Friedrich

I think it was more technological than corruption - although this was endemic in Italy. Their light cruiser designs in particular suffered from numerous defects, only fully ironed out in the fourth group of Condotterei class.

They did not need Germans to help them though. Their action against Somerville at Cape Teulada was pretty fair but the opportunity to overwhelm Force H was lost by orders from Supermarina to withdraw. In fact the Italians did so well that the Court of Inquiry into the failure of the RN to achieve greater success was waiting for Somerville at Gibraltar when his ships docked! No messing around there..

Jumbo

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"Capital! We're nearly out of ammunition! Now we can get at them with the bayonet!" General Paddy Gough, 1st Sikh War