There is no contest here, the Italians win hands down. They couldn't even defeat Greece and had to get German help to do so thus putting back the date set for operation Barbarossa with the resulting disaster of the Russian winter.
If the original poster really meant El Alemain, I think that by that time Rommel had pretty much given up on using the Italians as anything but filler/shock troops. I remember reading that he commended the enlisted, but called the officers "incompetent" and the High commmand "criminal" (This was in a book, Trail of the Fox. I read it many years ago, but I think I remember correctly) Oh, and the M-13 was a truly pitiful tank.
The biggest problem the Italians faced was moral. The general feeling about the war in Italy was, Right War, Wrong Side.
No problem. I see something that gets my interest and I go looking for information which I like to summarize here. Thanks to other posts, I went and looked up information about Italian tanks. I'd like to create a summary for them as well: They are the suck.
Apparently -as I've briefly looked up- the D520 is well known inside WWII warplane lovers circles. We all know how it's work, this is stuff for the initiated ones...But we spoilt it !! Ze plane :
Mmm... no. It was not about right or wrong side. It was more about not really wanting to fight another war (after bloody WW1). The vast majority didn't really believe in that war. The most motivated ones ie the fervid fascists and the best (few) elite troops (out of military honour) fought like mad, the others, the overwhelming majority of the mighty italian army, also because of the pitiful equipment I mentioned, cared only about saving their own lives. That's why many of them were happy to end POW as soon as possible. And they knew it was better to end POW of the western allies.
What was the name of the Italian General that spent more time writing Opras than planning military options, I think hw was the commander in the Albainian operations.
lol It was Gen. Soddu (clearly of sardinian origin given the surname even if he was born in Salerno near Naples). Together with Gen. Visconti Prasca they were the best impersonification of military incompetence one can get. http://digilander.libero.it/lacorsainfinita/guerra2/personaggi/sodduubaldoeprasca.htm
The Italian tanks were equiped with a gear-box that had 4 reverse gears & 1 forward one. The forward one was for when they were attacked from behind.
This looks a heck of a lot like a Spitfire. Was there collaboration (no pun intended) between the design teams?
The nose certainly looks the same, although the wings and tail don't and the cockpit is somewhat Warhawkish. During the design phase they tried putting a Merlin engine in it and it worked great, but France decided later to put the engines they did buy into their light bombers. Besides that I don't think there was much cooperation. The Spitfire first flew 6 months before Dewoitine started designing, so there might have been some influence.
No, its right. Google image search has lots of photos of all three kinds. The French plane is different from the British planes in that it's cockpit is much further back, the rudder is much larger, and it's landing gear use the much easier-to-land-with outside opening system than the inside opening system of the Spitfire. Spitfires also have a unique elliptical wing, and Hurricanes have a very distinctive fabric covered rear fuselage and less aerodynamic shape.
....What happened at Oran in 1940 had a much greater influence on the outcome of WWII than is ever mentioned....with the bulk of the French fleet out of the equation the Germans had no chance of getting their army over the 25 miles of sea seperating Britain from the continent....as the Royal Navy was, at the time, the largest navy in the world.
By reading Rommel's diary and his letters to his wife you'll have a merciless description of the italian absolute unreadiness in equipment, weaponry and tactics. He describes the italian generals as being incompetent, having an obsolete conception of war, and as being "criminal" in the way they sent their soldiers to carnage. He already was aware (1941) of the sectors amongst the italian military (talking about high ranking generals such as Badoglio) who were far from being sympathetic to fascism, warned hitler of the fact that even amongst the crown of italy there were a lot of anti-german positions and also in the vatican*. He also remarked that, contrary to what happened in Germany, the "soft" approach vs the antifascist opposition made it so that free pirate radios continued to air antifascist propaganda. He did also warn that among the italian ppl the war was vastly unpopular. To be fair, Ciano, Mussolini's foreign minister and his son in law, tried to stop hitler (and Mussolini) because Italy was unprepared to fight a war. He tried hard to convince Hitler to wait at least 3 years. But hitler was unstoppable and mussolini was jealous of german victories. His anti-german positions are well-known, btw. In the end, he wrote in his diaries, he was not so sure whether he would have wished for Italy "a German victory or defeat". * My dad was attending a catholic seminar and all the priests (and him) were all antifascists.
Actually, if you look at modern warplanes, regardless of nation none of them look a million miles apart from each other either. I suppose there are only so many ways one can design within given aerodynamic parameters. It's a regret of mine about the post ww2 era, there are very few mil aircraft that work on the aesthetic level as well as the operational. I might be going OTT here, but the 'classic' duel of the Spit vs the 109 is not only about two deadly fighting machines, but two works of art as well. And from experience, exhilirating as 'jet blast' is, it can't beat the buzz from hearing 6 Merlins as the BBMF cruise past a crowd line...
C'mon, the '109? With that huge zit of an air intake? How about the FW190- absolutely beautiful plane!!
I agree. I like the 109, but the thing was butt ugly - big nose, square canopy, little chicken feet tail, things sticking out all over in later versions. Make a new airplane thread if you want to keep talking about this.
I would think part of Italy's problem wasn't just that they weren't very strong, but the leaders were feeling confident of their abilities after victories in places like Ethiopia (Abyssinia). Ethiopia wasn't much of a victory since they still organized their army by what we'd call feudal means. The old roving bands of mercenaries going from town to town to recruit or enscript and many troops slipping away home when it was harvest time.