ErenJaeger
New Member
Sorry if this is an overly broad question, but whenever I read about Italy in World War 2, historians usually mention lack of training or poor training and move on without details. I did come across two articles written by a British observers in the late 19th century and shortly before World War 2. They described the preparation and training of the Italian army as fairly standard. The big difference being in how they recruited their soldiers (national rather than regional). I also came across a trans,action of an chapter from an Italian Field Manual in 1940. Many of the things they talk about sounds pretty similar to what I’ve read in American and British field manuals field manuals. Fire and maneuver, the importance of coordination between different combat arms, the importance of intelligence gathering, training should be done in as wide of a variety of terrains as possible, fighting in fogs and during the night to maximize surprise and repeatedly stressing the importance of small unit leaders taking initiative. All of these things sound similar to what I’ve read in Anglo-American field manuals and what I’ve read about the Japanese and German armies in books (Although many of them state that the Japanese also lacked initiative and tended to fall apart when their plans went awry. But it seems like the Italian Army‘s development wasn’t extremely different from that of other modern states. Again. Sorry if this is too broad of a question, but I’m sure there are a lot of people here that are better educated on these topics than me.