The were ordered into action with minimal preparation and having just received brand new equipment with totally unprepared formations because Mussolini wanted a political bargaining chip; too bad for his forces he gambled very badly on a peace deal that wasn't coming. Plus Rommel and the Italians did the same in reverse in 1941-42 to the Brits when they were overextended in Libya.
 
What would have happened if the training, doctrine, and equipment of the US army in World War 2 was just really bad, like throw down rifles and run away upon contact with the enemy bad?

IOW, much worse than the Italian Army of WW II. Or any other army of WW II. Certainly the Italian army of WW II had major deficiencies and lost battles they should have been able to win. But they did fight, not just run away at first contact.

If you have to get rid of Marshall or any of the other IOTL American generals or sideline them to do this, that's fine.

You'd have to get rid of all the generals for the previous 20 years, and inflict a horrific cultural breakdown on the U.S.
 
I don't frequent the Chat threads, but I'm not surprised, they get very wound up about the Sherman tank as well.

Perhaps its this idea of American exceptionalism.
Don't mention the M4 Sherman.
(Even hint that the "Ronson" Story might be true, or that there were Senior US Armoured Officers who agreed with the sentiment, or that there's actual evidence ... AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!:rolleyes:)
 
OPERATION COMPASS - 30,000 to 40,000 total British troops take something like 130,000 Italians prisoner. I would say that says something about the overall competence of the Italian Army.

Our of three major solo operations; Compass, the invasion of Greece and the invasion of France... well the Italian Army had issues in each.

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Rommel didn't piss on their their troops in the field, much the opposite, but in his writings he did their higher level officers.
 
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Our of three major solo operations; Compass, the invasion of Greece and the invasion of France... well the Italian Army had issues in each.

894786d1-2b8d-4c59-a35a-00fdbd063da7.png~original


Rommel didn't piss on their their troops in the field, much the opposite, but in his writings he did their higher level officers.
That's because Mussolini kept throwing the Italian army at fights in horrible terrain, with no equipment worth of note, and - and by god, this is important - for which there was no plan. The invasion of France is egregious in that regard: the Alpine Wall garrison, emboldened by troops that had not been trained for that kind of terrain, were told to rip all their defensive plans and attack France a week from that day. See the frostbite victims? That happens, when you're said that in two weeks you must be on the other side of fortified 4km high mountains and you never prepared for that situation.
 
Rommel didn't piss on their their troops in the field, much the opposite, but in his writings he did their higher level officers.

Well, he did more of less single-handedly capture an entire Italian Division in the First War, Twice!
It might have influenced his opinion
 
Well, he did more of less single-handedly capture an entire Italian Division in the First War, Twice!
It might have influenced his opinion

With about 100 men.

He felt they were not well equipped by their government and their generals and ranking officers didn't inspire confidence in their men and poor military leadership can shatter the morale of otherwise good soldiers.

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"The German soldier has impressed the world, however the Italian Bersagliere soldier has impressed the German soldier."
 
I think people here underestimate how much damage incompetence could do, if we think of the people actually handling the logistics and origanizing. All the factories and rescources in the world don't do you any good if the chain connecting all those together and then linking them to the armed forces at the front are run by morons.
Add to that perhaps more equipment being made with the same quality as their early torpedoes and there's a potential for some serious disasters even if leaving the quality of the troops at the front and their entire leadership same as OTL. Make their leadership worse as well and it gets really bad. At some point that is also going to affect the moral of your average grunt, it certainly would affect mine, if I knew that my chances of getting killed are much higher than neccessary because the guys at the top are morons.

My guess for a worstwhilestillrealistic case: Besides being more incometent when it comes to the leadership and logistics, etc they are also quite self-deluded about their abilities and capabilities. Torch still happens and succeeds eventually merely taking longer and with higher casulties. Attributing their success to their "evident brilliance" instead of going for Sicily it's decided to knock out Germany in one major blow by landing in France in 1943, ignoring British warnings.
Sometime in June 1943 the US Army tries to force a landing in Northeastern France with plenty of faulty equipement, ammo that has a high dud rate, gear having been sent to the wrong place, green officers in command, etc. With predictable results.
Wont loose the WA the war, but might delay a successful landing until 1945 and the war ending in 1946. After all imcompetence could also delay the Manhatten project.
 
Starting with these...

Perhaps Ike and Patton don't exist ITTL and there are more Friedenhalls and Mark Clarkes? IOTL Patton and Ike nearly died during a towing accident in the 1920s. Without Marshall being available and Ike and Patton dead perhaps less skilled men take over and degrade performance, say disregarding de Gaulle and the Free French instead of placating them, while taking the arguments to Monty and thumbing their nose at the Brits as they get more power within the alliance.

My memory is that Italian soldiers generally fought well on an individual basis. There poor performance was due to poor leadership starting with Mussolini and poor equipment. ...

As to senior leadership, with Roosevelt and Marshall you have two competent leaders. At a certain point it gets difficult to get rid of everyone unless you go with the various fascist or populist scenarios explored on the board. But at that point, you've moved far enough from reality that you can start making stuff up.

Lets propose Roosevelt is not elected President in 1932 & in 1936 another Coolidge type character replaces Hoover. Under that unimaginative & unexperienced leadership the Army officer corps stagnates. A unispired series of political hacks occupy the CoS position. No MacArthur reforms in the 1930s, no emphasis on development of skills, the Eisenhowers leave the Army to go into business with their brothers. No Craig Malin to make harsh but visionary decisions for the declining funds of the Depression, and no Marshal advanced over a mass of superanuated old crocks in 1939. Instead place the worst of old Great War fossils as CoS in 1939 & then compound the problem by not passing the War Powers Acts of 1940. When the US is finally forced into the war the mobilization has barely started vs the 15+ months of OTL. That includes the industrial mobilization.

So the US Army goes to war without Marshals purge of the officers corps, training programs barely started, the National Guard units led by half trained political appointees, and a pile of Great War equipment sufficient to arm only 30 of the 40 Army & NG divisions available.

Without Roosevelts fine political skills Congress damages the efforts to further prepare the Army, so 24 months after the entry into the war, the US can only field a dozen combat worthy infantry divisions, the rest badly led & still ill armed. Doctrine sucks & the masses of reliable tanks, artillery, and aircraft that appeared OTL in 1943 do not exist.

Square divisions anyone?
 
Probablly would not exist as we know it, maybe not in any form. A Congress led by the crowd that ran it in the 1920s might not even repeal the Neutrality Acts. That would leave Britain and the USSR SOL for anything the US might build. It would also mean US arms industry is not jumpstarted in 1939, but stagnates on until the US is up against the wall.
 

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Probablly would not exist as we know it, maybe not in any form. A Congress led by the crowd that ran it in the 1920s might not even repeal the Neutrality Acts. That would leave Britain and the USSR SOL for anything the US might build. It would also mean US arms industry is not jumpstarted in 1939, but stagnates on until the US is up against the wall.
It may also then keep the US out of the war, because if they aren't give stuff away on loan, then Britain can't continue the war into 1941.
 
That scenario sort of wipes out the OP.

I have figured out a extreme case for making it even worse... circa 1919-1922 there were a few politicians & other VIP who favored a deeper return to the militia concept. That is the Federal Army is reduced further, to a cadred logistics service. A skeleton quartermasters corps, a ordnance corps, & some tiny infantry, artillery, cavalry, air corps. Hardly 50,000 men. The states are on their own for keeping up a armed militia. No Federally subsidized National Guard. We'd have been closer to this had the US not participated in the Great War. That experience led to the National Guard system, the Army Reserve, the interwar weapons development...
 
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