Explorations in Strategy - Italy at War

Stuyvesant: Yes. Especially given what I'm studying. And thanks!

N35t0r: That's certainly one option!

I've got an update coming up, lads!

The Year of Preparation
Part 9: Technology and Procurement II, July – December, 1938

I am calling 1938 the year of preparation. More than any other defined segment of the year, the last six months truly showed that Italy was taking the inevitable war seriously. It was turning more and more from naval technology to army doctrine, and procurement toward the end of the year was set to define Italy’s maritime capabilities for the next few years. Though Germany’s antics had stolen the spotlight from Italy, for the first time this pleased Mussolini, and not even foreign intelligence agencies could sway their governments opinions that Italy may actually be the more dangerous of the two powers.

In late August, the Italian general staff completed their first study of an operational level doctrine for the Regio Esercito. This first attempt at such a doctrine took into consideration the performance of the command hierarchy and the ease with which orders were dissipated from higher levels to the lower ones. Additionally, it proposed allowing lower ranking officers more freedom of action within the parameters set by the overall objectives, thus leading to a greater ability to take advantage of advantageous situations and save on time. Well pleased with this development, Mussolin ordered that the general staff continue with another study of the topic for further improvement.


The Italians developing their first operational level doctrine.

It took until late September for the next improvements to come to the Italian armed forces, when Breda developed an improved light artillery piece. Mussolini then ordered a study into special forces such marines; he was still hoping for a marine force. After this, it was nearly a month until more contracts were completed. Cantieri completed their work on aircraft carrier engines and had their contract renewed. Italian industry improved their oil refining techniques. Mussolini then awarded Fiat a contract to develop a new infantry support weapon. The very next day, the general staff completed their study of infantry warfare and Cantieri turned in their completed contract for aircraft carrier armor. Mussolini ordered both of these two be continued.


Advances in both infantry warfare concepts and aircraft carrier armor.

At this point, Campioni’s fleet received a massive force increase. The RM Falco, the first Italian fleet carrier, was completed. Campioni’s fleet now consisted of his flagship, a heavy cruiser, one fleet carrier, two escort carriers, eight light cruisers and two squadrons of destroyers. Its main armament was the four groups of carrier-based warplanes, two based on the Falco and one each on the Aquila and Sparviero. It was becoming a force to be reckoned with, one that even the Royal Navy would have to be wary of.


Campioni’s fleet, based at Naples.

The RM Falco created an even larger stir in both domestic and foreign press than the twin completion of the Aquila and Sparviero did. This ship, which displaced nearly as much as both those ships put together and fielded twice as many planes, was the first true Italian carrier. The Falco quickly replaced the Italian battleships as the symbol of the might and modernity of the Regia Marina. In some ways, this was actually a sort of inadvertent deception on the part of the Italians as the Falco was only on really par with the earliest carriers developed by such nations as Japan or the United States. Nevertheless, as a symbol it was powerful, both to the Italians and to those abroad. It represented the dangerous dimension to Italy’s ambitions and actions thus far.


The RM Falco on its shakedown cruise from northern Italy to Naples.

As soon as the Falco arrived in Naples, Mussolini contacted Cantieri and Macchi. He had more orders for these two firms. Firstly, he congratulated Cantieri for completed work on aircraft carrier hangars and anti-aircraft armament and ordered these contracts renewed. However, he also placed an order with Cantieri for two more fleet carriers. With the recent experience they had attained from the Falco, and despite their recent improvements that required more industrial strength and finesse, each carrier only required two-thirds as much work to complete as the Falco had required. These two ships were to be christened the RM Europa and the RM Sagittario. Additionally, Mussolini ordered four groups of carrier aircraft from Macchi in a serial order. Mussolini was still set to expand Italian naval strength enormously. By this time the Italians had also started work creating a harbor and port at Estepona, a town near Gibraltar. Additionally, in the month after these massive undertakings began, Italian rare material refining techniques advanced as did Italian supply transportation, coal to oil conversion and supply production. These contracts and studies were replaced, respectively, by improvements to coal processing technologies, a study into a civil defense doctrine, oil refining techniques and radar.


Italy’s industry being stretched to provide the necessary workers and resources for numerous large building projects.

As can be inferred, Mussolini was still slowly setting Italy up as the foremost Mediterranean naval power. He was not yet satisfied with the state of Italian aircraft carrier technology, though at the same time he understood that ships took years to build and that ships had to be built with the technology of the present rather than of the future. With the completion of the Falco and with its promise of efficacy, Mussolini’s order of two more true fleet carriers stands as being a very firm step toward his goal. By the middle of 1940, he hoped that Italy would be poised to overrun the Mediterranean, this movement spearheaded by three fleet carriers and two escort carriers. The Regia Marina was turning into a formidable force. Simultaneously, the Regio Esercito was beginning to be built up as well, so that it may better deal with the challenges it would face. Italy was preparing for war.

Beppo: Yeah, cakewalks are a bit boring. Hopefully the British will be able to challenge me!

nette001: Not much at the moment. CAG planes historically only really began developing relatively late in the war, a year or so in. No one really had good carrier planes by 1941 except the Japanese. So there's a dearth of plane development for the moment.

BoemsiBoemsie: Well, we'll see what happens. I hope that my carriers have some use!

Maj. von Mauser: I think these next carriers will actually be level III I think. Which is nice.

Baltasar: Hasn't the major point of the past two tech updates been that he's beginning to focus on infantry as well? As for the defense of the boot, why defend that when forces can be poised to set up an advance defense at Gibraltar and Suez?

truth is life: You sir are correct about the real identity of that ship! No ones yet guessed the escort carrier though. And yeah, it takes many years to develop a serious fleet, especially as a middle power like Italy. It takes only a couple to develop a considerable army.

Judas Maccabeus: I certainly hope they'll be enough!

Pier: Not really done much with the air force. Not yet at least. It's still the same size it was at the beginning, and only marginally improved tech- and doctrine-wise.

Stuyvesant: Nope, my carrier doctrines are lagging terribly. I want to get some naval combat experience, as at the moment the penalties are massive. I'll have to choose my battles carefully.

Jorath13: Hopefully the strongest power, yeah. It will almost certainly be by mid-1940.

Pier: That's certainly one factor, yeah. Also, the continual cloud cover, even when it isn't storming it up, and the fact that when I used them for the first time I only had two CAG wings, which is a relatively inconsiderable number. Though as I mentioned several updates ago in a reply to a comment, I haven't actually been able to tell how effective my CAGs were in combat, I just assumed they weren't really.

Judas Maccabeus: Well Italy has two armies on the French border, enough I think to make northern Italy safe from that direction. I think I'll be prepared for that sort of two/three/x-front war. After all, I hope to end up at war with the Allies...sooner or later.

Valentinan: Yep. I'll be certain to research carrier doctrines, but only once I've got a bit more naval combat experience. The damn penalties are crippling, but at least my continued production of CLs and CVs reduced those relevant penalties, through the gain of practical experience.

I'll try to have an update written by tomorrow evening, guys. Now that it's uni time, I've got less time for stuff.

Year of Preparation
Part 10: Conclusion

As noted, 1938 has been entitled the year of preparation. It is indisputable that since 1936 Italy had been preparing for war with the Allied powers. However, these preparations reached a fevered pitch in 1938. Italy was entering the last stages of its positioning for a major conflict. There were three main strands to this preparation. The first was psychological, preparing the Italian people for war, with minor adventures, with glorious victories and with unmentioned defeats. The second was physical, preparing the Italian armed forces for war, with technological and doctrinal improvements. The third was strategic, putting Italy into a position from which it could strike most effectively against its enemies.

Italy’s psychological preparation was a long time in coming, due in large part to the scars left by the First World War. Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia in 1935 had begun this process in earnest, though accidentally as Mussolini had no real strategic vision at that time besides a vague sense of Italian glory and empire. It was in Abyssinia that Mussolini first tasted defeat, which he doled out to the Italian public in very small bits to make sure they never realized the scale of the humiliation of the Regio Esercito even as they became jaded to negative news. It was also in Abyssinia that the Regio Esercito recovered from its nadir and advanced to victory, allowing Mussolini to experiment with ways to increase the Italian population’s feelings toward further interventions. Spain represented the next step of this process of preparation and immunization. The outbreak of that war caused no recorded riots and the chain of victories, though initially quite minor, kept the peace and increased optimism for the future. The psychological preparation that Mussolini had inadvertently begun became intentional, measured and quite successful. The international backlash to the Spanish adventure also turned Italians to support the war, as well as future conflicts, as they saw that the rest of Europe painted them as war-mongering monsters.

Italy’s physical preparation had been going at a reckless pace since 1936, particularly within the Regia Marina. Mussolini’s two year nearly exclusive fixation on his navy led to an overwhelming plethora of improvements and a breakneck rate of expansion. Both of these trends were symbolized by the two escort carriers Aquila and Sparviero, completed in 1937, and even more by the fleet carrier Falco. His navy nearing the position of strength he desired for it, Mussolini began slowly turning toward improving the Regio Esercito. While this may have been part of an overall plan, there is some evidence to point to Spain as a testing ground where Italian operational doctrine was found wanting. Gambara’s inability to close the Alcalá la Real gap and the long waits after battles that Italian divisions had to suffer before continuing the advance pointed to problems within Italian doctrine. Furthermore, speeding operations up required that Italian divisions be better organized for such ceaseless offensives, as by the end of the Spanish campaign the vanguard units had begun running out of steam despite the long pauses after battle.

With an increasingly powerful navy and a readying army, Mussolini was beginning to feel more and more confident about challenging the major powers with force. Up through the end of 1938 he had neglected the Regia Aeronautica. This can be explained by his mental downgrading of the Italian air force. He had not used it in either Abyssinia or Spain, except for the carrier air arm in the latter conflict, and neither adversary had an air force sufficient to greatly embarrass his neglect in this sense. It seems likely that he was content for the skies to remain largely neutral and that as long as the enemy did not put up warplanes to attack his ground or naval forces, he too would abstain from such a contest.

Italy’s strategic preparation consisted of two broad threads. One, already examined, was the increase in Italy’s military power, particularly its naval, and to a much lesser extent army, strength. The other thread was the deployment of this strength. Two armies faced the French, ready to parry any thrust from France into northern Italy. Their task was defensive; it was not anticipated that they would or even could take the fight over the Alps and into southern France. One army faced Yugoslavia, acting as a border guard and placeholder rather than anything significant. Yugoslavia was not deemed a threat to Italy, though it was considered a future target for conquest. These armies came under the command of the Commando Superiore in Rome. The other half of the Regio Esercito came under the command of the Tarabulus Headquarters. One army sat on the Libyan-Egyptian border, ready to break the British front and rush toward Alexandria and then further to Suez on the drop of a single word. Two armies were arrayed in Spain to conduct both defensive and offensive operations as the situation dictated; one faced northward and the other westward and southwestward.

Italy’s naval strength was dispersed all around the boot. Ghé’s fleet of battleships, heavy cruisers and escorts was based at Palermo, from whence it could lurch in any direction. Campioni’s fleet resided at Naples, facing primarily west though with the ability to maneuver toward the east as well. These two fleets comprised Italy’s main striking strength. Two more fleets based in the north, one at Genoa and the other at La Spezia. The former was a fleet of light cruisers and destroyers, the latter an armada of heavy cruisers. These two fleets were envisaged as reinforcements whenever they were necessary, out of the anticipated main theaters of operations in the east and west Mediterranean regions but easily able to reach them. Quilicci’s transports also sat at Naples, from where it could easily reach the overseas armies.

By the end of 1938 Italy’s preparations were beginning to near completion. Mussolini was preparing to move on Gibraltar as soon as the western beachhead could support two divisions. He was ready to move toward Alexandria and Suez. The French border was guarded. The fleets were ready, and he was already seeing the two carriers in construction not as reinforcement for Campioni’s fleet but as the core of yet another striking force, to be commanded by an enterprising, up and coming officer named Da Zara.