The Italian navy at the start of WW2 

Great first video, hope to see a lot more ... although if you could have put the names of all the ships you listed (especially larger ships alongside their silhouettes) that would have been very useful

Fantastic introduction to the Regia Marina!

I have just viewed your video with Drachinifel & have subscribed to you as a result. I love the Regia Marina. I also build 1:700 scale model warships as a hobby (for 45 years now....) I noticed a severe lack of Regia Marina subjects in plastic models. I wrote the Chinese company, Trumpeter, about this about 15 years ago- and made suggestions that they produce Italian capital ships in plastic, because no one offered them. About 2-3 years later ? The ROMA & LITTORIO appeared on the market from Trumpeter Models..... I'd LIKE to think I may have had something to do with it !!.... Never hurts to try, anyway !! 🚬😎

Great video very informative

Very informative. Many thanks

The refit Conte di Cavour and Guilio Cesare were some of the finest looking Battleships ever created.

Thanks for this.

very nice video, im usually more interested in tanks and infantry stuff so this was a good introduction into the Italian navy

Hell yeaaaaa ! Well done mate Just need you to get your speaking volumen up , me an my mate (we are not new any more, and have had our share in a few conflicts) so the flaps on our heads does not amplify enough. And my mate says , you can always turn volumen down to your satisfaction, but newer up enough. But i/we will keep an eye on your channel for "updates" keep em coming. (maybe some reload times for them big guns), and some more info on your famous torpedo boats. Thanx again for creating this up load, and stay safe mate.

Excellent, great video!! Very well done. Ilook forward to you next video. Please keep up the great work!

Giulio. Great introduction to the Regia Marina. Whilst I may not have learnt anything new, your presentation was concise and detailed and above all interesting! My very first book on the Regia Marina was Aldo Fraccaroli’s excellent Italian Warships of World War 2 which covers all the ships. Let me know if you haven’t got a copy of it! Regards, Bob

Italy had many problems at the outbreak of WW2: 1) Out of their battleship Lineup, only 2 were able to really contest with the Royal Navy's 15' gun battleship lineup. The Cavour and Doria were essencially battleships rebuilt to face French fast battleships which were armed with 13' guns. So Regia Marina effectively had 2 very good battleships and 4 lesser battleships to confront a numerically even fleet that could replace any loss with battleships from other fronts. 2) The Italian Cruisers (most of them, not all) had very weak armor, which was a major flaw. 3) Italian Submarines were very behind in terms of technology. The hulls were riveted so the max depth was very low, also electric motors were very loud, and finally, the fire control system for torp, and torp itself, were only able to shoot forward, and leaved bubble trail. Regia Marina pretty much had WW1 era submarines, that would have served really well against many navys, but not the Royal Navy 4) The lack of CV 5) The lack of radar, and for many captains was even lack of awareness of radar technology 6) poor AA guns (102mm were good but the mounting was too slow, the 90mm didn't had enough power, they lacked a mid range like the 40mm). there were other issues but i think these represent pretty good the shortcomings of the Regia Marina. I do think that Mussolini and the Italian Naval command were aware of the massive gap between them and UK in terms of naval power, but they went to war thinking about a French surrender and a British peace negotiation afterthat, not in a long term war against the largest naval power in the world up to that point

Great video. I agree on most points however I would like to point out that the shortage of fuel is a quite complex problem: at the start if the conflict Italy had the largest oil reserves of any other continental force, but they actually put them to use by fueling all the convoys to supply the troops overseas, so it had to eventually run out. It was not exactly a flaw in my opinion but the result of a specific strategy. As for night operations, it was a big flaw of the RM, but I wouldn't say it was a war-long flaw, actually after Matapan the RM implemented night training incredibly fast (even compared to the Americans at Guadalcanal) and showed very fast learning capability that allowed them to get the upper hand even at night. I think about Operation Scylla or the Cigno convoy.

Saying that Jiusano class had armor is like calling 3 pieces of paper stacked on top of each other a good solution for body armor. 14 mm at thickest ;-;

may i ask if the goffredo mameli was also an italian battleship was it really built or was it a project that was never built? greetings from Switzerland

La Regia Marina fue la única ala de la Italia Fascista que estaba fortificada y que obtuvo importantes victorias ante La Royal Navy

Even though you said in the introduction video that content likely flows slowly, I would still like to make a video request (if you accept those). Could you please at some point touch on the "Italian shell quality/dispersion issue"? I am sure you have heard about it. It seems to be an often repeated myth that Italian ships, most famously the Littorios, suffered from abnormally large dispersion patterns. Many people say this happened because the Regia Marina accepted ammunition with a 1% production tolerance compared to the ideal ammunition. But I have also read that exactly this was stopped in 1936 or 1937. Most of this dispersion myth seems to come from a single engagement where one Littorio class ship (I cant remember which one) fired on a british cruiser at long range and could not get a hit. This myth also seems to be spread by some very influential people, most notably Drachinifel. I have read on reddit that this myth originated from some very old english sources, and that newer Italian sources dispel it and show that it was never that bad. So I would love it if you could touch on it and tell us your take on this.

As far as I know unlike Red internazional-internazi USSR White nazional-nazi Italy did not have labour concentration camps. May be this is the reason why Italy had poor industry. But such comrades like Marx, Lenin etc recommend labour armies (concentration camps).