[treelo]

Avarghaladion, on 23 October 2010 - 05:50 PM, said:

Any air force that flies Piaggio P-180 Avanti, General Atomics, Eurofighter Typhoons, and soon F-35 Lightning II is aight by me. Not that GA make the most uh... reliable UAVs haha but they're still cool enough.

Italy's also the highest contributing Level 2 partner in JSF development.

It's Kaine's uncle and a balloon animal filled with helium.

All jokes aside I'd be highly cautious with allowing the Italians even half a pool cue in battle. Assuming by some miracle they don't surrender or retreat, there is a fairly good chance they'll be jabbing you in the eye with it when the going gets tough. Their military history consists mostly of being invaded and fighting amongst themselves, both of which they seem to excel at. Beyond that, they're utterly hopeless.

[Kenshiro]

They can always fall back on their mad jujitsu skills.

[MrReinhardt]

could be worse for Italy their flag could be confused with the Mexican flag.

[Typo 5]

Xani, on 23 October 2010 - 05:35 PM, said:

I'm thinking if I ever have children, I'mma have to have them with Typo.

This sounds about right~ Do you cook rice? ♪(ﾉ´∀｀*)ﾉ

[-Kaine-]

treelo, on 23 October 2010 - 08:53 PM, said:

It's Kaine's uncle and a balloon animal filled with helium.

All jokes aside I'd be highly cautious with allowing the Italians even half a pool cue in battle. Assuming by some miracle they don't surrender or retreat, there is a fairly good chance they'll be jabbing you in the eye with it when the going gets tough. Their military history consists mostly of being invaded and fighting amongst themselves, both of which they seem to excel at. Beyond that, they're utterly hopeless.

Actually during WW2, most of the battles which involved the italian troops were fought to the very end.. remarkably the battle of nikolayevka, the second battle of el alamein and the battle of keren.. so not really the cowards you claimed them to be..
Yes, Italy suffered many failures in WW2 but it was mainly fault of incompetent people in command and obsolete equipment dating back to WW1..
However.. that is the past, things have changed substantially by now..

[treelo]

It's funny you should mention Nikolayevka. I suppose you are aware of why the Italian troops fought so hard? That's right, it just happened to be in the way of their retreat. Perhaps if they had been issued with compasses that had the points reversed they might have kept fighting all the way to Siberia.

El Alamein was a resounding defeat, likewise with Keren. Maybe we've discovered a new trend... The longer Italians stay in a fight, the greater their chances of defeat.

It's strange you should bemoan the commanders, especially in the same post you tried to list Keren as proof of Italian skill. Even then, most battles were fought under the direction of German commanders, who apparently knew what they were doing. I suppose you mean Mussolini, in which case you'd be correct. Il Duce was a fool for assuming the Italians were capable of more than pretending to invade France after most of it had been conquered by the Germans. I have to agree with the equipment though, it really was terrible. I believe their tanks were lovingly called self-propelled coffins by the crews unfortunate enough to operate them.

Nice try though.

[MrReinhardt]

Quote

Yes, Italy suffered many failures in WW2

biggest was siding with Germany.

[Avarghaladion]

Wwwwwwwwwwow @_@... I was just saying that the aircraft aren't bad in a quasi-promotional statement about their current military expenditure (especially for such a small nation). All ridiculousness aside though, I don't think a nation's performance in WWII is any grounds on which to base judgment regarding the quality of its forces in the modern world. Italy was completely was completely hogtied so its failures against nations with fully developed economies and modernized armed forces is almost as bad as denouncing American Indians for being unable to stem the tide of European expansionism. Italy's economy was still heavily reliant on agriculture and they had no possibility of modernizing their forces in time for conflict. They lacked the money and the infrastructure, leaving most of their equipment as WWI +1 quality, absolutely incapable of succeeding in combat against the modernized forces of other nations (this is particularly true for their airforce). They had no business being involved at that point and Mussolini is really the only one to blame. The geopolitical situation at the time would have changed without their involvement, so given the way things went I'm glad they did get involved, but as a nation it was a mistake.

Size of their army notwithstanding, the equipment quality compounded with the retardation of Mussolini were pretty insurmountable issues that are essentially to blame for their crushing defeat. With the deck stacked against them and Mussolini rendering effective inter-service coordination virtually impossible, I would even go so far to argue that its impossible to gauge the true effectiveness of the circa WWII Italian armed forces accurately. Any nation with such catastrophic issues, especially regarding the leadership's ability to coordinate, is doomed in a time of war. Everyone can agree that Mussolini was an idiot but I should caution that its important to avoid basing bias regarding a people on the damage caused by one very stupid man in a position of power (on the same vein as judgments of Germany based on the actions of Hitler).

Modern post-Lebanon Italy is doing decent work and the kind of work that should be done in the current political climate.

This post has been edited by Avarghaladion: 24 October 2010 - 12:20 PM

[Xani]

Typo 5, on 23 October 2010 - 11:57 PM, said:

This sounds about right~ Do you cook rice? ♪(ﾉ´∀｀*)ﾉ

?

[-Kaine-]

Xani, on 24 October 2010 - 12:31 PM, said:

?

Omg that's so cute.. e.e

[Xani]

I don't know about the boys (and Treelo ) but I'm fairly sure you and I wouldn't be able to eat something so cute.

[-Kaine-]

Oh never..! If someone were to give that to me I'd probably embalm it to make it last forever..! lol *imagines archeologists finding the rice teddy bear a thousand years later* xd

[Typo 5]

Typo would eatchu~ ^-')b

[Wildstriker]

Bears are dangerous, therefore they must be destroyed.

[Avarghaladion]

Bears eat beets... Bears... Beats.. Battlestar Galactica

[Aleera]

Xani, on 24 October 2010 - 02:42 PM, said:

I don't know about the boys (and Treelo ) but I'm fairly sure you and I wouldn't be able to eat something so cute.

I wouldn't...

[Wildstriker]

[Wildstriker]

Aleera, on 24 October 2010 - 03:46 PM, said:

I wouldn't...

Man card revoked.

[Aleera]

Still have 4 left!

[Xani]

Are you forgetting dicks, dicks, dicks? That leaves you with 3 left!