I have been asked in a PM about the italian army organization and planning for WW3
Since I though the matter could be of general interest I have decided to reply in this thread.
Detailed italian OOBs can be found on the web. Here for example is one for the late 80’s
http://s.scribd.com/doc/37695/NATO-Order-of-Battle-1989
Scroll down to pg 104 and forward
Organization varied a bit during the various periods (in 1971 there would have been a few additional units and older equipment for example) but overall what you can find there gives a good idea even for earlier periods.
What the Army was planning to do with these units is the sort of info which is less widely available, especially in english. The following is what I have pieced together.
Broadly speaking the general plan was to fight a defensive battle near the national borders, which overlap with the most formidable geographical obstacles available.
The best units available were either already placed in, or planned to go to if things got hot, to the North-Est of the country.
The Fourth corps with the five mountain infantry brigades was to hold the northern areas facing Austria. This is a mountainous area which channels the passage into a series of choke points which were rigged for demolition and defended by some fortifications IIRC. The quality of the troops tasked with defense of these areas was also very good. Overall it was the sector which gave the planners the least worries. Further, a WARPAC invasion throught these routes would have inevitably faced austrian resistance first.
The Third and Fifth corps, with the mechanized and armored formations, was planned to defend the North Est sector towards the Jugoslavia. This was considered the most critical sector because of what was called the “Gorizia Gap”: a natural breach in the Alps mountains wide enough to allow an easy access to enemy mechanized formations. This gap was the focus of italian military planning.
In order to defend it permanent fortifications, with a depth of approximatively 25km, were built near the border. Typically it was Pershing tank turrets mounted on Panzerturm style bunkers, placed to command roads; they were to be used as speed bumps or to close secondary avenues of enemy advance.
The two corps were to hold their ground near the border on a depth of approximately 50km roughly located between the rivers Isonzo and Tagliamento, fighting a mobile defensive battle with limited counterattacks.
Overall it would probably have been a “do it or die” effort to hold a relatively thin line on a depth of 50km near the border (though I imagine that a withdrawal to the Piave river 40km behind the Tagliamento �* la WW1 could have been a theoretical option). There were not enough forces for a defence in depth and in any case about 70km behind the Piave river , or about 170 from the Gorizia Gap, the northern italian plain opens making defense against superior mechanized formations almost impossible.
If the 3rd and 5th Corps containment of the enemy advance was defeated it would have been game over. There was not much of anything else except penny packets of low category units still riding of vanilla M47 in 1989 spread all over the country.
Elusive Italians
Linear Mode
