>WW2
Mussolini larped too hard and the Italian military was nowhere near ready to fight any major power and Mussolini knew this, when he joined in 1940 he thought the war was over and wanted a piece of the pie before Hitler snatched everything up. Also the Italian officer class was horrible along with the nonexistent NCO class in the Italian army, they simply weren’t ready to fight a war against the UK or the USA.
Also he did silly shit like lower the size of divisions, so on paper he could have more of them and develop shitty tanks that weren't useful in the mountains where they did a lot of their fighting.
I think the Italian Navy was decent though.
Their airforce and navy are quite strong. They are one of the few countries that has demonstrated SEAD capabilities in combat and they are about to commission their third carrier.
Don’t know a lot about their army.
I'm pretty sure I've seen one of their carriers in port near Naples when I was there for a visit.
What Mussolini wanted, which was demographic majority pushing out minorities, would have been far easier to achieve by just not declaring war on anybody. If all he did was improve Italy and encourage Italians to have children, that would have resulted in Italians gaining demographic dominance in a Europe where there were already declining birth rates. His fuckery in Ethiopia, Libya, and Albania accomplished nothing. His wars ended up reducing the Italian population and the prosperity of the country. If Mussolini had died in the early 1930's, Italy would have eclipsed France after WW2.
Mussolini not doing pointless shit would not be Mussolini.
Daily reminder that the French Resistance was an allied psyop that basically didn't exist until after France was liberated.
Italian partisans were not much better, it was mostly lurking in the woods, taking potshots at trains and cars, hiding gear and guns so you can return home where mom already prepared dinner, then go out into the woods again to larp the next day. Once allied forces come near you, hide in the cellar with the women until the battle passes over you, then go out and stand at the next streetcorner with your guns out to make some pictures for the press.
>Mussolini not doing pointless shit would not be Mussolini.
This. And its at the core of every Axis counterfactual. If only [whoever] had a complete personality change, ignored the consequences and practice of their ideology and had a radically different world view. Its always the same and incredibly tiresome.
What I was saying is that his philosophy and his endgame were at odds. The actions he took did not bring about the intended results. How much could anybody expect from someone dumb enough to unironically believe in Marxist ideology?
Their airforce and navy are quite strong. They are one of the few countries that has demonstrated SEAD capabilities in combat and they are about to commission their third carrier.
Don’t know a lot about their army.
The story I've been told is that the Italian military was much like the Red Army after the purges where there every officer and commander was given the job for being in good terms with the man in charge rather than having any skill regarding the position
The Italian military was never “purged” it was just that the general staff was very incompetent and thought they would be fighting the same war like they did in WW1, similar to the French situation
Italian here. WW2 experience was as bad as everyone thinks if not worse.
Today Italy has a decent Airforce and Navy (for a G8 country) with a new F35B fleet and 2 carriers capable of supporting them. Meanwhile the army is total shit, basically 1980s tier, probably because more then half of army defence spending goes to pay the enormous amount of officers (read cronyism). They're mainly use for safeguarding city centers or additional help during natural disasters.
Since the 2016 terrorist attacks basically every single city with more then 50.000 people has a permanent (during the day) army patrol in front of its railway or metro stations, airports, or heritage sites.
>if america had armed soldiers patrolling the streets
The National Guard does that everytime theres a chimp out. And I'm pretty sure our police are armed like European soldiers on the streets
There's a difference between riot control and every day patrol, just like there's a difference between a modern cop having an AR-15 in the patrol car vs in his hands while walking down the street every day.
Last time the Nasty Girls did any of that it was a token show of force to convince the public that the Democrat's goons were under control. For fucks sake they didn't even load their rifles.
screaming "back to pol" won't make it go away, war tourist.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
Reddit moment
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
So we're already to pre war PrepHole
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
the idiots that run all the shilling on this site input /po/ instead of 4chan one day so all the bots and trannies went to the oragami board and it had like 1000000% increase in traffic one day due to this fuck up
It's not like they are patrolling the city.
It would be more like you visit NY and while at JFK you see 2 soldiers chatting with some cops while they walk around and when in the city you see an HMMWV with again 2 soldiers strolling outside Ground Zero or the Chrysler.
Also on another note the army is bad, having lot of officers, lot of nepotism and being composed by 90% southerners but not as bad as what
https://i.imgur.com/Vfud58S.jpg
Italian here. WW2 experience was as bad as everyone thinks if not worse.
Today Italy has a decent Airforce and Navy (for a G8 country) with a new F35B fleet and 2 carriers capable of supporting them. Meanwhile the army is total shit, basically 1980s tier, probably because more then half of army defence spending goes to pay the enormous amount of officers (read cronyism). They're mainly use for safeguarding city centers or additional help during natural disasters.
what does that mean, does ItLy have Mason/Dixie Line thing going on.
I won't pretend to know much about Italian History Or Culture, but what I do know, is that after the collapse of the Ancient Roman Empire, Italy as a country and people didn't exist and really it was medieval kingdoms that the people Identified with.
A Milanese see's himself more a man of Milan, like saying a Texan views himself more of a man of Texas, than an American.
Southeners are terroni. People from the south of Italy. 99% of the usual "italian" stereotypes you see on tv are born from terroni. They created the mafia, they don't like to work, they look arab, they act very gnomish in all aspect of life and if you call them terroni to their face they will recoil in shock, as you can't use the T word, only they can, cumpà.
They are the filth of Italy and 90% of all italian emigrants from the 19th century come from there.
Clueless "italian"-americans that know nothing about Italy will insist they are "based" without realizing that terroni are basically like mexicans just more lazy.
Imagine a place with the economy of Germany and the crime rate of Japan.
Give him the Alps, beautiful lakes, lot of rice but silent hill like fog.
Now go on the other side and imagine a mix between Greece, Balkans and northern Africa but with better women and more sun.
Now connect the 2 areas with some Inbetweens and no name places.
If you did as I said you got yourself the amazing Italy, the place where everyone goes on holiday in the south but without the North would probably not even qualify as a first worlder.
This was a major culture shock when I travelled in Europe just before COVID. Live in moronapolis, but have still never seen cops/military police walking around with machineguns on the day-to-day. Even during the riots, the NG wasn't allowed to keep their rifles loaded.
>This was a major culture shock when I travelled in Europe just before COVID. Live in moronapolis, but have still never seen cops/military police walking around with machineguns on the day-to-day. Even during the riots, the NG wasn't allowed to keep their rifles loaded.
To be fair they don't and can't do shit. They can only call the police if something happens. The only time they can do something is if a terrorist attact ensues and we still have to notify command before doing anything.
As I said, they're there to protect sensitive targets from terrorist attacks. Policing actions are made by the police or Carabinieri (wich are technically part of the amry).
If you don't see them do shit maybe it's because Italy hasn't had a terrorist attack.
Better to be safe then sorry.
They are not technically part of the army, they are part of the armed forces.
It's like saying the murines are part of the US Army.
They used to til 99 but now they are completely separated.
I said technically and not practically because they still answer both to the Chief of the Defence Staff (for war matters) and the Minister of Internal affairs (for policing or rescue matters)
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
God those new uniform are shit. I want the old ones back.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
Gay cybercops
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
They are not technically part of the army, they are part of the armed forces.
It's like saying the murines are part of the US Army.
They used to til 99 but now they are completely separated.
Lol, is this in reference of the "muh raghead bribes" lie that the Bongoloids circulated a while back? Never happened, even according to the French Army.
>avoid terrorist attacks by giving bribe money to terrorists
about that…
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/venice-mayor-allahu-akbar-shot-luigi-brugnaro-barcelona-attack-st-marks-square-muslims-italy-city-a7910081.html?amp
>The Italians get made fun of all the time about WW2
Only because they switched sides when the tides turned, not because their army was shit. Nothing comparable to how everyone talks shit about France during WWII. Nothing compares to how people mock France. People picture Italians as untrustworthy, but see French as weak cowards. Hell, most Americans don't even know about Italy switching sides during WWII but they sure as hell know that "French are cowards cheese eating surrender monkeys".
>brits still fuming mad that they have to resort to such blatant propaganda.
Even the fucking french government and high military command debunked that shit.
I know about the bribes, one carabinieri who was over there told me how every week one patrol left with bags full of money and other shit for specific villages.
Was even proud of it, like everyone else wanted war but they found a solution without doing much. Corruption is the norm in italy, money talks and nobody gives a shit.
They were bad, pretty bad but there was also a lot of stuff stacked against them, including Germany hiding the war start date from them, a bad case of “fight the same war as last time”, and an economy that simple couldn’t handle the reality of WW2. Basically a nation that shouldn’t have fought but did and paid the price.
Italian armored cars were apparently nice. Their aircraft were great but outdated, and their frogmen were apparently top tier shit. That's what I recall offhand. Also the usual meme from some non Italians that Italian soldiers under right command were quite good. And yes everyone knows their small arms were beyond bad except for the samurai SMG which was great.
Really, their only bad small arm was the breda 30, which was pretty abhorrent. The whole ‘Carcanos were potmetal shitrods’ is primarily fuddlore, in my experience.
Actually the best performing branch of the Italian military in WW2 is arguably their small-ship navy. The capital ship fleet got shwacked so the destroyers and e-boats carried the Regia Marina through all the battles leading up to Operations Torch and Husky. They fought hard, inflicted some losses, and paid the price.
What even is the point of posting this thread. You have to know that nobody on this board has more than a performative understanding of the topic. A basic reality is that most good sources on Italian forces historically and in the modern day are in Italian not English. However there are some books available in English that can be pretty illuminating. So really my advice to you anon would be if you are genuinely curious about something go fucking read a book.
What if there's an Italian here
I'll translate some funny stories about Italy in WW2 if the thread is still up later, you have no idea the amount of stupid they managed to reach
https://i.imgur.com/Vfud58S.jpg
Italian here. WW2 experience was as bad as everyone thinks if not worse.
Today Italy has a decent Airforce and Navy (for a G8 country) with a new F35B fleet and 2 carriers capable of supporting them. Meanwhile the army is total shit, basically 1980s tier, probably because more then half of army defence spending goes to pay the enormous amount of officers (read cronyism). They're mainly use for safeguarding city centers or additional help during natural disasters.
The Italian military nowadays is welfare for Southerners. That's all there is to it. Toys For Terroni.
Really, their only bad small arm was the breda 30, which was pretty abhorrent. The whole ‘Carcanos were potmetal shitrods’ is primarily fuddlore, in my experience.
Carcanos are shitrods. I like them, they're still bad, outdated, their production was poorly managed, ammunition was a mess. The usual defense is "poor country what do" but then you remember that the Japs built a better rifle coming out from the Middle Ages and the Soviets built a better shitrod with women and children. I'm still salty about the Japs.
>Literally the only European nation to lose to an African nation prior to decolonization >Got turbofucked against actual western powers
Big shocker eh? Lamppost boy only made things worse.
On our defense, God was on the side of the Ethiopians. You don't fuck with the Lion of Judah until tech gives you an edge.
>Toys for Terroni
kek
When I trained with the Italians in Sicily with the folgore, they were really competent and fun to be around when compared with the Belgians, Germans etc.
T. Spanish army
Complex. They were a very divided force. You had the actual fascist Mussolini Legions, the regular armed forces who were as politically spread as the general population, the divisions that were placed under Rommel, and the divisions in eastern europe fighting the soviets. These had very different levels of leadership and motivation. Basically the regular soldiers despised their officers and saw no reason to fight for them. Rommel's Italian divisions fought like hell, the eastern front divisions fought for their lives. The other branches; the navy had severe fuel shortages, the airforce had for a long time subpar planes. But both of those forces fought with what they had.
They bailed on us in Iraq after barely a year after their fancy military police got car bombed. They left most of their shit in theatre and we had to ship it back for them.
For what they had to work with, they fought like lions.
But they weren't ready for that kind of war.
They should have stayed out of Greece, and probably should have stayed out of Africa.
Mussolini should have instead focused on internal matters and modernization.
I served with them in Farrah, Afghanistan.
I wasn't really that impressed.
They had a bad habit of not being present for firefights, leaving us and the ANA and ANP to deal with the Taliban ourselves.
Granted, we handled them pretty well but the help would have been appreciated.
>Literally the only European nation to lose to an African nation prior to decolonization >Got turbofucked against actual western powers
Big shocker eh? Lamppost boy only made things worse.
I think if the Italians had more time to prepare (like a decade) they could have been quite a contender. But, that's just now how it happened. So yeah, they really were that bad.
>Were they really that bad in WW2?
Not as bad as they are made out to have been they had some interesting characters, the mini sub marine raid for instance but this guy is my favorite
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https://www.ft.com/content/5586116c-8b8a-11df-ab4d-00144feab49a
Amedeo Guillet crammed rather a lot into his 101 years. He is best remembered for leading, on his white Arabian stallion, Sandor, a potentially suicidal cavalry charge against the tanks and 25-pounder artillery guns of Britain’s advancing “Gazelle Force” in the Horn of Africa in 1941. It was the last ever cavalry charge against British troops and earned the then Lieutenant Guillet the nickname Comandante Diavolo – the Devil Commander – from both his own men and an enemy that came to respect and even befriend him. Usually dressed like an Arab or Ethiopian tribesman, he became known in his native land as “Italy’s Lawrence of Arabia”.
https://www.ft.com/content/5586116c-8b8a-11df-ab4d-00144feab49a
Competent air force for 1936-ish (Actually coming into the Spanish Civil War better equipped than the Luftwaffe) barely being able to keep up by '41-42 as Soviet and Allied designs surpassed them in quality and quantity.
Mediocre line infantry augmented by world class light infantry such as bersaglieri and alpini and proto-spec ops like their frogmen and paratroopers, the latter being essentially die hard elite infantry a la Fallschirmjaeger but with the check book for hardware of the Regia Esercito. All of these units likewise suffered horrible modernisation limitations owing to limited Italian Industry in comparison to its competition.
Good navy at the war's start unable to keep up with the Royal Navy's dockyards once the war broke out in the Med.
Their biggest problem, and I cannot stress this enough, was their industry. Everyone was building shitty tanks with machine guns in the mid 30s, almost everyone but Italy was still using shitty biplanes in the mid 30s. The deciding factor was Italy couldn't build enough tanks to replace the L3 or enough planes to keep up with the USAAF and RAF
No. They were far far worse than that. ONE full entire month after the beginning of the invasion of France by Germany, seeing that France was getting steamrolled, Italy decided they too wanted to claim to have defeated what was, at the time, viewed as the world's first military power. They invaded France coming from the Alps in the South of France, while the bulk of the French army was busy getting annihilated by Germans in the North of France. When the Italians invaded all that France managed to gather to defend its border were second rate troops. And yet Italians failed so much on such a monumental scale that they had to retreat in Italy and repel the French defensive invasion inside Italy territory. It is only once France got defeated by Germany that Italy got to claim lands in France. Funny to think that most Americans still make French surrendering jokes when talking about WWII but say nothing about Italy.
>Funny to think that most Americans still make French surrendering jokes when talking about WWII but say nothing about Italy
The Italians get made fun of all the time about WW2 what are you talking about
>The Italians get made fun of all the time about WW2
Only because they switched sides when the tides turned, not because their army was shit. Nothing comparable to how everyone talks shit about France during WWII. Nothing compares to how people mock France. People picture Italians as untrustworthy, but see French as weak cowards. Hell, most Americans don't even know about Italy switching sides during WWII but they sure as hell know that "French are cowards cheese eating surrender monkeys".
it's because we had high hopes for France but ended up fighting Vichy in Africa, having Maquisards betrayed by their own fellow citizens, and practically begging the French to not let the Nazis use their navy. Everybody has nice things to say about the Free French
The Italians however are part of the Axis. Nobody has ANY expectations of them. It is like you are asking why everybody makes fun of French and not the Nazis. There's nothing to make fun of. They're just shitheads.
>The Italians get made fun of all the time about WW2
Only because they switched sides when the tides turned, not because their army was shit. Nothing comparable to how everyone talks shit about France during WWII. Nothing compares to how people mock France. People picture Italians as untrustworthy, but see French as weak cowards. Hell, most Americans don't even know about Italy switching sides during WWII but they sure as hell know that "French are cowards cheese eating surrender monkeys".
I dont see why you have to root for your armed forces so vehemently like it's a football club. Honestly. First off, most of you, and i'm not talking about just italians, loathe the average normie out there. So whats the point of this blind patriotism?
Furthermore, you don't have any role in the overall training or logistics of the armed forces, they're complete strangers whom you know only from Wikipedia. So why feel ashamed of their performance?
And lastly, the army doesnt reflect the overall skills and abilities of an entire nation, so if one sucks, it doesnt mean everyone from that nation sucks. I think it was made clear already ffs.
Beretta was founded in 1526, making it one of the oldest manufacturing company in the world
Beretta guns were used in the battle of Lepanto by the venetians ffs
It's been a while since I touched on this topic so I may get some stuff wrong. In WW2 The Royal Italian Navy was their strongest asset that performed well, and was a deadly threat to a thinly stretched Royal Navy trying to attain dominance in the Mediterranean(Later the USN would ease this but they were stretched thin as well and the RIN was still a threat). As for the army their officers were generally not good, however their infantrymen were said to have performed well under German command, which is to say Italian command were incompetent. That isn't the full picture though, the Italians were fighting a war they were not ready for and their factories could not produce enough to keep up when they weren't being bombed and so when bombing of northern Italy started things went from bad to worse. The air force had many good fighters like the Fiat G.55 and the 205 Veltro that performed very well, however again their industrial base was inadequate to keep up with the hungry war they were in. The Italians produced many good quality weapons during WW2 but just didn't have the industrial base to produce said weapons in quantities to make a big enough difference.
As for the modern day Italian armed forces their Navy is well equipped with 8 FREMM frigates constructed and another two on the way and they have two modern Air defence destroyers of the Orizzonte class. The modern Italian navy have the 30,000 ton aircraft carrier Cavour which can supposedly carry up to 20 to 30 aircraft(depending on the source). Most importantly though their logistics are of good quality with their new Volcano class support ship coming into service. They have a good budget of around $30 billion and their participation in Tempest(so long as the project reaps rewards) means Italy holds a stake in 6th generation fighter capabilities. I don't know enough about the Army or Air force to comment. Italian defence companies like for example Leonardo produce good military equipment.
>was a deadly threat to a thinly stretched Royal Navy trying to attain dominance in the Mediterranean(Later the USN would ease this but they were stretched thin as well and the RIN was still a threat)
Not really
Cunningham cruised the Med looking for a fight, but after losing their cruisers and battleships the Regia Marina didn't do much until Operation Torch other than blockading Malta, which they didn't succeed at for more than 2 months
THEN they got off their asses and tried to maintain the Libyan supply route, but suffered heavy losses. At this point in the war the US Navy was still the junior force in the Med and untested, and bombarded the beaches while the Mediterranean Fleet screened the landing force. Then came Sicily, and so on.
The RM contested the Mediterranean fiercely, but they didn't control it.
French and German officials kept crying about muh poor refugees back when we used to send them back, why even bother?
if they like them so much we can just send them there
Had a great uncle who was in the alpine corp. part of the division that got mauled by Soviets (maybe 1 in 12 survived from his battalion). Then the whole occupation by the nazis happened.
Now they are decent. Italians have good industry, economy notwithstanding.
They were even worse than that. To put things into perspective: They tried invading France through the Alps, while France was getting its teeth kicked in by the Nazis up North. The Italians (who btw, only had one tiny front to focus on) figured it'd be a good idea to march in infantry columns through the Alps towards French forts, only to get shredded by machinegun fire, and artillery. It takes a special kind of retardation to decide to invade through Alpine fortified passes.
The Italians barely managed to capture 832km2 of French land by the time France surrendered to the Nazis. This cost the lives of 1250 of their soldiers, vs max 40 dead French. And btw, this was supposed to be the top of the Italian army, vs the fucking reserves of fucking France out of all countries.
>WW2
Mussolini larped too hard and the Italian military was nowhere near ready to fight any major power and Mussolini knew this, when he joined in 1940 he thought the war was over and wanted a piece of the pie before Hitler snatched everything up. Also the Italian officer class was horrible along with the nonexistent NCO class in the Italian army, they simply weren’t ready to fight a war against the UK or the USA.
Also he did silly shit like lower the size of divisions, so on paper he could have more of them and develop shitty tanks that weren't useful in the mountains where they did a lot of their fighting.
I think the Italian Navy was decent though.
I'm pretty sure I've seen one of their carriers in port near Naples when I was there for a visit.
What Mussolini wanted, which was demographic majority pushing out minorities, would have been far easier to achieve by just not declaring war on anybody. If all he did was improve Italy and encourage Italians to have children, that would have resulted in Italians gaining demographic dominance in a Europe where there were already declining birth rates. His fuckery in Ethiopia, Libya, and Albania accomplished nothing. His wars ended up reducing the Italian population and the prosperity of the country. If Mussolini had died in the early 1930's, Italy would have eclipsed France after WW2.
Mussolini not doing pointless shit would not be Mussolini.
Italian partisans were not much better, it was mostly lurking in the woods, taking potshots at trains and cars, hiding gear and guns so you can return home where mom already prepared dinner, then go out into the woods again to larp the next day. Once allied forces come near you, hide in the cellar with the women until the battle passes over you, then go out and stand at the next streetcorner with your guns out to make some pictures for the press.
>lefties larp as warriors but do none of the fighting
A tale as old as time
>Mussolini not doing pointless shit would not be Mussolini.
This. And its at the core of every Axis counterfactual. If only [whoever] had a complete personality change, ignored the consequences and practice of their ideology and had a radically different world view. Its always the same and incredibly tiresome.
What I was saying is that his philosophy and his endgame were at odds. The actions he took did not bring about the intended results. How much could anybody expect from someone dumb enough to unironically believe in Marxist ideology?
>shitaly
Their airforce and navy are quite strong. They are one of the few countries that has demonstrated SEAD capabilities in combat and they are about to commission their third carrier.
Don’t know a lot about their army.
>Were they really that bad in WW2?
lmao yes. Are you really this retarded?
The story I've been told is that the Italian military was much like the Red Army after the purges where there every officer and commander was given the job for being in good terms with the man in charge rather than having any skill regarding the position
The Italian military was never “purged” it was just that the general staff was very incompetent and thought they would be fighting the same war like they did in WW1, similar to the French situation
Italian here. WW2 experience was as bad as everyone thinks if not worse.
Today Italy has a decent Airforce and Navy (for a G8 country) with a new F35B fleet and 2 carriers capable of supporting them. Meanwhile the army is total shit, basically 1980s tier, probably because more then half of army defence spending goes to pay the enormous amount of officers (read cronyism). They're mainly use for safeguarding city centers or additional help during natural disasters.
Since the 2016 terrorist attacks basically every single city with more then 50.000 people has a permanent (during the day) army patrol in front of its railway or metro stations, airports, or heritage sites.
man could you imagine the shitstorm if america had armed soldiers patrolling the streets
>if america had armed soldiers patrolling the streets
The National Guard does that everytime theres a chimp out. And I'm pretty sure our police are armed like European soldiers on the streets
There's a difference between riot control and every day patrol, just like there's a difference between a modern cop having an AR-15 in the patrol car vs in his hands while walking down the street every day.
Last time the Nasty Girls did any of that it was a token show of force to convince the public that the Democrat's goons were under control. For fucks sake they didn't even load their rifles.
go back to 4chan yt
screaming "back to pol" won't make it go away, war tourist.
Reddit moment
So we're already to pre war PrepHole
the idiots that run all the shilling on this site input /po/ instead of 4chan one day so all the bots and trannies went to the oragami board and it had like 1000000% increase in traffic one day due to this fuck up
>source
My ass
Can amerimutts not drag their shitty politics into every thread?
It's not like they are patrolling the city.
It would be more like you visit NY and while at JFK you see 2 soldiers chatting with some cops while they walk around and when in the city you see an HMMWV with again 2 soldiers strolling outside Ground Zero or the Chrysler.
Also on another note the army is bad, having lot of officers, lot of nepotism and being composed by 90% southerners but not as bad as what
said.
"SOUTHERNERS"!?
what does that mean, does ItLy have Mason/Dixie Line thing going on.
I won't pretend to know much about Italian History Or Culture, but what I do know, is that after the collapse of the Ancient Roman Empire, Italy as a country and people didn't exist and really it was medieval kingdoms that the people Identified with.
A Milanese see's himself more a man of Milan, like saying a Texan views himself more of a man of Texas, than an American.
Southeners are terroni. People from the south of Italy. 99% of the usual "italian" stereotypes you see on tv are born from terroni. They created the mafia, they don't like to work, they look arab, they act very gnomish in all aspect of life and if you call them terroni to their face they will recoil in shock, as you can't use the T word, only they can, cumpà.
They are the filth of Italy and 90% of all italian emigrants from the 19th century come from there.
Clueless "italian"-americans that know nothing about Italy will insist they are "based" without realizing that terroni are basically like mexicans just more lazy.
Imagine a place with the economy of Germany and the crime rate of Japan.
Give him the Alps, beautiful lakes, lot of rice but silent hill like fog.
Now go on the other side and imagine a mix between Greece, Balkans and northern Africa but with better women and more sun.
Now connect the 2 areas with some Inbetweens and no name places.
If you did as I said you got yourself the amazing Italy, the place where everyone goes on holiday in the south but without the North would probably not even qualify as a first worlder.
This was a major culture shock when I travelled in Europe just before COVID. Live in moronapolis, but have still never seen cops/military police walking around with machineguns on the day-to-day. Even during the riots, the NG wasn't allowed to keep their rifles loaded.
>This was a major culture shock when I travelled in Europe just before COVID. Live in moronapolis, but have still never seen cops/military police walking around with machineguns on the day-to-day. Even during the riots, the NG wasn't allowed to keep their rifles loaded.
Protip: they aren't loaded.
Then what's the point?
no need when every county sheriff and his interns already LARP as seal team six
To be fair they don't and can't do shit. They can only call the police if something happens. The only time they can do something is if a terrorist attact ensues and we still have to notify command before doing anything.
As I said, they're there to protect sensitive targets from terrorist attacks. Policing actions are made by the police or Carabinieri (wich are technically part of the amry).
If you don't see them do shit maybe it's because Italy hasn't had a terrorist attack.
Better to be safe then sorry.
They are not technically part of the army, they are part of the armed forces.
It's like saying the murines are part of the US Army.
They used to til 99 but now they are completely separated.
I said technically and not practically because they still answer both to the Chief of the Defence Staff (for war matters) and the Minister of Internal affairs (for policing or rescue matters)
God those new uniform are shit. I want the old ones back.
Gay cybercops
>what is a gendarmerie
found the americans
dont they avoid terrorist attacks by giving bribe money to terrorists and info about other euro countries troop movements?
disgusting pieces of shit
>he fell for Anglo propaganda
Lol, is this in reference of the "muh raghead bribes" lie that the Bongoloids circulated a while back? Never happened, even according to the French Army.
>avoid terrorist attacks by giving bribe money to terrorists
about that…
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/venice-mayor-allahu-akbar-shot-luigi-brugnaro-barcelona-attack-st-marks-square-muslims-italy-city-a7910081.html?amp
don’t know why I quoted the second post
>brits still fuming mad that they have to resort to such blatant propaganda.
Even the fucking french government and high military command debunked that shit.
I know about the bribes, one carabinieri who was over there told me how every week one patrol left with bags full of money and other shit for specific villages.
Was even proud of it, like everyone else wanted war but they found a solution without doing much. Corruption is the norm in italy, money talks and nobody gives a shit.
Would breed that cutie
They were bad, pretty bad but there was also a lot of stuff stacked against them, including Germany hiding the war start date from them, a bad case of “fight the same war as last time”, and an economy that simple couldn’t handle the reality of WW2. Basically a nation that shouldn’t have fought but did and paid the price.
>sir I can confirm that the chickens have accepted Cpt. Vagotti as their leader. She will lead them in a pre-dawn attack as planned.
company of heroes 3 is so fucking gay
What does that have to do
No. Pretty good.
Vegetato is a cool camo and that's all I have to contribute
True
Italian armored cars were apparently nice. Their aircraft were great but outdated, and their frogmen were apparently top tier shit. That's what I recall offhand. Also the usual meme from some non Italians that Italian soldiers under right command were quite good. And yes everyone knows their small arms were beyond bad except for the samurai SMG which was great.
Yeah, their frogmen were the best of the war and pulled off some real James Bond shit
Really, their only bad small arm was the breda 30, which was pretty abhorrent. The whole ‘Carcanos were potmetal shitrods’ is primarily fuddlore, in my experience.
Their frogmen pulled off one (1) attack
Actually the best performing branch of the Italian military in WW2 is arguably their small-ship navy. The capital ship fleet got shwacked so the destroyers and e-boats carried the Regia Marina through all the battles leading up to Operations Torch and Husky. They fought hard, inflicted some losses, and paid the price.
What even is the point of posting this thread. You have to know that nobody on this board has more than a performative understanding of the topic. A basic reality is that most good sources on Italian forces historically and in the modern day are in Italian not English. However there are some books available in English that can be pretty illuminating. So really my advice to you anon would be if you are genuinely curious about something go fucking read a book.
What if there's an Italian here
I'll translate some funny stories about Italy in WW2 if the thread is still up later, you have no idea the amount of stupid they managed to reach
The Italian military nowadays is welfare for Southerners. That's all there is to it. Toys For Terroni.
Carcanos are shitrods. I like them, they're still bad, outdated, their production was poorly managed, ammunition was a mess. The usual defense is "poor country what do" but then you remember that the Japs built a better rifle coming out from the Middle Ages and the Soviets built a better shitrod with women and children. I'm still salty about the Japs.
On our defense, God was on the side of the Ethiopians. You don't fuck with the Lion of Judah until tech gives you an edge.
>Toys for Terroni
kek
When I trained with the Italians in Sicily with the folgore, they were really competent and fun to be around when compared with the Belgians, Germans etc.
T. Spanish army
Yeah, we love to have fun, what can I say
Regular army is welfare for terroni, special units are good.
Only interacted with the folgore guys but idk if thats considered SF in Italy, one of the guys carried a MVSN dagger which was funny
>one of the guys carried a MVSN dagger which was funny
thats folgore for you
all militaries look exactly the same now
delete that patch, just another anonymous goon. no style or uniqueness to anything. just mass produced amazon prime garbage
Would you prefer crazy mf who go around the battlefield throwing dozenz of hand grenades and a knife in their mouth like the arditi but in 2023?
Yeah we should make room for Ukraine thread #6 gorillion, good idea gay
TOTAL
Italians thought pic related was a good idea. That's really all you need to know about them.
And they were. The bersaglieri used them to great effect against the english
GODDAMN PASTA moronS NEED TO SEND MOAR BERETTA AR70/90s DOWN HERE IN THE GOOD 'OL US OF A!!!
The Germans kept giving away their movements in Africa because they thought the Enigma decryption couldnt be cracked
So the British always knew when logistical supplies were coming over the Mediterranean etc.
Rommel even gave away the German defences for D-day because he was convinced of German superiority couldn’t be cracked by the British kek
Fucking wehraboos get high on their own supply, worse than weeaboos.
Complex. They were a very divided force. You had the actual fascist Mussolini Legions, the regular armed forces who were as politically spread as the general population, the divisions that were placed under Rommel, and the divisions in eastern europe fighting the soviets. These had very different levels of leadership and motivation. Basically the regular soldiers despised their officers and saw no reason to fight for them. Rommel's Italian divisions fought like hell, the eastern front divisions fought for their lives. The other branches; the navy had severe fuel shortages, the airforce had for a long time subpar planes. But both of those forces fought with what they had.
The Italians with Panzerarmee Afrika fought fairly poorly though
They bailed on us in Iraq after barely a year after their fancy military police got car bombed. They left most of their shit in theatre and we had to ship it back for them.
Italy is still there
they’re actually leading NATO Mission Iraq
For what they had to work with, they fought like lions.
But they weren't ready for that kind of war.
They should have stayed out of Greece, and probably should have stayed out of Africa.
Mussolini should have instead focused on internal matters and modernization.
I served with them in Farrah, Afghanistan.
I wasn't really that impressed.
They had a bad habit of not being present for firefights, leaving us and the ANA and ANP to deal with the Taliban ourselves.
Granted, we handled them pretty well but the help would have been appreciated.
>Literally the only European nation to lose to an African nation prior to decolonization
>Got turbofucked against actual western powers
Big shocker eh? Lamppost boy only made things worse.
I think if the Italians had more time to prepare (like a decade) they could have been quite a contender. But, that's just now how it happened. So yeah, they really were that bad.
I love the feather helmets/hats they use for some reason
the feather hat guys are basically their equivalent of Rangers.
they're big on going fast.
>the feather hat guys are basically their equivalent of Rangers.
No they aren't shut the fuck up
I was impressed until the fat women showed up in the last scene. Dropped
Jason Genova tard waddling right at the back ruined it for me
i wish the civi ARX didn't suck ass.
The ones made in US sucked ass for the first year. Then they became okay to good. Still not on par to the mil version produced in gardone.
I cooka da pizza
>Were they really that bad in WW2?
Not as bad as they are made out to have been they had some interesting characters, the mini sub marine raid for instance but this guy is my favorite
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https://www.ft.com/content/5586116c-8b8a-11df-ab4d-00144feab49a
Amedeo Guillet crammed rather a lot into his 101 years. He is best remembered for leading, on his white Arabian stallion, Sandor, a potentially suicidal cavalry charge against the tanks and 25-pounder artillery guns of Britain’s advancing “Gazelle Force” in the Horn of Africa in 1941. It was the last ever cavalry charge against British troops and earned the then Lieutenant Guillet the nickname Comandante Diavolo – the Devil Commander – from both his own men and an enemy that came to respect and even befriend him. Usually dressed like an Arab or Ethiopian tribesman, he became known in his native land as “Italy’s Lawrence of Arabia”.
https://www.ft.com/content/5586116c-8b8a-11df-ab4d-00144feab49a
I think pinapple pizza is fine
Competent air force for 1936-ish (Actually coming into the Spanish Civil War better equipped than the Luftwaffe) barely being able to keep up by '41-42 as Soviet and Allied designs surpassed them in quality and quantity.
Mediocre line infantry augmented by world class light infantry such as bersaglieri and alpini and proto-spec ops like their frogmen and paratroopers, the latter being essentially die hard elite infantry a la Fallschirmjaeger but with the check book for hardware of the Regia Esercito. All of these units likewise suffered horrible modernisation limitations owing to limited Italian Industry in comparison to its competition.
Good navy at the war's start unable to keep up with the Royal Navy's dockyards once the war broke out in the Med.
Their biggest problem, and I cannot stress this enough, was their industry. Everyone was building shitty tanks with machine guns in the mid 30s, almost everyone but Italy was still using shitty biplanes in the mid 30s. The deciding factor was Italy couldn't build enough tanks to replace the L3 or enough planes to keep up with the USAAF and RAF
>Were they really that bad in WW2?
No. They were far far worse than that. ONE full entire month after the beginning of the invasion of France by Germany, seeing that France was getting steamrolled, Italy decided they too wanted to claim to have defeated what was, at the time, viewed as the world's first military power. They invaded France coming from the Alps in the South of France, while the bulk of the French army was busy getting annihilated by Germans in the North of France. When the Italians invaded all that France managed to gather to defend its border were second rate troops. And yet Italians failed so much on such a monumental scale that they had to retreat in Italy and repel the French defensive invasion inside Italy territory. It is only once France got defeated by Germany that Italy got to claim lands in France. Funny to think that most Americans still make French surrendering jokes when talking about WWII but say nothing about Italy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_invasion_of_France
>Funny to think that most Americans still make French surrendering jokes when talking about WWII but say nothing about Italy
The Italians get made fun of all the time about WW2 what are you talking about
>The Italians get made fun of all the time about WW2
Only because they switched sides when the tides turned, not because their army was shit. Nothing comparable to how everyone talks shit about France during WWII. Nothing compares to how people mock France. People picture Italians as untrustworthy, but see French as weak cowards. Hell, most Americans don't even know about Italy switching sides during WWII but they sure as hell know that "French are cowards cheese eating surrender monkeys".
it's because we had high hopes for France but ended up fighting Vichy in Africa, having Maquisards betrayed by their own fellow citizens, and practically begging the French to not let the Nazis use their navy. Everybody has nice things to say about the Free French
The Italians however are part of the Axis. Nobody has ANY expectations of them. It is like you are asking why everybody makes fun of French and not the Nazis. There's nothing to make fun of. They're just shitheads.
Daily reminder that the French Resistance was an allied psyop that basically didn't exist until after France was liberated.
>what is railway supply
The Maquis was real enough but they were resisting German conscription ("Service du travail obligatoire") not the Germans per se.
t.frog
Well, the Ethiopians beat them. That says it all.
they outnumbered the italians 10:1 and were trained and supplied by the Russians and the French
I dont see why you have to root for your armed forces so vehemently like it's a football club. Honestly. First off, most of you, and i'm not talking about just italians, loathe the average normie out there. So whats the point of this blind patriotism?
Furthermore, you don't have any role in the overall training or logistics of the armed forces, they're complete strangers whom you know only from Wikipedia. So why feel ashamed of their performance?
And lastly, the army doesnt reflect the overall skills and abilities of an entire nation, so if one sucks, it doesnt mean everyone from that nation sucks. I think it was made clear already ffs.
Postan
me with the dirtbike
Whats the gun they have?
Beretta MAB38s. The finest smgs of ww2
Beretta was already a thing during ww2?
Beretta was founded in 1526, making it one of the oldest manufacturing company in the world
Beretta guns were used in the battle of Lepanto by the venetians ffs
Beretta is also the oldest family owned company. The current CEO and executive VP are the fifteenth generation of Berettas that have run the company.
Damn that's cool.
It's been a while since I touched on this topic so I may get some stuff wrong. In WW2 The Royal Italian Navy was their strongest asset that performed well, and was a deadly threat to a thinly stretched Royal Navy trying to attain dominance in the Mediterranean(Later the USN would ease this but they were stretched thin as well and the RIN was still a threat). As for the army their officers were generally not good, however their infantrymen were said to have performed well under German command, which is to say Italian command were incompetent. That isn't the full picture though, the Italians were fighting a war they were not ready for and their factories could not produce enough to keep up when they weren't being bombed and so when bombing of northern Italy started things went from bad to worse. The air force had many good fighters like the Fiat G.55 and the 205 Veltro that performed very well, however again their industrial base was inadequate to keep up with the hungry war they were in. The Italians produced many good quality weapons during WW2 but just didn't have the industrial base to produce said weapons in quantities to make a big enough difference.
As for the modern day Italian armed forces their Navy is well equipped with 8 FREMM frigates constructed and another two on the way and they have two modern Air defence destroyers of the Orizzonte class. The modern Italian navy have the 30,000 ton aircraft carrier Cavour which can supposedly carry up to 20 to 30 aircraft(depending on the source). Most importantly though their logistics are of good quality with their new Volcano class support ship coming into service. They have a good budget of around $30 billion and their participation in Tempest(so long as the project reaps rewards) means Italy holds a stake in 6th generation fighter capabilities. I don't know enough about the Army or Air force to comment. Italian defence companies like for example Leonardo produce good military equipment.
>was a deadly threat to a thinly stretched Royal Navy trying to attain dominance in the Mediterranean(Later the USN would ease this but they were stretched thin as well and the RIN was still a threat)
Not really
Cunningham cruised the Med looking for a fight, but after losing their cruisers and battleships the Regia Marina didn't do much until Operation Torch other than blockading Malta, which they didn't succeed at for more than 2 months
THEN they got off their asses and tried to maintain the Libyan supply route, but suffered heavy losses. At this point in the war the US Navy was still the junior force in the Med and untested, and bombarded the beaches while the Mediterranean Fleet screened the landing force. Then came Sicily, and so on.
The RM contested the Mediterranean fiercely, but they didn't control it.
>ww2
Yes
What's the point of having two carriers if you don't use them to protect the Med from hordes of barbarians?
the fuck are you going to do with a carrier? drop a GBU from an f35 onto a wooden ship?
Perhaps.
Gun runs, gay. Pop a few 25 mm rounds in the engine and chuckle as I zoom away.
>says the 51%
French and German officials kept crying about muh poor refugees back when we used to send them back, why even bother?
if they like them so much we can just send them there
ever make pizza from scratch at your campsite?
It was sort of like that
Had a great uncle who was in the alpine corp. part of the division that got mauled by Soviets (maybe 1 in 12 survived from his battalion). Then the whole occupation by the nazis happened.
Now they are decent. Italians have good industry, economy notwithstanding.
They were even worse than that. To put things into perspective: They tried invading France through the Alps, while France was getting its teeth kicked in by the Nazis up North. The Italians (who btw, only had one tiny front to focus on) figured it'd be a good idea to march in infantry columns through the Alps towards French forts, only to get shredded by machinegun fire, and artillery. It takes a special kind of retardation to decide to invade through Alpine fortified passes.
The Italians barely managed to capture 832km2 of French land by the time France surrendered to the Nazis. This cost the lives of 1250 of their soldiers, vs max 40 dead French. And btw, this was supposed to be the top of the Italian army, vs the fucking reserves of fucking France out of all countries.
speaking of italian military, can anyone ID this camo for me?
Just looks like black camo
morons.
Seethe
terrible game
burn alive.
get murdered
Replace "Birmingham" with "Genoa"
The picture shows the Home Guard and its from 1941. Also from parade in Birmingham in 1941.
Wow! I guess that does justify the replacement of the anglos
Return to your containment board if you want to demonstrate your resistance to replacement and colonisation. Be the change you seek, worm.
>slava ukraini
The eternal anglo has been working lockstep with the garden gnome to destroy western civilization