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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 พ.ย. 2024
- Was the WW2 Italian Navy as Useless as people think? - A WWII Myths show
With Drachinifel
Part of our WWII Myths series of short shows
• WWII Myths - A series ...
This is a new type of show for the channel. Our guest historian will examine a popular claim made about the Second World War and either confirm or debunk it. There probably won't be time for questions from viewers but we hope the shorter length will be popular.
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If you ask me, unlike the Germans, the Italians actually had a proper navy and the fact the British couldn’t sucker punch them out of the fight means that you need to give them credit for being able to remain a credible threat.
Always nice to see drach, he’s an excellent historian
Absolutely
The fact the Italians had a proper, balanced navy was one of the things that made them such a threat. While the U-boats weren’t innocuous, they were a one-dimensional threat, and those are easiest to fight.
The fact remains that poor leadership led to Italian losses in surface battles with the Royal Navy.
@@Outlier999 Italian losess in a surface battles again Royal Navy? You have to study history before you write nonsense. The Regia Marina humiliated the Royal Navy. Cunningham ran away with all his fleet when he saw the Littorio or the Vittorio. The only real victory of the Royal Navy was in Matapan, because of Supermarina. While the Regia Marina humiliated the Royal Navy. Just think of the Battle of mezzo Giugno and the Battle of mezzo Agosto, the first and second Battle of Sierte. And even in battles where no ships were sunk, the Royal Navy suffered the worst damage (For example, Operation White). The only problem of the Regia Marina was that nest
of traitors called Supermarina. Without Supermarina the Regia Marina would have destroyed the Royal Navy
@@giudicedredd9195highly doubtful.
My Father in Law flew in torpedo bombers against the Italian merchant marine and Navy. He certainly had a healthy respect for how the Italians shot back when attacked. He would never criticize the Italians.
I heard somewhere that the Brits preferred to be Italian pows rather than German if they were captured? The Nazi brainwashing was much more effective than the Italian. Mussolini was a brutal character but he didnt brainwash his soldiers into all the horrors that the Wehrmacht and SS committed?
Many years ago my Italian friend invited me to his beach house. I met his father, who was an elderly retired admiral in the Italian navy. We spent hours chatting over some amazing wine and cheese about his experiences in both the navy when it sailed in this time as well as his career with nato forces afterwards. He mentioned that the English gave him the most respect, given their direct experience … the Americans not so much.
Great job.
Did he ever say why?
@@tomirk4404 The American view of the Italian military in world war two is that it was a complete and utter joke. So not a lot of respect there.
@@johnconnery1939
same from the Italians. Americans were seen as load in gold soldiers using only money and technology most of the time in a stupid way. Plus they were seen always scared by the chance of dying. Add to this that in the north they were responsible of destroying entire cities killing thousands of civilians, @@Tom_Cruise_Missile
That Drach guy is EVERYWHERE.
Seriously, a video with Drach is always a winner. This one was no exception.
He has lookalikes doing some appearances these days like World leaders lol
@@WW2TV LOL. Drach for Prime Minister!
The Drach was on a channel for testing male make-up products on TH-cam recently! (Gender fluidism?)
I personally met Comandante Andrea Gianoli, silver medal for sinking a mechant oiler in Gibraltar starting from the secret base built inside the hull of the "Olterra" interned ship.
He lost consciousness just after he had applied the charge due to a mulfuncion of his rebreather and balloned up.
He regained himself on the surface, hid for two hours under the rudder of the target ship to allow his number one to safely escape with the maiale. Then shed his suit and equipment and tried to swim ashore but was noticed and captured.
He spent the rest of the war in a pow camp in Great Britain, and escaped four times and four times was recaptured.
Last time he was already in Ireland, arriving there as clandestine on a merchant ship.
After the war he served in the italian Navy as diver.
He was the founder and president for many years of the veteran sailor association of my city where I met him.
He passed away in 2016.
Fun fact: HMS Valiant was hit in Alessandria Port by another man born in the same city of Andrea Gianoli.
He was Comandante Emilio Bianchi.
He was the second of the maiale piloted by Durand De La Penne in that mission against british warships.
This team was also captured because of troubles to the rebreather and the phisical exaustion after many hours underwater.
They were taken in a room deep down in the hull of the Valiant to let them reveal where they had put the charges, but they didn't talk.
They both survived the explosion and finished in a pow camp in South Africa.
Emilio Bianchi passed away at 103 years of age, Andrea Gianoli at 93.
They both were born in Sondalo, a place high in the Italian Alps from were one could think only alpine troops were drafted..... Instead many "Mountain Sailors" came down from our valley to join the war.
Basically a story that cames out from Call of Duty... But incredibly enough it was us Italians to do such things, not the britts. 🤣🤣🤣🤭
@@danielefabbro822
Exactly.
The SAS on one side and X Mas on the other side (before September 1943) made legendary operations, and created the concept of the modern special forces: small teams able to achieve strategic goals.
@@danielefabbro822
Noi di Anmi Sondrio abbiamo fatto stampare un libro su Andrea Gianoli e la sua impresa, usando anche materiale originale messo a disposizione dalla famiglia.
"Andrea Gianoli - Olterra e Orsa Maggiore - leggende della X Mas"
Se sei interessato e non lo trovi in commercio (dovrebbe essere già esaurito) contatta l'Associazione.
In sede forse ne abbiamo ancora qualche copia.
@@georgesmith5708 what is unfair is the fact that we are still treated like cowards and traitors.
In every game, movie, tv series etc there's not a single mention of honor for our soldiers and country.
Once again thank you Paul and Drach for this presentation. As the daughter of a very proud Italian sailor who served during the Second World War, I have been hanging out for this one. Was the propaganda that was feed to the British people the cause of some peoples beliefs, or the lack of translation of Italian documentation? I am glad that people like you Paul, Drach and Italian Military Achieves are bringing this part of history to light.
Intense propaganda.
Most realise it was nonsense.
Although a proud Brit, I really love Italian warships. Would you happen to know any of the vessels your Dad served on?
As for the bad image the Regia Marina has with some people, here's my take on it. Remember though, I don't pretend to be an expert, this is just a few things I've concluded for myself, so take them with a pinch of salt.
The beginning of all the negativity felt towards the Italian Navy would have started during WW2. Why? I think it's because they posed a very real danger to British and allied interests in the Med., and one way to keep the moral of both those facing them and their families back home in Britain up, was to make fun of them. It's perfectly understandable, all sides would do something similar.
Then the war ended, and as was said in this video, there hadn't been any major victories for anyone in the Mediterranean, but Mattapan had been seized by the British as proof they Royal Navy was far superior to the Regia Marina. When until relatively recently, all counter arguments to this were in Italian, a language the vast majority of Brits can't speak, it was nearly impossible for them to see beyond the wildly exaggerated claims about how glorious the victory of Mattapan was.
Things are slowly changing, more records of the Italian Navy, and books on the subject are being translated into English, so we're beginning to see people starting to say, "Hey, these guys weren't the munchkins we've been told", but it's going to take time to wipe out almost 100 years of false information.
I honestly can't remember the percentage of convoyed cargoes that the axis forces successfully shipped to N. Africa, but it's really, really high, and it was up to the Italian Navy to get them there; not bad for a navy we're supposed to believe was nothing more than the court jester.
@@Warriorking.1963 thank you for your reply. Dad was a Radio Operator and sailed on the gunboat Ernesto Giovannini, Torpedo boat Aliseo and various craft called motozattera landing vessels. He was also in Corsica and Sardegna when Italy changed sides.
Ciao Liliana fai bene a ricordare il valore dei nostri marinai, da appassionato di storia penso che il miglior modo per riconoscere il valore dei vincitori sia riconoscerlo anche nei vinti senza omissioni. Se no non si capisce quanto siano stati bravi Cunningam e Montgomery a battere l'asse in Africa e nel Mediterraneo. La storiografia inglese in genere ha sempre ignorato l'Italia, sara' dovuto a Compass. Cosi facendo i britannici per primi non sanno come abbiano combattuto contro l'asse in Africa e nel Mediterraneo per 3 anni e non si da giusto ricordo neanche ai loro caduti. Ciao
@@edi8850 grazie per il tuo pensiero. Io non sono per niente una esperta ma ho sempre avuto rispetto per quelli che hanno combattuto e per i caduti.
Drach is the best. His presentation style is well researched, broad and very entertaining. For those who haven't seen them, watch his videos on the 1st and 2nd Russian Pacific Squadrons in the Russo-Japanese War. Some fantastically funny lines delivered in that dry understated British style. In fact all of his many videos are well worth watching.
Agree. The that two parter on the Russian navy is the best and funniest documentary
I had the pleasure of meeting Drach when he visited the US Brig Niagara. Every bit as nice a person you could ever want to meet.
@@ColinFreeman-kh9us was an enjoyable afternoon they opened up below deck for us! Watch your head and after he held an informal dry dock. He told a very interesting story about using his drone to film HMS Victory. But I will not steal his thunder and will let him tell it sometime in the future. And for someone with vertigo he did his fair share of climbing aboard the Niagara.
@@ColinFreeman-kh9us if he ever comes back to Australia please consider meeting up with him, I understand it’s a big country and it may not be possible. I got lucky and he came to my city
Do you see torpedo boats?
Statistics on Italian Navy for WWII: Total number of fallen and missing, 31,347 (12.1% of the overall force of 14,953 officers and 244,129 non-commissioned officers and sailors - the highest rate of losses among the three Italian armed forces, and the second highest rate of losses among the major world navies, surpassed only by the Imperial Japanese Navy).
No prizes for guessing why the Japanese casualty rate was so high 😂
Are you counting with the German U-boats?
@@samuelgordino I don't think so at all. This statistic comes from "Con la pelle appesa a un chiodo" and I assume that it is referred only to surface navy, where the Regia Marina was fourth or fifth of the world.
The fallen for U-boats crews were 28.000...
But the Royal navy had higher losses than that with 51,578 killed or missing
@@tigerland4328 But the Royal Navy was the first in the world and fighted not only in Mediterranean but also in Atlantic, Pacific, Indian ocean and North Sea.
Their naval commando units were amazing.
one of the biggest problems the Italian Navy had was the almost complete lack of Natural sources of oil. I believe they would have had a much better reputation had they been aware of oil in Libya I am sure they would have had a much better results.
They were aware however only American drilling technology could drill that deep.
It drives one crazy to think about it. I mean, American technology wasn't impossible to apply. Just imagine that the Italians got access and got working Libyan oil fields before September 1939 and the whole conflict would have looked much different. @@TheAngelobarker
Its ironic that Germany and Italy whose navies had no carriers, had regarded Italy itself as a natural aircraft carrier for the entire Mediterranean because of it being a long peninsula. The Germans even referred to the nation as "Aircraft Carrier Italy"
They were aware since 1936, it is the whole reason the national oil company (AGIP) was founded. They just did not have the technical meams to exctract because of US sanctions. They needed special tips to penetrate the ground bed which was only produced by two US based companies.
Well speaking of this - with the benefit of hindsight we can say that Mussolini did a huge mistake when he decided to actually join the war in 1940, thinking that it was about to be won and wanted to get some spoils. @@oktoday8323
And about time too!
I'm so pleased that we finally have someone speaking up for the Regia Marina in English.
It really makes my blood boil when someone posts an image of an Italian warship of Facebook, and the usual derogatory nonsense immediately fills up the comments section, by people who wouldn't know an Italian battleship from a plate of spaghetti!
I hope you guys do a follow up to this, I could have listened to you from now to New Year's Day, excellent video!
It is nice to hear some accolades for the Regia Marina. My uncle served as a Gunnary Officer on the Vittorio Veneto during the war and after the armistice he was transferred to the Roma but he didn't make the ship before it left. The Germans started rounding up Italian Military personnel and sending them to prison camps. My uncle escaped and made his way south from La Spezia all the way to Sicily. After the war he would tell me about his service and he would always tell me that the Italians were more than a match for the Royal Navy. Thank you for the insights on the Regia Marina. My uncle would have been proud to hear this.
The Italian ships were very advanced for there time better than the British and German with brave young men but like hall service men let down by there government.
Often unknown is that the Italian Navy (specifically XII Squadriglia MAS as part of Naval Detachment K) also saw action in the Continuation War in Lake Ladoga against the USSR: they were more useful than the inexperienced German minelayer crews also there, though Lake Ladoga's shallowness would render the Italian boats' torpedoes more or less ineffective.
As a long time subscriber to Drachnifel's channel, I look forward to each & every appearance online of his. And yes, the Italian Navy gets the short end of historical writing/ writer's attention, partly due to Italy being knocked out of the war in '43, but dammit Jimbo, Rommel couldn't have done squat in N. Africa without the Italian Navy, and 2ndly, the Italian Airforce gave the Brits a run for their money crossing the Med to Alex and Malta (which is also under written of as well). Great video once again, Woody & Drach!
The Italian Army gets a bad rep because of the large surrenders early on. However, when your supply lines are cut & you have no water in a desert you may as well because the enemy does not even have to waste bullets to kill you. In similar circumstances, we (8th Army) did the same.
@@chrissouthgate4554, agreed on the UK account! They used the RN to the utmost ends of its availability & utility until the tides of war shifted after N. Africa fell. Malta, the unsinkable aircraft carrier still stood.
I think Italian aircraft design deserves a little more respect. I’ve been fascinated by the Macchi evolution of fighters; the MC 202 Folgore and the MC 205V Veltro in particular.
@@Chiller11, yep. Too much already been written on German aircraft. The Italian line of fighters were decent to better machines than most give credit to.
Drach is incredible as usual. It was great to have him back on WW2TV.
I mean the Italian special naval forces were both brave and pretty much successful. Italian MajorWarships , however, fire 1 half-salvo- decent grouping, next half-salvo: 2 different postcodes of spread. Not meaning to say they're less brave, they're as brave. Just more susceptible to Italian Industrial failures
Hi jan one of the worst problem of italian navy and airforce also were the almost impossibility to fight by night caused by the absence of radars on airplanes and ships untill the 43. That caused the night of taranto cause there weren't airforce defence and sorvegliance and matapan night with the italian cruiser division sinked. Being so powerless during the night the italian Navy after matapan avoied when it possible wide operations far from italy costs. big success were in june and august 42 when were the cooperation with luftwaffe and some malta convoys and escorts were hardly sinked. Ciao from Rome
Lack of fuel oil was also a pretty big issue for Italy.
That is a misconception given by the battle of cape matapan.
In reality, the Littorio-class Italian BB was engaging british cruisers at a distance of 32 km.
Regarding the debate on whether the Queen Elizabeth and Valiant count as "sunk": it depends on what language you speak.
They may not count in English if "sunk" means "submerged" (can a Brit confirm?) , but they do count in Italian whose word for "sunk" is "affondata", literally meaning "sent to the bottom", which they were.
Just adding that his pronunciation of "maiale" was good, but he made "Taranto" sound indistinguishable from "Toronto". :)
Thanks for the language clarification
As a Brit, I'd count sunk as underwater but we also say sent to the bottom, so you can have it either way. However as Drach said, the effect was the same, they were out of action and the balance of power was heavily shifted by the attack.
@@WW2TVfun fact: last year, I was in I.W.M. in London, where I saw a photo of an Italian Battleship "sunk in Taranto by British torpedo bombers" - the caption said.
Well, it was right (also if there were some "strange" mistakes about some frame of an Italian SM79 showed as it was falling when, actually, it was just flying over the British Ship).
Now the question is: why I read on several English books that no any British Battleship was sunk in Alexandria because both Valiant and Q.E. were restored and entered in service again?
What is the difference between Taranto and Alexandria?
Why, for I.W.M., italian battleships were sunk in Taranto while british battleships in Alexandria were not?
It was the same of what happened in Taranto.
Many Italian ships was hit and "sunked" but not destroyed.
After 6 months those ships was back in the sea.
@@ferdinandocelotto Littorio and... I think Doria? Ran aground to avoid sinking, Cavour sank in port but was still only half-submerged as the Taranto bay is very shallow. (The deck was underwater), all three were refloated and repaired except Cavour, as it was a more extensive process with also a planned refit AND Italy had shifted focus to the construction of screening ships (the Capitani Romani Class scout cruisers or large destroyers, whatever you call them, and the second batch of Soldati Class destroyers)
The biggest problem the Italian navy faced was they were a relatively new service with limited industrial resources facing off against the world's oldest operating Navy with hundreds of years of successful experience. The Royal Navy not only had more experience but was backed by a well resourced industrial base. The Royal Navy also had access to more and better fuel resources for operations . The Italian Navy constantly struggled with insufficient fuel for operations.
Very correct, thanks; moreover, please, we shouldn’t forget the important role played by Ultra
@oktoday8323 The Italian Navy also lost the Battle of Lissa against the Austrians in 1866 soon after reunification. A loss that would haunt them for decades afterwards.
@@scottgindroz1474 The Battle of Lissa was lost due to the inadequacy of coordination between the two admirals leading the Italian fleets that converged on the Austrians.
The Regia Marina was in fact still a post-unification collage substantially divided into opposing visions and personal rivalries.
In the Second World War, apart from the constant shortage of fuel, I fear there was an almost total absence of night combat training.
Hence the loss of the cruisers in the night battle of Cape Matapan, the splendid Zara class.
In addition to the lack of on-board radar.
Agreed that's why they lost @@AlbertoZge
The biggest problem of the Italian navy was not having ships with radar, technologically obsolete compared with the Royal Navy, but on point on firepower.
And according to war source (and not propaganda) who actually was protecting the supply chain at sea in the Med wasn't the Germans as most people believe, but the Italians.
Great show. Drach’s knowledge is incredible. Thank you Woody.
Glad you enjoyed it
I have studied WW2 foor 50 years.
I never thought the Italian navy was useless
They had some beautiful looking ships and were unlucky in that the British managed to sink a lot of their ships at Taranto and at Matapan
It's a not a view I hold either, but it is held by many, including some popular historians
As an historian (of a diff period thou) who lived in uk for 9 years I had the chace to see how Brits rely on war miths they created themselves. Take Waterloo (with the Prussians completely erased from British narration) and the supposed cowardice of the French after WWII @@WW2TV
For starters...Without America, it's Commonwealths, the French saving their army at Dunkirk and India they would have lost 2 WW's
Over 87,000 Indian troops, and 3 million civilians died in World War II.[2][3] Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, former Commander-in-Chief, India, stated that Britain "couldn't have come through both wars [World War I and II] if they hadn't had the Indian Army."[4][5]@@leonardogregoratti386
YES- They did have some of the best underwater commando operations
To this day there's the GOI, of the Italian navy.
Italian navy special forces were very good. Sinking battleships
Learned a lot with this one. Admittedly, I did not have much knowledge about the Italian Navy so this was quite good. Thanks Woody.
There is an excellent book: The Naval War in the Mediterranean, by Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani. Reading it, I got the impression that though the Italian Navy was up against a more professional opponent, they were also unlucky.
In February 1941 a superior Italian force only failed to intercept a Royal Navy squadron that had attacked Genoa through deteriorating weather. They just missed the Ark Royal.
Excellent short from Drach - as to be expected
i love how his "short" content is almost half an hour
Wow Drach I had never heard of those Italians at Gibralta!
That was amazing.
If that had been reversed it would be know as one of the best undercover operations of the war
Many people think it was.
If you ever have the chance to watch it, The Silent Enemy from 1958 is an excellent film that is based on those events at Gibraltar (but takes some liberties with the ending, since the British during the war were not aware of the base of operations just over the border).
Two powerhouses of WW Hx. Though a retired USAF Flight Surgeon, I had a lot of Navy guys on my mother’s side and Drach has been my favorite podcaster for as long as I have streamed TH-cam.
Excellent presentation on a very neglected part of history. Thank you both.
“A popular impression in the United States of the Regia Marina, the Italian Navy, during World War II is that because its powerful surface fleet spent so much time in port, it was more effective as a fleet in being - in other words, for what it could do - than for what it actually did. As with all generalities, there are exceptions, and in this case that exception was its Decima Flottiglia MAS (10th Light Flotilla), one of the most effective units in the history of special operations.”
#2 ranking ASW vessle in the whole WW was the Italian destroyer Circe, w 4 kills, all Brit subs. It quickly got to the point where the Brits started using ULTRA to track Circe, and route subs as far away as possible. Italian frogmen sank 2 Brit BB's @ Alexandria; Italian torpedo-riders sank Brit cruiser York @ Crete; Italian subs sank numerous other Brit warships and allied transports; etc.
Sorry but no on Circe having the most submarine kills. USS England, a destroyer escort was credited with 6 Japanese submarine kills in May 1944
@@oktoday8323 I obviously wasn't paying attention when I posted!
Minor correction, Circe was a torpedo boat. Spica-Class, Alcione type
I read SAS/SBS/whatever (a long long time ago now!) paperbacks my father had when I was a kid, and the stories of Italians surrendering so easily always fascinated me. Even then, I thought that were smarter than fighting to the death, and I wondered how much of it was because they were conscripts fighting unpopular wars, starting with Ethiopia, ending with German Nazis as allies. Mussolini was never as bad a dictator as Hitler, and Italy never rounded up Jews as much as Germany. I never thought of Italian soldiers as cowards, just as more sensible and independent thinkers.
You should go read the story of Private Rosario Randazzo.
Really enjoying theses myth busters, always great to hear Drachinifel, such a polished historian, thanks Paul these shows have been a hit with me. Thank you
Would like to see more discussions on the history of the Italian Navy and a deep dive into its development, doctrine and leadership.
Great presentation as always from Drach!
For the algorithm!!! My two favorite WW2 TH-camrs, coming thru on a day where I truly needed a bit of joy given my personal plight. Thank you so much for the amazing content as always gentlemen, truly God bless you and Merry Christmas!
You're very welcome Brian
I love how the illustration of the Italian fleet has _Faa di Bruno_ in the foreground, the leading contender for "Funniest Warship Design"
The fact that during the Battle of Cape Tuelada. Vittorio Veneto fired 19 rounds forced the British cruisers to withdraw hitting HMS Manchester showed how powerful the Regia Marina is.
18:20 - the freighter wreck as an underwater base is indeed “something out of James Bond”. Specifically Thunderball, (Fleming wrote the film script before novelising) as it borrows copiously from the Lt-Cmd Crabb story that was turned into the film *The Silent Enemy* before Thunderball was made. However, the idea of an underwater battle over a downed plane off Gibraltar with the plans for the second front on board isn’t exactly history, but its ripping stuff and Crabb’s very Cold War end while working for MI6 is worthy of a hour’s video itself.
During Okinawa a minesweeper former DE U.S.S. Emmons was sunk off Okinawa so the Japanese couldn't use the wreck as a gun platform to kill Americans. Unfortunately dead sailors were still aboard the a Emmons.
One significant difference incapability between the RN and RM was the use of Radar aboard ships in the Mediterranean. The RN had it and were using it, whereas Italian boffins had developed such technology, it wasn’t widely deployed in the fleet and furthermore there was no technology transfer occurring between Axis partners. Matapan revealed this glaring failure for all to see.
Iachino (the incompetent ass) dismissed Lt. Col Ugo Tiberio and Professor Nello Carrara's radar project after a strong-worded argument and ordered them to stop working on it saying "no one fights at sea, at night". Incompetent ass should've been court-martialed after Matapan.
@@lolloblue9646 Where did you read this? On Mickey Mouse? It was Cavagnari (who was the commander of that nest of traitors called Supermarina) who did not want to install radar on ships, Iachino (which was not incompetent, indeed was much more competent than British admirals like Somers or Cunningham) has nothing to do with the installation of the rad
Woody/Drach, With TH-cams top two presenters in the same show, I knew this was going to be good. Just gutted that I couldn’t watch it live. Having researched the Regia Marina for many years, I am so glad that presentations like this are well balanced and not derogatory. Thanks for great myth busting episode. One last thing, over 200 watching and 772 likes!👏👏👏👏Bob
The number of views is not showing accurately at the moment. The likes figure is more accurate
Great video ,I love your channels. May UK and Italy never be enemies again.Thank you
Also, if the Axis wouldnhave been far more agressive in the med as soon as FrNce fell, it could habe been a very different war.... take Gibraltar or Malta straight off the bat and essentially take the entire med/africa theater out of the War... massive game changer... I believe it could have tipped the balance.
Great video, thanks for having Drachinifel on.
Excellent explanation of the underreported Mediterranean theatre.
The most underrated Navy ever.
In italy we know that the best units of the ww2 were our men, from x mas flottilla, adra commandos, vega and gamma battallions and even other secret units that you will never find in any book but i know. Such as the s.X mas secret unit, the things that this unit did are unthinkable , they operated till 1952 in britain reaching the elimination of mussolini's killer (wilkinson).
Fine ships, but the ever worsening lack of fuel curtailed their activities heavily.
I have read/seen several sources lately that conclude that all the minor Axis powers fought pretty good, the problem was usually in their equipment being inferior. As far as the Regia Marina, from what I understand, their main problem was mainly due to lack of fuel and no/bad radar
Fair assessment. Their newer heavy guns were also pretty unreliable.
Correct, and lack of collaboration with the Italian air force. The Regia Marina and the air force were almost competing with each other, rather than working togheter. Madness
I think the biggest thing against the Italian Navy in WWII was that they were up against the Royal Navy which had the resources to flood the Mediterranean with ships and they also had fuel shortages that the Royal Navy didn't have to worry about once Lend Lease came into full force.
Im a big Drac fan always have been especially since he covered HMVS Cerberus more than once effectively and i agree with him here .
In fact to really stick up for Italians i'll go as far as to say the Axis would have been better off diverting most of the Kreigsmarine's fuel to the Regina Marina ........ Sure more Italian ships would have been sunk but so would so many more Allied ships
Cheers, Paul and Drach!
The dream team 😂 and commenting knowledgeably on one of my pet pub-rants!😊❤
Main problem with the italian Navy was the fact they were built to some specs and then were overburdened with armament and equipment that didn't allow the speed forecast.
The important decision of the italian regime to consider Italy a natural carrier for their Airforce depriving the Navy of any effective coverage.
There is a very interesting book on the matter.
No Radar, no night charges and low speed, not a recepy for success.
Sadly for some of my family who sank with their ships.
Another example: radar technology was an italian invention, marconi conceived it in 1922 and the first prototype was from 1933, ugo tibery created an italian radar "gufo" aka owl, only 50 of them were prepared and never used because of traitors as badoglio never believed in this technology, also report from pre war era were suggesting badoglio to create a powerful fleet of aero torpedo (aerosiluranti) but the notorious traitor who sold us to the english never invested a cent in that, the aerosiluranti fleet was incredibly effective...i can go on, the level of betrayal in the official position was huge, the biggest responsible was mussolini, who was to soft and blind and never cleaned the room
Learned a lot thanks!
Glad to hear it!
I did not know about this program and looked in due to Drach's presence. Mr. Woodage seems quite interesting and i will be watching in the future. The challenging of these myths is a good job on the part of any of the more serious historians. Keep up the good work.
Thank you and welcome aboard. We have a large back catalogue to explore. Thanks for the nice words
Merchant Italian Navy: Total number of fallen and missing 7.164 (28,5% of the overall force of 25.000)
Being on a civilian seafare on an italian ship was therefore much more dangerous than being a soldier in any of the italian armed force.
Brilliant summary by Drach on important contributions from often overlooked Axis partner Reggia Nautica. Had Italians taken Malta the war might well have been different.
Always love it when you have drach on your and him definitely the A team outstanding once again can't say enough about the two best you tuber in my opinion can't get enough
No wasn 't useless infact history should be reevaluated and rewritten.
REGIA MARINA:The Italian fleet was the fourth in the world in 1940, it had the same tonnage of navy like France .The Littorio Class was the backbone of the navy with the 3 huge battleships: Littorio ,Vittorio Veneto and Roma(in 1940 they were considered the most powerful battleships in the world like artillery.). The Regia Marina had very great successes with submarines ,they fought in fourth different seas:Mediterranean Sea, in the Red Sea,in the Persian Gulf and in the Atlantic Ocean. ,with 1750 missions and the sinking of 132 merchant ships and 18 military ships,Italy lost 128 submarines of the totaly 172.The X Mas ,was a special unit of assault and raid of the Regia Marina ,with great success of sinking to the Royal Navy
Still amazed by the old biplane called swordfish torpedo, for such a slow lumbering biplane it certainly paid for itself during the Toronto raid and the Bismarck operation. It was more immune from defensive firepower because of the cloth construction, bullets literally had almost nothing to hit but the polot and the engine
Got a friend, his grandfather was in the Italian Navy, his ship was at port so he asked and got leave to go get married. Same day he got leave, Allies attacked base, ship was lost with casualties.
wonderful presentation
Drach always puts on a great show. Thanks to you both.👍
Now this one was spot on. Thanks.
WW2TV and Drachinifel - a winning combination for an informative and interesting myth busting session.
Another great show. Thanks both. Loving the myths shows.
Awesome THANKS both of you need to team up more please
maybe the eye'talian navy wasn't so hot , but the eye'talian
PT's boats & the eye'talian frogmen were no joke they did some real work on the limey royal navy
I don't think one can fairly understand Italian performance in WWII outside of the context of Italian suffering in WWI. The Italian experience in WWI bordered on a pyrrhic victory so it shouldn't be any wonder that large portions of the follow on generation were not enthused about a second war. The Italian Navy suffered mostly from a lack of radar early on and a lack of fuel later on. I imagine the Battle of Cape Mattapan would have gone a lot differently if the Regia Marina had better radar.
According to recent studies especially A. De felice (the most famous italian historian relative of the world known Renzo de felice), and many others historians(pantano, croce, romano.....)
The italian navy was incredibly powerful and played a huge role in the war, our best units were from the navy (x mas flottilla, and all the special units), but the navy was also infiltrated with the biggest traitors such as admiral maugeri and all the highest officials were sold to the english (in italy we had a "process to the admirals" for that)....basically according to de felice the ship commanders were ordered to send their position to supermarina (navy hq) who was sold to the english, the traitors sent the position to the english and the ships and subs were hit...that was the level of betrayal.....junio valerio borghese survived to that because he was informed and when supermqrina asked him the location he used to send a fake position, that's why he survived .
Without the spy and traitors italy could have easily won the naval war, 90% of the high officials were traitors.
During the attack on pantelleria island the commander surrendered , when the angloamericans checked the armaments they were shocked to notice that the island could have resist for months allowing the sicilian coastal units to reinforce the defence and repel the sicilian invasion,but admiral pavesi surrendered immediately.....there are hundreds of stories like that sadly, hundreds, english and american intelligence were infilitrating italy from switzerland and sicily trough mafia connections, agent Corvo (us secret agent) is the man who convinced mafia to prepare the terrain for americans.
Not mentioning the presence of angleton and the vatican service called by the sim (italian intelligence) , the "entity", all surrounded by GRU agents inside the partisan units at the order of togliatti and longo.
Very interesting here in Italy isn’t so much known the importance of our navy in the ww2
Their ships like their tanks had five reverse gears very handy when running away.😂😢😅😮😊
What an utter nightmare of a presentation.
JUST KIDDING. It's wonderful to listen to Drach when he "casually strolls through naval history" for 20mins (or longer on his channel) just from the top of his head. And it doesn't matter if it's the battle of Actium, Jutland or WW2. The man is a legend.
Agreed
Thank you again for another great video. I love these
Excellent presentation! I already knew about the Italian special naval forces (frogmen) and their success against the Royal Navy, but your analysis of the balance of forces and the threat posed by the Italian Navy was new information for me. You made a very good point that although there were no stunning victories for the Italians, neither were there any total defeats, either; they held their own against one of the best navies in the world at that time.
Thank you
“This revisionist history convincingly argues that the Regia Marina Italiana (the Royal Italian Navy) has been neglected and maligned in assessments of its contributions to the Axis effort in World War II. After all, Italy was the major Axis player in the Mediterranean, and it was the Italian navy and air force, with only sporadic help from their German ally, that stymied the British navy and air force for most of the thirty-nine months that Italy was a belligerent. It was the Royal Italian Navy that provided the many convoys that kept the Axis war effort in Africa alive by repeatedly braving attack by aircraft, submarine, and surface vessels. If doomed by its own technical weaknesses and Ultra (the top-secret British decoding device), the Italian navy still fought a tenacious and gallant war; and if it did not win that war, it avoided defeat for thirty-nine, long, frustrating months.”
Excellent seminar.
My point about the Italians is, Herr in America you see these very nice, very expensive Italian Cars. SO if there warships were anything like the cars they build then they were good ships. They just messed up on the contract for their ammunition. If they had had stricter qc on shells & powder I'm sure the Brits would have been in trouble before Cape Matapan. And success brews confidence as well.
About the Americans not knowing of the danger of attack on Pearl Harbour,they were warned about the interest of the Japanese military attache in Berlin in the succesful attack of RN at Taranto harbour. Check Duško Popov book Cypher Tricycle
Popiv exaggerated lots of things, I suggest reading analytical biographies on him
You should do a video of operation Harpoon 1942,They did pretty well against that Malta convoy,the battle of mid June
The answer is yes. It was unable to interdict the Royal Navy from operating in Italy’s littoral seas, even with Luftwaffe assistance. That doesn’t deny that it was able to carry out successful individual operations with skill and bravery but before Taranto it had resources which should have enabled it to accomplish more.
Personally I think the Italian Navy was neither useless nor brilliant, somewhere in between
They invented combat swimmers able to take out ships among some other things 😂
Useless? Quite the opposite, if you ask the Royal Navy.
From the outset, the Royal Navy undertook an extremely aggressive campaign to neutralize the Italians. Britain alone seemed to really grasp just how important control of the Med was.
Their first engagement was a miracle of timing and position that allowed many major Italian ships to be sunk.
The British attack on Taranto was a genius stroke that the Japanese later tried to copy at Pearl Harbor.
Even lacking surface control, Italy made keeping the British convoy lanes open a major challenge.
At stake was North Africa, and the Suez passage. With the RN dominant, even Rommel couldn’t prevail.
The real hero of North Africa was … whoever ran the Med fleet.
Exactly, and that's one of the points Drach made
Meeting of GOATs right here. Appreciate the content. Thanks.
in many way the Italian navy was the more successful than any of the other axis navies, it survived and it cause a huge amount of damage to warships in med.
Drach knows his stuff.
As a model builder, I've built British, American, German, some Japanese... but I don't recall seeing ANY Italian ship models. I could be wrong about that.
In spite of their lackluster performance they did have some of the most beautiful warships of the era. The Italian frog men and their sea chariots were brave and very effective at hitting allied ships.
finally a channel with facts and not only myth's! Also the video about Rommel was top notch!! 👍great work!
Glad you liked it! You now have nearly 1000 more WW2TV videos to check out
@@WW2TV I'll do that, I love well-researched documentaries. There are enough heroic stories and myths on YT😁
The trick is to bring on the best experts in the field
@@WW2TV yep, absolutely! how can I pay you a coffee, no paypal account?
You can become a patron, a TH-cam Channel member or send a one-off SuperThanks.
Most appreciated
the Royal Italian Navy (Regia Marina) of World War II had capable professional officers, gallant sailors, and beautiful fast ships designed by gifted engineers. What it didn’t have was petroleum, and that was fatal. As British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon observed at the end of World War I, the Allies “floated to victory on a sea of oil.”
Nevertheless, for 39 months, the Italian navy took many hard knocks and dished out a few to the vaunted British Royal Navy, fighting not only on the Mediterranean, but also in the Red Sea, the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, and even on Russia’s distant Lake Ladoga.”
Early on they did have an effect on the Mediterranean theatre even up to the invasion of Sicily by which time it was limited at best. IMO of course.
After i saw the italian roma battleship and seing how closely it resembled the us fast battleships, i got an idea that they might have been better than given credit. Then i saw a drach video about the regia marina which essentially confirmed that suspicion.
not so much useless but at times borderline incompetent and very complacent, they were also very hide bound and prone to interservice rivalry which later caused some major problems.
they had a very capable submarine force that at times preformed better than their german counterparts.
also italian naval frogmen Decima Flottiglia MAS were extremely capable and conducted some unbelievably daring raids such as alexandria in 1941 where they managed to sink the battleships hms queen elizabeth and hms valiant.
the italians had a very effective intelligence service but that was slightly outside the navy's direct control.
I do admire Drach's quiet irony.
Howdy folks! The greatest of all Drach’s shows why he’s the bluewatet guy with a short but sweet look at the Italian navy. Myths busted left and right.
Thanks!
Thank you very much
Italy was dependent on Germany for oil, and they had their own problems. Italy produced 150bpd of domestic oil, and Albania produced 4500 bpd. It probably wouldn't have been hard to find individual wells in Texas that produced more. It's hard to operate a navy, when you can only operate the fleet on a limited basis two months out of the year due to lack of fuel.
Two of my favourite presenters Paul and Drach
I lways like seeing Drach :)
One great difference between Italian Army and Italian Navy:
The Army used mostly conscripts with no tecnical knowlege and only basic training, they were mostly farmers.
The Navy had better trained officers and sailors, who often had already sailor experience on merchant ships or fisher boats.
Impeccable analysis… the big issue was no usable radar, German Enigma being cracked early on, no usable carriers ( despite having pioneered them…) and overlap air force / naval air arm which never got properly coordinated…. THEN there is a pretty heavy amount of “racial” stereotypes on top of the always running “vae victis” problem… who wins dictates the history…
And yet I don't think that was the perception during the war. Every British veteran I met who fought them, spoke very highly of the Italians. I think part of the running away and all their tanks and ships being crap is a postwar construction that took hold
@@WW2TVMy grandfather fought in the Italian campaign and his unit considered the Italian army complete cowards. He could never figure out how these people were related to the Romans. For him the perception stemmed from facing an army that was on running on fumes, with its morale shot to pieces after being driven out of North Africa.
For other veterans, I think the perception goes back to Graziani's surrender; as the first major engagement between Italian and British forces it colours British perceptions for the rest of the war. Individual Italian units like the Ariete or Folgore might earn respect but the general stereotype was set by Graziani's Libyan conscripts.
And then there's the Rommel factor: he blamed most of his failures on Italian cowardice and historians often take him at his word. When in fairness to officers like Bastico it has to be said that they were cautious because they understood how badly the odds favoured the British.
Early in the war during the phony war the Italian navy was very active and at one point there was an Italian cruiser force, a French cruiser force, and a British convoy all within 30 nautical miles of each other but none of them spotted the other forces.