To be fair the battle of matapan was more Germany's fault with their false intel. One wonders if a more competent admiral like bergamini would have continued after the promised german air support failed to materialize and they broke rhe english codes showing the german intel incorrect...
Speaking of an air service implication on maritime operations, what do you think of interservice cooperation and combined planning in the interwar years in the British Empire? It seems to me that the grand strategy of the BE is every service with it's ideas but only the RN is getting the opportunity to realize theirs. I also think that the events in WW2 clearly show that the RN by itself could not protect the BE. Do you agree somewhat with the statement that the British were trapped in an obsolete strategy of sea power extraordinare and not much else (in terms of budget).
@@mihaiserafim The theory behind the RN's plans was sound, but it was hampered by two main issues 1) Not having control of the FAA for much of the interwar period and then taking a backseat to the (needed) rapid build-up of the RAF. 2) Ending up having plans to fight any one or two of the navies they ended up fighting but being left fighting a nightmare list of all 3 possible enemies at once. This latter especially completely scuppered any chance of pre-war plans working. There was also the side-effect of going to war in Sept '39, that froze or slowed a lot of plans and started racking up losses, Italy bought itself another 6-9 months of build-up and Japan over 2 years to complete ships, introduce new aircraft etc. This in turn put the RN at a disadvantage in a number of fields when it came to fighting the various enemies it had to deal with that wouldn't have existed if everyone went to war in Sept '39. The Navy was struggling for money in the inter-war period, but then so were the other services. Given they thought war was coming in the early '40's and navies are the longest lead of the services, it makes the late-30's strategy and budgets look artificially navy-heavy.
_"You worried about me, eh? _*_*Looks around the Mediteranian*_*_ Well there's no other navy around so you must be worried about me!"_ - Regia Marina to the Royal Navy, ca 1940
For what it's worth, I may be able to provide some context as to the behavior of some of the Italian warships, especially the major ones; For Italian battleships, the biggest issues were issues with Italian reconnaissance, and deficiency in night actions. The first clash of Italian battleships with the British, the Battle of Calabria (9 July 1940), is a bit of an exception - the Italians had a rough idea what they were facing, an Admiral Campioni knew he was outmatched, his pair of smaller battleships (29,000 tons full load, 10x 320mm guns, 27 knots) versus three larger British battleships (31-36,000 tons, 8x 381mm guns, 20-23 knots) - his only edge was his speed, and larger number of cruisers. Once Giulio Cesare was hit (at 16.00), the extend of the damage was not immediately clear, and with Cesare's speed rapidly falling (down from 25 knots to 18 knots in a span of about five minutes), Campioni assumed the worst. He had taken great risk engaging in the first place, so once he knew he couldn't control the range disengaging was the only rational choice. By the time Cesare worked up to speed again, the chance to re-engage was gone. Though, for what it's worth, a seldom acknowledged fact is that Warspite actually ceased fire first (at 16.03 and 30 seconds). The Italian battleships maintained fire even after Cesare was hit, not turning away until 16.06. In fact, they did not cease firing until 16.08. For whatever reason, Warspite had also decided to break off the engagement instead of capitalize on the damage she had dealt, and the Italians were able to disengage in this time. At 16.09 Warspite then engaged Italian heavy cruisers, which began to engage her in addition to the British cruisers to cover the retreat of the battleships and the destroyers laying smoke. Moving on from Calabria - from then on, aerial reconnaissance tended to be the bane of Italian admirals at sea, as it often became impossible for Italian admirals to get an accurate picture of where the British were, and what they had. Ex, at Cape Spartivento (27 November 1940), recon failures prevented Campioni from making contact with the British forces while they were separate, as planned, and instead had to contend with the combined force. Though the match up, on paper, was fairly even (one carrier, one old battleship, one modernized battlecruiser on the part of the British, and one modern battleship and one modernized battleship on the part of the Italians), Campioni was acutely aware of the fact that he was operating, once again, with the only two operational battleships available to the Regia Marina (an irony of his short career as wartime fleet admiral - this face was true at both Calabria and Cape Spartivento), and it didn't help that he believed the British actually had a carrier and three battleships available. Though in reality it was an excellent opportunity for the Italians to take on a major British force with the advantage on their side, as far as Campioni was aware he was actually once again outmatched and needlessly risking his irreplaceable battleships. This trend would continue. The failure of Italian and German reconnaissance during the British 'Operation Grog' (9 February 1941) allowed the British Force H to slip by a superior Italian force, despite the face the Italians had gotten within 30 miles of them. Had Iachino (the new fleet commander) not adjusted course at 13.07 (which could have been avoided), they would have placed themselves between Force H and their escape at 13.37 - probably the best chance the Regia Marina ever had to destroy a major British force. This trend repeats itself continuously, with either the RM's own inadequate recon force, the Regia Aeronautica, or Luftwaffe letting the fleet down, during Operational Halberd, the events leading up to the Second Battle of Sirte, or Operation Pedestal. The other half of the equation is the difficulty in pursuing action after night falls. Italian battleships were limited in their ability to confront the British at night. Prior to the war, and in the entry, only secondary batteries (100mm to 152mm) and main batteries of destroyers, torpedo boats, and light cruisers (100mm to 152mm once again) had arrangements and training for night action, as well as the flashless ammunition for it. It was only in early 1941 (ironically, just prior to Matapan) that efforts to include it for the 203mm guns of heavy cruisers came into effect, and in Spring 1941, in response to the events of Operation Guado and the night action at Cape Matapan, this also extended to the battleships. However, though by the summer of 1941 Italian warships of any kind had the means and training to engage the enemy at night, the Italians were acutely aware that the British were still far better at it. They were aware the British had radar available, and realized they were greatly disadvantaged by this - especially as the British began employing increasingly dangerous fire control radar technology against them. Thus, even when the opportunity to press an action into nightfall presented itself, the battleships were reluctant to do so, as they knew they were presenting themselves at great disadvantage to the British. Italian radar technology was simply too slow in coming, and German radar, though supposedly secured by agreement in 1939, simply failed to manifest until the spring of 1942, as the Kreigsmarine seemed to have little interest in actually providing the radar as promised (in an interesting contrast, the luftwaffe was considerably more open with sharing radar with the Regia Aeronautica). Thus, for the British, it isn't hard to imagine why they might be assume the Italians were simply unwilling to engage - very often it was the case that the Italian admirals at sea struggled to locate the British, and once they did, could often over-estimate what the British had, either prompting a recall by Supermarina, or leaving the chance for interception too late in the day before a more realistic appraisal became available. With the benefit of hindsight, the reasons for the Italian choices become clearer, and are certainly quite understandable - after all, there are likewise numerous examples of the British avoiding contact when faced with more resistance than they liked, such as during Operation Hats (31 August 1940), where Cunningham elected to steam away from an Italian force heading to engage him for a solid three hours to stave off conflict, or Operation White (17 November 1940). Light cruisers could usually afford to be more aggressive, on the other hand, as they were not so vital to the war effort. They weren't irreplaceable, but their loss would not change the course of the war in the Mediterranean. On the other hand, every time a Littorio sortied, the admiral leading the fleet was placed in the unenviable position of Jellicoe's 'only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon' - a major defeat at sea that cost Italy her modern battleships cost her the ability to contest the Mediterranean, as nothing else - submarines or airpower - could sufficiently counter the threat of the British battleships. When operating with the fleet, Italian light cruisers tended to operate as scouts - clash with screening elements, and then fall back for the battleships and heavy cruisers to take over. This was done to the letter at Calabria, though there were few other opportunities as Italian light cruisers simply never got much of a chance to clash with the the enemy, especially the 'true' cruisers'. The earlier cruisers - the Giussano and Cadorna-classes - were all 'large scouts' originally, re-rated to light cruisers later in life, and were perhaps best described as small, cardboard-armored cruisers with armament equivalent to many light cruisers... but that was about it, and they were considerably lighter (5,100-5,200 tons standard (Sydney, for example, was ~7,100 tons). They really weren't suited to action with cruisers, but they were considered expendable, so they saw the most action. The better light cruisers (Montecuccoli, Duca d'Aosta, and Duca degli Abruzzi-classes) were progressively better armored, and in general were far more robust combatants. The Abruzzi's only ever got a chance to engage their British counterparts at Calabria, where they had decent success - skirmishing with British cruisers and inflicting damage before withdrawing, preferring not to deal with 15" guns of the British battleships. The earlier examples of the 'true' light cruisers only ever got one true chance to shine, which was at the Battle of Pantelleria - which, given it was a victory, was a good showing. The British honestly didn't get enough chances to clash with them for a real 'pattern' of engagement to develop, but overall, the bulk of the light cruisers the British did clash with were the 'large scouts', which were largely serving in the role of fleet scouts and little else. The larger, 'true' light cruisers simply had too few chances to engage the British, though both chances saw them make the most of their situation. Hopefully this at least explains the 'why' behind the Italian actions that formed the British impressions - if you've any more questions about the RM's doctrines or actions, or want me to clarify any of the above, feel free to ask!
The reason why warspite stopped firing was because she actually damaged her gun firing that shot. Drachinifel displays this on his video on HMS warspite
woah, youre the guy who gets pinged in reddit and had some great writeups in the wows forums. I appreciate the effort you put into these.Stay safe and keep rocking on!
Warspite circled back to allow the two slower battleships to catch up as Cunningham did not want to close alone with the two Cavour-class ships, one of which was undamaged and the other was still in fighting shape. Also I have not heard that Cavour fired, as she was assigned to Malaya and Malaya did not come within range, and the Italians wanted to prevent confusion in watching the fall of shot.
A tip for italian pronunciation: the g in "regia" is pronounced the g in "regicide", always when i or e follow g like generale (general), Giappone (Japan), Germania (Germany) it sounds like J
Ironically the greatest issue the italian navy faced at sea was the alliance with germany. As soon as action was deciced (Quite slowly) by supermarina and the germans caught wind of it,hey would use enigma and the brits would know as well.
For my part, I viewed the Italy like a second rate power or even third rate power and the armed forces likewise. Then I played World In Flames over ten years ago and played Italy (you play the entire WWII - one of the largest board games in the world). Wow! This is a large fleet! I can do some serious damage to the Royal Navy! While the army was "meh". Then I got to read about Mussolini and the armed forces in Italy from 1900 and up to WWII. I have respect for the Regia Marina, the submarine arm and not least the frogmen.
Really interesting vid, and right in time as i was just reading about the Italian fleet in WW2 haha. I think the engagements in the Med don't get nearly as much spotlight as they should, despite there being many major fleet actions and the amount of ships lost overall.
I think the most incredible thing about all of this, is that our Royal Navy carriers a Flag from Italy, Genova to be precise. Also we copied technology from the Italians, like the Charriot, which was actually used by the first SBS, the Decima MAS! Called the PIG. Italy once ruled the waves, from the Roman Empire to the Renaissance period, hence the Flag from Genoa. St.GeorgesCross. History is amazing, both great nations, but I think if Italy spent as much as UK or France, it would have had amazing things. Their building frigates for the USA.
The Royal Navy underestimated the Regia Marina, especially after Cape Matapan. This was a mistake and they soon realized it, despite the Royal Navy victories to date over the Regia Marina. The Regia Marina continued to cause the Royal Navy much stress and loss for the duration of the conflict. From the raid on Alexandria which saw 2 Royal navy battleships knocked out of action to the mauling the Royal Navy took during Operation Pedastal, the Regia Marina's continued to cause significant loses to the Royal Navy. The Italian Cruiser Raimondo Montecuccoli is a fine example Regia Marina's fleet prowess. She crippled the destroyer HMS Bedouin and damaged the cruiser HMS Cairo and the destroyer HMS Partridge. An interesting side note, Admiral Angelo Iachino wrote several books about his actions during the war, especially focusing on Matapan and trying to justify his actions in that battle. In 1974 he donated money from his books to the construction of a Sailor's Monument in Taranto. See www.giovannicarrieri.com/photography/italy/taranto/sailors-monument-taranto.jpg
Il povero ammiraglio Iachino non aveva nulla di cui scusarsi Cadde in un' imboscata preparata grazie a "Enigma" il cifrario tedesco, decrittato dagli inglesi. La mancanza di radar, nella battaglia notturna, fece il resto.
Basic German and Italian strategy = if we can beat it, we will attack it. Basic Royal Navy strategy = attack regardless of odds. This could be disconcerting when your Heavy warship plus support ships are getting close assaulted by a destroyer (i.e. HMS Glowworm vs Admiral Hipper) .
Well the RN strategy was more like let's built 3x the navy of everyone else to start an escalation that we will limit with the naval treaties (treaties which also contributed to starting the war) while our economy is in ruins, and then let's throw them and we will call it "we attack regardless of the odds yay". This way the RN lost quite some capital ships and the RM lost none en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Royal_Navy_losses_in_World_War_II
@Joakim von Anka well why would the KM risk even just damage to 2 heavy cruisers vs a shipment escorted by 2 CL and DDs when the RN had like hundreds of these classes, there was no gain. You don't get that the KM production focused on subs while the surface fleet was very low in nrs and when repairs took months and fatal damage was hardly recoverable you didn't want to get a single shell on a cruiser
@Joakim von Anka of course when the KM and Regia taken singularly were one third of the RN they were pretty useless compated to those nrs. check around how the concept of fleet in being works, for example they moved/created a baltic fleet to raid on undefended convoys, so the RN was forced to move capital fleets in there relieving pressure on other fronts example the mediterranean. It is called fleet in being meaning it is there to pose a threat but surely is not huge that you can throw it away andbhave spares hence they had to be very very conservative or no more being of the fleet
Just a pronounciation heads-up, since you'll keep talking about the Regia Marina (although you probably already recorded the next video): "c" and "g" in Italian are hard consonants, when followed by a vowel, except for two cases, vowels "e" and "i". In "ge", "gi", "ce" and "ci" the consonants are soft: in that case "g" becomes something very similar to "j" (in english, like "just"), "c" is pronounced as "ch" (in english, again). For those sounds to be hard, you need an "h" (which in Italian is otherwise a mute letter) before the the vowel. So "Iachino" is pronounced "Iakino", while "Regia" is pronounced as "Reja". Sorry for writing this, it can sound a bit pedantic, but Drachinifel showed interest in this, with his videos on correct pronounces, and I'm still mentally scarred by Ian McCollum's pronounciation of "Moschetto", so I felt compelled to chime in.
There must have also been a certain level of intimidation caused by the Royal Navy's reputation. I would have thought that any opposing navy confronting them would have been well aware of how difficult a task it was going to be. That fear affected both Italian and German navies on the strategic and tactical level during WW2 often meaning they had lost even before the fighting started.
@carmine paola Yes, I completely agree, I personally think the Italians are an intelligent, capable people who, with the right equipment and experience, can be the match of anybody (and proved it) . It's just that the royal navy had dominated the seas for a long time it must have been a daunting task for Reggia marina. it does seem like to me there were many cases when italian and German ships retreated when in a superior position. Of course, things are far more complicated than that and I'm not saying they were cowardly or petrified with fear exactly, just, how much of their thinking was about 'who' they were fighting not 'what' they were fighting. Anyway I've learnt a lot from this guy and I will look into those battles you mentioned as I've only heard of some.
@@abett6111 Most of the reasons come to life after the battle at Cape Matapan, in reality, it was an ambush, made possible by the RADAR. The RN had the radar and the Regia Marina had no RADAR. RN could see in the night what the Italian heavy cruisers couldn't see. The RN was waiting for the Italian cruisers coming to rescue a damaged unit, and were able so to shoot at point-blank range, and swipe away the Italian ships in 4 minutes. I bet since then, without radar, with a constant shortage of fuel, without the cover of aircraft carriers, with poor coordination between the navy and the air forces, they started to feel unsafe... who else would feel differently in that situation. Last but not least the decryption of the codes...
@@stefanomessiThe Regia Marina had radars and they were also excellent. Just think of the "Operazione Sicilia". Where thanks to the radar the cruiser Scipione Africano was able to counter the attack by the English navy. The only two problems of the Regia Marina were the lack of oil and the fact that the Supermarina was a den of traitors. Otherwise the Regia Marina would have been the Anglo-American Navy's worst nightmare
@@giudicedredd9195 Please make a survey on when the Regia Marina started to have radars. Cape Matapan is a very clear and undeniable demonstration that the RN was seeing in the dark and the Regia marina couldn't.
Two point to add: speaking about "Italian Light Cruisers" you'd better split them in two categories: the Capitani Romani and first batch of the Condottieri class were rather small and fast ships, often armed with Destroyer like armaments in the CR class (named Explored before the war and not Cruisers) and were the most numerous in the eastern Mediterranean performing convoy escort or resupply for the Army in the greek islands. The British intelligence knew quite accurately their strength, when they left the Greek ports and approximately where they were headed so most of the battles where conducted by the British with superior forces of DD intercepting and ambushing these light cruisers. In case of the sinking of Da Giussano and Da Barbiano, they were ambushed at short range from behind an island and the amount of fuel supplies on the two light cruiser where so heavy that tanks on the stern made unable the rear turrets of the retreating cruisers to fire back. In the end when you are shot by a torpedo at point blanc range there is little armour that can save you, but these were not straight front-line battles between 2 cruisers and a single torpedo boat and 4 DD British DDs, where the cruisers could have deployed their full fire-power potential to deter the DDs from closing in. Speaking of other light cruisers, partially from the second Condottieri batch and fully from the third batch they became larger and more armoured, which relegate them to first line combat in the fleet until later in the war when convoy protection became the only priority for Italy. These larger ship were quite aggressive in skirmishes with the British escorts in the convoy war and often at the front of the Italian fleet. The chaotic fights in open water did not provided great results on both sides in the fire fight because of heavy smoke curtain an very long range shooting, but unless the British had full information of the enemy forces and trusted their superiority in number or strength (due to radar, air detection, enemy communication encryption breaking or straight leaking form double agents in the Italian line of command) they certainly were not "aggressive" or looking for troubles when facing Italian CL. Punta Stilo is another matter that should debated: the British had by far the largest guns with 3 15" large battleships vs the 320mm on the only two Cavour: Campioni had strict orders to avoid contact with superior enemy forces unless strictly necessary. With the Cesare hit and the rest of the fleet out gunned, Campioni did the only reasonable thing since the convoy in the area had already reached safety. Despite the boasting from Cunnigham about "Italian having enough", he knew far too well that he had gained no strategic advantage except a single hit on the enemy (with minor damages) and several cruisers and DD hit by splinters from the enemy fire.The whole scruff had been just a showing down without any effective benefit. He knew perfectly well that Campioni had done the logical thing and I guess he would not acted differently in his shoes. About the opinion of the Italian fleet on the British I think Capo Matapan had a much more substantial effect because they knew of the Italian operation much more then was actually disclosed by mean of leaking form inside Supermarina: the power struggle that brought Iachino to command actually sacking his superior for "not being aggressive enough" with pressures from the Germans, Iachino was now being forced to "Show Up" to justify his accusations end even the renewed pressure by the Germans for a more active "battling the Briitish". After Matapan, Cunnigham must have suspected the crushed self confidence of Iachino after his "less then spectacular" performance in it's first sortie at Matapan, and had leankings of how Iachino survived the inquiry due to political protection in the monarchic side of the parlament, while he should have been removed from command. From Matapan on Cuningham knew its counterpart was not up to the task and this gave him great confidence in its own strengths. Iachino spent most of his life in and after the war trying to blame his own inadequacies on navy Equipments, Training, Regia Aeronautica, Intelligence, and while he may have had some point here and then, he never blamed himself for the damages he had brought on the Italian Fleet. Had he met the fate of Admiral Persano (Which was much less culprit for the debacle at Lissa then he was at Matapan), a different Chief Admiral (may be even Campioni himself) could had brought some more self esteem in the possibilities of the Italian navy in the war.
I agree with everything, altough I think the position of Iachino in all of this is much more debatable. Iachino should have been processed, without political obstacles, but not necessarily to be found guilty. The absence of the process is what caused so much uncertainty within the Regia Marina (and Iachino himself) and because of this the enigma Matapan was never solved, so much that still today there are different opinions about it. Let's face it: Iachino was a competent commander, the two Sirte battles would have showed this, and at the Scontro di Gaudo he commanded the naval squadron as well as Campioni had done before him. He did one, horrible mistake that cost thousands of lives, but when he did it the time to act was really short, just a matter of minutes. In fact, I think that in a process he could had not found guilty, and most of his justifications should had been accepted: Iachino wasn't responsible for the Regia Areonautica or the Luftwaffe not showing up, nor he wasn't for the complete inaccurate intel he received from the Germans. And altough in his books he's wrong in blaming the training of the seamen or questioning various supposed technical problems, he's right about the godawful problems of accuracy of the Vittorio Veneto that day. A couple of hits could have made a significant difference, and considering how much better was the accuracy of the Littorio later in the war, Iachino was right to question the quality control of the shell manufactorers. A process could have been a way to show the bad practices of the industry, and for this was never made. The thing is: could a more aggressive admiral like Bergamini had done better? Hard to say: the fatal decision was the one of Iachino, but many circumstances that brought to Matapan (intel, aerial reconnaisance and support, accuracy of the Vittorio Veneto's guns) were out of his control, and would have been out of control of any other naval commander in his place. Unfortunately that a process never took place.
@@albertorepetto2909 what I blame on Iachino was the decision to send most of his heavy cruiser squad into the unknown, well knowing there was a British fleet and a carrier out there looking for his squad. The rescue of a single ship is not worth the risk of such a large force and especially when he had more nible destroyers able to perform the same role, and in case retreat swifter snd steathier then a whole heavy cruiser squadron could. He knew how badly the italian seamen were trained for night combat and yet he took that decision which costed half his squad and thousand of lifes completely ruining the outcome of an already compromised sortie. Iachino should have known of the British Radar, at least as a concept: the German had a search radar on their ships since before Italy entered the war (Graaf Spee had one at the battle of Rio de la Plata), so he should have considered the risks of a night mission into enemy waters without the favour of surprise.
@@Leptospirosi yes, we are on the same page on that. It was a very bad and reckless decision. But it was also a decision that he had to take in a very short time - just a matter of minutes in fact - who knows what he really thaught in that moment. These types of decisions are those that in military history sometimes bring great success, but most of the times are source of failure. One thing to consider is that the already bad decision by Iachino was even worsened by the not brilliant formation used by Adm. Cattaneo, who didn't use the destroyers as rearguard to scout the area. Regarding the radar, I think that at the time nobody in Italy had the slightest idea of how much a powerful instrument it was. The Germans were keen to share their knowledge of air detection radars, but most reticent regarding the naval ones. In perspective, think about the night action off Messina of 17th July 1943, the only time a naval radar was actually used in combat by the RM: the crew of the Scipione Africano was _surprised_ by the usefulness and accuracy of the radar. I think that a reaction of surprise, well after Matapan, is indicative of the abysmal awareness of the RM on the matter during the war, more than an indication of how good the Gufo radar was - it wasn't bad itself either. That said, I am not trying to defend Iachino, his decision was clearly horrible, and he should have at least gone through a process for it. But in the grand scheme of things, that was just one bad decision in a day of decent performance - decent in face of almost everything else working against him that day.
@@albertorepetto2909 well, I'm not blaming Iachino as the only culprit of everything that happened: most of the high ranks in Supermarina were. May be I'm just pissed off by the tradition of the Regia Marina to defend or sack somebody based on how politically backed he was. I find Iachino despicable not just and only because of the debacle (which we have to remember, costed thousand of lives), but because when he got back he never, ever tried to analyze his decision critically: he just blamed everyone and everything except himself. This was not the first time he did that. His voice in condemning Admiral Campioni for not being "effective" and "lacking of combat spirit" was the loudest and well documented while his decisions at Punta Stilo probably saved many lives and a lot of essential equipment just by accepting to set his own pride in second place. Iachino had to back this accusations with facts and put himself in a situation which was exactly what Italy had tried to avoid up to that moment: fight just for a show rather then for a strategic advantage. Iachino just carried on being Admiral in Chief as if nothing had happened, while, at least, he could have tried to resign, waiting for an inquiry. This thought never even got through his mind. I'm thinking about how poor Admiral Persano was declared guilty of everything thrown at him and used as a scapegoat after the battle of Lissa and how Admiral Da Cosa was fully absolved and both Albini and Vacca never even trialed, despite being the real culprits of the defeat with plenty of evidences of what had happened. Despite the critics suffered by the armed forces of the kingdom, only the Regia Marina was actively and massively involved in such kind of nepotism and political influences, to the point that even Mussolini had problem to impose his will (and he was a dictator!). This bad habit was carried on from before the kingdom of Italy was a thing, deeply enrooted in the "patronage habits" of both the pedmontese and Bourbon kingdoms.
As for the UK "boldness" compared to a supposed Italian cowardness: - The Calabria/Punta stilo example is not really good: UK had a lot of extra battleships in other bases like Gibraltar or Scapa Flow (and others) They had a total of about 20 Battleships in 1940. Regia Marina at that point only had The 2 Comte di Cavour class as active Battleships, since both Doria class were finishing their refits and Littorio was under final stages of sea trials. UK could have lost Warspite without any modification on the strategic picture, something Italy couldn't say about their 2 Cavour. That's why Italy's plan was to lure RN into a aerial bombardment trap... something that didn't work so well - It is also fair to mention that Cavour/Dorias were reffited thinking on France as main contender (they were kind of "on pair" with bretagne" but after refit they could also engage Dunkerkes) and couldn't really take a british capital ship, since the entire Royal navy battlefleet units were fitted with 15' or larger guns and were protected against that caliber. Uk AP 15' shells could overwhelm Cavour/Dorias protection. So at the end, even if they were still usefull as fire multipliers, to be honest Italy counted for the entire 1940 1941 and 1942 years with just 1 or 2 Littorios to face a 3 Battleship squadron in Alexandria + 2/3 more in Gibraltar, which also had CVs on their side. With that massive advantage UK could afford to pretty much risk all Alexandria squadron in a "mano a mano" engagement against a kind of paired (in papers) Italy squadron, while Italy couldn't afford to lose any battleship (or at least any Littorio) because they needed to retain their "fleet in being" condition to force massive UK deployments for as long as they could. Despite this strategic need, and the much weaker force, Regia Marina did sail in rage a lot of times, and even managed to pull 1st Sirte Battle + Alexandria Raid, in a row, which gave them a short 6 month period of naval superiority in east Mediterranean.
the RN possessed 14 capital ships at the start of 1940 - the Royal Oak having been torpedoed in Scapa Flow in the opening days of the war. KGV would be commisioned in october, with the next PoW commisioning in January 1941. By the end of 1941 the number would drop to 13 after the loss of Hood, PoW, Barham and Repulse, and the commisioning of DoY.
"Not only should Tunisia have exploded the myth of Hitler's military acumen, it should have discredited the idea that Germans fought better than the Italians, since Messe's 1st Italian Army held out longer than Arnim's 5th German Army and the DAK, even both groups had about six divisions and faced roughly equal Anglo-American forces. Indeed, Hermann Goring division was the first to be scattered on 7 May, DAK the next to break and surrender on 9 May, with the Italian Spezia division closing the gap created by the German collapse and watching still combat-efficient German units march off into captivity on 11 May. Whether it is significant that the German 90th Light division was the first to collapse in Messe's 'Italian' Army, there is no doubt that the Italians fought well and held out longest in Tunisia." (The Second World War: The German War 1939-1942, Jeremy Black, Page 265, Ashgate, 2007)”
Really interesting, I'm always excited when aspects are highlighted that I don't know much about. So now I am crazy about an elaboration on the Bulgarian Romanian Croatian Chinese Spanish Navy etc.
Italy conquered 5 countries, was awarded the territory they won in France, and won the Spanish civil war vs. the Communist. Aside from Russia and Germany no other European country performed better, or stated another way, Italy was the 3rd best performing European country of the war. An Empire larger than Germany's. Won the Spanish Civil War which greatly hampered the Greek campaign and the remainder of Italy’s war effort of an already unprepared Italy back-stabbed by Germany when they broke the Pact of Steel just 4 months after signing in Sept. ‘39, stipulating Italy would receive 3 more years to prepare.
the Royal Italian Navy (Regia Marina) of World War II had capable professional officers, gallant sailors, and beautiful fast ships designed by gifted engineers. What it didn’t have was petroleum, and that was fatal. As British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon observed at the end of World War I, the Allies “floated to victory on a sea of oil.”
I'd love to see an episode about "commercial raiders", light cruisers masked as merchant ship, or merchant ships covertly armed to raid. AFAIK they were initially successful, at small scale, during the early parts of both world wars. A somewhat "piracy romantic" and anachronistic part of the warfare, it seems to me.
My favorite story of these was the time in WWI where a German auxiliary cruiser, disguised as a British ship, ran across that British ship, also now an auxiliary cruiser, disguised as that German vessel, in a neutral port.
One comment on developing Armies and Navies ... I would be more inclined to say that it takes decades to build an Army and Generations to build a Navy. With Armies you have to have all those 2nd Lt.'s become Generals and that takes a while. Then - you have to have those Generals get experience at actually commanding large forces in combat and wars don't come along that often. Then - all that knowledge has to become doctrine so that it isn't lost. Here - Nations such as the Americans and British (who are Naval Powers) tend to develop these massive armies during a war but then largely dismantle them once it's over. Thus each of them, with the exception of the Cold War which lasted so long, starting every war with a fairly large level of incompetence until the dead wood has gotten enough people killed and then been cast aside. With Navies ... it's not just building the ships and training their senior officers to command them ... it's the development of traditions and attitudes that govern their automatic responses. When everything turns to shit and you don't know what to do - it's the things you automatically fall back on that count. With the RN it has always been "It's OK if you lose your ship - we'll build another one. Just get in there and HURT them!" With your smaller, younger Navies ... one of the driving criteria is ... that if they lose their ship ... they don't know if the Mother Country CAN just build another one. The Fleet In Being is a strategy some of these Navies adopt and - if you've lost your Fleet - that doesn't work any more. With the Germans that's about all they could ever do. Even the Hight Seas Fleet didn't amount to much more and the Kriegs Marine ... except for the subs ... couldn't think of anything better than Commerce Raiding. The Italians - had a good fleet - but they did NOT have the industrial capacity of the US or UK and so ... they were much more reluctant to lose ships it took a long time to build. Thus, if they got hurt - their reaction was to try and preserve their ships - rather than to strike back and hurt the enemy. Even the Japanese - who were easily the best Axis Navy - still had a Fleet In Being attitude. If you look at Savo Island and The Battle Off Samar - each time - they had gotten in on the Americans and could get at those transports ... and in the end - they turned away. At Savo ... there is some justification for considering the preservation of their ships against the losses they could inflict on the enemy (and basically doing more never even occurred to them) - but Off Samar ... Kurita was preserving his fleet ... for what? To be sunk at anchor? His first flag ship had been sunk out from under him, he had all these Angry American Aircraft doing things like dropping depth charges on him (because that was what they had when he showed up), strafing his bridges and then - making dummy runs when they ran out of ammo. Those little escorts just threw themselves at him snarling and firing torpedoes. He didn't know where the American Battleships were or their Fleet Carriers. He didn't know what to do. So - he fell back on his automatic response - to preserve his ships ... even if that didn't matter any more. If you look at the RN - you have all these stories and traditions about what has happened before and the way these earlier Captains are regarded. It isn't just the heroes of Trafalgar that are remembered - it's what happened to those who acted with prudence as in the case of Admiral Sir Ernest Charles Thomas Troubridge during the flight of the Goeben ... this in contrast to the attitude of the RN towards Sir Christopher Cradock when he lost most of his squadron at Coronel. Better to be a Dead Hero then to live and be labeled a coward. Those stories ... those Traditions ... take Generations to accumulate. .
I think that part of the bad press the Regia Marina gets comes from the fact that superficially, they do not compare well to the German Fleet, which had more spectacular successes - even if it had more spectacular failures. The sortie of the Bismarck will live on for many decades to come in naval lore, as will the Channel Dash, and the seaborne invasion of Norway has its place in naval annals. But each of these was accompanied by heavy loss or damage: Bismarck for Hood; Gniesenau permenantly out of the war, Scharnhorst damaged, Prinz Eugen later torpedoed; Norway captured and the Royal Navy Glorious and her escort sunk, in exchange for 15 German warships, including 2 cruisers and 10 destroyers sunk - out of 22 committed. Superficially, the Regia Marina does not have a success record in major ship-to-ship actions to compare: the glories go to the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean, and Supermarina is faulted for excess caution. Phoenix jz points out some of the valid reasons for Italian caution below. It must be pointed out also that the German Fleet and the Regia Marina had different missions: the German High Seas Fleet was really intended for commerce raiding, while the Italian Fleet's mission was to defend Italian sea lanes and protect convoys going to Libya. So though the Germans could content themselves with control of the Baltic Sea and the waters around Scandinavia, with the help of the Luftwaffe, while commerce-raiding, Supermarina had to support Italian colonies, and so had little choice but to be cautious and pursue a "fleet-in-being" strategy. So its battleships were often used for convoy escort, to ensure that supplies made it to North Africa. Those missions were not as dramatic as commerce-raiding, but they ensured that German and Italian troops in Libya and Egypt had food and ammunition. And the Italian Navy did have its failures, yes, but if I am correct, they did not lose virtually their entire navy in a single afternoon, or even a week, as the Germans did.
Could you please make a video on the development of field fortifications and fortresses in response to cannons? I'm particularly interested what happened from Star fortresses on to early modern times.
Star fortresses were already early modern times. They persisted until the napoleonic age, then up till WWI, they started getting distributed into premieter forts and a central star fort with conneccting tunnel network, and then by WWII they evolved into the completely distributed multilayer fortification line, the best example of which is obviously Maginot.
@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 Do you know by chance why many starforts had islands without any bridge? They seem to be more than just a mere bullet sponge for the wall behind. In fact, they look almost like any bastion, but if they're not accessible, what's their point? I've never seen a pure star fort, but many like Hohenzollern. I like that Château very much from its design but find it sad that all the forts are gone without a trace (Freiburg, Vienna...).
@@edi9892 Bastions with no bridge connection were likely connected by tunnel. Their porpoise was to proved an angle of crossfire behind themselves, and to serve as a separate fortification, that the enemy cannot bypass without risking taking fire in their back. I auspect these were what later evolved into the miles removed premieter forts of complexes like Festung Pžemyšl.
@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 I can perfectly imagine that for later versions, but the photos and sketches in mind do not hint any covered hallways, or stairs for that matter. Obviously, whatever is left must not be in its intended state and sketches are notoriously inaccurate. When I think of e.g. the Castello del Monte, which is really iconic, but I think we can both agree that it's far from what it was supposed to look like... (it lacks any crenelations, or other firing positions on the top and the first line of defense has been removed apparently). The same goes for many castles that were converted into residences.
so Italians tried to rely on Frances and Britains rivalry in the hopes they could conqour the med but when that fails and rn in creases their pressence rega marina do what they can till Italy falls in 43?
Rommel was a “genius” thanks only to the Italians: “At that point, of course, the situation changed considerably and Rommel has gone down in history as one of the greatest military leaders of all time for his stunning victories over the British in north Africa.. What many fail to realize though is that the forces effectively under his command, which he used to win these masterful successes, were 2/3 Italian and the large majority of his armored forces were Italian tanks.” “The German soldier has impressed the world, however the Italian Bersagliere soldier has impressed the German soldier.” _Rommel And Italian intelligence and bravery: NOTE: This video has since been removed due to copyright infringement. It showed how Italian Intelligence Services penetrated British Intelligence and relayed British fighting positions to Rommel, hence why he seemed to know their every move.
We've never been particularly rich of natural resources. Resources that help you build a navy, that is. We rely heavily on imports from overseas, and building 7 battleships was a huge, resource-draining, effort for us in the late 30s. Emnity with the allies heavily hampered our imports from overseas, and as such made our battleships nearly irreplaceable if lost. That, and a severe shortage of fuel due to similar reasons.
@@andreabianchi6156 thank you for the reply. Limited range ( fuel) limited repair ( parts cost) but loosing the ship at that expense lvl would mean loosing deterrence and prestige at the same time. For the Italian government at the time this would likely not have been acceptable. ( my understanding of your reply and a collection of what I have since understood by reading/watching new information)
@@gmanboyou're welcome, everything you said is absolutely true. The historian consensus is that Italy, after Imperial Japan, had the best modern navy in the Axis, far outnumbering what Germany ever put to sea. But we didn't have the industrial capabilities to replace speedily our losses (which the UK had) thus making our admirals extremely careful
Mussolini was a gambler, just that. It was foolish of him to throw the country into a war against powers (Britain and Russia) that were so much richer in industrial resources and that could rely on a friend (the USA) that was richer still.
Your point of view is objective and neutral, there are many untold italian victories over the sea. Italy isn't ready for ww2 and instead ww1, nobody expect Mussolini wants it. Italians haven't a strong industrial complex, no radar, no aircraft, a weak and disorganised air force and a huge problem of supply (in particular the gas) for their battleship. Anyway I think the Regia Marina was victim of British propaganda unfairly, even Wiston Churchill recognize italians courage in Alexandria.
“A popular impression in the United States of the Regia Marina, the Italian Navy, during World War II is that because its powerful surface fleet spent so much time in port, it was more effective as a fleet in being - in other words, for what it could do - than for what it actually did. As with all generalities, there are exceptions, and in this case that exception was its Decima Flottiglia MAS (10th Light Flotilla), one of the most effective units in the history of special operations.” None of the major participants of World War II have suffered as much unjust and unfounded criticism as the military forces of the Kingdom of Italy. It really is just amazing how this false narrative has taken hold and grown ever stronger and more prevalent over time. The nonsense of the Italian Navy being completely inept: “This revisionist history convincingly argues that the Regia Marina Italiana (the Royal Italian Navy) has been neglected and maligned in assessments of its contributions to the Axis effort in World War II. After all, Italy was the major Axis player in the Mediterranean, and it was the Italian navy and air force, with only sporadic help from their German ally, that stymied the British navy and air force for most of the thirty-nine months that Italy was a belligerent. It was the Royal Italian Navy that provided the many convoys that kept the Axis war effort in Africa alive by repeatedly braving attack by aircraft, submarine, and surface vessels. If doomed by its own technical weaknesses and Ultra (the top-secret British decoding device), the Italian navy still fought a tenacious and gallant war; and if it did not win that war, it avoided defeat for thirty-nine, long, frustrating months.”
Military planning is like boxing, you don't get better by training against people who are below your weight class. The British had a world class navy, if the Americans wanted to have a comparable navy to the British they'd have to become a naval rival. They moved up from a non threatening featherweight, to a more respectable welterweight, then finally a real contender, a heavyweight. Finally someone who's actually worthy of planning against, someone who won't go down in a single punch, someone to actually test their mental acuity and training regimens against. Why don't the Americans view the British the same way now? Because there's no contest, the USN is a behemoth, there are no comparable navies to prep against, and a land war would be just as one sided. Especially since Britain no longer has an empire to strategise against.
Well, the US also quite seriously wargamed engagements against the UK. And if you look at the French Navy in WW2, allies of yesterday could easily become the enemies of today. There was no guarantee that the UK would maintain hostile relations with Germany, especially considering the appeasement policy of the 1930s.
If the Italian Navy had carried out an all out attack on Malta in the summer of 1940, the entire war could have been different but it is clear that the Regia Marina was not really committed to the war.
@Legio XXI Rapax The Italian Navy had a few notable actions- their frogmen, the Lira at Crete, and a few convoy attacks but for the most part the Italian naval operations were failures. Even the Germans recognized this.
@Legio XXI Rapax Rommel was ahead of the Allies, because he did things that was not there for others. Attack in places where ppl thought it was a stupid idea. The main problem with your argument is that, the only reason Rommel was in Africa, because of the Italians. The german high command sent Rommel, because they hated him. Some other guy would probably made use of the italian steal, but Rommel never told anyone what was on his mind. Led by example and inspired soldiers to do more then what they thought they can do.
I mean the Italians had the fourth largest navy in the world at the start of WW2. It was smaller than the Japanese navy at number three, but larger than the French/German navies at four and five. The only problem for the Italians “and this goes for their army and Air Force as well” is that they were lead by incompetent leaders and had a severe shortage of oil to fuel their war machine. Italy in general had great potential to be a great power, but poor leadership and poor logistics made it nearly impossible to be a great power.
I'm totally agree, Italy wasn't ready for ww2. In 1943 they got the radar (gufo) and before the war they were planning even an aircraft carrier (Aquila). Ww2 was the biggest Mussolini mistake, instead ww1 the italians don't want it including some fascist leaders like Italo Balbo or Galeazzo Ciano. Mussolini itself told to Hitler that Italy will be ready just in '43-'44.
Very interesting video! Based on a rough research, England lost in the Mediterranean Sea by Italian forces - 33 submarines - 19 D. escorts and DD - 6/7 cruisers - 1 battleship if you count HMS Queen Elizabeth that was grounded Naturally some of these numbers are debatable
Italian navy didnt have enough fuel to leave port en masse. This made Mussolinis' boast of "Mare Nostra " very weak. And since there was no Austro - Hungarian Navy landlocked powers added to the axis factored in nothing. The Battle of Taranto further reduced its power by its pre Pearl Harbor destruction in port by those swordfish aircraft much maligned. Unfortunately for America the Japanese took note. What victories the Italians had in Mare Nostra were limited to midget subs manned torpedoes and frogmen.
Italian navy hasn’t hopes since first days of war: no aircraft carriers, no radar, bad torpedo training, lackness of night combat training, bad team work with air force, and lackness of corvettes and frigates to escort the convoys to Lybia, and so the cargo ships were escorted by old torpedo boats of WW1.
@@oddball3586 , nel senso che le navi da guerra come incrociatori, cacciatorpediniere e toprediniere avevano i lanciasiluri ma gli equipaggi venivano male addestrati nell'adoperarli. Inoltre come noi anche i giapponesi non avevano il radar, eppure, nonostante questa deficienza, nel primo anno di guerra, coi combattimenti notturni riuscirono con cannoni e siluri ad affondare o danneggiare molte navi da guerra statunitensi. Cio' significa che loro erano addestrati bene, la marina italiana no.
I feel like Italy is just badly placed in many ways for modern offensive conflict. Land borders are essentially all mountainous, and a long peninsular coastline to defend. Amphibious warfare is complicated to say the least. And this is aside from all the other well trodden problems of not being rich in industrial resources and relying on imports.
Drach 👍😊 So what he is saying is; "The RN saw the Italians, except the torp riders, as not as dangerous as the Germans". Guess that fits with the evaluation of land and air forces too 😉 Furore Germanium...
Only one Enemy formation Italy and whole of Europe must be prepared to fight alliance Of (Turkey-China-Pakistan supported by some Arab nations) Russia and Iran play neutral...
Interesting that the British never really seemed to realize that none of the Italian capital ships-even the new, legitimately threatening Littorios-were actually capable of dealing with the British due to the British carrier supremacy.
Italy didnt need carriers for air dominance in the medditeranian. They have mainland Italy as a huge unsinkable airfied right in the middle as well as Italy holding the north african coastline with Lybia. No carrier bourne airforce could hope to compete with the numbers and increased size of landbased aircraft. One of the main reasons why British carriers had armoured flightdecks was because they knew it was futile to rely on combat air patrols to prevent incoming attacks in the restricted waters of the med, the armour was required for protection against the attacks that would get through.
Shania Monde First, land-based Italian aircraft were terribly coordinated with the Regia Marina so in reality they did need carriers. Second, even if land-based aircraft could replace carriers, that fails to address my point (which was that the Italian capital ship fleet was a non-factor and rendered redundant by airpower, whether they be from British carriers or their own land-based bombers).
Legio XXI Rapax Between fuel shortages, incompetent high command, wasting resources on pointless battleships (though the British were also guilty of this one) and the lack of naval aviation (and lack of effective land-cases air support), the fight was far more one-sides than often assumed. Italian warships specifically do tend to be underrated, but their navy as a whole had many issues
In the US Army, we had a standing joke about the Italians summarized this way: " For sale: like new Italian Carcano rifle for sale, never fired and only dropped once." Enjoy these cooperative videos very much. Thank you both for another informative video. Brian Nicholas
Rommel was a very bad organizer and usually blamed others, especially Italians, but also his German fellows if needed, for his logistic mistakes, so I wouldn't put much faith in his words, unless when he talks about tactics. Did you know that one time he even forgot for a month that there were ships full of supplies ready to be unloaded but he didn't give the order? In the end the convoy had to come back to Italy with a part of his cargo still loaded. The Regia Marina delivered about 90% of the shipments to Africa until november 1942, which means until Operation Torch. After this date the material superiority of the Allies became unbearable and until the fall of Tunis the Regia delivered around 70% of the programmed shipments. Rommel most of the times didn't receive his supplies because he didn't ordered them from Berlin, not because they weren't delivered.
@King First of all, I'm Spanish. Second of all, what you say about "the Soviet bringing more men than the enemy had bullets" is capital-grade bullshit which reaches nonsensical levels. I mean, an ammo factory can produce thousands of bullets PER DAY, and that a single factory. Add for years of conflict, and you have numbers of bullets spent in the tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions. For instance, between 1942 and 1945 the US produced 47 billion rounds of ammo for SMALL ARMS ALONE (the USSR mobilised 20 million men, so the US produced ~2000 bullets per each soldier the Soviets mobilised, and only a fraction of those soldiers were fighting at the front since the Soviets regularly rotated units between front an reserve, and also kept a substancial force of more than a million soldiers in the Manchurian border to watch for any Japanese offensive attempt). USSR had similar production figures for land forces. Not to mention the fact that what you claim is so bad a tactic that it always ended in failure when used: in WW1 it led to the Russian defeat in Tannennberg, and the Italian defeats in the battles of the Isonzo river. In fact the USSR existed because most soldiers (along with the most competent officers) of the Russian army revolted since they were tired of suffering enormous casualties due to lack of tactics. Now, if you are interested in what tactics the Soviets DID use, I can recommend that you search by "deep operations" or "deep battle".
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For those of you wondering, the Italian maritime strike aircraft I'm referring to and the RA aircraft assigned to anti-shipping missions. :)
I am iam
To be fair the battle of matapan was more Germany's fault with their false intel. One wonders if a more competent admiral like bergamini would have continued after the promised german air support failed to materialize and they broke rhe english codes showing the german intel incorrect...
Speaking of an air service implication on maritime operations, what do you think of interservice cooperation and combined planning in the interwar years in the British Empire? It seems to me that the grand strategy of the BE is every service with it's ideas but only the RN is getting the opportunity to realize theirs. I also think that the events in WW2 clearly show that the RN by itself could not protect the BE. Do you agree somewhat with the statement that the British were trapped in an obsolete strategy of sea power extraordinare and not much else (in terms of budget).
Ah, bonus Drach this week!
@@mihaiserafim The theory behind the RN's plans was sound, but it was hampered by two main issues 1) Not having control of the FAA for much of the interwar period and then taking a backseat to the (needed) rapid build-up of the RAF. 2) Ending up having plans to fight any one or two of the navies they ended up fighting but being left fighting a nightmare list of all 3 possible enemies at once. This latter especially completely scuppered any chance of pre-war plans working.
There was also the side-effect of going to war in Sept '39, that froze or slowed a lot of plans and started racking up losses, Italy bought itself another 6-9 months of build-up and Japan over 2 years to complete ships, introduce new aircraft etc. This in turn put the RN at a disadvantage in a number of fields when it came to fighting the various enemies it had to deal with that wouldn't have existed if everyone went to war in Sept '39.
The Navy was struggling for money in the inter-war period, but then so were the other services. Given they thought war was coming in the early '40's and navies are the longest lead of the services, it makes the late-30's strategy and budgets look artificially navy-heavy.
_"You worried about me, eh? _*_*Looks around the Mediteranian*_*_ Well there's no other navy around so you must be worried about me!"_ - Regia Marina to the Royal Navy, ca 1940
Mr BigCookie underrated comment
"yeah I worried about you, now what" *pearing down at a bloodied and beaten mess* RN to RM circa mid 1941 😜
@@LordInterthe port of Alexandria and Gibraltar the very same year:
For what it's worth, I may be able to provide some context as to the behavior of some of the Italian warships, especially the major ones;
For Italian battleships, the biggest issues were issues with Italian reconnaissance, and deficiency in night actions. The first clash of Italian battleships with the British, the Battle of Calabria (9 July 1940), is a bit of an exception - the Italians had a rough idea what they were facing, an Admiral Campioni knew he was outmatched, his pair of smaller battleships (29,000 tons full load, 10x 320mm guns, 27 knots) versus three larger British battleships (31-36,000 tons, 8x 381mm guns, 20-23 knots) - his only edge was his speed, and larger number of cruisers. Once Giulio Cesare was hit (at 16.00), the extend of the damage was not immediately clear, and with Cesare's speed rapidly falling (down from 25 knots to 18 knots in a span of about five minutes), Campioni assumed the worst. He had taken great risk engaging in the first place, so once he knew he couldn't control the range disengaging was the only rational choice. By the time Cesare worked up to speed again, the chance to re-engage was gone. Though, for what it's worth, a seldom acknowledged fact is that Warspite actually ceased fire first (at 16.03 and 30 seconds). The Italian battleships maintained fire even after Cesare was hit, not turning away until 16.06. In fact, they did not cease firing until 16.08. For whatever reason, Warspite had also decided to break off the engagement instead of capitalize on the damage she had dealt, and the Italians were able to disengage in this time. At 16.09 Warspite then engaged Italian heavy cruisers, which began to engage her in addition to the British cruisers to cover the retreat of the battleships and the destroyers laying smoke.
Moving on from Calabria - from then on, aerial reconnaissance tended to be the bane of Italian admirals at sea, as it often became impossible for Italian admirals to get an accurate picture of where the British were, and what they had. Ex, at Cape Spartivento (27 November 1940), recon failures prevented Campioni from making contact with the British forces while they were separate, as planned, and instead had to contend with the combined force. Though the match up, on paper, was fairly even (one carrier, one old battleship, one modernized battlecruiser on the part of the British, and one modern battleship and one modernized battleship on the part of the Italians), Campioni was acutely aware of the fact that he was operating, once again, with the only two operational battleships available to the Regia Marina (an irony of his short career as wartime fleet admiral - this face was true at both Calabria and Cape Spartivento), and it didn't help that he believed the British actually had a carrier and three battleships available. Though in reality it was an excellent opportunity for the Italians to take on a major British force with the advantage on their side, as far as Campioni was aware he was actually once again outmatched and needlessly risking his irreplaceable battleships. This trend would continue. The failure of Italian and German reconnaissance during the British 'Operation Grog' (9 February 1941) allowed the British Force H to slip by a superior Italian force, despite the face the Italians had gotten within 30 miles of them. Had Iachino (the new fleet commander) not adjusted course at 13.07 (which could have been avoided), they would have placed themselves between Force H and their escape at 13.37 - probably the best chance the Regia Marina ever had to destroy a major British force.
This trend repeats itself continuously, with either the RM's own inadequate recon force, the Regia Aeronautica, or Luftwaffe letting the fleet down, during Operational Halberd, the events leading up to the Second Battle of Sirte, or Operation Pedestal.
The other half of the equation is the difficulty in pursuing action after night falls. Italian battleships were limited in their ability to confront the British at night. Prior to the war, and in the entry, only secondary batteries (100mm to 152mm) and main batteries of destroyers, torpedo boats, and light cruisers (100mm to 152mm once again) had arrangements and training for night action, as well as the flashless ammunition for it. It was only in early 1941 (ironically, just prior to Matapan) that efforts to include it for the 203mm guns of heavy cruisers came into effect, and in Spring 1941, in response to the events of Operation Guado and the night action at Cape Matapan, this also extended to the battleships. However, though by the summer of 1941 Italian warships of any kind had the means and training to engage the enemy at night, the Italians were acutely aware that the British were still far better at it. They were aware the British had radar available, and realized they were greatly disadvantaged by this - especially as the British began employing increasingly dangerous fire control radar technology against them. Thus, even when the opportunity to press an action into nightfall presented itself, the battleships were reluctant to do so, as they knew they were presenting themselves at great disadvantage to the British. Italian radar technology was simply too slow in coming, and German radar, though supposedly secured by agreement in 1939, simply failed to manifest until the spring of 1942, as the Kreigsmarine seemed to have little interest in actually providing the radar as promised (in an interesting contrast, the luftwaffe was considerably more open with sharing radar with the Regia Aeronautica).
Thus, for the British, it isn't hard to imagine why they might be assume the Italians were simply unwilling to engage - very often it was the case that the Italian admirals at sea struggled to locate the British, and once they did, could often over-estimate what the British had, either prompting a recall by Supermarina, or leaving the chance for interception too late in the day before a more realistic appraisal became available. With the benefit of hindsight, the reasons for the Italian choices become clearer, and are certainly quite understandable - after all, there are likewise numerous examples of the British avoiding contact when faced with more resistance than they liked, such as during Operation Hats (31 August 1940), where Cunningham elected to steam away from an Italian force heading to engage him for a solid three hours to stave off conflict, or Operation White (17 November 1940).
Light cruisers could usually afford to be more aggressive, on the other hand, as they were not so vital to the war effort. They weren't irreplaceable, but their loss would not change the course of the war in the Mediterranean. On the other hand, every time a Littorio sortied, the admiral leading the fleet was placed in the unenviable position of Jellicoe's 'only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon' - a major defeat at sea that cost Italy her modern battleships cost her the ability to contest the Mediterranean, as nothing else - submarines or airpower - could sufficiently counter the threat of the British battleships. When operating with the fleet, Italian light cruisers tended to operate as scouts - clash with screening elements, and then fall back for the battleships and heavy cruisers to take over. This was done to the letter at Calabria, though there were few other opportunities as Italian light cruisers simply never got much of a chance to clash with the the enemy, especially the 'true' cruisers'. The earlier cruisers - the Giussano and Cadorna-classes - were all 'large scouts' originally, re-rated to light cruisers later in life, and were perhaps best described as small, cardboard-armored cruisers with armament equivalent to many light cruisers... but that was about it, and they were considerably lighter (5,100-5,200 tons standard (Sydney, for example, was ~7,100 tons). They really weren't suited to action with cruisers, but they were considered expendable, so they saw the most action. The better light cruisers (Montecuccoli, Duca d'Aosta, and Duca degli Abruzzi-classes) were progressively better armored, and in general were far more robust combatants. The Abruzzi's only ever got a chance to engage their British counterparts at Calabria, where they had decent success - skirmishing with British cruisers and inflicting damage before withdrawing, preferring not to deal with 15" guns of the British battleships. The earlier examples of the 'true' light cruisers only ever got one true chance to shine, which was at the Battle of Pantelleria - which, given it was a victory, was a good showing.
The British honestly didn't get enough chances to clash with them for a real 'pattern' of engagement to develop, but overall, the bulk of the light cruisers the British did clash with were the 'large scouts', which were largely serving in the role of fleet scouts and little else. The larger, 'true' light cruisers simply had too few chances to engage the British, though both chances saw them make the most of their situation.
Hopefully this at least explains the 'why' behind the Italian actions that formed the British impressions - if you've any more questions about the RM's doctrines or actions, or want me to clarify any of the above, feel free to ask!
The reason why warspite stopped firing was because she actually damaged her gun firing that shot. Drachinifel displays this on his video on HMS warspite
woah, youre the guy who gets pinged in reddit and had some great writeups in the wows forums. I appreciate the effort you put into these.Stay safe and keep rocking on!
I am very impressed with your level of knowledge, well done sirrrr
Just where did you get all these knowledge 'cause I want some!
Warspite circled back to allow the two slower battleships to catch up as Cunningham did not want to close alone with the two Cavour-class ships, one of which was undamaged and the other was still in fighting shape. Also I have not heard that Cavour fired, as she was assigned to Malaya and Malaya did not come within range, and the Italians wanted to prevent confusion in watching the fall of shot.
A tip for italian pronunciation: the g in "regia" is pronounced the g in "regicide", always when i or e follow g like generale (general), Giappone (Japan), Germania (Germany) it sounds like J
"always when g follows i or e" ?
- should be "always when i or e follows g"
@@krixpop yup, thought a thing, wrote the opposite, thank you.
Drach and Bernard, my two favorite history channels, Dream Team!!!
Ironically the greatest issue the italian navy faced at sea was the alliance with germany.
As soon as action was deciced (Quite slowly) by supermarina and the germans caught wind of it,hey would use enigma and the brits would know as well.
Well i've seen some youtube collaborations but always good to see two of the creators I respect the most doing a job together - nice job both of you
For my part, I viewed the Italy like a second rate power or even third rate power and the armed forces likewise. Then I played World In Flames over ten years ago and played Italy (you play the entire WWII - one of the largest board games in the world). Wow! This is a large fleet! I can do some serious damage to the Royal Navy! While the army was "meh". Then I got to read about Mussolini and the armed forces in Italy from 1900 and up to WWII. I have respect for the Regia Marina, the submarine arm and not least the frogmen.
I'd love a video about "fleet in being" theory and how arguably that was the best use of the Italian navy considering their logistical limitations.
Really interesting vid, and right in time as i was just reading about the Italian fleet in WW2 haha. I think the engagements in the Med don't get nearly as much spotlight as they should, despite there being many major fleet actions and the amount of ships lost overall.
That title is so sexy you should bring back the "military history for adults" channel name ^^
XXX World War?
I agree, because the Tank Museum (Curators Chats) seem to be heading towards tank history for 10 year olds, which is somewhat disappointing.
MHV and Drach on one presentation. Two of my fav 'casters. What a nice surprise.
The "Combined Arms" of history lessons!
Love seeing collaboration between you two. Always interesting and entertaining.
I think the most incredible thing about all of this, is that our Royal Navy carriers a Flag from Italy, Genova to be precise. Also we copied technology from the Italians, like the Charriot, which was actually used by the first SBS, the Decima MAS! Called the PIG.
Italy once ruled the waves, from the Roman Empire to the Renaissance period, hence the Flag from Genoa. St.GeorgesCross.
History is amazing, both great nations, but I think if Italy spent as much as UK or France, it would have had amazing things. Their building frigates for the USA.
UK and Fascist Italy had a good report until 1935, there was no reason for either nation to be concerned with what the other was upto.
Terrific breakdown without the normally present wild British bias. Well done sir. Enjoyable listen.
This was wonderful guys, well done I really enjoyed listening 👏👏
The Royal Navy underestimated the Regia Marina, especially after Cape Matapan. This was a mistake and they soon realized it, despite the Royal Navy victories to date over the Regia Marina. The Regia Marina continued to cause the Royal Navy much stress and loss for the duration of the conflict. From the raid on Alexandria which saw 2 Royal navy battleships knocked out of action to the mauling the Royal Navy took during Operation Pedastal, the Regia Marina's continued to cause significant loses to the Royal Navy. The Italian Cruiser Raimondo Montecuccoli is a fine example Regia Marina's fleet prowess. She crippled the destroyer HMS Bedouin and damaged the cruiser HMS Cairo and the destroyer HMS Partridge. An interesting side note, Admiral Angelo Iachino wrote several books about his actions during the war, especially focusing on Matapan and trying to justify his actions in that battle. In 1974 he donated money from his books to the construction of a Sailor's Monument in Taranto.
See www.giovannicarrieri.com/photography/italy/taranto/sailors-monument-taranto.jpg
Il povero ammiraglio Iachino non aveva nulla di cui scusarsi
Cadde in un' imboscata preparata grazie a "Enigma" il cifrario tedesco, decrittato dagli inglesi.
La mancanza di radar, nella battaglia notturna, fece il resto.
Basic German and Italian strategy = if we can beat it, we will attack it. Basic Royal Navy strategy = attack regardless of odds. This could be disconcerting when your Heavy warship plus support ships are getting close assaulted by a destroyer (i.e. HMS Glowworm vs Admiral Hipper) .
That explains why the Polish sailors serving with the British got along with them so well.
Goes back to nelson.
No captain can be faulted who lays his ship along side those of the enemy.
Misquoted but you get the drift.
Well the RN strategy was more like let's built 3x the navy of everyone else to start an escalation that we will limit with the naval treaties (treaties which also contributed to starting the war) while our economy is in ruins, and then let's throw them and we will call it "we attack regardless of the odds yay". This way the RN lost quite some capital ships and the RM lost none
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Royal_Navy_losses_in_World_War_II
@Joakim von Anka well why would the KM risk even just damage to 2 heavy cruisers vs a shipment escorted by 2 CL and DDs when the RN had like hundreds of these classes, there was no gain. You don't get that the KM production focused on subs while the surface fleet was very low in nrs and when repairs took months and fatal damage was hardly recoverable you didn't want to get a single shell on a cruiser
@Joakim von Anka of course when the KM and Regia taken singularly were one third of the RN they were pretty useless compated to those nrs. check around how the concept of fleet in being works, for example they moved/created a baltic fleet to raid on undefended convoys, so the RN was forced to move capital fleets in there relieving pressure on other fronts example the mediterranean. It is called fleet in being meaning it is there to pose a threat but surely is not huge that you can throw it away andbhave spares hence they had to be very very conservative or no more being of the fleet
Just a pronounciation heads-up, since you'll keep talking about the Regia Marina (although you probably already recorded the next video): "c" and "g" in Italian are hard consonants, when followed by a vowel, except for two cases, vowels "e" and "i". In "ge", "gi", "ce" and "ci" the consonants are soft: in that case "g" becomes something very similar to "j" (in english, like "just"), "c" is pronounced as "ch" (in english, again). For those sounds to be hard, you need an "h" (which in Italian is otherwise a mute letter) before the the vowel. So "Iachino" is pronounced "Iakino", while "Regia" is pronounced as "Reja".
Sorry for writing this, it can sound a bit pedantic, but Drachinifel showed interest in this, with his videos on correct pronounces, and I'm still mentally scarred by Ian McCollum's pronounciation of "Moschetto", so I felt compelled to chime in.
Jacopo Mangini Agreed. Let’s get the pronunciations correct!
Vittorio Veneto
Ven-eh-to, not Ven-ee-to
Without meaning offense, the brits have always been abysmal at pronouncing Latin languages properly, especially Italian and Spanish
There must have also been a certain level of intimidation caused by the Royal Navy's reputation. I would have thought that any opposing navy confronting them would have been well aware of how difficult a task it was going to be. That fear affected both Italian and German navies on the strategic and tactical level during WW2 often meaning they had lost even before the fighting started.
@carmine paola Yes, I completely agree, I personally think the Italians are an intelligent, capable people who, with the right equipment and experience, can be the match of anybody (and proved it) . It's just that the royal navy had dominated the seas for a long time it must have been a daunting task for Reggia marina. it does seem like to me there were many cases when italian and German ships retreated when in a superior position. Of course, things are far more complicated than that and I'm not saying they were cowardly or petrified with fear exactly, just, how much of their thinking was about 'who' they were fighting not 'what' they were fighting. Anyway I've learnt a lot from this guy and I will look into those battles you mentioned as I've only heard of some.
@@abett6111 Most of the reasons come to life after the battle at Cape Matapan, in reality, it was an ambush, made possible by the RADAR. The RN had the radar and the Regia Marina had no RADAR. RN could see in the night what the Italian heavy cruisers couldn't see. The RN was waiting for the Italian cruisers coming to rescue a damaged unit, and were able so to shoot at point-blank range, and swipe away the Italian ships in 4 minutes. I bet since then, without radar, with a constant shortage of fuel, without the cover of aircraft carriers, with poor coordination between the navy and the air forces, they started to feel unsafe... who else would feel differently in that situation. Last but not least the decryption of the codes...
@@stefanomessi Excellent comment.
@@stefanomessiThe Regia Marina had radars and they were also excellent. Just think of the "Operazione Sicilia". Where thanks to the radar the cruiser Scipione Africano was able to counter the attack by the English navy. The only two problems of the Regia Marina were the lack of oil and the fact that the Supermarina was a den of traitors. Otherwise the Regia Marina would have been the Anglo-American Navy's worst nightmare
@@giudicedredd9195 Please make a survey on when the Regia Marina started to have radars. Cape Matapan is a very clear and undeniable demonstration that the RN was seeing in the dark and the Regia marina couldn't.
Two point to add: speaking about "Italian Light Cruisers" you'd better split them in two categories: the Capitani Romani and first batch of the Condottieri class were rather small and fast ships, often armed with Destroyer like armaments in the CR class (named Explored before the war and not Cruisers) and were the most numerous in the eastern Mediterranean performing convoy escort or resupply for the Army in the greek islands. The British intelligence knew quite accurately their strength, when they left the Greek ports and approximately where they were headed so most of the battles where conducted by the British with superior forces of DD intercepting and ambushing these light cruisers. In case of the sinking of Da Giussano and Da Barbiano, they were ambushed at short range from behind an island and the amount of fuel supplies on the two light cruiser where so heavy that tanks on the stern made unable the rear turrets of the retreating cruisers to fire back. In the end when you are shot by a torpedo at point blanc range there is little armour that can save you, but these were not straight front-line battles between 2 cruisers and a single torpedo boat and 4 DD British DDs, where the cruisers could have deployed their full fire-power potential to deter the DDs from closing in.
Speaking of other light cruisers, partially from the second Condottieri batch and fully from the third batch they became larger and more armoured, which relegate them to first line combat in the fleet until later in the war when convoy protection became the only priority for Italy.
These larger ship were quite aggressive in skirmishes with the British escorts in the convoy war and often at the front of the Italian fleet. The chaotic fights in open water did not provided great results on both sides in the fire fight because of heavy smoke curtain an very long range shooting, but unless the British had full information of the enemy forces and trusted their superiority in number or strength (due to radar, air detection, enemy communication encryption breaking or straight leaking form double agents in the Italian line of command) they certainly were not "aggressive" or looking for troubles when facing Italian CL.
Punta Stilo is another matter that should debated: the British had by far the largest guns with 3 15" large battleships vs the 320mm on the only two Cavour: Campioni had strict orders to avoid contact with superior enemy forces unless strictly necessary. With the Cesare hit and the rest of the fleet out gunned, Campioni did the only reasonable thing since the convoy in the area had already reached safety.
Despite the boasting from Cunnigham about "Italian having enough", he knew far too well that he had gained no strategic advantage except a single hit on the enemy (with minor damages) and several cruisers and DD hit by splinters from the enemy fire.The whole scruff had been just a showing down without any effective benefit. He knew perfectly well that Campioni had done the logical thing and I guess he would not acted differently in his shoes.
About the opinion of the Italian fleet on the British I think Capo Matapan had a much more substantial effect because they knew of the Italian operation much more then was actually disclosed by mean of leaking form inside Supermarina: the power struggle that brought Iachino to command actually sacking his superior for "not being aggressive enough" with pressures from the Germans, Iachino was now being forced to "Show Up" to justify his accusations end even the renewed pressure by the Germans for a more active "battling the Briitish".
After Matapan, Cunnigham must have suspected the crushed self confidence of Iachino after his "less then spectacular" performance in it's first sortie at Matapan, and had leankings of how Iachino survived the inquiry due to political protection in the monarchic side of the parlament, while he should have been removed from command. From Matapan on Cuningham knew its counterpart was not up to the task and this gave him great confidence in its own strengths.
Iachino spent most of his life in and after the war trying to blame his own inadequacies on navy Equipments, Training, Regia Aeronautica, Intelligence, and while he may have had some point here and then, he never blamed himself for the damages he had brought on the Italian Fleet. Had he met the fate of Admiral Persano (Which was much less culprit for the debacle at Lissa then he was at Matapan), a different Chief Admiral (may be even Campioni himself) could had brought some more self esteem in the possibilities of the Italian navy in the war.
I agree with everything, altough I think the position of Iachino in all of this is much more debatable. Iachino should have been processed, without political obstacles, but not necessarily to be found guilty. The absence of the process is what caused so much uncertainty within the Regia Marina (and Iachino himself) and because of this the enigma Matapan was never solved, so much that still today there are different opinions about it. Let's face it: Iachino was a competent commander, the two Sirte battles would have showed this, and at the Scontro di Gaudo he commanded the naval squadron as well as Campioni had done before him. He did one, horrible mistake that cost thousands of lives, but when he did it the time to act was really short, just a matter of minutes. In fact, I think that in a process he could had not found guilty, and most of his justifications should had been accepted: Iachino wasn't responsible for the Regia Areonautica or the Luftwaffe not showing up, nor he wasn't for the complete inaccurate intel he received from the Germans. And altough in his books he's wrong in blaming the training of the seamen or questioning various supposed technical problems, he's right about the godawful problems of accuracy of the Vittorio Veneto that day. A couple of hits could have made a significant difference, and considering how much better was the accuracy of the Littorio later in the war, Iachino was right to question the quality control of the shell manufactorers. A process could have been a way to show the bad practices of the industry, and for this was never made.
The thing is: could a more aggressive admiral like Bergamini had done better? Hard to say: the fatal decision was the one of Iachino, but many circumstances that brought to Matapan (intel, aerial reconnaisance and support, accuracy of the Vittorio Veneto's guns) were out of his control, and would have been out of control of any other naval commander in his place. Unfortunately that a process never took place.
@@albertorepetto2909 what I blame on Iachino was the decision to send most of his heavy cruiser squad into the unknown, well knowing there was a British fleet and a carrier out there looking for his squad. The rescue of a single ship is not worth the risk of such a large force and especially when he had more nible destroyers able to perform the same role, and in case retreat swifter snd steathier then a whole heavy cruiser squadron could. He knew how badly the italian seamen were trained for night combat and yet he took that decision which costed half his squad and thousand of lifes completely ruining the outcome of an already compromised sortie.
Iachino should have known of the British Radar, at least as a concept: the German had a search radar on their ships since before Italy entered the war (Graaf Spee had one at the battle of Rio de la Plata), so he should have considered the risks of a night mission into enemy waters without the favour of surprise.
@@Leptospirosi yes, we are on the same page on that. It was a very bad and reckless decision. But it was also a decision that he had to take in a very short time - just a matter of minutes in fact - who knows what he really thaught in that moment. These types of decisions are those that in military history sometimes bring great success, but most of the times are source of failure. One thing to consider is that the already bad decision by Iachino was even worsened by the not brilliant formation used by Adm. Cattaneo, who didn't use the destroyers as rearguard to scout the area. Regarding the radar, I think that at the time nobody in Italy had the slightest idea of how much a powerful instrument it was. The Germans were keen to share their knowledge of air detection radars, but most reticent regarding the naval ones. In perspective, think about the night action off Messina of 17th July 1943, the only time a naval radar was actually used in combat by the RM: the crew of the Scipione Africano was _surprised_ by the usefulness and accuracy of the radar. I think that a reaction of surprise, well after Matapan, is indicative of the abysmal awareness of the RM on the matter during the war, more than an indication of how good the Gufo radar was - it wasn't bad itself either.
That said, I am not trying to defend Iachino, his decision was clearly horrible, and he should have at least gone through a process for it. But in the grand scheme of things, that was just one bad decision in a day of decent performance - decent in face of almost everything else working against him that day.
@@albertorepetto2909 well, I'm not blaming Iachino as the only culprit of everything that happened: most of the high ranks in Supermarina were. May be I'm just pissed off by the tradition of the Regia Marina to defend or sack somebody based on how politically backed he was. I find Iachino despicable not just and only because of the debacle (which we have to remember, costed thousand of lives), but because when he got back he never, ever tried to analyze his decision critically: he just blamed everyone and everything except himself. This was not the first time he did that. His voice in condemning Admiral Campioni for not being "effective" and "lacking of combat spirit" was the loudest and well documented while his decisions at Punta Stilo probably saved many lives and a lot of essential equipment just by accepting to set his own pride in second place. Iachino had to back this accusations with facts and put himself in a situation which was exactly what Italy had tried to avoid up to that moment: fight just for a show rather then for a strategic advantage. Iachino just carried on being Admiral in Chief as if nothing had happened, while, at least, he could have tried to resign, waiting for an inquiry. This thought never even got through his mind. I'm thinking about how poor Admiral Persano was declared guilty of everything thrown at him and used as a scapegoat after the battle of Lissa and how Admiral Da Cosa was fully absolved and both Albini and Vacca never even trialed, despite being the real culprits of the defeat with plenty of evidences of what had happened.
Despite the critics suffered by the armed forces of the kingdom, only the Regia Marina was actively and massively involved in such kind of nepotism and political influences, to the point that even Mussolini had problem to impose his will (and he was a dictator!). This bad habit was carried on from before the kingdom of Italy was a thing, deeply enrooted in the "patronage habits" of both the pedmontese and Bourbon kingdoms.
Very interesting to learn about the Italian Navy in greater depth!
I just finished watching Drach, 2 Drachs in one day. A very good day
As for the UK "boldness" compared to a supposed Italian cowardness:
- The Calabria/Punta stilo example is not really good: UK had a lot of extra battleships in other bases like Gibraltar or Scapa Flow (and others) They had a total of about 20 Battleships in 1940. Regia Marina at that point only had The 2 Comte di Cavour class as active Battleships, since both Doria class were finishing their refits and Littorio was under final stages of sea trials. UK could have lost Warspite without any modification on the strategic picture, something Italy couldn't say about their 2 Cavour. That's why Italy's plan was to lure RN into a aerial bombardment trap... something that didn't work so well
- It is also fair to mention that Cavour/Dorias were reffited thinking on France as main contender (they were kind of "on pair" with bretagne" but after refit they could also engage Dunkerkes) and couldn't really take a british capital ship, since the entire Royal navy battlefleet units were fitted with 15' or larger guns and were protected against that caliber. Uk AP 15' shells could overwhelm Cavour/Dorias protection. So at the end, even if they were still usefull as fire multipliers, to be honest Italy counted for the entire 1940 1941 and 1942 years with just 1 or 2 Littorios to face a 3 Battleship squadron in Alexandria + 2/3 more in Gibraltar, which also had CVs on their side.
With that massive advantage UK could afford to pretty much risk all Alexandria squadron in a "mano a mano" engagement against a kind of paired (in papers) Italy squadron, while Italy couldn't afford to lose any battleship (or at least any Littorio) because they needed to retain their "fleet in being" condition to force massive UK deployments for as long as they could. Despite this strategic need, and the much weaker force, Regia Marina did sail in rage a lot of times, and even managed to pull 1st Sirte Battle + Alexandria Raid, in a row, which gave them a short 6 month period of naval superiority in east Mediterranean.
"Look how aggressively and bravely Dwayne Johnson takes on this 8 year old kid, who's cowardly dodgeing and running away like a sissy."
Italians were cowards lol, navy, army or civvies.
You know nothing, John Doe
Stay mad, pastaboo.
the RN possessed 14 capital ships at the start of 1940 - the Royal Oak having been torpedoed in Scapa Flow in the opening days of the war. KGV would be commisioned in october, with the next PoW commisioning in January 1941. By the end of 1941 the number would drop to 13 after the loss of Hood, PoW, Barham and Repulse, and the commisioning of DoY.
Battleships (Italian) lacked over the horizon surface radar.
I can't stop laughing at the thumbnail. The binoculars are so huge.
Glad yall are doing buddy team up videos lol huge fan of both of yalls channels!!
Two of my favorites in one place. Great job!
a new dynamic duo.
Two of my favourite peoples having a podcast. Awesome.
Loved this, you guys should collaborate more, I listen to everything by both you they gets pumped out
I really enjoy these conversational videos and what nations thought of others nations capabilities
"Not only should Tunisia have exploded the myth of Hitler's military acumen, it should have discredited the idea that Germans fought better than the Italians, since Messe's 1st Italian Army held out longer than Arnim's 5th German Army and the DAK, even both groups had about six divisions and faced roughly equal Anglo-American forces. Indeed, Hermann Goring division was the first to be scattered on 7 May, DAK the next to break and surrender on 9 May, with the Italian Spezia division closing the gap created by the German collapse and watching still combat-efficient German units march off into captivity on 11 May. Whether it is significant that the German 90th Light division was the first to collapse in Messe's 'Italian' Army, there is no doubt that the Italians fought well and held out longest in Tunisia." (The Second World War: The German War 1939-1942, Jeremy Black, Page 265, Ashgate, 2007)”
Great episode! You two make a great pair.
Really interesting, I'm always excited when aspects are highlighted that I don't know much about. So now I am crazy about an elaboration on the Bulgarian Romanian Croatian Chinese Spanish Navy etc.
@@reubzdubzThanks I am always looking for good war stories.
great video. looking forward for the second one!
Most Italian Naval personnel were university graduates. whom graduated from the prestigious WhatsamatterU.
Umorismo idiota.
Umorismo pietoso, quanto chi lo ha scritto.
Ma chi vuoi fare ridere, gli ignoranti come te ?
There is general debate in the Royal Navy whether the Italian Navy is up to the standards of the last war, or if they have fallen off at all.
Italy conquered 5 countries, was awarded the territory they won in France, and won the Spanish civil war vs. the Communist. Aside from Russia and Germany no other European country performed better, or stated another way, Italy was the 3rd best performing European country of the war. An Empire larger than Germany's.
Won the Spanish Civil War which greatly hampered the Greek campaign and the remainder of Italy’s war effort of an already unprepared Italy back-stabbed by Germany when they broke the Pact of Steel just 4 months after signing in Sept. ‘39, stipulating Italy would receive 3 more years to prepare.
Very interesting, looking forward to the next part.
Nice!
Interesting stuff, as always.
Warspite is never outnumbered, she is merely temporarily inconvenienced
its more like: warspite is insulted if not outnumbered. how dare they face us without superior forces.
The sunking of Novorossijsk battleship the 28 october 1955?
The Russians didn't deserve the Giulio Cesare.
One question asked how did the axis fuel shortages play into actions by the Italian navy
the Royal Italian Navy (Regia Marina) of World War II had capable professional officers, gallant sailors, and beautiful fast ships designed by gifted engineers. What it didn’t have was petroleum, and that was fatal. As British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon observed at the end of World War I, the Allies “floated to victory on a sea of oil.”
I'd love to see an episode about "commercial raiders", light cruisers masked as merchant ship, or merchant ships covertly armed to raid. AFAIK they were initially successful, at small scale, during the early parts of both world wars. A somewhat "piracy romantic" and anachronistic part of the warfare, it seems to me.
read 'The Wolf', you'll love it. great book about the SMS Wolf, a WW1 merchant raider.
My favorite story of these was the time in WWI where a German auxiliary cruiser, disguised as a British ship, ran across that British ship, also now an auxiliary cruiser, disguised as that German vessel, in a neutral port.
Awesome!
One comment on developing Armies and Navies ... I would be more inclined to say that it takes decades to build an Army and Generations to build a Navy.
With Armies you have to have all those 2nd Lt.'s become Generals and that takes a while. Then - you have to have those Generals get experience at actually commanding large forces in combat and wars don't come along that often. Then - all that knowledge has to become doctrine so that it isn't lost. Here - Nations such as the Americans and British (who are Naval Powers) tend to develop these massive armies during a war but then largely dismantle them once it's over. Thus each of them, with the exception of the Cold War which lasted so long, starting every war with a fairly large level of incompetence until the dead wood has gotten enough people killed and then been cast aside.
With Navies ... it's not just building the ships and training their senior officers to command them ... it's the development of traditions and attitudes that govern their automatic responses. When everything turns to shit and you don't know what to do - it's the things you automatically fall back on that count. With the RN it has always been "It's OK if you lose your ship - we'll build another one. Just get in there and HURT them!"
With your smaller, younger Navies ... one of the driving criteria is ... that if they lose their ship ... they don't know if the Mother Country CAN just build another one. The Fleet In Being is a strategy some of these Navies adopt and - if you've lost your Fleet - that doesn't work any more.
With the Germans that's about all they could ever do. Even the Hight Seas Fleet didn't amount to much more and the Kriegs Marine ... except for the subs ... couldn't think of anything better than Commerce Raiding.
The Italians - had a good fleet - but they did NOT have the industrial capacity of the US or UK and so ... they were much more reluctant to lose ships it took a long time to build. Thus, if they got hurt - their reaction was to try and preserve their ships - rather than to strike back and hurt the enemy.
Even the Japanese - who were easily the best Axis Navy - still had a Fleet In Being attitude. If you look at Savo Island and The Battle Off Samar - each time - they had gotten in on the Americans and could get at those transports ... and in the end - they turned away. At Savo ... there is some justification for considering the preservation of their ships against the losses they could inflict on the enemy (and basically doing more never even occurred to them) - but Off Samar ... Kurita was preserving his fleet ... for what? To be sunk at anchor? His first flag ship had been sunk out from under him, he had all these Angry American Aircraft doing things like dropping depth charges on him (because that was what they had when he showed up), strafing his bridges and then - making dummy runs when they ran out of ammo. Those little escorts just threw themselves at him snarling and firing torpedoes. He didn't know where the American Battleships were or their Fleet Carriers. He didn't know what to do. So - he fell back on his automatic response - to preserve his ships ... even if that didn't matter any more.
If you look at the RN - you have all these stories and traditions about what has happened before and the way these earlier Captains are regarded. It isn't just the heroes of Trafalgar that are remembered - it's what happened to those who acted with prudence as in the case of Admiral Sir Ernest Charles Thomas Troubridge during the flight of the Goeben ... this in contrast to the attitude of the RN towards Sir Christopher Cradock when he lost most of his squadron at Coronel. Better to be a Dead Hero then to live and be labeled a coward.
Those stories ... those Traditions ... take Generations to accumulate.
.
As a base without very serious defenses, Malta has one hell of a moat.
Please guys, do another video about the British on the Imperial Japanese Navy!! Love your work!
Love the video, you hear little about italy beside memes.
I think that part of the bad press the Regia Marina gets comes from the fact that superficially, they do not compare well to the German Fleet, which had more spectacular successes - even if it had more spectacular failures. The sortie of the Bismarck will live on for many decades to come in naval lore, as will the Channel Dash, and the seaborne invasion of Norway has its place in naval annals. But each of these was accompanied by heavy loss or damage: Bismarck for Hood; Gniesenau permenantly out of the war, Scharnhorst damaged, Prinz Eugen later torpedoed; Norway captured and the Royal Navy Glorious and her escort sunk, in exchange for 15 German warships, including 2 cruisers and 10 destroyers sunk - out of 22 committed.
Superficially, the Regia Marina does not have a success record in major ship-to-ship actions to compare: the glories go to the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean, and Supermarina is faulted for excess caution. Phoenix jz points out some of the valid reasons for Italian caution below.
It must be pointed out also that the German Fleet and the Regia Marina had different missions: the German High Seas Fleet was really intended for commerce raiding, while the Italian Fleet's mission was to defend Italian sea lanes and protect convoys going to Libya. So though the Germans could content themselves with control of the Baltic Sea and the waters around Scandinavia, with the help of the Luftwaffe, while commerce-raiding, Supermarina had to support Italian colonies, and so had little choice but to be cautious and pursue a "fleet-in-being" strategy. So its battleships were often used for convoy escort, to ensure that supplies made it to North Africa. Those missions were not as dramatic as commerce-raiding, but they ensured that German and Italian troops in Libya and Egypt had food and ammunition. And the Italian Navy did have its failures, yes, but if I am correct, they did not lose virtually their entire navy in a single afternoon, or even a week, as the Germans did.
Could you please make a video on the development of field fortifications and fortresses in response to cannons?
I'm particularly interested what happened from Star fortresses on to early modern times.
Star fortresses were already early modern times.
They persisted until the napoleonic age, then up till WWI, they started getting distributed into premieter forts and a central star fort with conneccting tunnel network, and then by WWII they evolved into the completely distributed multilayer fortification line, the best example of which is obviously Maginot.
@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 Do you know by chance why many starforts had islands without any bridge?
They seem to be more than just a mere bullet sponge for the wall behind. In fact, they look almost like any bastion, but if they're not accessible, what's their point?
I've never seen a pure star fort, but many like Hohenzollern. I like that Château very much from its design but find it sad that all the forts are gone without a trace (Freiburg, Vienna...).
@@edi9892 Bastions with no bridge connection were likely connected by tunnel.
Their porpoise was to proved an angle of crossfire behind themselves, and to serve as a separate fortification, that the enemy cannot bypass without risking taking fire in their back.
I auspect these were what later evolved into the miles removed premieter forts of complexes like Festung Pžemyšl.
@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 I can perfectly imagine that for later versions, but the photos and sketches in mind do not hint any covered hallways, or stairs for that matter. Obviously, whatever is left must not be in its intended state and sketches are notoriously inaccurate.
When I think of e.g. the Castello del Monte, which is really iconic, but I think we can both agree that it's far from what it was supposed to look like... (it lacks any crenelations, or other firing positions on the top and the first line of defense has been removed apparently). The same goes for many castles that were converted into residences.
@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 BTW: I'm Austrian and never had heard of Pzemysl.
so Italians tried to rely on Frances and Britains rivalry in the hopes they could conqour the med but when that fails and rn in creases their pressence rega marina do what they can till Italy falls in 43?
Rommel was a “genius” thanks only to the Italians:
“At that point, of course, the situation changed considerably and Rommel has gone down in history as one of the greatest military leaders of all time for his stunning victories over the British in north Africa.. What many fail to realize though is that the forces effectively under his command, which he used to win these masterful successes, were 2/3 Italian and the large majority of his armored forces were Italian tanks.”
“The German soldier has impressed the world, however the Italian Bersagliere soldier has impressed the German soldier.”
_Rommel
And Italian intelligence and bravery:
NOTE: This video has since been removed due to copyright infringement. It showed how Italian Intelligence Services penetrated British Intelligence and relayed British fighting positions to Rommel, hence why he seemed to know their every move.
Bernhard and Drach together, cool.
The "Combined Arms" of history lessons!
@@douglasstrother6584 and "Combined Accents"
Treu!
now I am curious about why(as in the battle) the Italians decided not to risk there capital ships.
We've never been particularly rich of natural resources. Resources that help you build a navy, that is. We rely heavily on imports from overseas, and building 7 battleships was a huge, resource-draining, effort for us in the late 30s. Emnity with the allies heavily hampered our imports from overseas, and as such made our battleships nearly irreplaceable if lost. That, and a severe shortage of fuel due to similar reasons.
@@andreabianchi6156 thank you for the reply.
Limited range ( fuel) limited repair ( parts cost)
but loosing the ship at that expense lvl would mean loosing deterrence and prestige at the same time.
For the Italian government at the time this would likely not have been acceptable.
( my understanding of your reply and a collection of what I have since understood by reading/watching new information)
@@gmanboyou're welcome, everything you said is absolutely true. The historian consensus is that Italy, after Imperial Japan, had the best modern navy in the Axis, far outnumbering what Germany ever put to sea. But we didn't have the industrial capabilities to replace speedily our losses (which the UK had) thus making our admirals extremely careful
Mussolini was a gambler, just that. It was foolish of him to throw the country into a war against powers (Britain and Russia) that were so much richer in industrial resources and that could rely on a friend (the USA) that was richer still.
Surely the fleet in being concept comes into play for the Italians?
Yep
Your point of view is objective and neutral, there are many untold italian victories over the sea. Italy isn't ready for ww2 and instead ww1, nobody expect Mussolini wants it. Italians haven't a strong industrial complex, no radar, no aircraft, a weak and disorganised air force and a huge problem of supply (in particular the gas) for their battleship. Anyway I think the Regia Marina was victim of British propaganda unfairly, even Wiston Churchill recognize italians courage in Alexandria.
All hail HMS Splendid!
"Well, it never left port."
HMS PRINCE TAMPAX....
did you already made a video about how impactfull the italian Air Force was ?
where did the Italian fleet get there burn oil?
“A popular impression in the United States of the Regia Marina, the Italian Navy, during World War II is that because its powerful surface fleet spent so much time in port, it was more effective as a fleet in being - in other words, for what it could do - than for what it actually did. As with all generalities, there are exceptions, and in this case that exception was its Decima Flottiglia MAS (10th Light Flotilla), one of the most effective units in the history of special operations.”
None of the major participants of World War II have suffered as much unjust and unfounded criticism as the military forces of the Kingdom of Italy. It really is just amazing how this false narrative has taken hold and grown ever stronger and more prevalent over time.
The nonsense of the Italian Navy being completely inept:
“This revisionist history convincingly argues that the Regia Marina Italiana (the Royal Italian Navy) has been neglected and maligned in assessments of its contributions to the Axis effort in World War II. After all, Italy was the major Axis player in the Mediterranean, and it was the Italian navy and air force, with only sporadic help from their German ally, that stymied the British navy and air force for most of the thirty-nine months that Italy was a belligerent. It was the Royal Italian Navy that provided the many convoys that kept the Axis war effort in Africa alive by repeatedly braving attack by aircraft, submarine, and surface vessels. If doomed by its own technical weaknesses and Ultra (the top-secret British decoding device), the Italian navy still fought a tenacious and gallant war; and if it did not win that war, it avoided defeat for thirty-nine, long, frustrating months.”
Love how Bernard pronounces Drachinifel. Charming like how the brits pronounce battleship as "Bah'O'ship".
Nice
Why was there *military* concern between the US and UK after WW1? That's always confused me.
RonJohn63 look silly if u didnt plan fr a war and it broke out
@@sugarnads given that we *now* aren't planning for war with the UK, your comment is a non-answer.
Military planning is like boxing, you don't get better by training against people who are below your weight class.
The British had a world class navy, if the Americans wanted to have a comparable navy to the British they'd have to become a naval rival.
They moved up from a non threatening featherweight, to a more respectable welterweight, then finally a real contender, a heavyweight.
Finally someone who's actually worthy of planning against, someone who won't go down in a single punch, someone to actually test their mental acuity and training regimens against.
Why don't the Americans view the British the same way now? Because there's no contest, the USN is a behemoth, there are no comparable navies to prep against, and a land war would be just as one sided. Especially since Britain no longer has an empire to strategise against.
@@the_Kutonarch your answer is what I used to think, but apparently there was a *real but low* chance of war between the US and UK in the 1920s.
Well, the US also quite seriously wargamed engagements against the UK. And if you look at the French Navy in WW2, allies of yesterday could easily become the enemies of today. There was no guarantee that the UK would maintain hostile relations with Germany, especially considering the appeasement policy of the 1930s.
6:42 Pause to have a bunch of Azur Lane fanboys (me included) gazing...
Empyreal Tragicomedy rerun can't come soon enough! (Detectors on Queen Liz to join Yorktown)
"Spread Marmite on my pepperoni pie? Unforgivable!"
I had never heard of the concern about a war between U.S. and U.K. in the 1930's. WTF?
Check out a map: Malta & Gozo fit into a circle of less than a 10-mile radius!
That's smaller than Catalina Island (California).
If the Italian Navy had carried out an all out attack on Malta in the summer of 1940, the entire war could have been different but it is clear that the Regia Marina was not really committed to the war.
@Legio XXI Rapax The Italian Navy had a few notable actions- their frogmen, the Lira at Crete, and a few convoy attacks but for the most part the Italian naval operations were failures. Even the Germans recognized this.
@Legio XXI Rapax Rommel was ahead of the Allies, because he did things that was not there for others. Attack in places where ppl thought it was a stupid idea.
The main problem with your argument is that, the only reason Rommel was in Africa, because of the Italians. The german high command sent Rommel, because they hated him. Some other guy would probably made use of the italian steal, but Rommel never told anyone what was on his mind. Led by example and inspired soldiers to do more then what they thought they can do.
I mean the Italians had the fourth largest navy in the world at the start of WW2. It was smaller than the Japanese navy at number three, but larger than the French/German navies at four and five. The only problem for the Italians “and this goes for their army and Air Force as well” is that they were lead by incompetent leaders and had a severe shortage of oil to fuel their war machine. Italy in general had great potential to be a great power, but poor leadership and poor logistics made it nearly impossible to be a great power.
I'm totally agree, Italy wasn't ready for ww2. In 1943 they got the radar (gufo) and before the war they were planning even an aircraft carrier (Aquila). Ww2 was the biggest Mussolini mistake, instead ww1 the italians don't want it including some fascist leaders like Italo Balbo or Galeazzo Ciano. Mussolini itself told to Hitler that Italy will be ready just in '43-'44.
Italy? You mean *YEET-aly?*
- Some British Admiral, probably.
Shut up....
Kek Voorhees quite
@@TheTenthLeper *NON*
*Hon! Hon! Hon!*
- Some French Admiral, probably.
Is that the Mighty Jingles in the Thumbnail?
Very interesting video!
Based on a rough research, England lost in the Mediterranean Sea by Italian forces
- 33 submarines
- 19 D. escorts and DD
- 6/7 cruisers
- 1 battleship if you count HMS Queen Elizabeth that was grounded
Naturally some of these numbers are debatable
yes, it is often overlooked how many British subs were sunk by the Italians.
It is not true that their submarine were equipped with screened windows!!
Meddl Leude, wo sind die Drachis
Italian navy didnt have enough fuel to leave port en masse. This made Mussolinis' boast of "Mare Nostra " very weak. And since there was no Austro - Hungarian Navy landlocked powers added to the axis factored in nothing. The Battle of Taranto further reduced its power by its pre Pearl Harbor destruction in port by those swordfish aircraft much maligned. Unfortunately for America the Japanese took note. What victories the Italians had in Mare Nostra were limited to midget subs manned torpedoes and frogmen.
Ah 5 min ship review more or less
Italian navy hasn’t hopes since first days of war: no aircraft carriers, no radar, bad torpedo training, lackness of night combat training, bad team work with air force, and lackness of corvettes and frigates to escort the convoys to Lybia, and so the cargo ships were escorted by old torpedo boats of WW1.
Bro che cazzo dici torpedo mal addestrati ma hai mai sentito della x divisione mas
@@oddball3586 , nel senso che le navi da guerra come incrociatori, cacciatorpediniere e toprediniere avevano i lanciasiluri ma gli equipaggi venivano male addestrati nell'adoperarli. Inoltre come noi anche i giapponesi non avevano il radar, eppure, nonostante questa deficienza, nel primo anno di guerra, coi combattimenti notturni riuscirono con cannoni e siluri ad affondare o danneggiare molte navi da guerra statunitensi. Cio' significa che loro erano addestrati bene, la marina italiana no.
Dragonwaffle!
There's a generally negative view on Italy for both world wars, they just happened to be on the winning side for the first one.
Same with France.
@@Paciat the French didn't have Luigi Cadorna.
I feel like Italy is just badly placed in many ways for modern offensive conflict. Land borders are essentially all mountainous, and a long peninsular coastline to defend. Amphibious warfare is complicated to say the least.
And this is aside from all the other well trodden problems of not being rich in industrial resources and relying on imports.
Never heard of any country winning single handedly a world war anyway.
@@umjackd Italy is an export oriented manifacturing economy, what we rely on imports for are, unfortunately, raw materials.
Drach 👍😊
So what he is saying is; "The RN saw the Italians, except the torp riders, as not as dangerous as the Germans".
Guess that fits with the evaluation of land and air forces too 😉
Furore Germanium...
It's "furor germanicus", you know.
Someone put it better "Bed time stories for adults"
Australian inflection...it’s like Jeremy Corbyn giving a lecture 😖
?
Only one Enemy formation
Italy and whole of Europe must be prepared to fight alliance Of (Turkey-China-Pakistan supported by some Arab nations) Russia and Iran play neutral...
whatever. the brits were humiliated by the japanese in ww2 so.....
Rather a question of priorities. Europe was the priority.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 yeap, good argument. Look, I'm not saying they uk sucks, but, when compared to USA and Russia...
The US perspective is why the Italian Navy never really came out to fight.
It to many many years to build that fleet. Why risk it when the war is already lost?
The problem ITALY in ww2 is Mussolini...Mussolini = lose war
Interesting that the British never really seemed to realize that none of the Italian capital ships-even the new, legitimately threatening Littorios-were actually capable of dealing with the British due to the British carrier supremacy.
Italy didnt need carriers for air dominance in the medditeranian. They have mainland Italy as a huge unsinkable airfied right in the middle as well as Italy holding the north african coastline with Lybia. No carrier bourne airforce could hope to compete with the numbers and increased size of landbased aircraft.
One of the main reasons why British carriers had armoured flightdecks was because they knew it was futile to rely on combat air patrols to prevent incoming attacks in the restricted waters of the med, the armour was required for protection against the attacks that would get through.
Shania Monde
First, land-based Italian aircraft were terribly coordinated with the Regia Marina so in reality they did need carriers.
Second, even if land-based aircraft could replace carriers, that fails to address my point (which was that the Italian capital ship fleet was a non-factor and rendered redundant by airpower, whether they be from British carriers or their own land-based bombers).
Legio XXI Rapax
Between fuel shortages, incompetent high command, wasting resources on pointless battleships (though the British were also guilty of this one) and the lack of naval aviation (and lack of effective land-cases air support), the fight was far more one-sides than often assumed.
Italian warships specifically do tend to be underrated, but their navy as a whole had many issues
Lose England 2020,finish empire....top it s NAVY Italia
In the US Army, we had a standing joke about the Italians summarized this way: " For sale: like new Italian Carcano rifle for sale, never fired and only dropped once."
Enjoy these cooperative videos very much. Thank you both for another informative video.
Brian Nicholas
Brian Nicholas
John Fitzgerald Kennedy don't agree...
the american can't use carcano becasue of his particulary iron sight, and since you guys can't use a thing it's shitty
"Nobody counts in or on the Italians" - Erwin Rommel
the German soldier has amazed the world, the Italian soldier has amazed the German soldier. Rommel
@@mauroicardi8868 Wasn't that second quote about the Bersigleri specifically?
Rommel was a very bad organizer and usually blamed others, especially Italians, but also his German fellows if needed, for his logistic mistakes, so I wouldn't put much faith in his words, unless when he talks about tactics.
Did you know that one time he even forgot for a month that there were ships full of supplies ready to be unloaded but he didn't give the order? In the end the convoy had to come back to Italy with a part of his cargo still loaded.
The Regia Marina delivered about 90% of the shipments to Africa until november 1942, which means until Operation Torch. After this date the material superiority of the Allies became unbearable and until the fall of Tunis the Regia delivered around 70% of the programmed shipments. Rommel most of the times didn't receive his supplies because he didn't ordered them from Berlin, not because they weren't delivered.
"Good ships, but they're crewed by a bunch of bloody Eye-ties!"
AGAINST HUMAN STUPIDITY LIKE THAT EVEN THE GODS ARE IMPOTENT.
The Italian navy is an excelent target for firing practices...
@King
First of all, I'm Spanish. Second of all, what you say about "the Soviet bringing more men than the enemy had bullets" is capital-grade bullshit which reaches nonsensical levels. I mean, an ammo factory can produce thousands of bullets PER DAY, and that a single factory. Add for years of conflict, and you have numbers of bullets spent in the tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions. For instance, between 1942 and 1945 the US produced 47 billion rounds of ammo for SMALL ARMS ALONE (the USSR mobilised 20 million men, so the US produced ~2000 bullets per each soldier the Soviets mobilised, and only a fraction of those soldiers were fighting at the front since the Soviets regularly rotated units between front an reserve, and also kept a substancial force of more than a million soldiers in the Manchurian border to watch for any Japanese offensive attempt). USSR had similar production figures for land forces. Not to mention the fact that what you claim is so bad a tactic that it always ended in failure when used: in WW1 it led to the Russian defeat in Tannennberg, and the Italian defeats in the battles of the Isonzo river. In fact the USSR existed because most soldiers (along with the most competent officers) of the Russian army revolted since they were tired of suffering enormous casualties due to lack of tactics. Now, if you are interested in what tactics the Soviets DID use, I can recommend that you search by "deep operations" or "deep battle".
dOES THAT INCLUDE THE ROYAL NAVYS LOSS OF 238 SHIPS FROM 1940-1943 IN FIGHTING THE REGIA MARINA?
italian military history tl:dr= spaghetti regretti
The consistent use of "upspeak" sounds moronic. You are literally posing statements as questions all through your narrative..