was Italy really bad at war or it is just a meme ?

>>590999
Are you dumb? They're always on the winning side.

Italy was bad at war in the late 19th to 20th centuries. Honestly, Italians themselves weren't bad at war per se, they were just in a slump. This is what faggots on the internet don't get, nations, civilizations, individuals all experience slump periods. This happened to be Italy's period to suck dick.

>>591005
He's talking about performance. No matter what, Italians were just too incompotent to make significant strides on their own. It's ironic now that their military today is very powerful.

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>>591015
>tfw been slumping since 1580

Life is pain.

>>590999
Guineas aren't only bad at fighting, they're the true flip-floppers. People like to spout the perfidious Albion meme, but Italy is much for perfidious than England could ever be.

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>>591016
>too incopetent to make significant strides

>>591016
>their military today is very powerful

Is it?

>>590999
The Italians were bad at war during the middle ages/ renaissance because of mercenaries and condottieri. Because they were largely composed of merchant/ city states, they Italian states didn't have standing armies (generally) and therefore were forced to rely on mercs. Because mercs care more about saving their troops (men are expensive), Italian battles tended to be very clean and "un-bloody". When states like Austria and France came in, the Italians were in no way ready for the kind of warfare that typical Euro nations practiced.
Otherwise, most of their failures come from the fact that everyone wants a piece of Rome, and so Italy gets ganged up on a lot.

well italians before unification weren't that bad

>>591041
http://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.asp?country_id=italy

well, these are the facts, you can judge it for yourself

(i'm not the poster above)

>>591058
Is this site accurate?

>>591098
Yep!

>>591098
no idea, i just googled

>>591016
I think they've known for a long time that war is essentially pointless and rather focus on the good life.

>>590999
They usually aren't that interested in the war, and tend to have bad commanders. When they do have good commanders and are interested, though, they're fucking impressive.

Look at stuff like Vittorio Veneto, or the frogmen sinking two British battleships in Alexandria, or all the motorboat and torpedo shenanigans in WW1 (Sunk two Austria-Hungarian battleships, did some harbor raids).

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>>591016
>their military today is very powerful.
>Ranked as 16 of 126
>Ranked behind Indonesia
Ranked behind South Korea (north korea isn't even listed,
>ranked behind Taiwan

even if this is accurate, I'm not sure I'd call being in the top 16 'powerful'. Ethiopia would probably wreck them if they tried invading again.

>>591271
Indonesia is a huge country and Taiwan, Greece, Turkey and South Korea have disputes with their neighbours. For a country that isn't threatened and doesn't really go overseas like the French or British they have pretty decent military.