Italian Partisan Weapons in WWII
Italian Partisan Weapons in WWII

Author: Gianluigi Usai

Publisher: Schiffer Military History

Published: 2016-12-28

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9780764352102

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This book covers all classes and types of small arms, from pistols to heavy machine guns, known to have been used by the Italian partisans during WWII. It provides a brief history of the origin and development of the partisan movement in Italy following the 8 September 1943 armistice between Italy and the Allies and subsequent occupation of the northern portion of the country by Germany. There are many relevant examples of correspondence between partisan units relating to acquisition, distribution, use, maintenance, and problems encountered with the various types of small arms available. The majority of the pages of this book are dedicated to a complete, thorough, and extensive coverage of each individual type of weapon known to have been used by the partisans, including specifications, supported by current as well as vintage photographs showing the weapons in use by the partisans.

World War II Partisan Warfare in Italy
World War II Partisan Warfare in Italy

Author: Pier Paolo Battistelli

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-08-20

Total Pages: 65

ISBN-13: 1472808940

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When Italy surrendered in 1943, it sparked a resistance movement of anti-German, anti-fascist partisans. This book explores the tactics, organizational structure and equipment of the brave Italian resistance fighters. Beginning with low-level sabotage and assassinations, the groups continued to grow until spring 1944 when a remarkable, unified partisan command structure was created. Working in close co-ordination with the Allies, they received British SOE and American OSS liaison teams as well as supplies of weapons. The German response was ferocious, and in autumn 1944, as the Allied advance stalled, the SS and Italian RSI looked to eradicate the partisans once and for all. But when the Allies made their final breakthrough in the last weeks of the war the partisans rose again to exact their revenge on the retreating Wehrmacht. From an expert on Italian military history in World War II, this work provides a comprehensive guide to the men and women who fought a desperate struggle against occupation, as well as the German and Italian fascist security forces unleashed against them.

Italian Small Arms of the First and Second World Wars
Italian Small Arms of the First and Second World Wars

Author: Ralph Riccio

Publisher: Schiffer Publishing

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9780764345838

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This is the first comprehensive work, in either English or Italian, to address Italian small arms used during World War I and World War II. It describes each weapon and covers the developmental history and use of all Italian designed and produced pistols, rifles, submachine guns and machine guns used during both conflicts, as well as prototype weapons and foreign weapons used by the Italians. Other appendices cover bayonets, accoutrements, markings, ammunition, small arms manufacturing facilities, Italian small arms designers, production summaries, and collector's notes. It includes many previously unpublished photographs and background information on small arms producers, ammunition production facilities, and designers. In addition to the new material, it also corrects previously published errors about Italian weapons. AUTHOR: Ralph Riccio spent twenty years as a U.S. Army military intelligence officer. He has written numerous magazine articles, many in Italian, as well as having authored several books dealing with Italian and Irish military equipment and history. His native Italian fluency has enabled him to develop extensive contacts with Italian military history experts and to delve deeply into research on Italian weapons and history. This latest book on Italian military small arms is the culmination of years of research on the subject. ILLUSTRATIONS: 608 b/w and colour photographs

Churchill's Hellraisers
Churchill's Hellraisers

Author: Damien Lewis

Publisher: Citadel Press

Published: 2020-08-25

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 0806540761

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From award-winning war reporter Damien Lewis, the untold story of the heroic hellraisers who stormed a Nazi fortress—in one of the most daring raids of World War II . . . Winter, 1944. Allied forces have liberated most of Axis-occupied Italy—with one crucial exception: the Nazi headquarters north of the Gothic Line. Heavily guarded and surrounded by rugged terrain, the mountain fortress is nearly impenetrable. But British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is determined to drive a dagger into the “soft underbelly of Europe.” The Allied’s plan: drop two paratroopers into the mountains—and take the fortress by storm . . . The two brave men knew the risks involved, so they recruited an equally fearless team: Italian resistance fighters, escaped POWs, downed US airmen, even a bagpipe-playing Scotsman known as “The Mad Piper.” Some had little military training, but all were willing to fight to the death to defeat the Nazi enemy. Ultimately, the mission that began in broad daylight, in the enemy’s line of fire, would end one of the darkest chapters in history—through the courage and conviction of the unsung heroes who dared the impossible . . . “One of the most dangerous and effective attacks ever undertaken by this Regiment against the enemy.” —Lt Col Robert Walker‐Brown, MBE DSO, senior SAS commander “Action-packed . . . Battleground history buffs will be entertained.” —Publishers Weekly

Italy's Sorrow
Italy's Sorrow

Author: James Holland

Publisher: HarperCollins UK

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 133

ISBN-13: 0007176457

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James Holland's ground-breaking account expertly documents the German advance to the stalemate of the Gothic line and a segment of Italian history that has been largely neglected. The war in Italy was the most destructive campaign in the west as the Allies and Germans fought a long, bitter and highly attritional conflict up the mountainous leg of Italy during the last twelve months of the Second World War. While the Allies and Germans were slogging it out through the mountains, the Italians were fighting their own battles, one where Partisans and Fascists were pitted against each other in a bloody civil war. Around them, civilians tried to live through the carnage, terror and anarchy while, in the wake of the Allied advance, beleaguered and impoverished Italians were forced to pick their way through the ruins of their homes and country and often forced into making terrible and heart-rending decisions in order to survive.

The Italian Resistance
The Italian Resistance

Author: Tom Behan

Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)

Published: 2009-07-15

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13:

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Magisterial analysis of human history, from the first hominid to the Great Recession of 2008. Written from the perspective of ordinary men and women.

Tito's Partisans 1941–45
Tito's Partisans 1941–45

Author: Velimir Vuksic

Publisher: Osprey Publishing

Published: 2003-07-23

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781841766751

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The civil war that raged in Yugoslavia following the German invasion in 1941 was brutal, uncompromising and complex, pitting royalists, fascists communists, ethnic groups, and the Axis powers against one another in a shifting and bloody theatre of war. The Partisan forces under the command of Josip Broz Tito were a constant thorn in the side of the Wehrmacht divisions in the Balkans, prompting numerous anti-partisan operations. Using primary source material, stunning contemporary images and personal accounts, this book explores a well-known but little published subject for the first time, bringing to light the development, training, weaponry, tactics and combat experiences of Tito's formidable guerrilla force, and the events of this bloody theatre of World War II (1939-1945).

Hitler's Italian Allies
Hitler's Italian Allies

Author: MacGregor Knox

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2000-10-30

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9781139432030

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Fascist Italy's ultimate defeat was foreordained. It was a pygmy among giants, and Hitler's failure to destroy the Soviet Union in 1941 doomed all three Axis powers. But Italy's defeat was unique; the only asset that it conquered - briefly - with its own unaided forces in the entire Second World War was a dusty and useless corner of Africa, British Somaliland. And Italy's forces dissolved in 1943 almost without resistance, in stark contrast to the grim fight to the last cartridge of Hitler's army or the fanatical faithfulness unto death of the troops of Imperial Japan. This book tries to understand why the Italian armed forces and Fascist regime were so remarkably ineffective at an activity - war - central to their existence. It approaches the issue above all from the perspective of military culture, through analysis of the services' failure to imagine modern warfare and through a topical structure that offers a social-cultural, political, military-economic, strategic, operational, and tactical cross-section of the war effort.

Panzer Commander
Panzer Commander

Author: Hans Von Luck

Publisher: Dell

Published: 2013-10-09

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 0804151970

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A stunning look at World War II from the other side... From the turret of a German tank, Colonel Hans von Luck commanded Rommel's 7th and then 21st Panzer Division. El Alamein, Kasserine Pass, Poland, Belgium, Normandy on D-Day, the disastrous Russian front--von Luck fought there with some of the best soldiers in the world. German soldiers. Awarded the German Cross in Gold and the Knight's Cross, von Luck writes as an officer and a gentleman. Told with the vivid detail of an impassioned eyewitness, his rare and moving memoir has become a classic in the literature of World War II, a first-person chronicle of the glory--and the inevitable tragedy--of a superb soldier fighting Hitler's war.