Pinned post for Q&A :)

Welcome to axis naval club! We have: Germany, the confused one. Japan, the overconfident one. And Italy, surprisingly competent one.

Oh boy, almost an hour and a half about the Italian Navy. Thanks, Drach and Mr. O'Hara

Having known Italian soldiers who fought and surrendered in North Africa as a young man , I asked about their eventual surrender. Their attitude was they fought when they had too but why fight for people who didn’t give a damn about them or their people. They were very good , honest , brave men who I feel honored to have known.

My Father was in submarines (10th flotilla ) out of Malta for ww2. He had the greatest respect for the Italian ships and crews. He said they had good ships, good crews who where very professional. He used to get very angry when just because they were Italian people used to say they were cowards. Not in his experience, and he very verbally used to put those people in their place.

My grandfather served in the Luftwaffe as a recon pilot. He was serving in the africa korps. Also operating out of Zagreb. One time he was heading from there to africa. While doing so, he crashed into the mediteranian with his plane one time. He flew solo i guess. Why my grandmother did not tell. And there he was in his life raft for three days, drifting away from the coast into the open sea, drinking his own urin until a italian destroyer saved him. By pure luck. They said he was lucky because his rescue party was looking for him in a completly different place.

In the battleships vs carrier s debate you also have to remember that the Med is entirely surrounded by land and almost entirely within the range of land based air power. Why spend money on floating airfields when you can defend your battle fleet with fighters that take off from airfields on land and attack the enemy's battle fleet with bombers that return to airfields on land?

Until I began watching your channel I knew virtually nothing about the Regia Marina in the 20th Century. Your research on the subject over the years and the co-ops with scholars like Vincent have increased my knowledge hugely. Thank you again for your consistently excellent output!

From an Italian, thank you very much for this video. Now, a little point to the question: Italy didn't stand a chance to win WW2 allied to the Germans. Since the end of WWI and the end of Italy's historic enemy - Austria-Hungary - Italian high command saw the possibility of a war against the new nation born on the other side of the Adriatic Sea (the then Kingdom of Yugoslavia) and his "big brother", France. Never, even in their worst nightmares, Italian admirals saw the British Empire as a possible enemy, but all changed with the Ethiopian war 1936-1939. Despite all the odds, Italy was able to maintain a bloody balance in the Mediterranean Sea against the Royal Navy (thanks to the demise of France) until US firepower was able to overwhelm any resistance: first in the air, then on the sea and at last on the ground. The co-belligerant phase was able only to relive a little stress from the subsequent pace treaty.

That comment about the resilience of the Regia Marina and how they came back from Cape Matapan actually sounds a little better than the US response to Savo Island. The speed with which both navies developed night battle doctrine seems comparable (a few months) but the Italians figured out the British used radar and had their own counter in testing within a month. In contrast, almost five months after Savo Island the USN was still insisting that the Japanese had a magical fleet submarine that was intervening in battles because "torpedoes with speed-range characteristics comparable to our own" could not possibly reach the cruiser line at Tassafaronga.

the real problem with understanding the Italian armed forces is that there generals and admirals were not hired by the US military to "help write" the history. From a purely military perspective, the Italian armed forces did the best they could on behalf of a nation that never had the industrial, material, or political capital to succeed.

Someone should make one of those average enjoyed memes with “average kriegsmarine fan vs average Regia marina enjoyer”

When i think about the Regia Marina i can't help think about the heavy cruisers at Cape Matapan without radar, the Italian sailors fought bravely and well despite the limitations placed on them by the higher-ups.

Drac, consider following Ian's example over at Forgotten Weapons and creating a specialty publishing house to produce books that you think valuable and nobody else is willing to publish. His is called Headstamp Publishing, I believe.

Fabulous hour and a half on the Regia Marina - I have always believed that the Italians have been massively underrated in the history books. Loved every minute!

As the daughter of a very proud Italian Sailor who was a radio operator and served from 1941-1946, I thank you. I wish Dad was still around he would have loved to hear this.

Watching this channel has given me a much greater appreciation of the Italian navy in the early 1900s. I had never heard of Vincent O'Hara, but ...wow... he is realistic and down to earth and really brings a great perspective in this interview. He makes me feel like "I can learn about this subject too!" Thank you both for your work and this great video.

The tone of the British attitude was set when war was coming. When Churchill was asked about Italy joining the Germans, he said (in effect) “It’s only fair - we had them last time”. The Royal Navy were just as superior in their attitude towards their enemies, especially the Regia Marina, as the American Navy was about the imperial Japanese Navy.

Perhaps the most egregious example of a lack of balance is C.S. Forester's "The Ship", a contemporaneous (1943),very loose version of the Second Battle of Sirte which portrays the Italian Navy as utterly feckless, emotional and incompetent, when in fact the Italian Navy accomplished its primary mission of jeopardizing the British convoy. If one analyzes the number of actions and the behavior of the Italian ships involved, one can note that they fought more often than the Germans and often with greater valor, and at least as effectively as the Germans.

17:44 all the Italian naval guns were made for cold barrel swap. So their barrel life was 1/2 of the others, but the time needed to change the barrel was 1/30. It only needed a pair of days of work in port without any special facility to change the barrels of all the main guns of a ship while, for who didn't design his guns that way, it needed to remove the armor of the turret, remove the guns from the cradle, file the barrels in a gigantic lathe, put the guns in a specially built vertical furnace, insert the new internal barrel, etc...

When Drach was talking about the tendency of victors to denigrate their opponents after the war is won it reminded me of something former professional wrestler Arn Anderson has said about how he was trained. He said (and I'm paraphrasing from memory here so it won't be exact) that he was taught that whenever he talked about his opponents, he should never call them old, stupid, fat, weak etc. You could call them a sneaky or a cheater but you always talked about them as if they were a legitimate threat to beat you, even if it was by underhanded means. His reasoning was that if you beat a nobody it didn't improve the perception of you and it also didn't help your opponent. In wrestling, (unlike war, hopefully) you or one of your friends will have to fight that opponent again and having them percieved as a contender helps everyone. Anyway, a very different context but similar psychology.

When I was growing up the italians had a tiny navy the RN kicked around like puppies, the Kriegsmarine was Bismarck, Tirpitz, and a metric fuckload of U-boats, and the IJN had a dozen carriers and Yamato. The last 20 years especially the narrative has changed but even allied side I heard equally absurd shit. I am so glad there seems to be an onslaught of reasoned arguments against the absurdity.

The Regia Marina was unfortunate in having to face arguably the greatest Admiral in Royal Navy history: Andrew Browne Cunningham, 'ABC'. His signal to HMS Illustrious when that carrier rejoined the Mediterranean fleet the morning after the Taranto raid was a classic understatement - "Manoeuvre well executed."

46:52 This one line and the discussion at 1:03:03 - 1:06:49 is one of the other major thing in the dismissal of the Italians, is code breaking, if the Germans were as good as the Italians at code breaking there would be movies about the rivals to Bletchley Park, they would be heralded as this amazing elite unit (which the Italian code breakers were), that the history channel would fancifully claim almost won the war for the Germans.

My fathers was a radio officer in the Arquimede, Galilei Galilei, Vortex (Subs) pantera and Ceasere Baptisti( Ships) so many stories and one particularlly in the Arquimede at the Red Sea was pretty insane.

I want to point out, as an Italian, that there is not that much either, written in Italian, that come from Italian first hand sources. Iachino (main quoted source on the English publications) was disgraced in practice if not officially because of his backstabbing of his superior officers to take their place as fleet Admiral and the screwing up royally at the first time he was in charge, so he spent all his efforts to justify having a big portion of the fleet at the bottom of the sea, where the derided Campioni in hindsight had performed very well. Reading Iachino would be like reading an account of the Battle of Lissa from the viewpoint of Vice Admiral Albini... It would be heavily biased at best. The Italian military culture is very secretive and does not like to talk about taken actions. You won't find much about the Italian interventions in Somalia, Kosovo, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria or Lybia; you'd often find more informations on the matter coming from foreign sources, to the point where history often forget Italians even being there aside for a small "Oh, and,, BTW, were " some Italian contingent too somewhere. Italian public opinion was very politicized by the end of the war and to some xtebt still is; everything connected to the Fascism was regarded as tabu and a hugely powerfull communist party had taken the scene, eager to discredit anything archived after Garibaldi (which became a radical socialist at the end of his life), deeply involved into discredit anything from the Italian side about WWI, WWII, Spain or Ethiopia. These Communists "Intellectuals" were often culturally bullying anyone not in line with their story telling up to the ninenties, with the press often scared from publishing anything which could rub that cultural Politburo the wrong way, for fear of being called "Fascist" press. This pushed many first hand sources to keep a low profile and withold many important informations which never made to the public, being lost as they disappear year after year. I met many veterans in the past, but I always feel a certain shyness on telling their war stories: it was like something they felt afraid of sharing. In Italy you would get an immediate backlash talkin about war actions in a foreign country, so the arm corps would actively discourage any disclosure from their components without approval. It is not easy to be an Italian Military as so many restriction are enforced compared to other nations. It is like the Italian Military still feels the weight of the politics and ideologies behind WWII This forces Italian Authors trying to write about historical accounts to over rely on foreign authors, often British, which military was never shy to brag out to the press, or trying to find direct source which probably would be uneasy at being quoted directly. They might accept to discuss a topic in private but not to be in a public interview. The sad state of knowledge about the Regia Marina is then due to a mix of disinterest from the public, shyness from the veterans and, often, Anglo-Saxon sense of superiority, which does not apply, for example to the Germans. About the war itself, the mediterranean war was 99.9% a convoy war of attrition, with both the sides not really willing to commit to strike down the enemy forces. You could think of the arctic convoy war in a similar light, where very little action took place between military vessels directly. When it happened the radar played a mayor role as in the case of Matapan or the sinking of the Scharnhorst. You also have to understand that the RM could not afford to lose line ships as the British could. Facing a mayor naval battle and lose it was bad for both sides but would be crippling for the Italians duee to their inability to easily replace the losses. The fuel problem also became a huge weight on the Italian operation during the late years of the war, often preferring to send in action small vessels on escort duty as the capital ships were gauging too much fuel for the task. Taranto had been a big problem for the RN and if any will was remaining to take the RN on the sea, Matapan clipped it hard. Campioni from my point of view did not score a victory at Punta Stilo, but certainly did not lost the battle: with inferior Battleships and just a random lucky hit from the Warspite, calling it a "VICTORY" by Cunningham was just blatant war propaganda as he didn't damage the Italian convoy to the slightest and did not took out of action any of the Italian vessel for more then a few weeks. Campioni did exactly what he was asked to and strictly followed the rule of engagement which were given to him by Supermarina: provide cover for the convoy and refuse engagement with superior enemy forces if possible. The Italian critics on a political level about the Punta Stilo performance, all came from Admiral Iachino himself, which was actively trying to discredit Campioni and to take his position. We all know how well Iachino fared, but he was well protected at a political level and did not suffer the full consequences for his incompetence, exactly as Albini 70 years before him... 😒

its amazing how much internal struggle there was between branches of the army in the Axis main power -Navy and Air force in italy -Navy and Army in Japan -SS and Army in Germany

Drach (and Vincent) thank you both for a marvelous episode. Not your first discussion Drach on the RM but fascinating to hear the perspective from a published historian on it. Everyone always brings something new towards it. Please can you pass on our thanks to Vincent. And definitely explore the idea of a forum to discuss it as you both floated. Bravo as always.

Interviewing authors and historians has been a fantastic addition to the channel Drach!!

Halfway through the video and thus far this is an excellent interview. Great to see the Italian's getting looked at more fairly now.

I'm so glad that historians like Vincent O'Hara are around that can give us English translated references and information on these things. Now... if just there was a version of Vincent O'Hara for Japanese Imperial Navy sources...

I have Vincent OHara’s book on the Kriegsmarine and very much like it - I will have to look for this book too!

I have to say, Vincent O'Hara has completely changed my mind about the Regia Marina. I'd previously thought that only Decima Flotiglia MAS was any good, and that the surface fleet just skulked in port for most of the war -- or at best beat a hasty retreat when confronted by the Royal Navy. But not so. We live and learn!

People often underestimate how good most Italian ship designs were during WW2. If the Italian Navy had better shell reliability, Better Commanders, and larger oil supplies, Then they easily could have held the Mediterranean from the Allied presence historically present, Which would force the Allies to send significantly more Ships/Assets to secure it. If we use contemporary German ships as examples, is the Zara Class were the most well armored heavy cruisers until Late/post war while still carrying competitive firepower at only 75% the displacement of the Admiral Hipper class. And the Littorio Veneto class were arguably better then the Bismarck class and far more weight efficient for it. (10,000 Ton difference) Now of course if we factor in the Shell inconsistency and terrible Command then overall those German ships would still perform better as we saw IRL. And as SaltyWaffles said bellow, Ship designs alone cant make a Navy work. Though thats not really point of this comment. Edit: Clarified some things above, and added a bit more detail.

Thanks from ITA for covering more our navy

When i was a kid my grandfather would say to me, "if someone wants to teach you something, even if it seems silly or useless in that phase of life, let them. You can never know too much, and it may come back to help at some point". This is the best advice i ever took.

Can't believe I've just watched and enjoyed an hour and a half of Italian naval history, great chemistry between these two historians, compulsive watch. Thanks..

Italian admiral: Hans, they spotted us at beyond visual range in middle of night!? German admiral: Oh that is radar mate. We had that for few years. Italian admiral: surprised pikachu face

The Regia Marina often gets derided as a joke, but it fought rather well considering the limitations it suffered from and tied up significant British Forces in the Mediterranean. This is particularly impressive when you consider the British held the largest, most experienced Navy in the world at this time, benefited from Radar, and carriers as well as half the Italian Battleships being crippled at Taranto at the start of the conflict.

Drach: I'd love to see a special like this on the Soviet Navy in WW2. Another misrepresented and overlooked chapter in the war.

Finally, I’ve been binging on the Mediterranean in WW2 and now I’ve finally got some good stuff to watch about it. Thanks Drach!

Thank you Drach and Vincent O'Hara for this intense and interesting review about the Italian Navy in WW2. The arrival of the Italian surrendered battle fleet in Maltese waters escorted by British warships was a denouement undreamt of by even the most optimistic Maltese during the previous three harrowing years of the war. Following the signing of the second armistice document on HMS Nelson in Grand Harbour on September 29, 1943, most of the Italian warships were allowed to return to Italy.

Don't forget the submarine Leonardo De Vinci, which was the top scoring non-german submarine of the war, in the hardest submarine threatre of the war. So it performed better than any US, British, Japanese or Russian Sub and many German ones as well.

As an passionate student of military history I really love this beautiful content… Italian mentality has always been to a create a mythology on the big defeats, involving any branches of the armed forces; rather then the victories. So the first negative reports Italian military activities during all the wars were Italians historians. Thinking of Adua 1889, Caporetto.. Night of Taranto etc.. Italian Navy in WW2 with many handicaps, political, decisional, structural and technical did a honest war against all the opponents. I am sincerely happy to listen to people and scholars like you talking of history with objectivity, honesty and PASSION. Big support from Italy to you and to all the fans of your channel (not to the ones Who will open useless topics on the comments to on which country was better which was worse based on cliches and ignorance). Keep it real.

First of all thx for the honesty, i am a historian from Italy: Italians believed a lot in long range fight and dictating the engagement thrue speed unfortunately the 380mm for example had a very short life span so the "volley" had a lot of dispersions making this long range tactic useless. There is a lot of italian documents and comparations that show how badly this cannons where peforming and where inclined to wear down prematurely, soo much that the navy limited the training sessions since build and replace this big cannon was a costly task. Another issue was the lack of night training , the lack of development of radar even if they had a rudimental one called "GUFO" (Owl) the development was slow and even if the navy ordered 150 of it plus 50 of the Folaga (ground version) less then 30 where built by the time of the armistice and only 1 unit got a GUFO the Light Cruiser Scipione Africano. 47:35 Italy had a radar in development since 1935 they didnt got informed by the Germans "about" but there was a serious lack of funds... only after matapan they researchers (mainly Alfeo Brandimarte) got enought to develop the italian radar but is not like the guest put it.. the italians know about but their doctrine didnt include fight at night so it wasnt a priority, until it become obvious that the lack of air coverage made it so. About the lack of aggressiveness the italians had the syndrome of "Lissa" (where italian navy lost vs the austro-hungarian one in the third indipence war 1866) what english speakers refer as concept of "Fleet in being" as long it exist it limit enemy strategic and tactical thinking under the menace of a possible italian fleet intervention. 58:33 Another myth to dispell is the lack of morale or quality of the troops of the navy, the english press made a lot of propaganda exploiting certain situation to depict a false narrative, for example when at Cape Matapan the first heavy cruiser squadron was surprised at night towing the Heavy Cruiser Pola by an english squad of battleships.. the italian crew was rescued and the english said they where all Drunk! In reality they where drunk becouse they abandon the Pola and then board it again so to cheer them up they gave them a lot of Wine, so when the other Cruiser sunk as well those crew where rescued again.. and the british assumed they where all drunk! Another big issue is the depiction of Italians as traitors, Germany violated 395890430 Peace Treaty but for history they are just "smart" Italy did once and is a traitor, and dont get me wrong how the King and Badoglio manage to defect and even half/fool the germans was very deceiving but they also betrayed the italian nation and army who was left withouth guidance and since they forgot to declare war to Germany after the armistice for 35 days for the international law italian soldiers where unlawful for the international legislature about war.. and germans took advantage of it taking 1ml prisoners and killing entire divisions like the Acqui division in in the greek island of Celafonia. (Acqui chose to fight instead surrender) And is significative that of the 1ml italians captured only 94k chose to fight together with the Germans.. Italians didnt like germans and didnt want to fight a war on their side, (even the majority of the italian Fascist leaders didnt like Germany, the decision was made by Mussolini against the opinion of the majority of his entourage) another interesting fact is that Italy informed Germany that they wher unable to make a war before 1942-1943 and both Hitler, Ribbentrop, and their diplomatic in rome Mackensens ensured (verbally) that there will be no war before that, so the italian impreparation was known by the germans but they acted anyway and when italy was in no position to enter the war they even accused them of being unfateful to the "iron pact". (Italy finance was broken becouse of occupation of Abyssinia/Ethiopia and intervention in spanish civil war) Even about ww1 there is a lot of mis-conception we talk about Caporetto a lot but we forget to say that Italians did 13 offensives, they where always on the attack during ww1 unlike french-english and when the war ended Italy was in Austria while French "won" with germany still holding part of their territories.

Heck, I'm going to rewatch this one several times! My most favourite navy of both 1st and 2nd WW. VIVA REGIA MARINA!!! ❤️❤️❤️

More. I need more!! I wasn't even that interested in the Italian navy before this but now I demand more!!....looks like I gotta go buy more books...

One of the largest back then, yet overshadowed.

The casuals like me probably just think of all the RN / RAF exploits in the Med as negating everything the RM aimed to do. Of course I know this is wrong, so I'm glad you made this video.

Bloody banger. There’s 3 things I love hearing about from the period; Italy’s war, Japan’s war in China & Finland’s wars.

My Grandfather fought in both world wars in the Royal Navy (and all the years in between) Most of his WW2 experience was in the Med. He participated in the Malta runs and was badly wounded after his ship at the time (I think it was HMS Tiger) was bombed in harbour and he was one of those who caught the brunt of it. He was invalided out of the Navy after a long period in hospital and never fully recovered from his injuries - he died in the '70's. I never really got the chance to milk him for his wealth of experiences but we did have a conversation a long time ago about the Italian Navy. I can remember him saying that if they had come out of harbour in strength the RN would have been able to cope with them and probably finish them once and for all but he commented they were too canny for that and came out, took a bite out of Britain's finest and then went back to where it was all but impossible to get at them. They were a constant nuisance you could never turn your back on and yet never quite get to grips with. They were a constant threat and he remembers hearing reports, rumours or otherwise, of the Italian fleet putting out to sea and there was always a mixture of Oh good and oh shit! as a response to the news - fake news or otherwise. He commented they knew exactly what they were about and were probably more effective because they did not come out and fight en masse than if they had - in which case they would have been overwhelmed by both air and sea power. At the time I put it down to an old sailor giving his foe a modicum of respect they perhaps did not warrant. I have read articles since which sort of support the Italians rather than denigrate them and your interview above sort of cements that for me. I knew the Italians were able to intercept and read much of our signal traffic which gave them what seemed at the time what appeared a sort of sixth sense - to hear your summation was no great surprise. Thanks for a fascinating supporting statement pretty much along the lines of what Grandad told me. It was an opportunity missed as I look back - we were rarely even in the same country as him so it would have been all but impossible but I wish I had somehow managed it. His brother went down with Kitchener on Hampshire. Opportunity missed indeed.

Over the last year or so, your presentations have sent my opinion of the Italian Navy on a 180 degree spin. It was far more capable and effective than it has ever been given credit for. Thank you for that.

finally a honest coverage of the Italian navy and not just repeating "stereotypes"! These are professional reports I'm looking for! it's a pity that we still find these exaggerated and partly fictitious reports about world war 2 on KZfaq! your report is really helpful, especially if you study history, appreciate very much your video. keep up your great work👍

This dropped literally a day after I got into binging about the subject. Phenomenal stuff, thanks lads!

Thankyou Drach and Vincent I've been educated, from being completely disregarding of the Regia Marina, now to sharing Vincent's enthusiasm for learning more about it and getting the real historic picture for their true warfighting worth. Your videos, even before this one, have helped me to change my thoughts and opinions of the Regia Marina. I appreciate now how good a force they actually were and equally with what potential they had to really make life hard for Cunningham in the Med. More please!

About wars, I have read few books but I have noticed that good guys always win! That is just incredible

That was a truly excellent discussion about the Regia Marina, and it's great to see a genuine appraisal of the exploits of the Italian Navy in WW2, and not the usual, biased nonsense so many "experts" like to spout on forums such as this. I'm currently reading Struggle For The Middle Sea by Vincent P. O'Hara, and although I'm only finished chapter 3, I can already tell, this is going to be another superb work. One thing I wasn't aware of was just how good Italian intelligence was, they were really on the ball with that.

1:06 "THANK YOU ALEX." Another mystery of the universe...sadly revealed. I suppose 'Alexander' is an appropriate name. But it wasn't on my list. I speculated that it was 'Nelson'. Or 'Horatio'. Or 'Spongebob' What names were on your list?

Wow! Pleasant surprise. Looking forward to hearing all this. Thanks Drach!

The Italian capitol ships were like their art...fascinating. They really needed a carrier force to boldly dominate the Med.

"Not only should Tunisia have exploded the myth of Hitler's military acumen, it should have discredited the idea that Germans fought better than the Italians, since Messe's 1st Italian Army held out longer than Arnim's 5th German Army and the DAK, even both groups had about six divisions and faced roughly equal Anglo-American forces. Indeed, Hermann Goring division was the first to be scattered on 7 May, DAK the next to break and surrender on 9 May, with the Italian Spezia division closing the gap created by the German collapse and watching still combat-efficient German units march off into captivity on 11 May. Whether it is significant that the German 90th Light division was the first to collapse in Messe's 'Italian' Army, there is no doubt that the Italians fought well and held out longest in Tunisia." (The Second World War: The German War 1939-1942, Jeremy Black, Page 265, Ashgate, 2007)”

Una bella interpretazione di una grande storia di coraggio, vittoria e sconfitta.

Very interesting discussion. The Regia Marina made the best of its possibilities.

An outstanding, much-needed and refreshing analysis of the Regia Marina's objectives and performance during WW 2. Puts a lot of myths and stereotypes finally to rest.

Mr. O'Hara is such an excellent speaker. I haven't gotten around to reading his books, but I've spoken to him in person and listened to his episodes of the Proceedings podcast and he's always very erudite, friendly, and generous with his time

since you are talking about Regia Marina and Battleships ending up too close to Torpedo Boats a good mention would be also Miklós Horthy of k.u.k. Kriegsmarine in WW1 when going down with his 4 battleships (escorted by destroyers and minor units) the Adriatic sea for a raid on the Otranto blockade encountered two Italian MAS torpedo boats that attacked hitting the battleships Tegetthoff and Szent István, the former being hit without consequences by a torpedo from MAS21 that did not explode, the latter being hit successfully by 2 torpedos from MAS15 sinking her in a about 3 hours.

One thing that impressed me that I had not known before was the ability of the Italian Navy to learn from its mistakes and improve. That was something that the Japanese did not seem to be able to do.

I'm so glad that Drach's well-deserved popularity and respect has grown to the point where he not only gets interesting and informative guests, but some of today's top Naval experts. Even though I don't know him, I'm proud of him, (and delighted for him)! I'm also really glad that Mr. O'Hara's audio is good. Another top-notch video Drach, ...so much better than the majority of the "major" documentary shows in production today. Keep up the stellar work, (and we'll keep enthusiastically watching)! It's great to have three "shows" to look forward to each week.

Discussion of the politics of post war reporting on the conflict around 30mins in top stuff, thank you both.

Oh yeah, 90 minutes of Drach! The perfect way to start my Wednesday

I always thought the WWII Italian navy was remarkable considering their relative shortage of budget and materials. Nowadays, of course, EVERYONE with money wants a spectacular Italian motor yacht.

Just want to say thank you for these long videos I listen to them at work and it makes they day so much more bareble.

So nice to gear from an American historian who reads history from the point of view of other powers of the time. I'm off to find some of his works!

A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one

~32:00, it's not just about honoring those that died, honest review is also about the next potential conflict.

Thank you for this presentation, I knew we in this country were missing a more balanced viewpoint, this opened up a hitherto barrier.

Not knowing much about the Regia Marina I really enjoyed this discussion and learned quite a bit, thank you very much.

Congratulations. Another great video again. I too think the Italian navy does not get the credit it deserves in WWII. The only focus is in the big naval battles while looking down on the achievements of the flotillas and comando like forces (Suda, Alexandria...) and above all on being able to keep open the sea lines to North Africa till the very end. To my mind a resounding success of the whole navy, from small escorts to the battleships and its men. Not only the British surface fleet. In such a small restrcted area, and with the allies able to bring as many submarines as they wanted, the Italian achievement seems remarcable.

I would love to see a video on the dutch gunboats as it seems they had many . and all had interesting service lives during their carreers ,

This video was very educational! I had to unlearn quite a bit, thanks.

Thank you for covering the Italian navy achievements in WW 2.Great information.

Mussolini himself said that Italy would be ready for war in 1943, if that. They knew, they aren't ready, their soldiers didn't have boots and food rations, they had no fuel! Their unwillingness to fight was pretty much because they were fighting Germany's war, not Italian war.

thank you so much for this video, and thank you O'Hara. very interesting and something I was mostly unaware of. How very resilient the italians are, I mean to be honest, it took all of the allies (like 11 nations?) 2 years to invade all of italy (vs northern italians and germans). how weird is that? france and poland fell in about a month each.... food for thought.

Ah splat! I have literally read 0 naval history books in my life, yet I watch this channel quite often.

Thanks Drach for hosting Vince O'Hara! It was a treat.

Strange day. I have only one photo of my grandfather. He is onboard the deck of a cruiser posing with a bunch of italian officers. Perhaps your guest would be interested in a copy. So yesterday, the same day as you did this, I decided to finally hunt down what ship it is and identified it as the Bolzano. I think he was chief engineer. Before the war he had taught engineering at the navy school in venice. He died after the war in a POW camp in turkey, thus I never met him. After identifying the ship I looked at more photos and am pretty sure I can see him in another shot of the crew on the Bolzano. Now I have just discovered this video! I am one of the directors of the film Secrets of Blackmoor and the discussion on research and bias in histories due to piolitical forces and trends was very refreshing as I had similar experiences researching for our film. Total side note, if you play war games we are doing a kickstarter right now for a naval war game with small metal ships. I'm not trying to spam your channel so I will not leave a link. I just seem to personally be in the midst of a naval history storm right now and just had to comment. I enjoy your videos very much and have watched many of them. - Griff

The Italian's had the best looking cruisers of WW2 hands down. The Hipper class is a close second.

Just a shout out to a great channel from a history-buff. All history but especially WW2. This is my go-to channel for all things naval. Very much appreciated as it's my weakest area of knowledge

Excellent video. It's nice having my knowledge of the Italian navy in the War, which in my youth had been limited to the sinking of the HMS Valiant and Queen Elizabeth in Alexandria in December 1941 (George Weller's 'The Story of Submarines"). Much like the videos on the various "Free Navies" videos. Thank you!

Italy is an aircraft Carrier in itself.

Ive been looking for Regia Marina details for a while now. Thanks for posting

Another great collaboration, enjoyed it a lot. And learned some new facts. Thank you gentlemen.

Italian ships had some great lines and curves and.... well, they're good looking ships. ;-)

Only 17 years to get a major ship into service. If things were so quick these days.

A nit to pick - dirigibles (and blimps) often have a buoyancy in air slightly less than their gross weight, with lift generated by their airfoils (and/or overall shape) and forward airspeed making up the difference so as to prevent unintended/uncontrolled altitude gain. Attaching a Zeppelin to a ship would not decrease its gross weight by much if any, regular balloons filled with hydrogen would provide the greatest lift. Fun fact: Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH is still in business with the semi-rigid dirigible NT model in production. Fun fun fact: The current Goodyear "blimps" are actually Zeppelin NT airships, with Goodyear phasing out the last of their self-made blimps about a decade ago.

I am the odd one who had never heard of Vince O'Hara - until now. I consider myself educated, and thank you.

Does this mean we might have a special on the Italian frog men! Like the almost James Bond esque operation across from Gibraltar.

Great stuff. Such a nuanced subject. Over simplified good small ships and bad bug ones.

WONDERFUL!! How fast an hour and a half goes with such an engrossing topic! Well done gentlemen!

Your documentaries are dynamite! Informative and entertaining. Thanks for arranging time with all these experts.