What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

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warspite1
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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by warspite1 »

ORIGINAL: Klydon

ORIGINAL: Klydon

The Italian navy was designed to fight the French, not the British. Most of the Italian battleships at the start of the war were rebuilt ships from WW1 and while they could match what the French had from WW1, they were in no way any sort of match for the rebuilt British capital ships of WW1 and would have come off very poorly in a fight against them. The newer Italian battleships (Littorio) were a match for anything the British had, but the Italians only had 2 of them to start. Most of the Italian cruisers were lightly armored (much like their French counterparts) and were not very good designs. Most importantly, the Italian fleet suffered an inferiority complex when it came to facing the British. They knew the British were generally going to kick their butts in just about any engagement. Lack of oil also hindered the use of the Italian fleet as well.
warspite1

I disagree. Given the forces available, the RM should have done far, far better. The RN were split between Gib and Alex, while the Italians occupied the central Med and so should have been able (and indeed were able) to get superiority on many occasions. Cunningham was desperate for a fight but, Warspite aside, he struggled to get the R-class and un-modernised Queen Elizabeth's into a battle because of the latters appalling speed. Only two Littorios? Those two Littorios far out-classed the British ships - in terms of speed and firepower, the Royal Navy could not match them. The Zara-class heavy cruisers were very good ships. How many heavy cruisers did the RN have?

I agree on the inferiority complex point to an extent. Swap Cunningham for Campioni Iachino and we get a very different outcome to the naval war in the Med.

Lack of oil eventually became a problem as the Italians wasted precious supplies putting to sea with the whole fleet but failing to being the RN to decisive action.
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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by Klydon »

I think you are missing my point.

The RM should have done far better against the Brits, but I think the RM was very afraid of the Royal Navy and to a lesser extent, had a good reason to be afraid. The older rebuilt battleships had 12.6 inch guns and thin armor. The only thing they had on the old British capital ships was speed. The Littorios were fine ships and on paper did out class anything the British had floating in the Med (It would have taken a KGV class or Nelson/Rodney perhaps to make it close to "even" on paper). The issue is crew training and the reluctance of the RM to risk the ships in battle.

As far as the Zara class goes, they are acknowledged as probably the best overall Italian heavy cruiser class and they were good ships that could have been made far more dangerous had they included torpedo tubes like most non US cruisers had. (Why those cruisers didn't include torpedo tubes in a restricted water space like the Med where combat is likely to be close is rather silly). While the British didn't have much in the Med in terms of 8 inch cruisers, there were several 6 inch cruisers there and they would have laid a hurting on any non-Zara class cruiser in the Italian inventory due to the lack of armor on Italian ships.

The British force out of Alexandria had 3 15 inch battleships for the longest time at least up until the end of 41 when the Barham got torpedoed and the other ships got sunk in Alexandria harbor. This was the force that pretty much kept the Italian fleet at bay (well, the Italians kept themselves at bay for the most part). The only reason the British were not able to force the action more was because of Axis airpower over the Central Med.

The point of all this is that the Italian navy, while superior in numbers to what the British had in the Med, was not about to engage in a fight with the Royal navy that they thought they might take heavy casualties. The Italian navy was not really that different from the French/Spanish fleet of Trafalgar. They outnumbered the British, but it was the British who pressed the attack with inferior numbers and winning battle after battle.
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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by turtlefang »

I will stick with my position that the Italians were a marginal plus for the Germans overall.

But I think this discussion has really highlighted the primary weakness of the Italian Navy, Air Force and Industry - a grave lack of leadership and foresight. While I understand the limitations of the Italian Navy (oil being a HUGE limitation), it really wasn't used very effectively.

Industry wise, the Italian industry czars simply did whatever they wanted to doThe Italian govt never managed to establish effective control over them. And this resulted in really lousy procument policies and equipment for the military and government projects in general. These top people exercised a tremendous amout of influence that they didn't have in other countries - such as Germany or the US.

And the Italian Air Force - while I agree was the not the best armed of the day - could have done much better in North Africa than it did. Reality is that the British didn't perform too well there for a long time for a number of reasons - the Germans chewed them up when they shouldn't have. When the Italians worked with the German Air Force, performance when up signifigantly. When it operated independently, it went down. And the biggest reason was leadership.

The Italian Army, while it could provide flank support, simply had too much going wrong for it. And I don't mean lack of courage but simply really bad equipment. Only the Japanese had worse equipment - and you can make an argument that on many things, the Italians had it worse.

But in the end, the campaign in the Med cost more Allied troops than German ones - something that didn't happen on any other front. And a good part of that reason is that the Germans were helped by the Italians - and after Italy surrendered, by a lot of Italian factories that keep producing weapons, ammo, food and transport. The German Army in Italy wasn't quiet self sufficient but it was very close once you excluded AFVs and men. A lot of the small arms, shells, transports, food and other supplies came out of Northern Italy.
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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by warspite1 »

ORIGINAL: Klydon

I think you are missing my point.

The RM should have done far better against the Brits, but I think the RM was very afraid of the Royal Navy and to a lesser extent, had a good reason to be afraid. The older rebuilt battleships had 12.6 inch guns and thin armor. The only thing they had on the old British capital ships was speed. The Littorios were fine ships and on paper did out class anything the British had floating in the Med (It would have taken a KGV class or Nelson/Rodney perhaps to make it close to "even" on paper). The issue is crew training and the reluctance of the RM to risk the ships in battle.

As far as the Zara class goes, they are acknowledged as probably the best overall Italian heavy cruiser class and they were good ships that could have been made far more dangerous had they included torpedo tubes like most non US cruisers had. (Why those cruisers didn't include torpedo tubes in a restricted water space like the Med where combat is likely to be close is rather silly). While the British didn't have much in the Med in terms of 8 inch cruisers, there were several 6 inch cruisers there and they would have laid a hurting on any non-Zara class cruiser in the Italian inventory due to the lack of armor on Italian ships.

The British force out of Alexandria had 3 15 inch battleships for the longest time at least up until the end of 41 when the Barham got torpedoed and the other ships got sunk in Alexandria harbor. This was the force that pretty much kept the Italian fleet at bay (well, the Italians kept themselves at bay for the most part). The only reason the British were not able to force the action more was because of Axis airpower over the Central Med.

The point of all this is that the Italian navy, while superior in numbers to what the British had in the Med, was not about to engage in a fight with the Royal navy that they thought they might take heavy casualties. The Italian navy was not really that different from the French/Spanish fleet of Trafalgar. They outnumbered the British, but it was the British who pressed the attack with inferior numbers and winning battle after battle.
warspite1

I am not missing the point. I agreed with you that the Italians had an inferiority complex vs the RN - they were fighting what they thought the RN was, not what it had become.

But when you say "the only thing they had...was speed" that is dismissing one of the key weapons in naval warfare. The ability to fight on your ground and at your choosing is something that speed gives you; a huge tactical advantage. The old Italian battleships were circa 7 knots faster than the R-class and 3-4 knots faster than the Queen Elizabeth's. The Zara's out-sped and out-ranged the British light cruisers.

Had the British had faster battleships they would have engaged the Italians in numbers at (off the top of my head) Spartivento and Calabria - both occasions where slower British ships could not get into the action.

There is no escaping - despite the claims of O'Hara - that the Italian performance was woeful.
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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by Dili »

I disagree. I think Italy was a big plus for Germans. it is just thinking what Allies could have done with resources - include oil, pieces etc the whol logistical tail sent to the Med. They were several times superior to what Germans sent.
The point of all this is that the Italian navy, while superior in numbers to what the British had in the Med, was not about to engage in a fight with the Royal navy that they thought they might take heavy casualties.

False. It enough to just check how many times Italians sent the battleships out seeking battle.
but it was the British who pressed the attack with inferior numbers and winning battle after battle

When that happened at day time?

there were several 6 inch cruisers there and they would have laid a hurting on any non-Zara class cruiser in the Italian inventory due to the lack of armor on Italian ships.

That is wrong Abruzzi/Garibaldi pair had armor equivalent to Zaras - and with decapping capability the overall quality probably superior with 30mm decaping + 100mm armor. The other 4 of Montecuccoli/Aosta Classes had armor equal to British light cruisers.
So we have 6 light cruisers with armor equivalent. There were also other 6 old and these with thin armor.

The issue is more doctrinal. Italians only used their good light cruisers for raiding in typical RN fashion in 1942. And the Garibaldi/Abruzzi pair if i am remembering right -have to check the TROMs- never went out of fleet duty

The Zara's out-sped and out-ranged the British light cruisers.

That is not correct, Zaras did not out speed most British light cruisers. Zaras had a 30-31kt in service speed.
Most be making confusion with Trento/Trieste.
Simply, the Italians were not able to develop a good radial engine that produced the HP of the equivalent British/German versions. In fact, the failure to develop a high HP engine at all held Italian aviation back significantly.

In fact the Italian engine industry situation was even worse. The nimble powered Italian radial engines were already license build engines.
Always very fashionable to belittle the performance of the Italian submarines.

Yes specially if we account for ton sunk, the only 2 submarines in first 50 that weren't German were Italian.
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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by cohimbra »

ORIGINAL: warspite1
- Contribution of Italian subs to the Battle of the Atlantic? Negligible.

I've to disagree whit this point. I'm not an expert, but take a look to this
tables http://digilander.libero.it/planciacomando/WW2/som2.htm (tables are
written in italian, but I think they are easy to read, expecially the last one,
with the ship sunk and the tonnage sunk by italian submarine in Atlantico,
June 1940-September 1943; 109 ships, 593.864 tons). Regards.
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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by warspite1 »

ORIGINAL: cohimbra
ORIGINAL: warspite1
- Contribution of Italian subs to the Battle of the Atlantic? Negligible.

I've to disagree whit this point. I'm not an expert, but take a look to this
tables http://digilander.libero.it/planciacomando/WW2/som2.htm (tables are
written in italian, but I think they are easy to read, expecially the last one,
with the ship sunk and the tonnage sunk by italian submarine in Atlantico,
June 1940-September 1943; 109 ships, 593.864 tons). Regards.
warspite1

I am no expert either, but I have read that in tonnage sunk per submarine employed, the Italians sank about 1/6th of that managed by their German ally.
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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by Alfred »

As I said in my post, some of the German submarine designs were more efficient. But the structural reason for that outcome is that the Italian subs were ordered to patrol in far less intensive target environments. In part that being because the "superior" German subs were not suitable for operating so far from home. As the Allied ASW coverage increased and forced the Germans to operate in sub optimal killing grounds, their killing efficiency also dropped off.

In any case the relative efficiency of the respective sub designs is immaterial as to the central question posed in this thread. Provided a sub returned a net ROI (in operational terms not in historical capital cost), it contributed to the war effort.

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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by warspite1 »

ORIGINAL: Alfred

As I said in my post, some of the German submarine designs were more efficient. But the structural reason for that outcome is that the Italian subs were ordered to patrol in far less intensive target environments. In part that being because the "superior" German subs were not suitable for operating so far from home. As the Allied ASW coverage increased and forced the Germans to operate in sub optimal killing grounds, their killing efficiency also dropped off.

In any case the relative efficiency of the respective sub designs is immaterial as to the central question posed in this thread. Provided a sub returned a net ROI (in operational terms not in historical capital cost), it contributed to the war effort.

Alfred
warspite1

Yes, the reason for the poor performance is irrelevant in the context of this thread. The question is not would the Italians have been a plus or a minus IF this or that happened or their forces were better employed, or they had better equipment.

But re your point about ROI, this too, in isolation, is irrelevant. Was the Italian contribution a plus or minus to the German cause? The answer needs to take into account all factors and even then it comes down to opinion.

O'Hara thinks the RM performance was much better than people generally think; I say that is not so. Who is right? Well there is no right or wrong answer. If the war could be re-run and we find the Italians can break the RN in the Med with a more aggressive strategy, then O'Hara is wrong. If, by using such a strategy, the RM are quickly sent to the bottom of the Med, then O'Hara has a point.

But we don't know so it comes down to opinion.
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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by turtlefang »

warspite1 is absolutely correct. This is an opinion based on what people feel/know. There can be no right or wrong answer. I think people can highlight critical issues and make insightful comments on what happened or could have happened if things were done differently, but the reality is we won't know.

A lot of good information has been shared, but in the end, it comes down to how you feel about what happened.

And the interesting thing is that the general opinion seems to be that it run from general marginal minus to a marginal plus. Italy didn't seem to influence Germany greatly one way or the other - despite the loss of life due to its involvement in the war.
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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by Dili »

O'Hara thinks the RM performance was much better than people generally think

I also think so that Regia Marina performed better than generally people thinks. And that is not difficult knowing how most people don't know about War in Med. But it is not at level o'Hara thinks. RM had several failures. But not the anecdotal tales of people that don't know how many times the Italian battleships went to sea.
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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by warspite1 »

ORIGINAL: Dili
O'Hara thinks the RM performance was much better than people generally think

I also think so that Regia Marina performed better than generally people thinks. And that is not difficult knowing how most people don't know about War in Med. But it is not at level o'Hara thinks. RM had several failures. But not the anecdotal tales of people that don't know how many times the Italian battleships went to sea.
warspite1

I am sure you are right - as has been proved with some comments on the thread so far.

However, as those of us who have studied the Mediterranean war know, the problem for the RM was two fold - it was not a lack of the number of times the Italian battleships took to sea, quite the reverse. In the first year or so of the war the RM sailed numerous times en masse . The problem was that in doing so they burned up precious fuel that they could not afford, but in so doing, achieved no real results.

As I said before, the RM, with their central position, should have been able (and did) achieve local superiority, but then failed to use that to good effect - either against Sommerville or Cunningham.
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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by aspqrz02 »

ORIGINAL: DiliMaybe Italians would have discovered oil in Libya in 1941 or 1942, or 1943...which would make an interesting situation...

Nope. The Oil in Libya was too deep by far for the drilling technology of the 1930s ... and Italy didn't have the industrial capacity to either a) develop it or b) build it anyway ... and the countries that did (the US and UK) historically had other things occupying their minds, and their resources were allocated elsewhere.

So, no, no oil for Italy.

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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by aspqrz02 »

ORIGINAL: Footslogger

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if Italy had not join the Axis powers, but instead remained neutral.

There would be no need to send forces to North Afrika for instance.(no Afrika Korps)

What do you think?


There's an old joke, which actually accurately sums up the situation ...

It's 1939 and Hitler consults OKW ... should they accept Italy as an ally or not. OKW reply, "If the Italians come in on our side, we'll have to send around 20 Divisions to stiffen their army to the point where it might be of some effectiveness. If they don't come in on our side, then we will have to station 20 Divisions to guard the Alpine passes in case they change their mind and come in on the Allied side as they did in 1915. Either way? 20 Divisions!"

And that doesn't include the additional divisions that would have been required to watch the Franco-Italian borders after 1940 and, possibly, depending on whether the Italians cause enough disruption in the Balkans to trigger the need for German intervention, additional divisions to watch the Yugoslav-Italian and Yugoslav-Albanian borders.

So, more than 20 divisions, in actuality. [:)]

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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by Dili »

Nope. The Oil in Libya was too deep by far for the drilling technology of the 1930s ... and Italy didn't have the industrial capacity to either a) develop it or b) build it anyway ... and the countries that did (the US and UK) historically had other things occupying their minds, and their resources were allocated elsewhere.

So, no, no oil for Italy.

Italy had the industrial capability to develop it, they also had oil fields in Italy, Albania. In engineering development Italy had several firsts. Italian industrial problem was mostly massification. The issue is to discover it with theory to support the investment in searching, albeit with a Dictator i suppose that if Mussolini had a dream of a desert with oil wells of Saudi Arbia and the saw a Libyan desert he might just get a crazy idea.
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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by aspqrz02 »

ORIGINAL: Dili
Nope. The Oil in Libya was too deep by far for the drilling technology of the 1930s ... and Italy didn't have the industrial capacity to either a) develop it or b) build it anyway ... and the countries that did (the US and UK) historically had other things occupying their minds, and their resources were allocated elsewhere.

So, no, no oil for Italy.

Italy had the industrial capability to develop it, they also had oil fields in Italy, Albania. In engineering development Italy had several firsts. Italian industrial problem was mostly massification. The issue is to discover it with theory to support the investment in searching, albeit with a Dictator i suppose that if Mussolini had a dream of a desert with oil wells of Saudi Arbia and the saw a Libyan desert he might just get a crazy idea.

I believe you misunderstood the point. Or I wasn't entirely clear.

I guess that Italy could, possibly, barely, have developed the Fields, *IF* they'd been able to drill them.

What they *didn't* have the capacity to do in any useful time frame was t0 develop the technology necessary to drill the deep wells. Regardless of what Il Duce might decree, or not.

No way it can be a) discovered, then b) the deep drilling technology developed, then c) the deep drilling technology placed into mass production then d) the infrastructure to move the drilling, pipeline, refinery and shipping capacity needed to Libya then e) putting all the capacity mentioned in (d) in place then f) building the tankers needed so that, when war is declared, the Italians will actually have a Tanker fleet to ship it home (and that assumes that Musso doesn't manage to DoW, as he did historically, while the bulk of his merchant fleet is in ports or waters controlled by the Allies *anyway*).

So, while it's not impossible, it's not going to happen by 1940.

Phil
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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by Dili »

Sorry for late reply i don't came here often to this part of the forum.

Let's resume my opinion:I think technological Italians could do it after finding, but finding it would be a lucky one only achievable by lets say: rare constellation alignment.
Of course depending on discover year of that lucky occurrence it get impossible, less or more possible.

It is false that Italians had most of fleet in Allied ports. They had an important part but was far from the most, neither they were the most modern.


Biggest Modern(this mean launched post 1936) Tankers in Italian Merchant Fleet in 1940 in Italian ports when war started, they were pretty good and were under employed:

Martelli Class 14000 tdw 14-16knots speed: Image http://captallievi.com/sergio_laghi

In Italy from the class - Martelli the class name was out of Italy so it was lost for Med war:
Iridio Mantovani
Sergio Laghi(being build 1940,employed since 1942)
Giulio Giordani

Sterope a version for the Navy http://www.culturanavale.it/documentazione.php?id=284

Minatitlan Class(for Mexico then taken over) . 11100tdw .
They are being build and in trial in 1940, employed since 1941: http://www.naviearmatori.net/ita/foto-6 ... zbT0w.html
Minatitlanc
Pozarica
Panuco

Finished late in War:

Illiria 12040tdw operational 1943 http://www.naviearmatori.net/ita/foto-5 ... 9MA==.html

There were more being build and not finished or only finished after war.
There were also some small modern tankers also build post 1936.

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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by aspqrz02 »

So, they had 2 x 14000 dwt tankers available in 1940.

To ship all that oil from the undrillable (with extant technology) deep fields as yet undiscovered in Libya back to Italy.

[X(]

To which we add one in 1941, but subtract two sunk during the war.

And add another 3 x 11000 dwt tankers in 1941 ... which also may or may not have been sunk.

And during the whole period 1841-43 they managed to construct ... wait for it ... *one* ... yep, count it, *one*, additional tanker of 12040 dwt.

[X(]

And with this *massive* tanker fleet they will transport back the cornucopia of oil from the undrillable (with extant technology) deep fields in Libya, transported to the pitifully inadequate port facilities in that country, through the nonexistent pipelines and over the inadequate to nonexistent road and rail net there, and back to Italy.

All the while keeping the Italian forces in Albania, Greece and the Aegean copiously supplied with the fuel *they* need as well.

All simultaneously, of course. Which is what they'd have had to do ... and even then it wouldn't have been enough.

This extant tanker ... can't call it a fleet ... bunch ... was so adequate that the Italians had to ship POL to Libya in 44 gallon drums in the cargo holds of regular tankers.

Not an efficient way of transporting oil. And the massive capacity of the main Italian port allowed, IIRC, *eight* ships to be unloaded at one time. That's right. Eight.

The situation was so desperate that the Germans were forced to *fly* POL across to Libya in Messerschmitt Gigants carried in 44 gallon drums.

Seriously, Italy has no hope whatsoever of getting oil in the first place, and even less of getting it back home [:-]

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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by morganbj »

I was once a liaison officer to a German jaeger bn back in the early '70s. One day when the unit was a Graf, one of the company commanders and I spent the morning drinking good strong German coffee (and beer) and shooting the breeze. He had many funny things to say; most were just ethnic/political jokes about other European countries. You know, the standard "I saw French army surplus rifles for sale the other day. The ad said 'never been used, dropped once'." Another that was really funny was when he put his hands on the top of his head and asked "What's this? The Italian army on maneuvers."

We were talking about an Italian airborne bn that was going to airdrop that afternoon in a demonstration when the major said, "There's an old German military axiom: He who has Italy on their side shall lose the war."
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RE: What if Italy Chose Neutrality?

Post by TulliusDetritus »

ORIGINAL: bjmorgan

I was once a liaison officer to a German jaeger bn back in the early '70s. One day when the unit was a Graf, one of the company commanders and I spent the morning drinking good strong German coffee (and beer) and shooting the breeze. He had many funny things to say; most were just ethnic/political jokes about other European countries. You know, the standard "I saw French army surplus rifles for sale the other day. The ad said 'never been used, dropped once'." Another that was really funny was when he put his hands on the top of his head and asked "What's this? The Italian army on maneuvers."

We were talking about an Italian airborne bn that was going to airdrop that afternoon in a demonstration when the major said, "There's an old German military axiom: He who has Italy on their side shall lose the war."

As if the Germans could really brag, eh! They only emerged quite recently: 1870s... then they managed to lose two major World Wars in XX century.

But before the 1870s, and especially during the Thirty Years War they were a mere ragdoll trashed by all their neighbours... er, Italian troops among this lot. Oops!
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