JFKY Not much Italy CAN do... 7/8/2011 3:05:03 PM

Italy has about 2.5% of the world's ability to make war, in 1940 (http://www.combinedfleet.com/e...). Italy with or without the P&W engines loses.

The problem is that Italy has outmoded manufacture methods a poor aero-engine technology, and a rather corrupt military industrial combine (at the time-very similar to France NOW.) The major problems were a couple of political decisions and one major industrial policy decision that was to prove catastrophic.

1. Around 1935 for correct technical reasons the Regia Aeronautica decided to adopt the radial engine as the line of main development. This followed American aviation thinking, but whereas the Americans did not have the turbocharger and supercharger tech to make it work, the Italians had no radial engine tech at all. The various manufacturers started with licensed British and French designs that were already obsolescent. Balbo wanted to acquire P&W Wasp series engine designs which were current in 1935. Such acquisitions would by 1940 have given Italy decent 850-900 kW power-plants that with Italy's excellent superchargers would have been more than adequate against current Allied garbage flying in the Med.

The Army is poorly equipped, poorly led, poorly motivated, with a poor doctrine.

All true. Combat experience in Spain should have taught the Italians that they had serious problems with radios, machine guns, supply, senior officers, and morale. Their strong points, of decent close air support doctrine, excellent artillery, reliable trucks, and tanks that did not break down, but which were no match for Vickers or Bts at the time, were completely lost on them. The reforms that leaders such as Giovanni Messe requested, such as a small professional army with troops equipped for mountain warfare in Europe and small motorized units to defend Libya and Ethiopia ran headon into the idiots like Grazziani and Mussolini, himself, who insisted on massed infantry and the Roman spirit as a means to overcome such lacks as basic field kitchens, FOOD and AMMUNITION, reliable machine guns,, decent boots, and uniforms that actually kept the Italian soldier from freezing to death in the mountains!

The Air Force, besides poor engines, is wedded to maneuverability and not speed and firepower. Italy introduces Bi-planes AFTER the war begun! The Avia Regia (??) has problems running deeper than engine technology.

The problems were not THAT deep at the operational level. Commando Supremo could have done with a shake-up, but during the actual main fighting period, the Allies were not too swift tech wise or leadership wise in the Med either. General Amadeo Mecozzi was no slouch when it came to TACAIR. He actually outperformed the German and British idiots in theater, and that with rotten equipment, until Jimmy Doolittle arrived and showed the Allies in North Africa how it was supposed to be done.,

The Italian Navy is small, fuel starved, and has the worst battleships of any of the "Great Powers"

Not exactly correct, The Richelieus were pieces of JUNK. The Vittorios had much better guns, engines, and aside from the USN the best AAA defense of any battleship warship class in the world. They had suspect torpedo defense. The ships'; chief lack was radar, and sometimes shoddy ammunition (which also plagued the British and the USN). .

Next to the Japanese, the Italians had the best torpedoes in the world. Their ships were at least as good as the junk the British and the French sent to sea and beeter than what Germany, class for class floated down the weighs. Their small craft crews have nothing of which to be ashamed. Their MTB men, destroyer crews, and naval commando units were a damned sight more competent than either the French or the British in combat. They just fell short in fleet actions. Why? Same reason the USN did at the start, lack of experience in sustained naval campaigns. What excuse did the British have for losing every naval battle against the Japanes

LB 7/9/2011 6:58:19 AM

 Italy in WWII had much bigger problems that equipment. They suffered large defeats due to poor leadership, either theirs or their ally's, in every year they were at war. In 1940 they lose big to O'Connor in the desert, 1941 Greece, 1942 El Alamein and Stalingrad, 1943 Tunisgrad, and while mostly involving native troops there were around 70,000 Italians lost in East Africa.

The main problem with the Italian Army was the Fascist insistence that it be a large draftee force that was underfunded and led by a politically reliable officer corps. This was endemic to a number of nations that proved equally incompetent in equipage and leadership, (France, Russia, Yugoslavia, Spain, Romania, Bulgaria, etc.)

Another problem related to the Italian Esercito is fundamental. There were and are two fundamental tools that define modern land warfare. These are the tank, and the machine gun. In 1936, the Italians had the worst infantry machine gun among the European power; the Breda 30. This made no sense, as the SAFATS were already available, well made, and adaptable to infantry use.

The SAFATS were lousy aircraft weapons but being Browning dry-feed, shorty recoil operated weapons, were perfectly acceptable infantry and tank weapons.

Speakung of tank weapons, the 8 mm Breda 38 with its quick change barrel was about the best that the Italians could field.

“http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/ttt07/italian-breda-machine-gun.html"  

As for the Italian military, here's a little history.,

“http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1988/HEG.htm”;

German strategy in WWII ultimately doomed Italy. The only chance for Italy was for Germany to prosecute the war with the CW till they forced a fall of Churchill's government and could negotiate an end to it. The quality of their air force was not going to be a decisive factor.

Airpower covers a lot of sins. Arguably, it was air power that made all the fifference for the poorly trained and equipped Allied armies in France in 1944. While the tank-killer aspect of Azllied Tac-ait was grossly exaggerated in the land war, it was not exaggerated as to the overall paralytic effect it had on German strategic and tactical overland movement. At least in the Bulge, the Americans noticed that the Germans stopped attacks and American attacks started when the Thunderbolts and Typhoons rolled in on the Germans.

In the Pacific War, the first half of the war was a series of unbroken Japanese naval surface victories until American aircraft appeared overhead. Then no matter what the Japanese tried, they were inevitably crushed. Since then its gospel that unless you lose the political will to close and clobber the enemy infantry, the side that rules the air cannot lose, no matter how incompetent its leadership is.

As an aside the Italian 15inch naval gun was extremely powerful and long ranged. The problem with it was a high dispersion rate reducing accuracy and a short barrel life. It was actually the longest ranged BB gun of WWII with a range of almost 49,000 yards at 35 degrees elevation compared to the US 16/50 with a range of 42,000 yards at 45 degrees. Of course the US guns were more accurate and had better fire control as well.

The cause of dispersal was traced to Ansaldo and Fiat who supplied defective (as in the damned shells could vary as much as 50 kilograms between single units in the same production run!) ammunition. The Italians' guns were fired at much higher more pressures for two reasons a) flatter trajectories to pierce presumably thick French citadel an d belt armors, and to maximize the velocity component of KE=1/2mv^2.

The US was more concerned with liner life and knew that a heavy shell had less drift and dispersion due to conservation of momentum. The NGF also had a competent inspectorate that checked battleship gun ammunition after Congress got mad at them in 1942. Batch shell lots were weighed to match propellant loads. Not so with many foreign navies. That HURT enemy accuracy.

Macchi MC.200 Saetta

Type: Single Seat Fighter Interceptor

Design: Ingeniere Mario Casoldi of Aeronautica Macchi  

Manufacturer: Aeronautica Macchi with plants in Varese-Schiranna and Lonate Pozzolo

Powerplant: One 870 hp (649 kw) Fiat A.74 RC.38 14-cylinder radial piston engine.

Performance: Maximum speed 312 mph (502 km/h) at 14,765 ft (4500 m); cruising speed 283 mph (455 km/h); service ceiling 29,200 ft (8900 m).

Range: 540 miles (870 km) with auxiliary tanks.

Weight: Empty 4,178 lbs (1895 kg) with a maximum take-off weight of 5,710 lbs (2590 kg).

Dimensions: Span 34 ft 8 1/2 in (10.58 m); length 26 ft 10 3/4 in (8.19 m); height 11 ft 5 3/4 in (3.50 m); wing area 180.84 sq ft

(16.80 sqm)

Armament: Two 12.7 mm (0.50 in) Breda-SAFAT machine guns in the upper cowling. Some later versions had two additional 7.7 mm (0.303 in) Breda-SAFAT machine guns mounted in the wings.

Variants: MC.200, MC.200AS (tropical), MC.200CB (fighter bomber), MC.201

(one prototype which was abandoned in favour of the MC.202 Folgor).

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Operators: Italy (Regia Aeronautica, Aeronautica Cobelligerante de Sud, and Aeronautica Nazionale Republicana).

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Comments: too short-ranged, too underpowered, and under-armed. The plane could not carry a decent bomb-load for CAS.

************************************

(Reggiane Re.2000 Serie III Falco "Falcon")

Type: Single Seat Long Range Fighter

Design: Ingeniere Antonio Alessio and Roberto Longhi of Officine Meccaniche "Reggiane" S.A. (Caproni) based on Seversky P-35. Roberto Longhi had previously spent two years working in the United States

Manufacturer: Officine Meccaniche "Reggiane" S.A. (Caproni) in Reggio Emilia. Also built under licence by Mavag and Weiss Manfred in Hungary under the name Hejja or "Hawk"

Powerplant: One 870 hp (649 kw) Piaggio P.XI RC.40 14-cylinder radial piston engine (prototype); 1,025 hp (765 kw) Piaggio P.XIbis RC.40 14-cylinder radial engine (production).

Performance: Maximum speed 325 mph (525 km/h); service ceiling 34,450 ft (10500 m).

Range: 590 miles (950 km) with internal fuel stores.

Weight: Empty 4,200 lb

--------------------------------------------------

Comments: Piaggio P-XI was a copy of the crappy Gnome Rhone Mistral Major which was a technological disgrace as an aero-engine. The engine was notorious for power fall off at upper RPM ranges and it leaked oil like a spinning pig. Armament was as per Italian aircraft of the period, very poor. Overall excellent airframe was plagued by those two defects.

***********************************

Cant Z.506B Airone "Heron"

Type: Five Seat Torpedo Bomber, Reconnaissance Bomber & Rescue Flying Boat

Design: Chief Engineer Filippo Zappata of Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriadtico (CRDA) or Cant

Manufacturer: Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriadtico (CRDA) or Cant

Powerplant: (Z.506B) Three 750 hp (559 kW) Alfa Romeo 126 RC.34 9-cylinder air-cooled radial engines driving three blade metal propellers.

Performance: Maximum speed 227 mph (365 km/h) at 13,120 ft (4000 m); cruising speed 202 mph (325 km/h); service ceiling 26,245 ft (8000 m).

Range: Maximum range 1,705 miles (2745 km) with normal loadout.

Weight: Empty 18,298 lbs (8300 kg) with a maximum take-off weight of 27,117 lbs (12300 kg).

Dimensions: Span 86 ft 11 1/4 in (26.5 m); length 63 ft 1

I’m sorry Herald, but really a better engine isn’t going to make that much a difference.   You have them with an engine in the Sakae range, meaning that THEORETICALLY Italy could have had a A6m, but Italy didn’t try to produce one…the Zero had 2cm weapons, you’ll notice that the Italians only fielded 12.7 mm machine guns, and only TWO of them.  They fielded bi-planes; with very light armament…this was by CHOICE.  Having a better set of engines isn’t going to do much for Italians.

To “win” Italy has two choices:

1)    History goes as it did; Italy stays out of the war, like Franco and Turkey.  In so doing they survive.  Germany isn’t going to “Norway” Italy.  Norway was a little country, Italy fielded substantial, if low-grade forces.  Coming thru the Brenner Pass is not going to be fun.

2)    History diverges and Germany “wins”; meaning that in the West it is supreme and has a Brest-Litovsk situation in the East.

a.     1940

                                                              i.      Germany advances onto Dunkerque and destroys the BEF (removing Britain’s ability to:

1.     Wage offensive war; or

Quote    Reply

And you over-estimate Italy’s ability to make war.  Britain had FOUR TIMES Italy’s ability to make war!   Sure Italy could have made more of anything than it did, but even if it did, Britain was still going to produce four times as many!  And given other facts, the British things were not only go to be more numerous they were BETTER.., Lee-Enfield, Matilda, Spitfires, Battleships.

More specifically:

1)    Army.

It did not fight well.  Operation Compass is proof of that.  36,000 Brit’s take on 150,000 Italians and defeat them.  Bad morale, bad officers, bad small arms, bad machine guns, bad mortars, poor armour, the only decent thing they have is the “Semovente.”

2)    Air Force.

It’s OK.  The fighters are seriously sub-standard.

3)    Navy

The Navy is not very good.  You’re wrong; the Vittorio Veneto class was the worst capital ships of the war.  The main armament is poor, with bad dispersion.  The armour is light.  The torpedo protection is sub-optimal.  The AA is very poor.  Overall, the Italian Navy is just not that good.