Data about Italian manpower in WW2

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DrG
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Data about Italian manpower in WW2

#1

Post by DrG » 16 Apr 2004, 02:30

After WW2 Mussolini has been often mocked because of his speech (Bologna, 22 Sept. 1936) in which he talked about the "8 millions of bayonets" of Italy. In fact, during WW2, Italy mobilized far less than 8 millions of soldiers ("only" 4,065,000 men in 10 June 1940 - 8 Sept. 1943, in WW1 they had been 5,615,000; the top strenght of the armed forces was 3,430,000 men). But why did he talk about 8,000,000 soldiers?
Because that was roughly the maximum number of men that could be mobilized. In this tabel, from an encyclopedia of 1939, there are the classes of age, the coefficient of reduction (the percentage of men unfit for military service), the number of men that could be mobilized in each year of that class and their total for the class:
18/20 -00.0% 350,000 1,050,000
21/26 -07.5% 323,750 1,942,500
27/32 -20,0% 280,000 1,680,000
33/38 -30.0% 245,000 1,470,000
39/55 -40.0% 210,000 3,570,000
TOT...............................9,712,500

Ostuf Charlemagne
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#2

Post by Ostuf Charlemagne » 20 Apr 2004, 23:51

Salute ,camarata .... It is a thing to mobilize 8 millions men and another ,very different, thing ,to arm and equip them and to train them .... it took the germans nearly one full year to give a good training to a big unit . At last until 1943-44.... after that .....

Officers are hard to fing too ,during a war ,the normal officer toll is not enough and many dies at the field .Solution ; to call up reserve officers ...after that the only solution is to speed up the formation of cadets / second lieutenants in academies ( one year in Bad Toelz during the war when it took them 3 years in the pre-war SS Junkerschulen .
Of course you can promote sergeants with field experience too ...but the big problem when you form a division in case of a general mobilization is too find Staff Officers .... those ones you can't form them with a quick course . And this is the reason why at nearly the end of the war , emergency big units ,even with manpower and a good equipment ,performed in a less than statisfactory way .


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