After more than 80 years the causes of defeat of the Regia Aeronautica, the Italian Air Force of WWII (and the Italian armed forces as a whole) is still a source of discussion.

On June 10, 1940, the Regia Aeronautica had 3,296 aircraft in Italy, the Aegean, the Mediterranean, Libya and East Africa. There were 1,796 combat airplanes: 783 bombers, 594 fighters, 268 observers and 151 reconnaissance aircraft [1]. About half the fighters were the Fiat CR.42, a transition type until the Italian monoplanes were ready. These planes were adequate and would face similar types in East and North Africa and Greece (Gloster Gladiator and PZL P.24). The type would also face the RAF Hawker Hurricane I in the initial stages of the Greek campaign and in the Battle of Britian, as well as SAAF Hurricanes in East Africa, but not in significant numbers; the main adversary of the Fiat CR.42 would be the Gloster Gladiator; although interestingly British Hurricane pilots were instructed to avoid combat with enemy biplanes noting that few Fiat CR.42s were lost in combat to these planes:

"Following these successes in the autumn, the Falco was now being viewed with more respect by RAF pilots, as seven kill Gladiator and Hurricane ace Flg Off R A Acworth recalled, "the Hurricanes had strict orders to beat a hasty retreat if they met enemy aircraft in large numbers, as it was thought at the time that they would be "easy meat" for the more maneuverable CR42s – the Gladiator’s Italian opposite number.” [2]

The rest of the Italian fighters were the Macchi C.200 and Fiat G.50. Both were modern monoplanes although the G.50 was slower than the Hurricane and not as maneuverable as the Macchi fighter. Both planes were however not under armed as often claimed, Italian pilots found the Breda SAFAT 12.5mm provided good firepower, was reliable and accurate.

Frontline-bombers included the Fiat BR.20, SIAI-Marchetti SM.79 and the CANT Z.1007, all good planes with good payloads and speed and in the case of the S.79 II/III is considered by many as the best land-based torpedo bomber of WWII. These planes were armed as well as their contemporaries such as the Do.17, He.111 and Wellington.

Historical Explanations of Defeat

Some writers have pointed to doctrinal disputes between Giulio Douhet’s emphasis on strategic bombing and the proponents of Amedeo Mecozzi’s doctrine of “assault” or use of the Air Force as a tactical weapon in support of the Army with emphasis on ground attack and interservice cooperation. Others point to the ruling regime for using the Air Force as a “propaganda” tool with emphasis on records and spectacular displays of formation flying at the expense of technical innovation and combat training. Still others point to a lack of raw resources and a fragmented industrial base. Of the various explanations for the defeat of the air force between 1940 and 1943, the most convincing is that which lays stress on Italy’s lack of raw materials [3] and financial weakness entering WWII, since the development of the Regia Aeronautica prior to 1939 indicates that the Italians appreciated advances in doctrine and technology and could put these advances to use.

Together with the Reggiane Re.2000 and Fiat G.50, the Macchi C.200 was selected as a winner of the R-Program to update the Regia Aeroniatuca's frontline fighters. The Macchi C.200 was a good match for early Spitfires I and II while it could out-climb, out-dive and out-turn the Hurricane I. In mock-combat the Re.2000 could outmatch the Bf.109E in every performance metric.

The development of the Regia Aeronautica can be broken down into seven phases [3], beginning with the army’s pre-1914 experiments with aircraft during peacetime maneuvers and the Italo-Turkish war. During World War I, the army and navy built up large air forces, and Italy’s aviation industry grew from 6 to over 100 firms, as government spending on aviation increased from 17 to 600 million lire annually. Between 1919 and 1922 Italy demobilized, and the air force was reduced from 70 to 35 squadrons as the budget shrank to 90 million annually. The Fascist regime expanded the budget to 500 million and reorganized the Regia Aeronautica as an autonomous arm in 1923, and by 1926 the new Regia Aeronautica had a front-line strength second only to that of the French air force. Over the next seven years, Italo Balbo increased the prestige and the budget of the air force through a policy of ‘‘crociere’’ (cruises) and ‘‘primati”’ (records), although it was argued, that this isolated the air force from the army and navy. In 1933 Mussolini took control of the Air Ministry, but until 1939 Giuseppe Valle, Undersecretary and Chief of Staff of the Regia Aeronautica, actually ran the ministry. Under Valle, the Air Ministry’s budget increased at a rate faster than that of the other forces, rising from 810 million in 1934-1935 to 4,296 million in 1938-1939; and under Valle’s successor, Francesco Pricolo, the budget doubled, giving the air force a larger share of the budget than the navy. But this rapid increase largely reflected Italy’s involvement in Ethiopia and Spain in 1935-1939. Moreover, that the budget barely increased from 1939-1940 to 1942-1943 indicated both “how hard-pressed Italy was financially”. [3]

For 20 of the 30 years prior to 1939 the Italian Air Force was involved in some sort of conflict. It was employed in various types of warfare from colonial to civil to European and it was deployed in force. During the Italo-Turkish war of 1911-1912 the Italians used practically their whole force (small as it was) against the Turks in Libya. Between 1915 and 1918 the Italian air force grew from about 6 to around 70 squadrons, and during the decisive battle of Vittorio Veneto in October 1918 the Italians (during World War I, the Corpo Aeronautico Militare was part of the Regio Esercito (Royal Army), operated a mix of French fighters and locally built bombers, notably the large Caproni aircraft. The Regia Marina (Royal Navy) had its own air arm operating locally built flying boats) employed over 600 aircraft daily. By the end of the war the Italians had trained 5,100 pilots, produced 12,000 machines and fielded over 1,500 front-line aircraft. [3]

In Libya, where the Regia Aeronautica was used against Senussi rebels in the 1920s, the Italians deployed 60 aircraft in 7 squadrons. And in Ethiopia, the Italians built over 80 airfields and increased their force to 350 aircraft in 1935-1936. During the Spanish Civil War, the Italians sent 6,000 air force personnel and 730 aircraft to fight the Republic and its allies France, Britain, the USA and the USSR, and by late 1939 they had claimed over 900 victories. But they had also lost 175 dead and 226 aircraft, with the remainder ceded to Franco’s government. Thus by 1939, the Regia Aeronautica had used up around 1,500 aircraft in Ethiopia and Spain, out of a production of about 7,000 and some consider this sort of wear and tear to have been an obstacle to Italy’s efforts to rearm for World War II.[3]

But if constant use inhibited Italy’s efforts to modernize its front-line aircraft, it should have given the Italian air force experience and forced it to develop an empirical air doctrine. As early as 1911-1912, Italian pilots had pioneered most of the roles in which aircraft would be employed over the next two decades: daytime bombing; night flights and nighttime bombing, tactical, strategic, and photographic reconnaissance and low-level attack. During World War I they further developed these roles, and by 1917 had used combined forces of bombers, reconnaissance aircraft and fighters in mass tactical actions against enemy positions; and the concentration of their bombers and fighters in ‘‘massed” attacks. During the 1920s, the Italians used aircraft for infantry liaison, transport and supply in Libya, as well as for low-level attack, surveillance patrols and reconnaissance duty. In Ethiopia the Air Force served as a tactical air component while in Spain the Italians implemented the “Guerra di rapido corso”[10], conceptually similar to Blitzkrieg but with better balanced mechanized units in armor, infantry and artillery than their German counterparts and certainly better developed than British armored units, with an air component providing mobile artillery as Mecozzi advocated. [3,10]

However, the Regia Aeronautica had not depended solely on trial and error to train its personnel and forge a doctrine. It also established its own Accademia Aeronautica, which counted over 300 students by the late 1930s, thus ensuring a core of academically trained officer-pilots, who were supplemented by reserve pilots trained by the Aero Club d'Italia, which was also under the Air Ministry. In 1935 the air force established a staff college (the Scuola di Guerra Aerea), and in 1939 an airborne school (the Sculoa Paracadutisti). In addition, the Regia Aeronautica published its own journal and established several experimental and special advanced training centers, such as the general research facility at Guidonia, the Scuola di Alta Velocita at Desenzano del Gardo, and the Scuola di Navaigazione Aerea d’Alto Mare at Orbetello.

Although the army, navy and air force could have increased cooperation, some joint maneuvers were carried out, including one in 1939 in which the Regia Aeronautica used 400 aircraft in conjunction with the navy, and development of the first purpose-built military transport S.82 that was undertaken by the Italian army and air force in the same period. The air force should therefore have been able to integrate its practical experience with theory, especially since the Fascist regime did not censor discussions pertaining to the employment of air power.

Disputes between proponents of interservice cooperation such as Mecozzi and advocates of a completely autonomous air force such as Douhet persisted, and the Regia Aeronautica vacillated between the two positions. Balbo seems to have purposely skirted the theoretical debate and instead concentrated on increasing the prestige of the air force by his mass ‘‘cruises’’ (‘‘crocieri’’) over the Mediterranean and Atlantic. Valle also avoided the pitfalls of theory by encouraging aerobatics and record attempts (the ‘‘primati’’ of the late 1930s) and attempting to increase exports of aviation products by disciplining industry through a consortium in 1937 and increasing the desirability of Italian products through the pursuit of records and by the display of aerobatic prowess. Both men thus followed apolitical programs that avoided doctrinal disputes while increasing the prestige of both the Regia Aeronautica and the regime with which it was so closely identified in the public mind.[3]

However such policies did not necessarily damage the development of combat potential of the Regia Aeronautica. The ‘‘crocieri’ pioneered long-distance mass flights, and the aircraft used became vehicles for research and development of everything from radio equipment and altimeters to propellers and engines. Moreover, despite generating perhaps some friction between the ‘‘atlantici’’ and the land-based pilots, the ‘‘crocieri’’ seem to have kept both the prestige and the morale of the Aeronautica at a high level in peacetime, something most armed forces would consider desirable. The pursuit of records and participation in competitions such as the Schneider Cup races also gave the Italians experience in high-speed and high-altitude flying, and thus indirectly encouraged industry to develop increasingly better aircraft and engines. Thus in 1934 an Italian racer, the Macchi MC.72 sped to 709.207 km/h (440.681 mph), a new world record that still stands today, and in 1938 another climbed to 17,093 meters, performances that were comparable to the best aircraft of World War II. Moreover, the cost was relatively cheap at about 8 million lire for Balbo’s 1933 trans-Atlantic flight, out of that year’s budget of 770 million. The ‘‘crocieri’’ and ‘‘primati’ should therefore have complemented and supplemented the practical experience gained in Libya, Spain and Ethiopia, especially given the growth of Italian commercial aviation, which seemed to augur well for the robustness of the Italian aviation industry.[3]

In 1939 Italy’s airlines logged 62.3 million passenger miles annually, only about 9 million behind Germany, and 6 million ahead of Britain. Italian industry supplied 128 of the 129 aircraft in Italy’s commercial fleet, which put it third to Germany’s 220 and Britain’s 155. Moreover, Italy supplied aircraft to the Czech and Belgian airlines — a tribute to the qualities of Italian commercial aircraft. Since aircraft such as the S.81 and S.79 doubled as military machines, the robustness of the commercial airlines should have indicated a healthy military force as well. [3]


The Regia Aeronautica’s seemingly “bad showing” between 1940 and 1943 thus seems if not inexplicable, certainly inexcusable, particularly given its brilliant performance during World War I and the amount of attention paid it by the regime and the public during the 1930s - and it is tempting to blame either the Fascist regime or the Stato Maggiore Generale (SMG, or General Staff), or both, for the supposed “rapid destruction” of the air force after 1940. If the regime exploited the air force, this was no different than the Soviets who show cased their own aerial acheivements and if the regime is to blame then how is this different than US exploits in speed and distance records and trans-Atlantic crossings (Charles Lindbergh) and circumnavigation of the globe (Amelia Earhart) and records like it? Chasing records in speed, range, payload and altitude furthered the development of aircraft design, not hindered it. However there were important differences between the conflicts of 1915-1918 and 1940-1943. In reality, World Wars I and II were not comparable. In the former Italy had easy access to raw materials and semi-finished goods, as well as to finished aircraft, thanks to its alliance with France, Britain and the United States and it faced a relatively weak enemy, Austria. Thus if Italy’s production of 12,000 aircraft did not match Germany’s output of 43,000, it was more than double the 5,400 produced by the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. But during World War II, Italy competed for resources with its German ally and managed to produce only about 10,000 aircraft, a paltry number compared to British production of 85,078 and an American one of 156,974 between 1940 and 1943. With relatively little help from its ally, the Italians bore the brunt of the Anglo-American war effort from 1940 to 1943 which included no less than 9 Allied countries (e.g., Britian, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Free French, Poland and Greek forces – the Netherlands and Belgium -) to start and would grow to more than 20 by 1943, and Italy fought not on one major and one minor front as in World War I, but on two major fronts (North Africa and Russia) and several minor ones (the English Channel, the Balkans, and East Africa). Italy therefore was never able to concentrate its air forces to the extent it had in 1915-1918. It is thus misleading to assume that success in the first war should have guaranteed success in the second and that success in Ethiopia and Spain against relatively weak enemies would have been valuable only had Italy restructured its military and naval commands and settled on an overall doctrine in which the air force would have been rationally integrated. But even had Italy’s command structure been integrated and its doctrine flawless, the problems posed by a lack of raw materials in particular, and to a lesser extent, a fragmented industrial base, and a dearth of skilled workers and technicians would have remained to make correcting deficiencies difficult. That this was so is clear if one examines one of the most often cited problems that plagued the Regia Aeronautica: the policy of “prototypes,” i.e., of testing and putting into line too many different types of machines rather than standardizing around one or two types.[3]

The inability to standardize aircraft types “supposedly” sprang from a lack of doctrine and in turn made it difficult to replace obsolete models. Yet a proliferation of prototypes and production models in both aircraft and engines was common to most of the major powers, and France had as many and as severe problems formulating doctrine and deciding on standard types. Even the U.S. and Britain tended to have difficulties in this area with the difference that the geographical positions and industrial bases of Britain and the U.S. allowed them to catch up, while the exposed positions of Italy and France precluded any rapid rectification. Nonetheless Italy still remained focused and had in production only three main types in service at any one time, for example with the Series 5 aircraft, three models from several porotypes was selected and put into production. If the Italians had focused on a single model, Italy could have been left vulnerable if that type failed operationally, not to mention possibly shutting down aircraft design at some of the aircraft firms. In fact, as shown in 1939, that although the C.200 was generally considered the best of the R-Program fighters, the plane had initial teething difficulties that precluded its use over the English Channel leaving only the G.50 and the CR.42 to carry on the fight. Having three competitive models in production was not excessive, especially since the types available were similar in capability and the number of types never reached the same number of prototypes that were constructed in Germany or the United States (e.g., F4F, P.40, P.38, P.47, P51, F4U, F6F etc). Not to mention parts were commonly sourced. Prototype construction never amounted to much more than a tiny fraction of the budget while only a handful of aircraft were ever produced anyway, while new designs always encouraged innovation while rewarding effective design teams with contracts. Allowing as many different prototypes into the main fighter competitions did not and could not hinder aircraft production, it only bettered the outcome from increased competition, and the planes that emerged from these fighter competitions were superb: Re.2000, Re.2001, C.200, C.202, C.205V, C.205N, G.55 and the Reggiane Re.2005.

But let's say the Italians had standardized around a single prototype the C.200, how many more planes could Italian industry have produced if Fiat and Reggiane joined-in producing this plane? 186 Reggiane Re.2000’s were manufactured while Fiat manufactured 784 G.50. Add this total to 1,151 C.200 for a total of 2,121, and allowing for some 20% efficiency due to standardization, perhaps 2,500 C.200; compare this total to 4,200 Hurricane I (14,483 all variants) and a similar number of Spitfire Mk I and II. The Italian aviation industry at the start of WWII was large however it was constrained by its ability to procure raw materials, as well as limited government financing, as will be shown later. If the Regia Aeronautica could have placed large orders for the Macchi fighter, say 20,000 like the Spitfire it would have but industry was simply unable to fill an order like this. Compared to the number of aircraft industry could deliver, the “problem” of prototypes, at best it seems, was a limiting factor.

But even admitting that the production of a plethora of prototypes and production models (there were only three) was not the optimum use of industry in wartime, in peacetime it evidently did what was in part intended — it kept Italian aviation firms working. Moreover, it is not true that Italian types were inferior to foreign types, in fact it could be argued the opposite especially in regard to the Re.2000, Re.2001, Re.2005, C.200, C.202, C.205V and G.55. If Britain’s Spitfire was excellent, its Defiant was a total failure, and if not a match for the Spitfire, Italy’s Re.2000 and C.200 (the C.202 was better than the Spitfire V [19]) were comparable in speed and armament to the early-Bf.109E, France’s Morane Saulnier 406, Britain’s Hurricane I, and the U.S. Brewster Buffalo — and superior to the Soviet Polikarpov I-16/10, a 1937 model still in line in 1941. One wonders if Britain would have fared so well had development been stopped and ‘‘standardized’’ on the Hurricane or Defiant, or the Battle, a bomber that compared poorly to Italian bombers, which in terms of speed and bomb load occupied a position in the middle rank during the 1939-1942 period. If compared to French fighters of the 1920s and 1930s, Italian fighters are comparable until the appearance of the Dewoitine 520, which is considered superior primarily because it mounted a 20mm cannon. The real problem in fact seems not to have been so much one of quality as one of quantity: while the best Italian types were produced in driblets, the British produced 20,000 Spitfires — double the Italian production of all types between 1940 and 1943. One wonders what the outcome of the Mediterranean war would have been if Mussolini had available 20,000 C.202/205V.

It was not the proliferation of models (there just weren’t that many) as much as the ability to develop certain types of aircraft or equipment that hurt Italy such as a lack of aircraft carriers and carrier borne aircraft. Interservice rivalry and planning largely accounted for this, but so apparently did geo-military considerations, given that the French, German, and Soviet navies also did not develop powerful air arms a weapon characteristic only of the ocean-borne navies of Britain, Japan and the US. Nor was the lack of interservice cooperation unique to Italy, given for example, Air Marshal Goring’s strained relations with Admiral Raeder. And few observers in any country correctly interpreted the lessons of Ethiopia, Spain and Manchuria. [3]

However the Italians could not afford mistakes, and many writers have noted that the failure to develop a powerful liquid-cooled in-line engine to replace the aerodynamically clumsy aircooled radials in effect compounded the policy of prototypes and led to the production of underpowered and therefore underarmed and underarmored aircraft. But the real problem with engine development seems to have been that the Italians failed to develop the radials that they were already producing. Radials proved excellent power plants on non-Italian aircraft (e.g., F4F, F6F, F4U Corsair, FW.109, Lavochkin La-5, Mitsubishi A6M etc), and Italian engines, even if produced on license, should have been amenable to further development, as they would, developing powerplants such as the Piaggio P.XII R.C.35 generating 1500hp by 1942 - comparable to Allied powerplants of the time. Even as they existed in 1939, Italian radials were reliable given that they had to pass a thousand-hour test before being accepted by the air force and they were not inferior to French engines, as indicated by the similarity in performance of the Gnome et Rhone powered Bloch 152 and the Piaggio P.XI powered Re.2000, and in any case radial powered fighters such as the Re.2000 and MC.200 were as quick or only slightly less faster than the Hurricane I but could out-climb, dive faster and were more maneuverable than the Hurricane I. The "real" problem then it seems is that the Italians weren't producing enough of what they had since Italian engineers showed they could still produce competitive types.

Whether the failure to place 15 or 20mm cannon on fighters was crucial is debatable. The Italian 12.7mm gun was reliable, and whether it conceded that much firepower to the Browning 0.303 or the French 7.7mm is not at all clear. Indeed, to argue that a larger caliber gun (the 20mm Oerlikon) was needed to replace the 12.7mm and simultaneously argue that the four to eight 0.303 calibre guns on many American and British aircraft were superior to the two Italian guns is contradictory [19]. The slowness to develop radar and mount radios on fighter aircraft prior to 1939 was a concern, but not inexplicable if the Italians believed that they had until 1942 to prepare for war especially since radio sets had been tested by 1939 and radar was being developed in 1939-1940. Nor was the lack of a bomb heavier than 500 kg (1,250 Ibs) necessarily critical, since even a 500 kg bomb could do considerable damage to a ship if delivered by a dive-bomber, as the Italians showed when they acquired the Ju.87 [14]. It was thus the lack of an aircraft to deliver their bombs that hurt the Italians, but the failure to develop a dive-bomber was as much a technical-industrial one as one of command or of doctrine and the availability of a foreign type negated the immediate need to develop this type and in any event the dive bomber as a type would be short lived. The reliance on foreign models and licenses was a long-standing ‘‘Italian’’ not a ‘‘Fascist’’ problem that the Fascist regime attempted to rectify.

On the other hand, the wastage of some 1,500 aircraft or 20 percent of total production or more importantly as will be shown the effect on finances from 1935 to 1939 in Ethiopia and Spain was certainly a byproduct of Mussolini’s foreign policy. It was not so much the number of aircraft left behind or used in Spain that really mattered as much as Italy failed to secure payment or compensation for essentially winning Franco’s war for him – Italy covered the entire cost of the Italian contribution in the Spanish Civil War and also paid and armed much of its air force and army. Italy had to export aircraft to obtain the hard currency needed to obtain the raw materials to produce the Regia Aeronautica’s machines. In fact, the scarcity of hard currency and raw materials, compounded by a devaluing currency from sanctions (albeit limited) placed on the country prior to WWII as well as interventions to rebalance a structural deficit [20], and the need to keep the aviation industry working at capacity not only delayed the introduction of newer models, but also created delays and bottlenecks in the production of current models, making it difficult to work more than one shift per 24-hour period [3]. And differing priorities for the three bodies (army, navy and air force) involved in ordering aircraft further complicated orders and consignments of raw materials, as well as advances and disbursements of funds and the awarding of contracts. While Gabaereo (the Air Ministry Cabinet) pursued political goals, Coastaereo (overseeing production) based its decisions on technical considerations, and Stataereo (the general staff) ordered its priorities according to military criteria. Moreover, construction of new plants in the chemical, mechanical, and metal industries was slow, with only about half the projected expansion occurring between 1933 and 1941. [3]

Typical it would seem of the problems in rearming was the attempt to find a new fighter in 1938-1939, the so-called R-Program. The air force had originally announced a competition for 1938, then delayed it a year to allow more firms to submit prototypes, and only in July 1939 did the air force test eight prototypes at Guidonia. Five of the prototypes were immediately rejected however the other three were all similar in performance. Although the Re.2000 was probably the best (the competition committee believed it was the C.200) and bettered the Bf.109 in mock combat, only 12 models were ordered (due to fuel tank arrangements – the RA was willing to lose a plane but not a pilot due to explosion and this would in fact be the case in the P-47 that had a similar fuel cell arrangement), while 200 CR.42s which the examiners labeled a ‘‘transitionary” type were added, along with 182 MC.200s, and the G.50 was also ordered that has led the Italian historian Lucio Ceva and other like him to see ‘‘a crisis of rejection’’ of the newer types in favor of the older biplanes by the pilots and examiners of the Regia Aeronautica. And in part it was. But Valle was mostly concerned with getting some newer types into line as quickly as possible, even ‘‘transitionary’’ ones like the CR.42. Since Fiat was already producing 50-60 CR.42s monthly, and since Reggiane would need six months to set up a production line and would need time to train workers to produce the new model, whose wing attachment was unfamiliar, it was deemed more prudent to have two Fiats in the hand rather than a Reggiane on the assembly floor. The MC.200 was ready for production, and thus had an edge over the Re.2000. In effect, the lack of trained technicians, skilled workers and the financial and material resources necessary to retool rapidly for radically new models delayed production of the best fighters in the 1939 competition.[3]

That the Italians were not in a position to compete with the US and the British Commonwealth (Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa) in 1940 was due in part to a number of problems with their roots in World War I and the 1920s. But shortcomings of doctrine, of technique, and of industry were not unique to Italy, and even the Germans had problems with the Ju.87, Ju.88, Bf.109 and Bf.110. The British, Americans, French, and Russians also had their failures, but with the exception of France they all had better access to raw materials and larger industrial and demographic bases than Italy. Nonetheless, the MC.200, Re.2000 and G.50 all proved capable of further development although they were quiet capable especially the C.200 which was comparable to early Spitfires I and II and better than the Hurricane I in all but straight-line speed and even at that it was only fractionally slower and did not bleed speed in turns like the lumbering Hurricane, and if produced in quantity would have no doubt tilted the Mediterranean air war. Even the S.79 and Z.1007bis proved adaptable enough to find regular employment and the S.79II/III would end the war as the best land-based torpedo bomber of WWII – its only shortcoming being it was not produced in sufficient numbers.

If Sadkovich concludes that doctrine and theory were not primary reasons for defeat, and that bottlenecks in production and skilled labor could only have affected production marginally, and that blame to the SGM or the ruling regime had only a limited effect, if any, on industry as a whole, then what could have resulted in such low production levels of aircraft (as well all other armaments such as ships, tanks, guns, radar, radio equipment, engines etc), including advanced aircraft and equipment that was immediately available on the drawing boards? What prevented the Italian state from achieving the production levels of armaments it could have and should have produced to carry out an effective war? The answer can be found in the financial condition of Italy going into WWII, what Sadkovich alluded to earlier: “how hard pressed Itay was financially” and the competition for raw materials.

A Macchi built C.202 MM.7762. This plane is generally considered one of the best fighters of WWII and was a match for the Spitfire V [19].

Various figures and data are available for the military budget and expenditure of Italy leading up to and during WWII but the one figure that is most consistent with the statements of Mussolini’s finance minister Felice Guarneri just before WWII is given in Graph 1. Felice Guarneri (1882–1955) was an Italian economist and politician who served in the cabinet led by Benito Mussolini as the minister for exchanges and currencies between 1937 and 1939.

June 2, 1939 - “Guarneri unburdened himself of some very pessimistic talk on the exchange situation. Our reserves are now reduced to 3,200,000,000. Five hundred thousand will be necessary to carry through to the end of the year. Guarneri openly speaks of bankruptcy and says that it can be avoided only by bringing imperialistic policies to an end.” [4]

August 6, 1939 - Ciano now believes war is imminent and does everything to avoid it citing military preparedness after two major wars, low metal stocks and gold reserves. [4]

Graph 1 – Military Expenditure as a Share of GDP (Major Powers), 1928-1950.

It should be noted that when discussing Italy’s military spending in WWII, often the military budget figures are presented, however the (actual) military expenditure differed from what was or could be allocated. In this section we focus on the actual military expenditure of wartime Italy. Graph 1 shows a decreasing % of Italian military spending from 6.16% to 3.3% during the period 1940-42 even while the GDP was declining (see Table I). This is surprising, because as the war progressed the % GDP directed to military spending should have increased, particularly if the GDP declined, to higher levels as seen in Germany for instance. This however didn’t occur and points to an economy under wartime pressure, but also, and more importantly, Italy was competing for the same limited pool of resources that Germany was in a parallel war [11]; Germany was given priority to valuable materials simply by virtue it could pay more for those resources and the devaluation of the Italian currency during this period [20] hindered any possibility to secure these much needed resources – in fact Italy was so hard pressed for foreign currency it sold much needed military equipment to get the currency it needed to trade for what resources it could secure [15]. This is further supported in Graph 1 where Italian military expenditure had reached as high as 13.25% in 1936, 16.65% in 1937 and 9.27% in 1938 (during the Ethiopian and Spanish Civil Wars), a period where Italy was generally unhindered in obtaining the resources it needed and where sanctions had not yet been applied (and when sanctions were applied were limited in effect), however Italy would not be able to match these levels again in a far larger and more important conflict or come anywhere near these levels in WWII; the highest amount it would spend on military matters in WWII was in 1940 (at the very start) at 6.16% decreasing to 3.31% in 1942 (almost cut in half) and even less than Vichy France 6.79% would spend in 1942. Italy could not keep up to its own military spending only just a few years prior in its wars in Spain and Ethiopia. In 1942 Germany would spend an incredible 71.85% of its GDP on military equipment, 35.23% in Britain, and the United States at 15.67% while the US economy had almost increased in size by 50% by this time and was basically 10 times the size of Italy’s. 1942 is a significant year because even with all this spending by the Allies, Italy had still managed, incredibly, to turn the tide in the Battle of the Central Mediterranean [5], and it is not hard to imagine that if the US had not entered WWII, the British would have eventually been pushed out of North Africa with German help despite spending 10 times what Italy was spending on the war effort and with an economy that was more than double the size of Italy’s (Table 1). The Italians complained about the oil it needed for its fleet which was largely controlled and rationed by the Germans [5], and as a consequence fleet maneuvers and sorties were severely limited all through WWII. Italy’s aircraft industry was far larger than in WWI yet it produced only 10,000 aircraft, 2,000 fewer than in WWI. Italy was unable to fund and obtain the resources it needed to produce the aircraft and arms required to be an effective combatant in an increasingly technological war; often specialty materials to build aeroengines for instance were in short supply or unavailable, so much so that aircraft frames sat around unfinished. It wasn’t as much a case of a fractured or an under-developed industrial base, although these were a contributing factor to some extent, but like other historical reasons listed above were not drivers that depressed manufacturing output as much as a lack of financing or a weakened currency. World War II was a war of resources, and to a lesser extent even in WWI, however Italy produced fewer aircraft, the result of sever constraints placed on its access to raw materials that ultimately doomed Italy and directly affected its ability to wage an effective war. If Italian industrial output couldn't keep-up with the major-powers because of a lack organization or industrialization as is often claimed [24] than this should have been reflected in the number of man-hours needed to manufacture modern military equipment, such as front-line fighters. For example it took 20,000 man-hours to manufacture early Spitfires[21], while it took about the same time to manufacture a MC.202 [19, 25], both planes comparable and contemporaries of the other [19]. The differences are even greater when we consider the rate at which the G.55 was manufactured later, which required 15,000 man-hours to manufacture, and this time was expected to drop to 9,000 man-hours after the 1,000 aircraft onwards[21]. Both these planes, were arguably better overall than their contemporary Spitfire variants, Spitfire Mk V and IX. Even allowing for inefficiencies due to scaling, the differences are percentages, not orders or factors often used to explain the differences in the number of aircraft produced by Britain and Italy, other than again, Italy was constrained in its ability to manufacture weapon systems by the access, or lack of, to raw materials. In fact the rate at which aircraft were manufactured in Italy even suggests that there was greater inefficiencies and disorganization in the British armaments industry. Said another way if Italian industrial practices lacked modern means it would have taken almost 200,000+ man-hours to build a single MC.202. It wasn't a question of industrialization or marked inefficiency, clearly the Italians could produce a sophisticated weapons systems such as a frontline fighter at the same rate as the British, they just didn't have the same access to materials to maximize production, a result of competition for these raw materials with an aggressive ally compounded by a weakened currency that made acquiring such materials costly and difficult. We see in the desert battles that when Italy was able to bring to bear effective (heavy) weapons into the battle that it was able to emerge as a victor e.g., Bir el Gobi against the British [12, 18, 23]; the battlefield being surveyed afterwards by German general F. von Mellenthin [12] described the British defeat as "sever", or when it had a technological edge over an adversary in Yugoslavia for instance [13, 16, 23], it prevailed. When its air force was equipped with effective weapons such as the S.79 II/III [8], C.202 [9], C.205V and G.55 it was able to hold its own in the tough air battles over Italy and North Africa and was able to strike deep at its adversaries with heavy bombers such as the P.108B at Gibraltar [7] and the S.82 attack on the Manama Refinery in Bahrain 20 October 1940 [6]; then the longest-range bombing mission in history, a direct result from the experiences gained with the long distance "crociere" flights, and forcing the British to deploy valuable resources to protect its fuel supplies in the Middle East – a brilliant operation by any measure. And when military expenditure was at the levels that could be considered acceptable in wartime as in Spain (13.25% 1936, 16.65% 1937, 9.27%, 1938, 7.62% 1939), and when access to materials was unhindered, and where the Aviazione Legionaria faced Spanish Republican forces that were supplemented and subsidized by Soviet troops and aviators and volunteers from Britian, France and the USA, Italy won a comparatively easy victory; and Italy showed it was ready, willing and able to allocate and spend on the resources and the modern equipment it needed to win, as Germany and Japan would do only a few years later.

Table 1 – Wartime GDP of the Great Powers in WWII.

At the beginning of WWII, Italy’s economy was not small (it's not small today), and although smaller it was comparable to France and Japan’s (Table 1) yet from the very start of WWII its economy shrank while Germany’s grew as both nations competed for the same resources and raw materials, while Japan secured its access to resources in the Pacific and thus its % GDP that it could spend on military matters increased from 27.87% in 1941 to 46.86% by 1943 and to an astonishing 98.94% in 1944 (similar to Germany - Total War). France deprived of resources, although it could still rely on its colonies, eventually succumbed to similar pressures and its economy shrank to the size of Italy’s by 1944.

If according to Pricolo, the Regia Aeronautica lost 1,771 aircraft in combat, but in turn shot down 2,522 enemy aircraft - not that dismal a showing [3], even if its numerical inferiority doomed the Italian air force to extinction by sheer attrition, and indeed it continued as a force at least in the form of the ANR, whom the Germans themselves conceded could carry on the fight over Italy without German assistance [22]. In the final analysis, the explanation for the demise of the Regia Aeronautica (and the Italian armed forces as a whole in WWII) can be found largely in the lack of or access to raw materials, itself a result of competition for these resources with an aggressive partner and a weakened economy that had not yet recovered from two major wars, and it can be argued continuous warfare from the turn of the century that retarded its ability to rearm in a way that was needed by 1940. It is thus not surprising that in 1939 when the Germans approached Mussolini to join the war that the Italians replied with a long list of military equipment and resources the Germans could not possibly supply (and would not), and that Italy would not be in a position to assist its German ally until 1943 - as agreed to in the Pact of Steel.

But even had Italy done everything right, it could only have done marginally better, given its choice of allies, and its selection of enemies [3]. So why did Mussolini enter the war, when the Germans had violated their treaty [4]; and why would Mussolini declare war on the United States (a potential ally, although the nature of Fascism and the political situation in Italy in the 1920's and 30s precluded such an alliance) to honor his treaty commitments to Japan, an ally that could in no way influence Italian fortunes? As Ciano explains in his diaries, unrelenting German pressure to join the fight [4], while Frank Joseph [17] adds that Mussolini didn’t think the war would last much longer and as a result there would be no need to face a determined US, and later, a resurgent USSR (the only two Super Powers to emerge from WWII); and to protect Italy’s territorial claims that seemed to be slipping away in 1940.

* Please note the sections preceding "The Financial State of Italy in WWII" are based on the work of James Sadkovich [3] with updates and additions.

Fiat G.55 Prototype MM.492. "Tests began 20 February 1943 with the German commission impressed by Italian aircraft, the G.55 in particular ... the G.55 was competitive with its German counterparts in terms of speed and climb rate at high altitudes, while still maintaining superior handling characteristics. The definitive evaluation by the German commission was "Excellent" for the G.55 with Oberst Petersen declaring the G.55 "the best operational fighter in the Axis' inventory" " [21].