Italian Forces and Industry in Early World War 2 

Badpak this was actually my mistake in hoi4

before taking that ethiopa wait when enough pp is ready justify againts Yugoslavia then take ethiopa after declaring war to yugoslavia declare againts Greece after that made focus to take albania after that you have a small empire that Mussolini's ambitions

@@ogulcankrmzaltn4531 Italy needed a lot of coal to build steel to make most of war materials. Where was coal available in the Mediterranean basin? Greece (1 coal mine in Peloponnese, 2 coal mines in Macedonia) , Kosovo (huge reserves of Coal and various others but not mined) and Romania (many coal and iron mines). Italy had very little coal in Sardinia and very little iron in Aosta and Elba Island but a huge iron deposit in central Libya never mined! How do you thing Italy could built a lot of war industries? Hitler must have thinked to send a lot of coal by train to Italy since 1934 to help her to built that industry and from 1934 to 1939 iron was available in French Algeria and French Tunisia and since 1940 Libyan iron could have been available . In an other timeline may be?

@@jmt97400 They are not talking about the real war. They talk about a game, HOI4, in which the resource coal doesn't exist.

Maybe research lvl 3 construction thingy?

@Reddsoldier or building 10 widths

Reminds me of the Russians and Chinese building armies out of nothing but underfunded and underequipt irregulars in Victoria 2 to boost their military ranking. Playing as France i once managed to get a near monopoly on silk and tea (as well as a population matching that of the UK and beating both Russia and the US) by launching a few invasions into China, they outnumbered me 10:1 but i mowed them down with fully equip infantry supported by a huge amount of artillery and engineers.

That's how HoI 2 basically did it. That version didn't directly simulate binary divisions, but every Italian division is 20% understrength in game terms, and if fully resupplied they'd be like any other division.

In hoi4 you can win just wich only infantry You dont need tanks

@Vlad Melis You'll take more losses then with a 40 wide division the way the attacks work.

Yep. The Italian soldier did the best he could with what little he had. Hell Rommel went so far as to take the water from Italian divisions for his own in North Africa. Which I can understand from Rommel's point view. German divisions were better equipped and capable of more. But that sort of action sure as shit builds distrust among your allies. That Italian divisions did perform well at times. Italy just wasn't ready for war.

Their tanks weren't poor, Italian tanks were more than a match for British and French tanks up until mid-1942, it was only after introduction of the Matilda, M3 Lee/Grant and M4 Sherman tanks that they became obsolete.

@@andrewleonard475 lol Matilda existed before Italy joined the war

Tennoheikabanzai Far East Coast crew disagrees.

@Chalk O'holic >< True.

I take it that Mussolini would not be a good 'movie' star;)

Of war?

Kübelwagen Blitz: Mussolini and Marshal Graziani salvaged, perfected, promoted and executed Operation Winter Storm on the western end of the Gothic Line, resulting in the defeat of the US 92nd Buffalo Division in late December 1944, so the last defeat suffered by American forces in Europe during WW2 was inflicted by Mussolini and the Italian Monte Rosa Division.

And so did George W. Bush. Iraq? Mission accomplished..ha ha. The mission had barely started and the Americans were being killed by the dozens each day during the Iraq war..

The mission accomplished thing was for the ship (Which was being decommissioned) the speech was taking place on, of course everyone presumed it was to do with the war itself.

thank you! o7

Remenber also the great influence of the race dottrine and the average italian and romanian dos not look like exactly Arian (not to bring japanese etnic group)

My Great Grandfather was one of these troops. He was captured in Russia but survived the war and emigrated to North America.

Jeez no wonder the Italians switched sides in 1943.

Very true Sam, the Italians, and Romanians troops performed well early in the invasion of the USSR, out fighting the Soviets when they, the Italians, and Romanians were adequately supplied and supported by airpower. Later after the Germans had over-reached in Russia, when supplies and reinforcements to the front became more difficult, the Germans favored their own formations over their allies' units, making a difficult situation for the Axis allies near impossible.

I have that book; damned if it didn't change my views on the Italian soldiers in World War 2. I also learned what assholes even "non-Nazi" German soldiers often were to their so-called allies.

Both in reality. When Germans stock control of some Italian high commands and equiped the Italian infantries, the Italians soldiers still fought poorly because they didn't have the fearless state of mind the Germans had, Italians were scared to go to the front, they took ages to attack, and surrendered easily when defending.

ahhahah laughable... nembo, decima mas, 29 SS, etc... all the italian divisions armed with german equipment after 1943 did exceptionally well, you are just pushing the usual old anti italian bias

Anthony J. Haha cry german italians were manlier than you drugged krauts

@@Nyx-kb7ze lmaooo no they weren't

Got to leave them room for excuses...

Jacopo Mangini 4 years late (lol) but I just want to point out that Italian tank doctrine also seemed good, but one again, there were no good tanks to carry it out, due to lack of industry

It always amazes me how little tech assistance the Germans gave them. England and the USA had very strong tech transfers eg Merlin engines under license or code breaking.

Randy Mi No doubt, but there’s a world of difference between holding your ally in contempt and the free and open exchange of technology between the U.K. and the USA.

Sei uno stupido, non conosci neanche la storia............

If I were Mussolini, I would had Lachino Hanged. I wouldn’t care if he was a loyal officer anymore.

They were legendary at the Battle of Nikolayevka with the Italian officers leading the Germans as well. Sadly, it is all too common to generalize while seeking easy and simple answers today.

There were other than senior officers, no Brits in East Africa, the troops were Indian, Nigerian with some Rhodesian and South African. The Nigerians did an amazing advance of 1000 KM in 10 days.

i recall reading that at the end of the war, the Xa MAS was given the right to bear arms because the allies had so much respect for them (RSI Xa MAS led by Valerio Borghese IIRC)

probably, I am not sure if I copied enough of the Fourth Ally book, if I am not mistaken the book series that I used mainly for this video only had very small parts about the other Axis members.

Oh. I'll look out for that book, sounds interesting.

I suggest a library, I think it listed at 160 $ or something... oh no just 90 $. Full info: (Source: Axworthy, Mark: Third Axis, Fourth Ally: Romanian Armed Forces in the European War, 1941-1945)

+Military History Visualized Thanks!!

In hearts of iron 4 you can play as any nation in the world, so Romania is in it

Italy also didn't want World War II. The vast majority of Italians mistrusted, if not despised, Hitler. Going to war with America also meant a virtual Italian civil war, and many millions of Americans were of Italian descent and maintained close ties with the Old Country.

What this video do not account for is what happened in 1936: France and UK didn't wanted another competitor for their African colonization duopoly and forced the hand at the United Nations Assembly to impose severe sanction on Italy for the war in Ethiopia. The inability of Italy to stock strategic materials reserves before the war, severely crippled the Italian industry potential between 1936 and 1945, due to constant lack of steel, aluminium, rubber and oil. The Pre-War period is known in Italy as the "Autarchic Era", where every possible strategic resource had to be spared. This started an auto inflation effect, where Italy needed cash and tried to sell weapons and advanced equipment to other European nation (Sweden, Hungary) willing to pay for it, but at the same time was depriving itself of precious strategic resources to build what it needed for it's own. The built of the 4 Littorio battleship was detrimental not because of the inability to actually build them, but because the (understandable) decision to bar any restriction of on the quality and quantity of the metal employed deprived many other weapon industries from providing what the army required. The inability to sustain a modern industry due to strangling from international markets was one of the main reasons for the Italy to join the axis while between 1935 and 1938 tension and distrust between Italy and Germany run very high over future of Austria, having Italy agreed to grant independence of that nation. Hitler lured Mussolini into the axis (and then the war with France) promising to deliver much needed steel and other strategic metals from Germany, but never really attended to his promise for Germany started building under war economy after 1940 and gauged most of the Ruhr mining steel and whatever Sweden was able to deliver for itself.

no problem, the U.S will take care of that oil for them.

Germany offered license production of pnz 4 and 3 but Italians refused

How could you comment the fact Germans didn't try to use diesels for tanks and Italians- do? I do understand the effective gas (petrol) from German brown coal for carburator engine is possible but diesel fuel is possible only from real Romanian oil- am I wrong ?

You are right the average Italian soldier wasn’t prepared for the kind of war that the Second World War is , Mussolini should have anticipated the new kind of war and prepared his soldiers and equipment for it . Bad leadership by a narcissistic megalomaniac can kill nations

Maybe the alpini were not well used, but on every moutainous terrain Italy failed, in the mountain of Cyrenaica (Eastern Lybia), of Greece and Yugoslavia, as well as not being capable to cross the alps and to enter the French homeland until Germans arrived in Nice. Italian did performed on the Russian Front, where they were supplied by Germans. As said Machiavel, "an Italian is very brave, Italians as an army are not, everyone think he can command, and misleaded, they failed repetedly" he wrote that in the 15th century. Cheers

One wonders how someone interested in conquering the Mediterranean prepared itself to a war in the Alps.

Not to mention Mussolini had installed party hacks into leadership positions in his military as he placed a higher priority on loyalty than competence... the same mistake Stalin made in his purges and Hitler started making more and more as the tide began to turn against Germany. Leadership makes a big difference... a prime example being Zhukov's turnaround of the Red Army.

You actually read the history of North Africa, it is clear that the Italians did most of the fighting and winning on the Axis side. Also the Germans had worse field hygiene in the desert than the Italians or the British.

oh there are poor soldiers. italians were practically untrained in the war compared to german, french, british, and american forces.

your forgetting that the Italian Infantry division is composed of 2 infantry battalions, whereas GER had 3, and US had 4

*Regiments

And yet, Rommel once commented that when the Italian soldier was commanded by German officers, they held up and at times, exceeded what was expected of them. However, it's true that generally Italian officers were useless. A lot were commissioned based on political reliability and connections.

Marco Ceccherini Indeed; here is a quote from him: "The Italian command was, for the most part, not equal to the task of carrying on war in the desert, where the requirement was lightning decision followed by immediate action. The training of the Italian infantryman fell far short of the standard required by modern warfare. … Particularly harmful was the all pervading differentiation between officer and man. While the men had to make shift without field-kitchens, the officers, or many of them, refused adamantly to forgo their several course meals. Many officers, again, considered it unnecessary to put in an appearance during battle and thus set the men an example. All in all, therefore, it was small wonder that the Italian soldier, who incidentally was extraordinarily modest in his needs, developed a feeling of inferiority which accounted for his occasional failure and moments of crisis. There was no foreseeable hope of a change for the better in any of these matters, although many of the bigger men among the Italian officers were making sincere efforts in that direction. "

I don't see how a baby could fight. If you meant my great grandfather, then he was not a coward. What's the point of dying in some shithole like Stalingrad thousands of kilometers away from home? Besides, he never got the order to go there.

Italy was a divided country, most of those who supported the fascist party were really just in to not be assassinated, Italy was not Germany, when mussolini couldn't use his iron fist anymore due to weakening from war and his own position almost everybody realized that that could be the chance to get rid of him, and them from one day to the next italy is divided in two faction fighting each other, what would you do if you were told to shoot on sight? when on the other side those you fight might actually be your friends and relatives?

Picenum "Fascists never killed anyone" in the silliest, most historically misinfiromed and biased affimation I ever heard, except if you consider that Giacomo Matteotti, a widely respected parliament member from the socialist party who had just spoken in defense of Italian democracy at the Camera (our lower Parliament chameber) coukd be considered a dangerous terrorist. And I will not discuss the Fascist "squadracce", who killed, beat, tortured, and maimed thousands of people gromthe 1920's a nd up to the 1940's, or about the Italian concentration camps in Croatia, Greece, Ethiopia, and Lybia.

@@alicetwain yeah Fascists even executed civilians in Yugoslavia

@Stalin Dota and you arean commie

the germans wanted britain as their ally but they had different ideologies. also those were the only allies available to them. (with other minor nations like romania, hungary, bulgaria) because those are the only countries who support their ideology.

There was no way Japan could have helped Germany anyway, that is clearly shown in the battle of Manchuria.

Yes they could, Russians would have had to place more troops to their eastern border meaning that Germans would have had less numbered enemy, probably would have made a critical difference causing the fall of Leningrad, Stalingrad and Moscow. Yes Japanese could not have WON the soviet onslaught but that is besides the point.

Kastor Hallavainio no, the Siberian army that was based in the Far East was enough to deal with Japan before, no reason to think otherwise in this case.

Is this a fact? because I remember the soviets moving troops from siberia to west due to german attack. japan joining the war with germany would seem to do the trick.

The Regia Aeronautica, just a grammatical pet issue... But yeah... Italian military has been known to suck ever since Italy united...

To be fair, the british also made this mistake.

Except Porco Rosso.

FortuneZero Ayyyy!

Friendly fire incidents can occur with any military around the world simply because humans make mistakes.

If we had some spandau history would have been different.

the Breda 30 was the worst lmg of the WW2

No because they couldn't shoot those weapons.

Dont forget the Chauchat

WW1 mg's? really?

And the Alies needed the help of the Mafia too! It's just sad the ignorant stereo type that Italy has.

***** Mind elaborate? Cause as far as I can tell your comment is just a bait.

In america, we call an utter disaster a fiasco.

yeah, leave him be, cadorna was a displaced out of his mind man who thought that you could win wars by charging the enemt in the trenches, he basically sent thousends to die meaninglessly

Well, not only him: most of the italian high command was as stupid as he was. Sadly italian high command was composed exclusively with people with powerfull families, rather than those with merit for the charge. This was a reality, to a certain degree, in all armies, but on the italians it was extreme, and ensured that almost no one with some real brains was able to actually get high in the italian army. Lets remember those same retards are the ones who supported Musollini into power, and if that isnt stupid enough, then they supported him into all his retarded campaigns over Europe. clearly the italin army was prepared for an offensive war in WW2 and yet they were in africa, trying to pull an imposible victory out of their sleeves.

ehy, I would have liked having you when I was in middle school, for summarizing thing to study, pretty mch spot on

This is four years late, you do know that he was saying (paraphrased) "Italian soldiers have the label of coward attached to them" to refute it, right? He almost immediately said afterwards that Italian soldiers fought bravely and with courage and that it was the leadership, industry, and logistics that let them down.

thank you!

all soldiers r brothers ideed, i complitelly agree o last thig u said i video

@Military History Visualized I think you should have mentioned that Italy was under embargo since the Ethiopian war, it had a huge impact on our resources and was one of the reason that made us ally with Germany.

@pincopallino: from what I know, you are right, a valid and good point, didn't think about that while doing the video. Although, I need to revisit the embargo, never really read about it.

Military History Visualized I have heard you say the word "Nazi" before in your videos but not "Bolshevik" I know your country likes to be politically correct on many things! I just don't understand why you must say the derogatory word or term "Nazi" instead of "National Socialist"

also first time I use a screenshot from a game :)

I have to wait a bit till I can get HOI4, you should do a game where you just see the world in historical mode, not take part in it with any major faction, just look at it.

Alpini are heroes

refrigeraptor Not true. It's just a myth. It was the case around 1913-14, but not from 1915 on.

refrigeraptor So mountain divisions from the Alps fought well during winter. Is that supposed to be suprising?

refrigeraptor Gold is not used in cartridges...

I am fairly certain that is soviet propaganda. At least we had the same lies spread by the Soviet puppet regime about our troops.

Thanks for that

Rickusty yea right

True I find annoying that the betray myth keeps popping up here and there, when in fact was the reverse.

It was not Austria the engine of the war against Serbia. It was Hungary. The Austrians accepted the Serbian response to the ultimatum but the Magyar part of the government was obsessed with the Serbians because of what we call now Voyvodina. They suspected (not without reason) Serbia was agitating there and they wanted to crush it. Furthermore the Bosnian question was a question that affected Croatians which were a part of the Hungarian crown. This is what made Austria turning down the Serbian acceptance of the ultimatum and thus leading to war: the Hungarian part made very clear they risk losing them if their demands were not accepted.

@@zoompt-lm5xw Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! Let me get this straight! So people believe that Italy betrayed Austria, but they believe that Austria betrayed them first by attacking Serbia. But Austria didn't want to attack Serbia, but Hungary made them decide basically between Italy and Serbia or losing Hungary. So the Germans blame the Italians for ditching the Triple Alliance, the Italians blame the Austrians and the Austrians blame the Hungarians! Why isn't this a movie? And speaking of which, who do the Hungarians blame? The Serbians? And who do the Serbians blame? The Habsburg's? And who do they blame? The Prussians? So who's fault is it? And does it really matter or is it all going to taper out to some lame as beginning from some vague border conflict in Roman times?

@@zhouwu don't forget the Russians agitating for their own territorial position

I didn't know you watched this channel woodstock...

Kübelwagen Blitz This channel is the shit

Agreed, we all know that Hoi can't tell us everything about ww2.

***** Let's not forget FIAT(for non italians the biggest automotive industry in Italy,our "Ford" in a way)was basically jumpstarted with aid by the government.

suddenly everyone becomes a military history expert.

yeah, I think the Romanians is only the German and Austria thing, because, well we lost in Stalingrad. Thank you!

US general public would be like i though Rome was a long time ago. i did not know they fought in WW2.

The US and most western militaries little to no contact with Romanian forces during WW2.. So they never formed any strong opinions regarding the Romanian forces.. They did however have much contact with German and Italian forces.. And the difference in difficulty between fighting against the Germans and fighting against the Italians was huge.. The Italians where easy to defeat whilst the Germans where hard to defeat.. As pointed out in the Video the inferiority of the equipment status of Italian forces probably had a huge demoralizing effect on Italian troops when they where attacked by well equipped British forces in north Africa.. But as the video reveals this left a bad impression of the fighting ability of Italian forces in Western Armies..

Yeah because Italy was supposed to be a "Power" in the Axis the big 3.... Romania was a minor it was a satalight

thank you!

Thanks for this. My grandpa served in the Navy and was sunk twice by british Swordfish torpedo bombers. But my father often remembers his stories about those battles, and how much the sailors respected the often suicidal bravery of the british pilots.

+Tom J There seems to have been a mutual respect between the British and Italians. My Italian grandad and British great grandad fought on different sides in the same battles in North Africa and got on fine after the war. My great grandfather was wounded in his crusader tank and would have died if Italians hadn't given him water. It seems the most amicable front, nothing like the Russians and Germans.

ARandomUsernameForMe Good to hear.

That's because they fought in such a hostile environment and had a common enemy - the desert. Also because many of the Italians didn't want to be there or even thought they should be fighting on the Allied side

well, John Ferris a leading Military Intelligence Historian disagrees with the importance of Military Intelligence in WW2: “Intelligence did little to cause Axis defeat, but much to shape how the Allies achieved victory.” (Ferris, John: Intelligence In: Cambridge History of the Second World War, Volume I: p. 637) Although it gets overemphasized a lot, because I guess it is the combination of "we were smart" (winner) and "we have a scapegoat" (loser) mentalities, also cloak & dagger seems fascinating.

Very interesting. Because Martin Gilbert puts intelligence on the stage light as having been key to victory. After the allies got the Ultra key, all WW2 according to him (I'm obviously over simplifying) seems to have been: "Read how many troops/ships/aircrafts the enemy has, put together enough troops/ships/aircrafts to slaughter them and send them to the fight". In all fronts, but especially in the mediterranean. I understand how it can be overemphasized, though. very easy to use it as a mean to justify victory and superiority even when outnumbered

from what I know from one of Ferris's students (Justin from the Navy Chat), Ferris was a student or just graduated around the time when Ultra was made public and then the overall tone was "we need to rewrite everything and everything will be different", well, now since the dust has settled the tone became way more sober. The thing with intelligence is, if you don't have a hammer, you can't hit anything. Even without ultra, the u-boats would be detected by radar and killed off by planes still quite easily.

I imagine how tough must be to have to rethink everything because of new discoveries. Very interesting to know these sides of history. And I understand what you mean. The outcome of the war was inevitable. Independently from the state of enemy intelligence, it's impossible to move tanks and ships without fuel, or having an army without manpower. Germany was doomed from the start, even if the allies had never come out with Ultra. Still, even if it's speculation, it's cool to think how many details and battles would be different today with a, for example, heavily supplied North Africa. Something that in the reality of things was impossible to achieve. Also, I wanted to say I discovered your channel yesterday and I'm glad for it. You seem really enthusiast and passionate and to know a lot of things. I can only wish there were more channels like this on RU-vid. Keep up!

thank you! I am still trying to convince a few people that I have high opinions of to do the same, so far with limited success.

a far cry from the romans

yeah... not only in WWII XD(I'm italian too)

The Italian forces fighting the Russians fought well enough. A lot depends on believeing in the conflict. Japan had similar problems with equipment but had a totally different reputation.

+HAdrian builtawall indeed, the Italian army has always performed very bravely the problem was the lack of good officers and weapons.

Japan had supreme experienced navy though, and ground forces werent the main focus in the Pacific theatre.

thank you! Nope, actually not, kinda odd, because I was searching for a lot of related stuff. I usually refer to niehorster.org

@@leebinpoggersmomento6101 the treaty is there, written to be read. Doesn't matter the nationality of the reader. Only one more thing: they didn't ignored the spirit of the treaty, since the treaty itself stated that any change in the balcans had to be discussed before with all the members of the treaty, and then compensated. So, if there's someone ignoring the spirit of the treaty ,well, they are the austrians and their fellow germans. Quite curious how, after all this time, still is carried on this myth of betrayal. In m opinion, much has to be in some racist point of view, that reveal the prejudice against the southern and "catholic" europeans very spread in northern european countries still nowadays, that portrays the southern as lazy, unreliable, always ready to steal to the "good&pure germanic (dutch, scandinavian, anglosaxon) "people" (but they meant race). It's sad how it is still the most important divide in northern politician still in modern EU. That's why the "PIGS" should separate from EU, in my humble opinion.

Basically it is as follows: Mussolini decided it was a very good idea to send underequepped and unprepared troops to fight on a mountainous region during winter. There you have it.

Hmm, your argument is invalid and a little bit racist. I don't know about these alive burials but what I know for certain is that during the campaign in north africa there were a lot of episodes where italian soldiers, despite beeing overnumbered and underequipped they did hold of to the allied advance. Also, you portray the germans as cold robots and this is actually not true in many cases expectially during the first part of the war. Do you know what happened in Kefalonica after the italian armistice?

Well, they were fighting a war they didn't want. Can you blame them?

No of course you can't blame them,and personally me i don't blame them when they putted down their guns, greeks were together with italians together there were about no casualties,plus greek saved or tried to save italians when germans brutally burry them inside greek beaches alive to suffocate like mouses.Too bad you can't find this series of terrible war crime i mean the burrials of italians in internet.But i know it from people that were relatives from people that face,saw the events,and we talk about massive burrials not one-two soldiers,we talk like throwing piles of jew bodies in graves.Maybe it will be good to put some of that stuff in internet,i will find official writings of that stuff to upload about these.Cause greeks maybe are a bit more cold,but noone was treating people like shit like germans who were a cold killing machine and acting as one without personal consiousness. Personally i have a lot of italian friends because i like their personality even more than my fellow greeks,cause they are more talkative ,social,sensimental,and open hearted than greeks that are too but not so much.

this is just the classic hollywood propaganda, but if you have watched at least this video you are commenting and if you have read the comment above, you should have changed your idea. It's quite sad tough, thatis alway so hard for people to abandon thei prejudices even after so many data and facts explained. I still wonder why people always prefer to explain everything with racist assumptions.

@john vento actually italy lost in greece.the italian army retreated into albania and was saved by the germans.

they lost war because allies was 90% of the world

Ya i agree much of the reason the Italians failed was the fact A. they couldn't arm everyone. B. What they did arm them with can arguably be considered lower quality including their tanks C. the application of said equipment wasn't used as effectively as it could.

@@sandrodream5418 Very good point. To think Germany, Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Finland and Japan made up 10% of the world population at the time. ^ white countries and 1 non white country made up 10% of the worlds population of the time. How times have changed hey

@@sandrodream5418 That is 6 white countries. Sorry about my typing there

And The 442nd Regiment is the most decorated unit for its size in U.S. military history. They are Japanese American. Fight against German in Europe. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)

Folgore division. Still one of our best units

Italians can only fight well in their civil war because there their enemy was the Italians

@@neieduardodepaula4556 i wanna se you in a war with that equipment

@@neieduardodepaula4556 r/historymemes moment

What? You respect the SS Guards at Auschwitz? Why?

@@hf6947-f3w No, off course NOT, Harry. KZ camps guards don't deserce to be called soldiers. They were butchers. Inhuman cowards. They deserve only scorn and infamy.

Agree

@@robynn144 Those were soldiers in WWII. The SS were a paramilitary organization with combat troops. If you respect all soldiers in WW2 that means you respect the SS guards.

What about the sailors then?

damn Italians

I don't think so.. this video gives justice to the italian soldiers.

As an italian i can say that this video give justice to our brave soldiers that went in war with a very low equipment against armies with a better weaponery. Everyone is brave and good at war on a fucking Sherman tank.

a Sherman or 50K Shermans?

Probaly People who don´t like the creators opinion, like he never realy says im for this side or sth but i think you can hear a certain opinion he got about this. Then it could be ultra nationalists who don´t like the bashing on their country. I can´t give you a good one though.

that sounds pretty crazy, but I believe you. You still have the diary?

+Military History Visualized i do it is on italian/croatian... ive just read how he and other deserted before beign deployed in libya. he joined partisans in croatia in 42. he saw a lot of things, he even was part of liberation of our home town zara/zadar which was under italy. pretty crazy

maybe you should check with city archive and/or museum, if they would be interested in a copy or something. I don't know, maybe they have plenty of those anyway, but I doubt it. Sadly I don't speak Italian nor Croatian. Translation would be great.

+Military History Visualized. my father wants it to stay in family i guess... theres a lot of family related stuff. i plan to translate it and then publish it on some forum or site. it is pretty in depth with a lot of day to day situations in a life of underequiped soldier

yeah, I can understand that, thus I meant a physical copy. Alternatively you could do a scan and get helping in translating online, I think Croatia was once - don't know if it still is - in my top 25 countries.

Why would Churchill make a peace deal with the Germans? This would've been a treason and a defeat for the Allies. And no, he did not take any delight in bombing Germany, but doing so was necessary to block the German war effort.

Bengali - Yeah , he really liked the krauts , they had to be bombed for their own good ( they were becoming to cocky) In fact Churchill was never thanked by the germans , does anyone know why?

@ Germany failed to make fighting an unattractive enough choice for the British populace. I am fairly certain the avrage Brit didnt give much of a shit about Poland or France if that meant they didnt starve.

My Great Grandfather fought in Stalingrad and survived, sick

With a tommy gun in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other?

And man that's only when the bullets started flying. I mean for most Italians to even get to the front-line meant marching.....in a desert, in the sun while badly resupplied, Jesus

Germany did not need to accept the Italian offer of an alliance. Let us put the blame where it should go.With germany

Typically Brit: acquiring things that do not belong to them

In general I agree with you, but the fascists in Italy and nazis in Germany didn't had total control and in some cases far from it, they were in certain areas corrupt and dysfunctional system. Whereas the Soviet Union under Stalin was quite efficient as far as I know, although the price for that was extremely high.

Love your videos. However I think it was more that Stalin just spent his people. A ruthless tyrant who causes many unneccessary deaths in his paranoia and pursuit of ideology, Stalin was however not insane and took things by cold calculation. For any Russian, whether they thought of him as a ruthless unbearable monster, a necessary evil or a Semi-Divine leader that historians centuries later would envy, Stalin understood perhaps due to his cynicism that no Russian (or very few) would be willing to lay down their lives for the Communist Party, for Marxism and much less Stalin himself. Once Stalin realized that Hitler was not a cold calculating stone hearted bureaucrat like himself, but an irrational obsessive and unreasonable maniac, Stalin's superiority in man power and resources and landscape and the Russian winter were easily able to compete with Hitler's army. What's more is that Hitler was the opposite of cynical, he was a firm fanatic and thought of even ordinary concepts through the lenses of a romanticized view of Medieval and Ancient ways of thinking. Whether it be "blood and honour" or "war is good" or to the victor go the spoils, his compulsion to destroy Russia walked hand in hand with the fact that Hitler not only expected the German people to die for him, he even thought it plausible to expect them to die for Nazism, for the Nazi Party, for German Honour and for many of nonsensical reinterpretations of Teutonic concepts long since mostly defunct or buried in German culture. Stalin learned to mobilize his man power and refused to be beaten and though he never admitted to anyone that purging the Red Army of its leadership nearly destroyed the Soviet Union, he still understood logistics and psychological warfare and was for his part able to rally people even those who despised him to die for their homeland. Hitler on the other hand learned nothing, even coming to the conclusion that maybe Germans were not only no longer the Master Race but that the Slavs might be. Hitler was the Hannibal of our time, he had developed an unquenchable obsession to destroy a country he had never been to and fixated on super weapons but he was unable to capitalize on his early military victories. Like Scipio, Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt made Hitler out to be a Brilliant Super Villain because if you defeat a "genius" then it makes you look even better. But frankly, given the gross incompetance and lack of cooperation in the Reich, the staggering inefficiency of Totalitarianism and the fact that Hitler sabotaged his chance to be the First nuclear power and also the first Air Power with Jets, I have to say that Hitler was actually a much bigger fool than his supporters and critics let on. Love your work :)

thx, yeah, but which tyrant doesn't "spend" his people? I agree mostly, except for the ancient part, because I know too little about Hannibal et al, yet. Hence I can't agree nor disagree.

To follow up, I think much of the reason Stalin didn't have a large staff of unscrupulous Nobles holding banquets and living in castles like the Nazis was that almost everyone in his inner circle didn't last too long. People like Goering, Rohm, Goebbels, Himmler, Bormann, and maybe even the indispensable Heydrich would have been LONG gone under Stalin.

You are right of course :) That said, Stalin spent one Eighth BEFORE the war. Even the Nazis weren't that paranoid. Mao killed like 2% of his people and a good portion of them were killed by stupidity rather than purges (though many also were) The Khmer Rogue has Stalin beat in that they spent HALF of their people but unlike Stalin, the Khmer Rogue had nothing to show for their efforts. This was obvious in the fact that they picked a fight with the Vietnamese, a country who had already beaten FOUR super powers and was perhaps the first country since the Qin and the Mongols to even fight more than one in a single life time and survive. Pol Pot even predicted a 30 to 1 kill ratio against the Vietnamese but it was just the opposite hahaha.

heard yes, but not much more.

Military History Visualized you should search them up and research them, people need to know about them.

All of these are mentioned in the Flames of War books for the tabletop game. I've used the 75/18 and the 90 mm aa guns. The latter are quite the psychological weapon! lol. A video of those would be interesting to watch.

Uzbug i agree

There is a Wiki page on the tank Semovente 90/53. Only 30 were made and were ready for use in late 1942. They were supposed to be used on the Russian front, though when they arrived, they decided it was better employed for the defense of Sicily. On paper they seemed a good anti-tank, but in reality they were not effective and not thought out well, but it was to late for retifications. Only one still exists today. More or less the same story with the Semovente da 75/18, though first built in 1938, they were always on the backfoot of armament, contiously developing the tank and changing it's charateristics due to the fact that they didn't have knowledge of proper use as in todays terms (like most nations), so in practice they were always trying to catch up both in armament and in tactics. The war ended early for Italy, July 1943 and once invaded it was all over in production and design terms, so the tanks etc. never reached full potential like most other nations that reached the end of the war on the winning side. Remember most nations understood the need of tanks only after the war in Spain. So beforehand, already lacking in armaments they prefered to dedicate to naval and aeronautical, which they were more inclined to knowledge, both in use and construction.

Patton was very nearly captured by Italian troops near the Gela beachhead, imagine Patton being paraded in Rome as a POW? Anyway the troops in question were men from the Livorno Division, just after overrunning the forward US Ranger defences.

Alexpander just make 14/4 mountain divs

Brooks Coplen Sadly, that doesn’t work anymore. DAMN CORNFLAKES!

With a national focus tree 5 yrs old. Fuck Paradox

MeFJuve triggered Italian haha, I'm eating a pizza from my local Italian rn

Heroes the Coca-Cola boys weren't they ? Of course the fact that they had the best armaments helped somewhat , wouldn't you say?

Sam Van Noyen You stop sniffing laughing gas silly twat. 🙈🙈🙈

Actually not. Pizza became a popular italian food only in the 1950's. Before that it was a food curiosity of Naples alone.

@@alicetwain Mama Mia next thing you'll tell me that Italians don't eat fettuccine alfredo every day and yes I know that's just for us tourists. I don't know why you guys don't like it though it's amazing. Try green chile chicken fettuccine alfredo it'll change your life.

Moreno C Infact , if truth be told ........ The Italian soldiers were the real heroes of the WW 2 . They fought tanks in El Alamein with diy Molotov bombs .

If the Fascist regime was efficient at least as half of the Nazi regime, Italy would have won easily.

won what? the ww2 by itself? explain yourself

Erwin Rommel lying for propaganda reasons sums it up? Its funny how people think that 80 years ago no one lied. And why would you think having specialized units made the Italian units better? Those men had to be pulled out of regular units. "Italians fought well, they just lacked proper equipment and the reason to fight." - if they fought well they would be winning. Italians fought poorly because they lacked proper equipment and they didnt share a reason to fight with Mussolini who had reasons to fight. Dominance in Balkans, colonies in Africa, threat of communism.

They had some good weapons but not enough. Today, the Italians are well-known for excellent weapons systems. The Oto Melara 76mm is the premier naval gun in the world.

So if Germans, British or Americans had special units, that dosnt make Bersaglieri, Guastatori, Alpini and Incursor great in any way moron. How were they "great" then? And those special units performed like standard german units, while standard Italian units were usually surrendering on mass. As for propaganda, its made for a common man, not for the Italian high command. They should know the truth, a simple soldier can hear lies. And your hero Rommel was talking about Bersaglieri, not the entire Italian army.

Paciat Did I say that he was talking aboht the whole army, dumbass? No. And he is not my hero...he was a great leader, yet overrated. Guess you havent heard of Decima Flottiglia MAS a special unit that raided Alexandria with only 6 men and managed to disable and damage 2 battleships, 1 destroyer and a tanker all by themselves. But surely that is not enough for you, idiot. Then battle of Nikolayevka where Italian Alpini divisions broke through the encirlement of Stalingrad and marched for days without any vehicles nor warm clothes and yet managed to beat the Soviets and escape. As for berdaglieri those were in every infantry division, so they pretty much took part in every Italian victory. Guastatori were often part of Bersaglieri troops, so the same goes for them. And I guess that you havent heard of Ariete or Folgore divisions...if not dont even bother to disturb me when you know nothing about the Italian army in WW2 and just repeat the old stereotype.

Ski troops marched thru snow. What an achievement. Light infantry doing its job. It had armored units too. Some super elite units right there. Italians did not fought well. They lost well most of the time. Sometimes they did their job sometimes they didnt. That what the British said about them. You cannot fight well with only light infantry and the navy. This video is about the state of the Italian army moron, not some specific units. So how is this video biased? Your biased towards those special units in specific situations.