The Kingdom of Italy entered World War II in 1940, with an armed conflict with France and Great Britain. Of course, the Italian officer corps stood at the head of the Italian army of 59 divisions. In fairness it must be said that despite the exceptions, a significant part of it in the 1920s and 1930s was more concerned with the experiences of the Great War than considering what the future war might look like. Still, the main strength of the land forces was primarily infantry and artillery, even if steps were taken to motorize and mechanize the Italian army. It should also be added that probably several of the highest Italian commanders were aware of the lack of economic and military preparation of Italy for the war and were reluctant to the conflict with France and Great Britain. The Italian officer corps also had serious problems with the adequate motivation of its soldiers, despite a few glorious exceptions (Bersalier units or the Folgore division). Despite the generally gloomy image of the Italian officer corps, there were glorious exceptions, such as Gen. Giuseppe de Stefanis - a World War I veteran, commander of the 24th Infantry Division in 1941 during the fighting in Greece (where his division did very well), and later inter alia, the commander of mechanized units (eg 132 "Ariete" Panzer Division), and finally the Italian XX Corps during the fighting at El-Alamein.
The Kingdom of Italy entered World War II in 1940, with an armed conflict with France and Great Britain. The main type of Italian land armed forces was the infantry, which at the beginning of the war numbered 59 divisions. It is worth adding that the Italian infantry divisions in 1938 underwent a deep reorganization. A single division after such a reorganization was called from the Italian " divisione binaria ". This reorganization was based on the introduction of a division composed of two infantry regiments, instead of three, which was used, for example, in the German army. Moreover, the Italian infantry division also had (after 1938) support artillery regiments, a mortar battalion, an engineer battalion and a company of anti-tank guns. Of course, there were also staff and communications units, etc. A single Italian infantry regiment usually consisted of 3 or 5 battalions. Support weapons in the Italian regiment were: 24 heavy machine guns, 108 light machine guns, 6 81 mm mortars, 54 45 mm light mortars and 4 65 mm light infantry guns (Cannone da 65/17). The artillery regiment was equipped with 36 100 and 75 mm guns. Most often they had horse traction. It is worth adding that the divisions stationed in Libya had a slightly different structure, as they had three infantry regiments (each with an artillery company) and an artillery regiment, however, consisting of only 77 mm guns. Such a division consisted of about 7,400 people. In the course of the fighting in North Africa, efforts were made to increase the motorisation of Italian infantry divisions, but with only a limited effect.