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Old 08-04-2014, 12:43 AM
 
Location: London
4,709 posts, read 5,026,473 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nolefan34 View Post
Also, are you aware that the Italian 10th Army consisted half of soldiers from colonial countries who were not ethnic Italians? You keep saying how the British were "bailed out" by Commonwealth troops, which is false. Yet you ignore that the Italians had their own commonwealth troops and they still got their butts kicked.

Speaking of the British Commonwealth troops, they were already part of the original 36,000. You act like the Commonwealth troops were of higher quality than the British as if that means some sort of Italian victory.
When you took on the Brits, you took on the British Empire. The empire morphed into the Commonwealth, which today has approx. 2.3 billion people in it.

As a kid the old reserved and quiet neighbour fought in North Africa - he called his dog Monty. During a patrol in a Bren Gun carrier at night, they heard lots of voices shouting towards them. They turned their Bren gun into the noise and shouted "who goes there", expecting the worst. Out of the night 200 Italians emerged surrendering, with high ranking officers in grand uniforms the lot. They lined them up and took them into their compound thinking they would get a medal or something. When they got there, a sergeant said "oh no! not more of them!, I don't know where to put them all".

One thing he did say was, "never trust an Italian". When a German surrendered he did. He said a number of Italians would have grenades in their hands as they raised their arms and throw them, they also left booby traps behind - as did the Germans but not as many as the Italians. When they ran into some Italian towns the population treated them as liberators throwing parties and girls throwing themselves at the British soldiers. He drove some captured German trucks in Italy and had a captured cooperative German mechanic with him, who he said "was a hell of a nice fellow, who could fix anything with handful of tools".
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Old 08-04-2014, 01:08 AM
 
Location: London
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Overall, the Italians were poorly equipped and poorly led & organized. Some light tanks were riveted and fell apart around the crews when hit. The Italians tended to make things that went fast. They had some excellent units and their navy was something to reckon with. The Italian economy could not take a long war.

Yes it is true that most Axis troops in North Africa were Italians. Combined, they tended to outnumber the British empire troops in the early stages.
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Old 08-20-2014, 08:48 AM
 
1,600 posts, read 1,877,208 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 383man View Post
That is very true. I was surprised how many were in the Italian army in North Africa fighting a small number of British. But I will say in defense of the Italians the British in Singapore and the US in the Phillipines both surrendered to smaller Japanese forces in the begining of the war with Japan from what I remember. I always heard most Italians did not really want to fight a war with America as we know there were alot of Italians in America. Ron
While overall Italians had a huge numerical superiority we shouldn't forget these points:
1) Italians were on foot contrarily to British forces
2) While it's true that globally there were roughly 150,000 Italians against 36,000 British troops, it's also true that British never had to deal with more than 15,000 Italians
3) The reason of the defeat are very excusable considering that small but motorized and armoured British units encircled a huge but static Italian infantry unit.
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Old 08-20-2014, 12:24 PM
 
Location: London
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Quote:
Originally Posted by xander.XVII View Post
3) The reason of the defeat are very excusable considering that small but motorized and armoured British units encircled a huge but static Italian infantry unit.
That was not excusable at all. Neither was the British defeat at Singapore. The Japanese were one day way from surrendering, the British beat them to the white flag.
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Old 08-20-2014, 01:52 PM
 
1,600 posts, read 1,877,208 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John-UK View Post
That was not excusable at all. Neither was the British defeat at Singapore. The Japanese were one day way from surrendering, the British beat them to the white flag.
Perhaps I explained myself badly: the defeat isn't so astonishing as it might seem.
There are valid reasons behind it and they lie in the terrible Italian leadership (unfortunately Baldo had died on 28 June 1940) and smarter and better British organisation.
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