hhm@ihlpy.att.com (Herschel H Mayo) (04/22/91)
From: hhm@ihlpy.att.com (Herschel H Mayo) While looking through my picture books of the African campaign, I began to wonder why most, if not all, of the Italian tanks and armored vehicles were so bad and poorly designed. The Italians were certainly no amateurs at automobile technology and certainly rivaled the Germans in engineering and development. They excelled at engine design, suspension technology and many other things. So, why no 60 ton Italian tanks powered by V16 quad valve engines? Why the tiny, skimpily armored pieces of junk that were poor by any standards? Why did the Italian military industrial complex fail to supply their land forces with modern weapons? Larry Mayo
cmort@ncoast.org (04/23/91)
From: cmort@ncoast.org [8 lines quoting the entire article deleted. --CDR] >From: hhm@ihlpy.att.com (Herschel H Mayo) >I began to wonder why most, if not all, of the Italian tanks and >armored vehicles were so bad and poorly designed. It's pretty simple really, for the same reason that the Japanese had similar deficiencies. Both of them based their procurement on their contemporary adversaries. It doesn't take a KV to run over Chinese or Ethiopian infantry with swords. Both countries were rather ambivalent over attacking a perceived capable foe. When they finally did, it was too late to field anything really serious. As close as the Italians came was the Semovente. I believe the Japanese got as high as the Chi-Nu. I'd have to look the designation up. In any case, they never fielded in quantity, anything that was much of a challenge to US armor. My last day on active duty, I met a former National Guard tanker who'd been in the Philippines when the war started. He said that if he'd had better ammo, they could have inflicted worse damage on the Japanese armor. He wanted AP-HE. He said that their shot tended to just pass through the Japanese tanks. cmort@ncoast.org --- Chris Morton "These opinions are mine, MINE, ALL MINE!!!!"
military@cbnews.att.com (04/26/91)
From: military@cbnews.att.com hhm@ihlpy.att.com (Herschel H Mayo) writes: >I began to wonder why most, if not all, of the Italian tanks and >armored vehicles were so bad and poorly designed. I believe some of this can be credited to the lack of a real armor proponent in the Italian military between the wars. Germany, France, Britain, the USSR, and the USA all had tank advocates who did much to advance the design of AFV's. To varying extents, they all progressed beyond the theory of tanks for pure infantry support, and thereby pushed the designers to their limits. Italy simply missed this boat. At the beginning of the war, most of their armor was machinegun-armed, with only a few carrying antitank weapons. It shouldn't be forgotten that for much of the world, infantry support was still perceived as the tank's most important mission. In fact, Italy sold tanks to many of these countries, including Afghanistan, Albania, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Denmark, Ethiopia, Greece, and Latvia. Japan can be viewed in a similar manner. Neither Italy nor Japan had to fight tanks in WWI, so they made less of an impression upon them. Japan, in fact, took the Italian example to the extreme. While the Japanese navy was able to keep pace with the times, their army remained steadfastly prepared to fight WWI. The campaign in China did little to change this thinking, and the Pacific islands campaigns added no practical experience. >Why did the Italian military industrial complex fail to supply their >land forces with modern weapons? This is a larger extrapolation of the tank question. With the possible exception of their navy, in no field of military hardware were the Italians able to remain up to the standard of the day. The Italians were prepared for a continuation of the pre-WWI colonial era, so perhaps the possibility of fighting another world power simply didn't enter into their calculations; in which case second-class equipment was sufficient. -- Bill Thacker Moderator, sci.military military-request@att.att.com (614) 860-5294 Send submissions to military@att.att.com
daveb@ingres.com (David Brower) (05/01/91)
From: daveb@ingres.com (David Brower) >>I began to wonder why most, if not all, of the Italian tanks and >>armored vehicles were so bad and poorly designed. [11 lines of unattributed unnecessary quoted text deleted --CDR] My recollection of the Conventional Wisdom on this was that the Italians made a big mistake in modernizing too early (late 20's, early 30's), and were unable or unwilling to develop a whole second generation mid-30's when the world-wide trends in aircraft and tank design started to become clearer. Like tanks with Guns, and all-metal monoplanes. -dB David Brower: {amdahl, cpsc6a, mtxinu, sun}!rtech!daveb daveb@ingres.com "If it were easy to understand, we wouldn't call it 'code'"