So for Pola Nachi will be the interpreter

What Beautiful Reaction Faces. EPIC.

A drinker to speak for a drinker.

Fair is fair, Nachi.

Why every single image Pola always naked. It because the alcohol make her hot? (Because I don't know much about alcohol )

cblangs said:

Why every single image Pola always naked. It because the alcohol make her hot? (Because I don't know much about alcohol )

I will quote Shebadotfr in post #2348788.

PD: Being drunk doesn't necessary means to be a nudist (lol), is just an steretype of some drunkards who likes to undress themselves. So dont worry, you don't risk anything if you say "I drink" or "I don't drink".

cblangs said:

Why every single image Pola always naked. It because the alcohol make her hot? (Because I don't know much about alcohol )

Historyfags, I summon thee.

Now, either make a pool called "Perpetually Plastered Pola" and put in all of the appropriate images in there OR make a pool called "Somehow Sober Pola" and put in all of the appropriate images in there.

By the way Zara, you should have told her to greet them the "formal way".

In Italian we say "l'alcol", not "il alcol"...

Whatever.

Lannihan said:

I will quote Shebadotfr in post #2348788.

Explanation

PD: Being drunk doesn't necessary means to be a nudist (lol), is just an steretype of some drunkards who likes to undress themselves. So dont worry, you don't risk anything if you say "I drink" or "I don't drink".

I can only imagine the reaction of the British navy at this time.

Lannihan said:

I will quote Shebadotfr in post #2348788.

Explanation

PD: Being drunk doesn't necessary means to be a nudist (lol), is just an steretype of some drunkards who likes to undress themselves. So dont worry, you don't risk anything if you say "I drink" or "I don't drink".

Thank for the detail. i can learn more about this ship history from you guys.

BlastingNaba said:

I can only imagine the reaction of the British navy at this time.

You don't have to, since it is a matter of record that they were hyping themselves up for a swashbuckling boarding action and were incredibly disappointed to find a bunch of unresistant drunk Italians.

But a lot more of those people got to go home to their families after the war, so all's well that ends well...?

aceofspudz said:

You don't have to, since it is a matter of record that they were hyping themselves up for a swashbuckling boarding action and were incredibly disappointed to find a bunch of unresistant drunk Italians.

But a lot more of those people got to go home to their families after the war, so all's well that ends well...?

I still think it's kind of a downer they didn't at least attempt one of their original thoughts which was to try and capture and tow the ship to Egypt as a prize. I mean, yeah, logically just sinking it and sailing off with your crushing victory in hand was probably the right call, but come on, capturing an enemy heavy cruiser in the open ocean via boarding action? That'd just be adding some god tier trolling to the right proper thrashing you just dished out.

Tk3997 said:

I still think it's kind of a downer they didn't at least attempt one of their original thoughts which was to try and capture and tow the ship to Egypt as a prize. I mean, yeah, logically just sinking it and sailing off with your crushing victory in hand was probably the right call, but come on, capturing an enemy heavy cruiser in the open ocean via boarding action? That'd just be adding some god tier trolling to the right proper thrashing you just dished out.

Did the RN conclude any successful boarding actions (at sea, of warships) during the war, a la U-505? Seems like their wheelhouse.

Also, implying Italians in WWII needed to be demoralized. If anything you handle an already demoralized enemy with care, so as not to inflame their passions.

aceofspudz said:

Did the RN conclude any successful boarding actions (at sea, of warships) during the war, a la U-505? Seems like their wheelhouse.

Well RN was accredited for sinking the last Capital Ship to be sunk by surface gunfire and torpedoes in World War II. The 26th Destroyer Flotilla sunk Haguro during the Battle of the Malacca Strait. The battle was also considered as the last surface gunfire action of the whole War.

For boarding actions, I think any navy during the war tried to board each other ships.

aceofspudz said:
You don't have to, since it is a matter of record that they were hyping themselves up for a swashbuckling boarding action

Really not. Only a bunch of British boarded an already surrended unit to organize the transfer of the crew. They were not expecting any action at all.

Historynerd said:

In Italian we say "l'alcol", not "il alcol"...

Whatever.

yeah mio amico :p
im italian also, and im a little cringy recently about our native language being used by japs.

aceofspudz said:

Did the RN conclude any successful boarding actions (at sea, of warships) during the war, a la U-505? Seems like their wheelhouse.

Also, implying Italians in WWII needed to be demoralized. If anything you handle an already demoralized enemy with care, so as not to inflame their passions.

Not really about demoralizing them as much as psyching your guys up. Anyway, that last bits kind of a myth and also stupid when you think about it. When an enemy is on the ropes and near breaking point is EXACTLY when you pile it on and go for the throat. In most cases against a foe known to give good treatment of prisoners, which the British were, a demoralized enemy will just crumple and surrender when pressed and out of options, which is pretty much exactly what happened repeatedly to Italian forces.

Tk3997 said:

Not really about demoralizing them as much as psyching your guys up. Anyway, that last bits kind of a myth and also stupid when you think about it. When an enemy is on the ropes and near breaking point is EXACTLY when you pile it on and go for the throat. In most cases against a foe known to give good treatment of prisoners, which the British were, a demoralized enemy will just crumple and surrender when pressed and out of options, which is pretty much exactly what happened repeatedly to Italian forces.

I suppose I was thinking of Tzu the wrong way. I guess the escape route, for the Italians, was surrender.

aceofspudz said:

Also, implying Italians in WWII needed to be demoralized. If anything you handle an already demoralized enemy with care, so as not to inflame their passions.

Tk3997 said:

Not really about demoralizing them as much as psyching your guys up. Anyway, that last bits kind of a myth and also stupid when you think about it. When an enemy is on the ropes and near breaking point is EXACTLY when you pile it on and go for the throat. In most cases against a foe known to give good treatment of prisoners, which the British were, a demoralized enemy will just crumple and surrender when pressed and out of options, which is pretty much exactly what happened repeatedly to Italian forces.

English speaking folks thend to have a peculiar view of the war in the Mediterranean, as a series of crushing allied victories until the Regia Marina was wiped out of the sea, but in reality things were a little different.
In he first months of war, with the Regia Aeronautica not having been equipped with torpedo bombers yet, the capital ships of the Royal Navy were able to get very close to the Italian coasts (Bombing of Genoa, Battle of Calabria...).
In 1941, the Battle of Cape Matapan, for how much it had been costly for the Regia Marina, was fought in the sea of Greece.
In 1942 the Royal Navy had been virtually expelled from Central Mediterranean. In the attempts to resupply Malta, the RN capital ships did not enter any more in Italian waters, they accompanied the convoys only for a short distance, and then returned to the ports of Alexandria and Gibraltar, leaving only destroyers and light cruisers to be slaughtered along with the freighters (the near sinking of the Nelson in the Operation Halberd, in sept '41, had been instructive), while, at the same time, the Italian convoys to North Africa had more than 80% of success.
Unfortunately for the Italians, the convoy traffic alone required more fuel than that the Regia Marina was able to obtain, so draining the stocks. The Guilo Cesare, Andrea Doria e Caio Duilio were put in reserve at the beginning of 1942 for lack of fuel to move them. In mid '42, the Regia marina only had a strategic reserve of 30.000 tons of fuel left for an eventual all-out battle with the RN (when an action like that of Cape Matapan required 70.000 tons). In january '43 the Vittorio Veneto, Littorio e Roma were removed from active service too, leaving only the III Divisione Incrociatori (cruisers Gorizia and Trieste, based at La Maddalena) as the only Italain heavy surface force still active. In July 1943 the Operation Husky was not contrasted by the Regia Marina cause there was not more fuel to make the ships get out of the ports, and, in sept '43, the trip form La Spezia to Malta of the capital ships of the RM was possible only seizing the fuel that the Germans confiscated from the French Navy at Toulon in November '42, that was stored in La Spezia, but was formally of German property.

Pola: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKOlhPygszo

Tk3997 said:

I still think it's kind of a downer they didn't at least attempt one of their original thoughts which was to try and capture and tow the ship to Egypt as a prize. I mean, yeah, logically just sinking it and sailing off with your crushing victory in hand was probably the right call, but come on, capturing an enemy heavy cruiser in the open ocean via boarding action? That'd just be adding some god tier trolling to the right proper thrashing you just dished out.

The captain of Pola ordered to open the seacocks before the boarding in order to prevent the capture of the ship.

kazemura said:
yeah mio amico :p
im italian also, and im a little cringy recently about our native language being used by japs.

I'm actually happy to see other people using Italian (I'm from Italy too), nobody's born knowing all the languages in the world so it's natural to make mistakes (I admit I'm not good with English) so if they are practicing and learning from the mistakes they do I don't see anything cringe-worthy, they should actually try even more

Ink20 said:

The captain of Pola ordered to open the seacocks before the boarding in order to prevent the capture of the ship.

It wasn't sunk or even sinking quickly when the ship was boarded, the British taking the time to loot it before scuttling it. They could have just been closed after the boarding, or they were never all opened to start with (distinctly possible given the state of the crew). Capturing the vessel was dismissed not due to any sabotage, but due to questions about being caught by aircraft in the morning when trying to tow it out .

Dogwalker said:

English speaking folks thend to have a peculiar view of the war in the Mediterranean, as a series of crushing allied victories until the Regia Marina was wiped out of the sea, but in reality things were a little different.

Don't presume to lecture me the RM never managed to decisively win a single battle, but it sure as fuck managed to loose plenty of them and fail in all it's most critical objectives in the larger war. As we shall see in your vain attempt to prove otherwise below.

In he first months of war, with the Regia Aeronautica not having been equipped with torpedo bombers yet, the capital ships of the Royal Navy were able to get very close to the Italian coasts (Bombing of Genoa, Battle of Calabria...).

Which is already showing the incompetence and lack of foresight which would set the tone for the rest of the war.

In 1941, the Battle of Cape Matapan, for how much it had been costly for the Regia Marina, was fought in the sea of Greece.
In 1942 the Royal Navy had been virtually expelled from Central Mediterranean.

By no action of the Italian fleet, which was feckless and ineffective throughout 1941 as British light forces at Malta wrecked havoc on everything in the vicinity. It was only with the confluence of several often lucky events (after ANOTHER failed sortie by the fleet) that it gained some sort of edge at the start of 1942 in what had up to that point been a fairly unrelenting thrashing.

Namely:
-The prime Radiing force at Malta was heavily reduced by a minefield in unexpectedly deep water, one ship was lost and others had to withdraw
-A largely GERMAN Air Force was gaining air superiority over the island, which was making basing ships and planes their increasingly risky
-Finally a special forces attack on the battleships at Alexandria put two out of action.

It was principally aircraft (many German) and German submarines (because as with the rest of the fleet the Italian ones were largely ineffectual)that were contesting British naval activity even with these set backs. Not the ineffectual Italian fleet that twice laughably failed to engage incoming convoys covered by much lighter forces and then basically by the fall was stuck in port never to sortie again.

Malta's situation really only got bad in early 1942 as the above mentioned events had for the first time in nearly two years produced a situation in which Malta was actually ineffective at interdicting shipping by around April and the Royal Navy marginally at risk of losing control of the area. This was the closest the Axis would ever come to something approaching a victory in the naval war in the Med.

They would still fail and the situation would be largely resolved by August-September.

In the attempts to resupply Malta, the RN capital ships did not enter any more in Italian waters,

Why exactly would you enter waters hundreds of miles away from where you wanted to go to begin with? Unless you mean Sicily, but again why exactly would you take your ships along the coast of an island OFF COURSE from where you wanted to go? The quickest route through to Malta approaching from either the west or east would be south of Sicily.

Regardless this is patently nonsense. All the major 1942 convoys during the critical period had capital (CV and BB) escorts, furthermore Carriers repeatedly approached the area to fly off aircraft to the island all during this period. They're are also tons of examples of them escorting convoys throughout 1941, this is like a 30 second wiki search. They didn't escort EVERY convoy but that was for any number of reasons, it wasn't that they were afraid to commit them when they judged it to warrant them, but in early 1942 is was often because due to the Frogman attack and losses elsewhere they were short the ships. It's extremely likely for instance that without the Frogman attack the two battleships would have supported Operation Vigorous and with their presence it might not have had to turn back because of the threat of Italian surface ships (pretty much the only time this occurred)

they accompanied the convoys only for a short distance, and then returned to the ports of Alexandria and Gibraltar, leaving only destroyers and light cruisers to be slaughtered along with the freighters (the near sinking of the Nelson in the Operation Halberd, in sept '41, had been instructive),

Would you like to quote an actual battle during the 1942 period because this never happened. No convoy was ever "slaughtered" in fact twice heavier Italian fleets were driven away from the transports by light units. There was never any huge loss of warships in any of these convoy it was penny ante stuff a DD here a light cruiser their, it added up over time, but there wasn't anything that could be even vaguely described as a "slaughter".

Now the much slower and poorly protected transport often suffered more heavily, a few times slaughter might even fit, but you mentioned the warships and that just plain didn't happen. That said at the end of the day they kept getting through and in it's failure to prevent this any chance of victory in the convoy battle in the Med was lost to Italy. This is ignoring that all this is occurring after the US is in the war, even with the losses to Japan if the situation had ever gotten truly desperate the US had quite a few ships that never even went to the pacific in this period that could have been diverted to the Med. The fact this never really occurred just kind of showing that while hardly fun the situation was not "imminent defeat" level at any point.

Though it was during this period that Italain surface ships managed to win their only fairly clear victory of the war, they attacked one convoy and managed to sink a destroyer while only taking damage to one of theirs. There presence also forced several transports already crippled by air attack to be abandoned, but even then a third of the convoy made it in and that single destroyer was all they managed to sink (another DD hit a mine later on). Hardly a stunning victory.

(the near sinking of the Nelson in the Operation Halberd, in sept '41, had been instructive),

Hmm you mean the one where effectively the entire convoy was escorted through, Italian surface ships failed to engage or disrupt it and the sole tiny glimmer for them was a single aerial torpedo hit that came no where near actually sinking Nelson? Yeah, no, this didn't terrify the RN into not using it's capital assets around Malta and it was months before the situation became perilous so it barely mattered.

while, at the same time, the Italian convoys to North Africa had more than 80% of success.

Sure... if you jiggle the criteria enough and ignore that failing at key points can completely invalidate overall theoretical success (as occurred in reality, at several key junctures when it really mattered heavy losses greatly reduced supplies on hand for key operations). This also ignores a critical aspect 80% of what, because a 20% loss rate is not sustainable over time without some serious replacement (which Italy's meager industry was not capable of). It's not like every convoy is magically composed entirely of new ships and if you keep losing 20% of your convoys you have fewer and fewer TOTAL ships to send. You could have an 80% success rate and still end up delivering basically nothing to the end user. Sure the convoys kept getting through (mostly due to the very short distances involved and at increasingly lower rates), but they were also getting progressively smaller and bringing in fewer and fewer supplies.

That said I agree that Germany tends to try and pin too much blame for North African failures on Italian convoys not getting through, but at the same time they can rightly grumble that with the unexpectedly rapid exit of France and various losses elsewhere that an Italian Navy that was semi-competently planned and organized pre-war and lead during it with German Air and Submarine support should have really been able to shut down the British entirely and ALL of it should have gotten through while quite possibly forcing the British to withdraw from the region.

The fact that the RM perfomred poorly as whole in inescapable, it failed to win battles and it largely failed in all it's strategic goals. Indeed the fact that despite losses and sometimes very badly timed set backs it managed to get a fair number of convoys through is about the only success it can really be granted. But this also needs to be put in perspective were talking about Italy struggling to keep open a convoy route less then four hundred miles long originating in their own ports and which they had air bases at both ends off. As far as such things go this is a ludicrously easy task comparatively to other operations in other threaters, and yet as you yourself note blow this was STILL so draining as to start crippling their fleet and merchant marine.

Unfortunately for the Italians, the convoy traffic alone required more fuel than that the Regia Marina was able to obtain, so draining the stocks.

The Guilo Cesare, Andrea Doria e Caio Duilio were put in reserve at the beginning of 1942 for lack of fuel to move them. In mid '42, the Regia marina only had a strategic reserve of 30.000 tons of fuel left for an eventual all-out battle with the RN (when an action like that of Cape Matapan required 70.000 tons). In january '43 the Vittorio Veneto, Littorio e Roma were removed from active service too, leaving only the III Divisione Incrociatori (cruisers Gorizia and Trieste, based at La Maddalena) as the only Italain heavy surface force still active. In July 1943 the Operation Husky was not contrasted by the Regia Marina cause there was not more fuel to make the ships get out of the ports, and, in sept '43, the trip form La Spezia to Malta of the capital ships of the RM was possible only seizing the fuel that the Germans confiscated from the French Navy at Toulon in November '42, that was stored in La Spezia, but was formally of

Yes it's almost like poor pre-war planning, an inadequate grasp on the logistical requirements of oversea operations, and designing ships that were farcically inefficient fuel wise due to faultly assumptions hampered Italian naval operations.

I mean you didn't really disprove a god damn thing, the Italian Navy failed to win any battles of note and struggled with it's one most critical task which was all things considered a pretty damn easy one. Even so I was actually thinking more about the abysmal performance of the Italian army units against the British before Germany straight up saved their asses rather then the Navy in my comment about them tending to fold rather then fight when pressed. You could argue that their leaders were a major part of that, but a system that manages to consistently breed crappy leaders is flawed in and of itself.

Tk3997 said:
snip

Well that was...comprehensive x.x
Nice read and yeah I agree with the final statement. If your leaders are still clinging to pre-war tactics that have been proven incorrect for two years after the fact and have learned precisely no lessons then the system as a whole is flawed, not just what it produces.

With regards to the Italian army and its performance in North Africa, some of it can be explained by having a tank force designed for combat in Italy's mountainous terrain with poor infrastructure and the lack of industry to update it quickly enough to use abroad. Explain, but not excuse. We (the British) were in a worse position after Dunkirk with basically no armour at all yet we still managed to build tanks that were at least useful outside our own country in two years, they weren't brilliant (case in point Crusader) but they weren't tankettes either.