"Italian LMGs in the platoon?" Topic
9 Posts
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| Weasel | 30 May 2009 10:19 p.m. PST |
How was Italian LMG's allocated within the platoon? I apparently have terrible google-fu. Steel Panthers has 2 double-LMG squads and 2 pure rifle squads, which seems funky, so I figured I'd check it by you guys. |
| Griefbringer | 30 May 2009 10:39 p.m. PST |
That seems to have been the official fashion: link Griefbringer |
| John D Salt | 31 May 2009 1:43 a.m. PST |
That's certainly the arrangement given in the US Signal Corps' 1943 Handbook on the Italian Army, for standard infantry, anyway. However, a triangular platoon with one LMG per section (US: squad) seems to have been used in the Alpini, Bersaglieri, and the San Marco assault and landing division. "Funky" it may seem, but square platoons with two LMG-equipped squads seem to be a fairly common arrangment among the minor nations at the start of WW2. I suspect this is a hangover from the original WW1 style of allocating two (say) Lewis guns to a square platoon. Oddly, though, the Italians seem to have gone from a triangular to a square platoon between WW1 and WW2, when most armies were travelling the other way. I'd be interested to know if there are any good publications on the Italian army apart from the US 1943 handbook. It's annoying that I have five or six publications all with titles very like "The German Army handbook", two each on the British and Russians, but just the one on the Italians, and nothing at all on the French, the Chinese, the Rumanians, or the Bulgarians. All the best, John. |
| Griefbringer | 31 May 2009 3:20 a.m. PST |
square platoons with two LMG-equipped squads seem to be a fairly common arrangment among the minor nations at the start of WW2 For curiosity, Winter War (1939-1940) Finnish square platoon had two squads with 1 LMG each as support weapons, and another two squads with 1 SMG each as support. However, by 1941 this had been replaced by a square platoon where every squad had 1 LMG and 1 SMG (later upgraded to 2 SMGs per platoon). Griefbringer |
| Martin Rapier | 31 May 2009 3:52 a.m. PST |
It is also perhaps a bit of a holdover from WW1 practice where specialist sections (LMG, rifle grenade etc) within the platoon were more common. Interestingly (or perhaps not) in practice in WW2, some platoon commanders reorganised their 'general purpose' sections into a platoon fire group with with all the LMGs etc and an assault group with the trusted riflemen. It partly depends on how the platoons needed to be run, which in turn is a function of numbers and quality of junior leaders. |
| Gary Kennedy | 31 May 2009 4:04 a.m. PST |
Info on areas such as organisation for the Italian Army seems to be extremely limited. I've had a few false dawns on the matter, people thinking they've got something then never getting back in touch again…Ah well, never mind. The four Squad Platoon, with two LMG and two rifle elements, seemed to be the authorised organisation. Way back I was sent a selection of Platoon orgs that differed from this. The first shows a squad of twelve men with a single LMG, three Squads in the Platoon and a single officer, and indicates it was used by infantry and Bersaglieri. One for the Alpini shows a fifteen strong Squad again with a single LMG, with three such squads and a platoon commander. Problems for me in interpreting them are they're in Italian, they're undated, they use symbols to represent personnel and there's no key on the diagrams. Other than that everything is perfectly clear! Developments in North Africa were different again, with the use of mixed Coys, each with a single Rifle, HMG, anti-tank rifle and Anti-tank gun Platoon. The Rifle Pl is shown as an officer, runner and three eleven strong Squads. I can't find a definite answer as to whether there were LMGs in the Squads, as the most detailed description (Nafziger) says two SMGs, but elsewhere two LMGs are shown. Confusing, isn't it? In a vain attempt to get some degree of authenticity, I've got the 1944 era Italian Co-Belligerent Bn/Regt WEs on order from the National Archives, so I might be able to say how ONE type of Bn should have looked at SOME point of the war! Gary |
| kevanG | 31 May 2009 6:23 a.m. PST |
I never found it that confusing. It gets discussed quite a bit on the Italianist yahoo group the italian re-configuration in the desert was to limit manpower down to a minimum for transportation and supply purposes, hence the one rifle platoon in a company with masses of weapons support. That is when they adopted the bersglieri style 2 lmg's per squad and 3 squads per platoon as it was a 'ground holding' force, not an assault force. the "did they have 1 lmg or did they have 2 per squad?" comes from the 4 squads to 3 squads change and the fact they had a total of 4 lmg's(2 per squad although some , maybe most, actually only had 1) which went down to 1 each per squad and theoretically left a spare. In all likelyhood, the third squad had the spare if it existed. If they had a full complement of lmg's originally,It then only took a couple of lmg's per company to make them match the Motorised/ bersaglieri organisation for what was considered the new infantry role. The 2 smg's are for the corporale and the lead private and they performed the command roles to the full and component parts of the squad. While all this may seem to be a bit convoluted, it isnt really that much different from any other nation in either guise. I.e, lmg groups used as a fire base and rifles used as an infantry assaulting force. In the first set up, It just meant they had 2 rifle assault forces rather than 3 , but they were nearly twice the size of other nations. IIRC, the Italians considered a company attack to be across the shortest frontage of all the nationalities. |
| HistoriFigs | 31 May 2009 7:51 a.m. PST |
For 1940-43 I use the following as a guide for my Italian Rifle company organization: PDF link |
| Gary Kennedy | 31 May 2009 8:17 a.m. PST |
I'd certainly agree with their opening statement! As far as I can tell, that Company format comes from contemporary US manuals on the Italian Army organisation, with the same details turning up in other books. Yet there is some evidence for an alternative Platoon, split across three even Squads rather than two Sections (each effectively a 'half platoon'). The handling of those two types of subunit would be quite different I'd suggest, so did one supplant the other, or was one a real world solution to the authorised version. The North African alternative was in line with similar developments for British Motor Bns and German units; a big increase in support weapons, especially anti-tank, at the expense of far fewer riflemen. As they shifted from three Rifle Platoons down to one, even if the latter needed six LMGs, there should have been plenty across the Company as a whole to fill out the requirement. Nafziger's is the only 'man for man' list I've seen for anything Italian, and it does show the June 1942 Battalion with 18 SMGs, and no LMGs. Perhaps it's just a typo. Gary |
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