Why were the Italians so fucking terrible in WW2? As far as I

At least they weren't Spaniards.

>>31147992
Same reason they paid off the Taliban.

They're a bunch of pussies.

>>31148049
I'd say it's Germany's age old problem - allying with nations that get them killed. They were buddies with Austria-Hungary in WWI, and A-H was worse than any of the Reich's allies by a large margin, literally everything they did in that war, including starting it and dragging Germany into it, was terribly wrong.

>>31147992

The Italians didn't want the war and weren't ready for it. And they knew it. When the Italians declared war on France, citing the "Pact of Steel" with Germany, France was just days from capitulating. Italy wanted some easy gains... It didn't go so well because the French were entrenched and the Italian army was simply not nearly as modern as the French one.

The reason Italy entered the war was because they were certain that the British would sue for peace after the fall of France. They knew they couldn't win a war against Britain, but you have to remember that mid-summer 1940 everyone believed the war would end in a few weeks because of the overwhelming might of the Wehrmacht.

>>31148182

"I only need a few thousand dead so that I can sit at the peace conference as a man who has fought." - Benito Mussolini

>>31147992
they tended to bite off more than they could chew and go to pieces when things didnt go according to plan, operation compass would be a good example, they fell apart once counterattacked because they assumed they were under attack by overwhelming force and hadnt expected the british to attack at all.

however they weret completely useless, doing very well in a few defensive battles, it seems that if told shit was going to get nasty, and to hold a line they did better, still lost but lost creditably as opposed to a shambles

>>31148049
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Krasny_Bor

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>>31148182
>overwhelming might of the Wehrmacht

This whole debacle really makes you think about the wrong assumptions we could have today about how this or that conflict would go, theoretically. I mean, with hindsight it is adamantly clear that literally no matter what (barring divine intervention maybe) Germany would lose the war it started in 1939, and a few years sooner or later would have its shit pushed in as far as it goes by US and and USSR, but it sure didn't seem like it in 1940. There was this whole British campaign of preparedness in case of a German occupation of the British Isles but today we know (again, with hindsight) that Battle of Britain and Operation Sealion just COULDN'T succeed in the form that it began in 1940.

>>31148371
>Literally no matter what
That's so fucking retarded. Even something as simple as good diplomacy with the USA/Japan not attacking the US so they don't get involved as much as they did would have pretty much won the war for the Axis, easily.
People don't seem to understand how close they war really was or how much the USA gave to the allies. The red army would have quite literally starved to death in 1942 without American aid.

>>31148371

Well, yes and no. We have all the information, they didn't.

If the US had been less inclined to intervene and not sent lendlease to the USSR, then it is unlikely that they would have been able to mobilize their army against Germany.

Stalin dead certain that after the Operation Barbarossa fiasco, he would be jailed and executed by the Politburo - he even retreated to his Datja and stayed there for several days before realizing that nobody was coming for him. If he had killed himself or the Politburo had offed him, they probably would have sued for peace.

These are the things you don't normally consider when we imagine the impossibility of a german victory. But they are there. It wasn't as unfeasible as we sometimes tell ourselves.

But then again, sometimes when you watch Hollywood and you see an army captain who has to brief his troops on why their mission is the most important mission of them all because "GENTLEMEN, WE ARE LOSING THIS WAR!", then you can't help but smirk...

>>31148049
Spaniards were tough as fuck and gave no fucks, lazy but brave. At least the foreign volunteers.

They DID just have their brutal civil war right before and pretty much skipped ww2 because they were already so fucked up.

>>31147992
> Warm weather countries
> Ever doing good at war
Why fight wars, when you can enjoy beautiful beaches and eat oranges

>>31148566
It wasn't 1914, anon. No matter what, USA wouldn't let Germany dominate Europe, even if they were close allies, and they very much weren't. An invasion would happen and it would kill Germany if the USSR didn't finish it off first. It might have happened a few years later and involved nuclear weapons, resulting in an even greater devastation of Germany, but it would happen. As for the Soviet Union, Germany could never defeat it. They might have been able to kill a few more millions of Russians, maybe take Leningrad or Moscow, but that wouldn't change jack shit. You just can't win a war against a nation that much larger and richer in resources, period. Japan couldn't conquer China, even though China literally didn't have a central government and was at war with itself. Neither could Germany ever hope to defeat the USSR.

>>31147992
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqoOk5nZEKw

The author is probably autistic but he gives good insight into state of Italian army during WW2.

>>31148649
I may concede your first point that USA would get involved eventually no matter what, but thinking that the Soviet Union was an unbeatable behemoth isn't accurate. If US aid was delayed by even 6 months the entire country would have collapsed utterly. The red army wouldn't even have bullets.
Germany could have forced some sort of capitulation on the USSR (total annexation would of course be impossible) and had one less front to worry about.

>>31148371
Imagine everything going off.

>>31148708
Do you have sources for that?

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>>31148750

>>31148708
Intresting

>>31148708
This is true, much as Vatnik will whine how it isn't so and that only USSR should be given credit for Germany's defeat.

Without US food, raw materials, train engines/cars, telephone cables, radios, bullets, aircraft, and fuel the USSR would have had its shit pushed in.

>>31149030
Proofs on that claim?

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>>31149030
Oh and trucks/halftracks. Mustn't forget those.

>>31149045
How many pages do you want to read? I can go pick some out from my shelf that will back it up. Or I can just find the nice chart showing the unfathomable amount of supplies sent by the US to the USSR during the war.

Pic related is just for funsies. I hope.

>>31149071
Well, I did request proofs, didn't I? If the facts back your argument, I will change my opinion.

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With the exception of beating Ethiopian niggers they were a burden on the rest of the axis.

>>31148105
"Shackled to a corpse"

>>31149084
The US sent over half a million trucks to the USSR. That alone is a massive deal. Had they not, the Russians would either have had to do without trucks, thus making their logistical situation an utter nightmare, or they would have to cut down on armored vehicle production to make more of them themselves.

Looking at armored vehicles, approximately 1/6th of total Russian armored vehicles were Lend Lease.
In terms of fighters, again 1/6th were Lend Lease
For bombers, 1/4th were Lend Lease

Do you think that's not a significant impact?

>>31148708
>tfw a German controlled Europe and colonized Russia would be way better off then IRL with billions of white aryans and a load of supernazi tech to build their society. But then they'd probably build robots and then exterminate all their slave labor and the minorities in their oversea colonies.

>>31149436
No. It's at best a fifth of the Soviets supply. And USSR was nowhere near on its last legs, with or without that. Like I said before, a few more million Soviets might have to die, a few more hundreds of kilometers given up, and a dozen more cities would be obliterated, but Germany would still die screaming.

>>31149436
How much stuff did the British send there?

>>31148371
Had war started anytime before 1938, Germany would've had its shit kicked in by France alone, I guarantee you

>>31149566
I don't imagine it would be a lot. The Brits were pretty much living on American equipment (or planes, at least)

>>31149640

How wrong you are, in so many ways.

>>31149566

3,000+ Hurricanes
4,000+ other aircraft (Tomahawks, Kittyhawks, Spitfires, Hampden bombers)
27 naval vessels
5,218 tanks (Valentines, Matildas, Churchills, Tetrarchs and Cromwells)
5,000+ anti-tank guns
4,020 ambulances and trucks
323 machinery trucks
2,560 Universal Carriers
1,721 motorcycles
£1.15bn worth of aircraft engines
600 radar and sonar sets
Hundreds of naval guns
15 million pairs of boots
£308m worth of munitions (not including naval ammo given)
£120m worth of food and raw materials
312 metal-cutting machine tools
Numerous specialist machine tools that the Soviet Union had no immediate means of producing and without which their factories couldn't have started up for months more than they did.

Almost all of it for free too.

The UK also trained basically all the northern Russian pilots in defence of their ports and northern borders, provided pilots to carry out said defence until the Russians could take over, provided fucktons of intelligence reports and, of course, handled the ASW of the arctic convoys with the Royal Navy and Merchant Navy for the Russians because the Soviet Union cannot into navies.

A good 15% of the 6th Fighter Air Corps defending Moscow were given over by the British.

By spring and summer of 1942 the Hurricane had clearly become the principal fighter aircraft of the Northern Fleet’s air regiments; in all, 83 out of its 109 fighters were of foreign origin.

By July 1942 the Red Army had 13,500 tanks in service, with more than 16 percent of those imported, and more than half of those British.

British-supplied tanks made up 30 to 40 percent of the entire heavy and medium tank strength of Soviet forces before Moscow at the beginning of December 1941

>>31149640
at no point was this actually true, fuel yes, feed stock for the weapons factories yes, ammo sometimes, but planes were not very high on the list, britain wanted any weapon it could get that worked, but planes were not a high item on the list and the RAF was primarily equiped with british built planes throughout.

as for how much stuff the british sent the russians, enough armor for a few divisions and hundreds of planes, admittedly some of that stuff was second line by the time the russians got it, the planes in particular

>>31149541
>No. It's at best a fifth of the Soviets supply.
Do you think the Soviet Union could have won with at best 20% less than what it hand? Never mind the fact that 43% of the Soviet wheeled vehicle fleet was American.

But sure, let's assume this doesn't make an impact. Let's look at industrial applications. Half of all Soviet aluminum usage was American, same with copper. The Americans provided almost half a million telephones. American steel sent over could have made more than the amount of T-34s that the Soviets made in the entirety of the war. American chemicals were of vital importance to the Soviet Union, as many of them simply couldn't be made in the USSR. There was a massive supply bottleneck in 1941-2 in which the Soviets wouldn't have been able to get their industry up and working without American machining manufacturing equipment and supplies, let alone all the things that they couldn't have produced at all.

>>31148588
>Why fight wars, when you can enjoy beautiful beaches and eat oranges
Somebody will kill you and take those beaches and oranges from you

>>31149693
And we lent them an R Class Battleship....

>>31149436
Don't forget 60% of Russia's railroads

>>31147992
Mostly they were not ready for war.
Italy never had a huge military budget (especially for a fascist country) and their industrial capacity at the time was not up to par with most other countries. These two factors severely limited Italy's ability to upgrade their military or replace lost equipment. Add in their policy of reusing/improving existing equipment to save costs and every piece of equipment lost, even the old equipment, was a devastating loss.

I am not sure about their troop training and military leadership skill. Maybe someone else knows about that.

>>31148105
They always do well for themselves when they ally with Britain.

Germany army, British navy best European power.

>>31149693
Where did you read about that?

>>31149852
desu the R class were borderline obsolete by that point, having recieved no major modifications since construction at a time when the QEs had received 2 major upgrades on at least some units of the fleet.

the battleship when returned was in such poor condition that it was sent for scrapping as soon as the post return inspection was complete, although the soviets had tried to avoid returning it on the basis that it was too unseaworthy to make the voyage

>>31151072

Still better than anything the Ruskies had for certain.

>>31150898

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease#British_deliveries_to_the_USSR

http://www.historynet.com/did-russia-really-go-it-alone-how-lend-lease-helped-the-soviets-defeat-the-germans.htm

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Oh, it's an Americlap revisionist history thread again.

Right, unmanned Yankee trucks and sock parcels won the war.

It wasn't the fighting men and women of the Soviet Union that bore the brunt of the Wehrmacht - it was America.

>>31148228
>They couldn't even beat Ethiopians.
> get rekt by Greeks.

Italians are the worst Europeans at war.

> the Romans are truly gone from the earth.

>>31151134
>Still better than anything the Ruskies had for certain.

true, but other than loaning them to the russians the RN policy during the war seems to have been keep them at least 1000km from the nearest enemy, the russians got the royal sovereign because the alternative was giving them a newer italian battleship by way of italian war reparations.

>>31148371
No pearl harbor = no direct U.S. Involvement.

Japs decide to invade Russia. Russia loses a two front war.

Other than losing the Jews, and half the Chinese, the world would have been better off.

>>31151141
getting punched in the face and dick repeatedly doesn't win a war, dumb fuck.

Strategically dividing your enemy's aims, interests, might, and wealth does win wars.

The Wehrmacht wasn't losing until the US showed up

Or are you going to tell me that the Germans all left Stalingrad because the Russians shot them all?

No? It was because their supply lines had some nasty hiccups and it turns out you need running supply lines in a Russian winter?

But go on and tell us more about how Soviet bullets did anything in the war.

>>31149762
how are you going to steal a beach?

Like come on nigga you can't move a beach.

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>greetings Italian tank
>where did you go ?

>>31150729
Don't forget American Airpower you fuck.

>>31151141
Because illiterate peasants could have defeated the wehrmacht without food and ammo. kys

Listening to Sabaton while lurking World War threads is great.

>>31149084

Sure, here's a quote from someone who was familiar with the situation.

> “Today some say the Allies didn’t really help us…But listen, one cannot deny that the Americans shipped over to us material without which we could not have equipped our armies held in reserve or been able to continue the war.”

> - Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, Marshal of the Soviet Union

>>31148049
The Spanish Blue Division was an exemplary force on the Eastern Front. They distinguished themselves numerous times and were considered the only "tough Latins" by Hitler. They were fanatical in their hatred for communism because of Russian intervention during the Spanish Civil War in the '30s. The veterans of the war in the East have been making headlines in Spain too because they want recognition from modern day Germany, which is fucking hilarious to me.

>>31151349
>Puckapunyal
why would you remind me of that depressing hell.

still mad they left those Leopards to rust

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>>31151349
To be honest, try to destroy a Matilda with a CV-35 is quite a problem.

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>>31151261

>Japs decide to invade Russia.

Yeah good luck with that. This is what would have happened to the Japs if they tried that.

>>31151720
>Russians can't pull any of their Siberian troops for the Battle of Moscow counterattack because lol making Nipsicles
>Red Army is 100% scattered and ineffectual in the Spring when launching attacks from all the fucking way in the Urals

>>31149202
gets beat, has to come back

>>31148708
there certainly wouldn't be one less front to worry about, just like there wasnt in the first world war when the russians sued for peace. You just never know if the russians will go against their peace treaty and bulldoze when you start moving your resources to the western front. This is why you do not fight a two front war against two super powers, even tho there really was no choice.

>>31151392
>Because illiterate peasants could have defeated the wehrmacht without food and ammo
They had spades
Germans had limited ammo

>>31151720
Bro, if Japan bombed Vladivostok instead of Pearl Harbor the outcome would have been very different

>>31152015

Germans had tons of ammo, they were just shooting it into the sky at the bombers.

80% of 88mm barrel and ammo production were marked for anti air, with only 20% given to field units.

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>>31147992
They barely had any loyalty to Mussolini, and had no desire to die for Hitler.

Same for the Romanians and Hungarians on the EF. They saw themselves like the poorly equipped cannon fodder they truly were. Entire units would break under small soviet attacks.

>>31149436

Which doesn't count the millions of tons of raw metals the US sent so the Soviets could build their own air craft and armored vehicles.

US lend lease didn't single handedly win the war, but it certainly helped a lot.

>>31152358
>were marked for anti air,
In the West. That's the crucial feature. Most of the others were anti-aircraft guns occasionally used in the direct fire role, but those were in the East.

>>31147992
My Abuelo was Italian.

Apparently his Dad was shot dead in the street for not saying yes to join the army

My Abuelo said yes

He wasn't front line, but I imagine this conscription method didn't inspire a lot of heroics

>>31147992
>Why were the Italians so fucking terrible in WW2?

because they're italians. a greasy dago wop is just a fair skinned nigger.

>>31157870
What the fuck is an Abuelo

>>31151141

Go back to bed, Vanya.

>>31151195

Were the Romans even that good at war? They repeatedly got rekt by sandniggers and other assorted barbarians.

>>31157946
Grandfather. You must be fucking retarded not to figure that one out.

Apparently the two Italian Armies on the Eastern Front were pretty good. Their overall shit performance is mostly due to officers and chain of command.

They got their fucking assess kicked by Ethiopia in the late 1800 and they never psychologically recovered.

The butthurt was so great they had to use chemical warfare to beat militia armed in spears and bows that had virtually no tanks or cavalry or airforce in the next war.

>>31151370
Are you a fucking retard?

>>31157961
>Were the Romans even that good at war?
Yes. There's a reason they had an empire. Following the Marian Reforms, the Roman legionary was probably the best soldier in that part of the world, man for man. Extremely well trained and highly fit. They were actually a professional military, which gave them a significant advantage.

>>31148588
How do you think they get those beaches and oranges in the first place?

>>31154276
I don't know about the other armies, but Romania was in the worst conceivable position during the war. A division could put out only half the shell-weight in artillery fire at greatly reduced range compared to a German division, they had even fewer trucks, and an entire army might have 20 or less modern AT guns. Their tank division was given shit meant for a scrapyard and Germany repeatedly refused to give them what they wanted, up to withdrawing all the 2nd Armor Division's tanks en route because someone else asked for them. They started to solve this problem in 1944 with an AT gun better than most of what Germans got and a home-brew Hetzer being tested but when the Soviets came in they were solving their own problems much, much better.

I haven't even gotten to the fact that they modeled themselves on France, then watched their idol fall in less time than fucking Poland. Shit morale was a symptom of a much deeper disease.

>>31151370
>american air power
>500 years before planes were invented
>400 years before america was invented

>>31151261

Pearl Harbor was inevitable. US had put Japan on embargo. They were running out of fuel. The reason why they attacked USN in first place was to make sure that nothing happens while they invade Dutch East Indies and Malaysia to get some oil. They assumed that if they can destroy US Pacific fleet at anchor and capture most of Pacific they could get peace treaty with US on favorable terms. That gamble kinda failed.

>>31160197
>kinda failed

They got fucking NUKED, id consider that a lot more than "kinda".

>>31160002
>almost 500 years before Germany was invented