World War II Italy: Is it really here to be cute?

Speaking of the Axis Powers in World War II, apart from the impressive offensive capabilities of Germany and Japan, Italy seems to have a very low sense of presence, especially as many jokes are criticizing Italy, saying that Italy is The person who was responsible for holding back the country during World War II even had a nickname that meant that even Ethiopia in Africa could not defeat it. It was a shame for the Axis powers in World War II.

The Italian Army in World War II

But what was Italy like in World War II? Are you really here to be cute? There are many discrepancies between the real situation and what everyone originally thought! After all, there was a reason why Italy stretched its hips so much during World War II. The lack of national strength and Mussolini’s blind command led to a lot of jokes in Italy throughout World War II! Pre-war preparations

Economic Materials

As a country preparing to launch aggression, pre-war preparations are still very important. However, before World War II, the level of Italian industry was relatively low, and compared with other major industries Countries are basically incomparable. The following data can show the resource output of major industrial countries before World War II!

Resource production of various countries before World War II

The reserve and production of resources have a great impact on a country's maintenance of a state of war. After all, war requires the consumption of resources, and they are very huge, but according to the above table The strength of Italy in the war obviously cannot sustain a long-term operation, so once resources are gone, various problems will arise, especially in the later period, when there are not enough Italian cars, they actually start using horse power to transport logistics supplies!

When World War II broke out on September 1, 1939, the entire Italy had only enough steel to last 14 days, coal for 50 days, and iron ore for 180 days. It was obvious that Italy did not have enough materials at all. What a long-term fighting strength!

Military preparations

Without the support of economic resources, Italy's military preparations were also very poor. Although the Italian Minister of Defense at the time said that 10 million soldiers could be mobilized, there was no such thing. Weapons and equipment are useless in large numbers. By the time Italy entered the war on June 10, 1940, the entire Italian Army had only 450,000 men. It was originally planned to be organized into 74 2-2 army divisions, but only 19 divisions were fully staffed. Editor, the weapons and equipment are relatively complete.

Italian Army

Army preparations

Infantry division: The infantry division accounts for 80 of the army quota. The weapons are mainly Type 91 rifles from World War I. One infantry division is equipped with 34 100mm field guns, 30 81mm mortars, 8 47mm anti-tank guns, and 18 115mm howitzers (the US infantry division has more than 900 various artillery pieces).

Armored Division: Italy has three armored divisions, with 2,000 L.3 ultra-light tanks and less than 70 11-ton M11/39 medium tanks, but these less than 70 tanks are in Later, they were vulnerable in the war and were forced to withdraw.