• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
It will be interesting to see how your game develops.:)
 
A very instructive update.

And a good reason to presume you won't be playing altogether historically. You can't have gone into such details without precise intentions!
 
redox: Hey, thanks! And hopefully it'll be more than just Africans who can't stand in my way! :D

Enewald: The Italians might not have, but we have yet to see what Mussolini's strategic thought is all about ;)

truth is life: I'll have some time to try to alter this trend ;)

takishan: Thanks! :D

Uri3l: Ah yes...very political, corrupt, half-incompetent...:p

VILenin: My analysis here was greatly inspired by Azar Gat's own in Liberal and Fascist Visions of War. Though when I say that, I mean I found this work on google books, read a couple pages and just went from there. :p And pish tush about Liberia, they were clearly a United States puppet as HoI2 teaches us! :D

TheRealKestrel: Well, we'll see how/whether Mussolini will be able to influence Italian naval strategy. :D

stnylan: The poor bloody infantry...or the bastard bloody marines? :D

The Balbinater: Indeed, Douhet was very influential (along with Trenchard in Britain and the network bombing school in the US for which Mitchell was the most flamboyant spokesman). In fact, I aim to find his main book for myself this summer (and I'll need it for university). As for my build priorities, I look forward to seeing what they are myself. :D

Nikolai: I hope so! Boring games are boring, whereas interesting games are...well, I think you know how to end this. ;)

hito1: Awesome, welcome aboard! :cool:

Lordban: Well, not precise intentions as much as "I want things to be different this time!" My intentions will become more precise over the course of the next few updates, firstly with Mussolini's strategic thought and then with the overview of Italy's capabilities.

So, no update today for certain. I didn't write one yesterday and while I may write one today, it won't be for posting until Saturday earliest. Plus, I'm currently downloading HoI3 off gamersgate slowly, 5.1% done, between over five and a half hours and eight and a half hours left, and I've got about 2600 pages worth of book to read from four books and I want to see if I can finish these four books in about two weeks. And, of course, there is going to be a massive playing of HoI3 later. So, basically, update tomorrow!
 
*gets comfortable in front of the screen with a cold Birra Moretti*
(subscribed)
 
Sounds great. Count me in.

You seem to know your stuff - personal research especially for this or have you studied this area of history in depth before?
 
Dead? It's just started.:p
 
Karelian: An honor! Welcome aboard, Karelian! :D

Soulitaire: Welcome as well! I hope you have plenty of Italian beer in the fridge. ;)

blacksterj: Always glad to have another reader! Most of my writing is based off the broad general knowledge I've picked up over time. As I mentioned in a previous comment post, the research I dedicated to the second update was basically two or three pages of reading from Azar Gat's Liberal and Fascist Views of War from google books, specifically that Fascist strategy was influenced by Modernism (which makes sense). I then extrapolated from there myself, making connections with Fuller and Douhet and essentially speculating on how such a focus could have impacted the Italian armed services (within the broad knowledge I have of the topic). And the difference was made up by confident writing. :D

TheRealKestrel: No no, not dead. I mentioned in the OP that I may update only twice a week, though it seems like, given the AAR fever I now have, it'll probably be a bit more than that. But no update today I'm afraid! I only just finished writing the final introductory update a couple hours ago and I want to savor the feeling before I reveal it. Plus, I finally have the full version of HoI3 ad want to begin playing before or at about the same time as I post the update. So I'll be posting tomorrow morning and will either start playing tonight or tomorrow afternoon after my daily dose of reading. :p

Nikolai: You know what you're talking about. :D
 
Interesting overview of the paradoxes that led the Futurist Fascists from Italy to end up with an outdated, outclassed military. Now (in due time), let's see how you plan to deviate and improve on that starting position. :)
 
Stuyvesant: The main issue of my deviation is by trying to implement competent strategies ;)

albertismo: Thanks! You won't have to wait long. ;)

Next update coming up!
 
Introduction
Part 3: Mussolini’s Strategic Renaissance

As has been mentioned, it is impossible to truly understand what confluence of words, ideas and events came together in late 1935 to spark in his mind a renaissance of Italian strategic thought. He rarely committed his own thoughts to paper, thus making their reconstruction difficult. Before delving into speculation, however educated it may be, the basic facts will be laid bare. During the latter half of 1935, tensions rose between Italy and Abyssinia that led to war in October and the beginning of a grueling east African campaign that led to fallout between Mussolini on the one hand and a number of his senior generals on the other. This will be discussed in more detail later, when the fortunes of the Abyssinian War are recounted. At the same time as this ongoing campaign, Mussolini was known to have read the three books mentioned previously: On War, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1789 and The Command of the Air, by Carl von Clausewitz, Alfred Thayer Mahan and Giulio Douhet, respectively. What is also evident is that in early 1936 Mussolini began ponderously shifting Italy’s grand strategy.

The following analysis of what Mussolini may have taken from these three works is a direct result of an exhaustive analysis of not only the actions he ordered during the following years of trial but also of the three works in question.

On War is widely acknowledged to be an incomplete work; the Prussian military thinker who authored its redoubtable theory died before his time, presumably of Cholera that spread westward into Germany from the Grand Duchy of Poland and Prussia’s own Polish lands. Nevertheless, it is difficult to over-acknowledge its importance. It argued many key concepts that have since been taken for granted by militaries around the world. What matters is not these concepts per se, but rather the ones that Mussolini may have grasped as being important. These I would argue number three. The first and most widely known is that war is a continuation of political intercourse by additional means. A simple statement, and an obvious one that most statesmen grasp intuitively. Yet it can be interpreted as validating the use of force toward political ends. For a revisionist power such as Italy, this would necessarily an important first step in using force.

003-01-CarlvonClausewitz.jpg

Carl von Clausewitz.

The second concept is arguably a conglomerate of two separate ones. Firstly that strategy consists of the employment of engagements toward the achievement of a state’s war policy; and the second that those who avoid battle in an attempt to soften the face of war are fools, if kind-hearted fools, as battle, carnage and slaughter were the soul of war. Such proclamations would have suited Mussolini. He was eager to raise Italy back to the glory of the Roman Empire and was quite conscious that its conquests were made over the bloody battlefields and slaughtered corpses of those who resisted. There was no better way to emulate such heroes than by following suit.

The final concept is that of the culminating point of victory, that point at which attack becomes defense due to casualties and the diversion of troops from the push forward. Though it is impossible to measure until it has actually been passed, intellectually it would remain a constant reminder for Mussolini not to overstretch himself. He struggled to limit his ambitions, perhaps understanding that Italy’s culminating point of victory was drawing ever closer.

The value of Mahan’s work lay mainly in its sheer enthusiasm for and emphasis on the value of sea power. Though at times slightly too eager in its arguments, it did impress upon Mussolini the unlikelihood of ever defeating Britain by way of a guerre de course, the favored French strategy of commerce raiding that Germany had followed during the Great War. Mussolini realized that the applicability of Mahan’s work was limited to the superior navy and the quest for decisive naval battle and the command of the sea that was the natural result of such a battle; it found little to say for mundane tasks such as convoying or the like. Also, Mahan had no advice to give to inferior navies (and indeed Mahan’s work was in part a campaign to convince the American people of the need for such a superior navy), but Mussolini must have felt that he was able to rationalize it to Italy’s geostrategic position. Specifically, he felt that he could create artificial local superiorities to smash any enemy’s present battlefleet and take command of that stretch of sea, at least for a short while. Given sufficient opportunities for such engagements and the superior naval power would no longer find itself in such a dominant position.

Douhet’s work was similar to Mahan’s in that it dealt explicitly, and overenthusiastically, with a single branch of service: the air force. Its strengths were close to those of Mahan, mainly in that it created a very firm impression of how air power could grant victory on its own through a decisive blow. Its weaknesses were also not far off, it had little to recommend for the weaker air power save to become stronger, and it is more difficult to partition off portions of sky than sea. Mussolini was likely impressed by the potential of air power but likely did not buy in completely: he never authorized the vast fleets of heavy bombers that the Americans and British would and never intentionally aerially attacked civilians if he could attack a military target instead. Nevertheless, he believed air power would be useful, particularly in conjunction with sea power. It is plausible that the synthesis of Mahan’s and Douhet’s work led Mussolini away from the battleship and toward the aircraft carrier, even though he was patently unsure whether Italy could mobilize the resources for such a project.

To conclude this introduction, it will be put forward that Mussolini hit upon a maritime strategy that he believed could serve Italy well. The power projection capabilities of sea and air power could be to some extent synthesized into joint naval air power. Land-based air power would also serve when possible to aid in defining the stage of battle, as would incursions into the littoral by relatively elite units. These elite units, judging by what Mussolini always strove toward, were marine and armored divisions. In theory, Mussolini’s strategy seemed sound enough. Its crucible of success would be whether Italy could afford to pursue such a strategy.
 
I am amused by the idea of Mussolini actually reading - and assimilating! - military strategy :)
 
"After arranging his thoughts about military strategy again. Mussolini decided that he wanted,
a strong Armoured Corps,
a strong Marine Corps,
a nice Carrier Force and
a big Air Force.
He looked at his ambitious plans again and decided that this AAR would now be about:
Mussolini, great Fascist leader of the United States"

;)
 
As one who has played Italy 90% of the time in DD, I want a front row seat in this great play.

Avanti!