Re: What if the Italians hadn't been completely worthless?
It probably would not have made a difference. The Italian army was fundamentally flawed in a number of ways that better equipment was not going to fix.
First, there was a massive gap both socially and economically between officers and enlisted. Officers typically came from the more urban and educated northern proviences while the bulk of the foot soldiers were from more rural southern areas. Privilage and status left the enlisted often in a definitely fourth class status where they had little connection, and less confidence in, their officers.
Orgainzationally, the binary division was an orgainzational travesty. It lacked the numbers, flexibility, or depth to operate in a modern battlefield environment. On top of this the lack of motorization, communications equipment, engineering capacity, and a whole host of other related non-combat systems that were essential to modern combat were lacking as well.
To top these problems off, Mussolini was very wary of committing to a full and open alliance with Germany. Instead, the Italians ran a "parallel" war to Germany operating with them but virtually in autonomous fashion. Their units did not tie in to German ones for the most part. So, any weaknesses they had was going to still be present and not mitigated by a German presence.
On the whole, the Italians were simply completely unprepared for modern war economically, socially, and politically. A few changes in technology are not going to have any significant impact on this.
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