At its peak the Italian Army contributed 2.5 million troops to the Axis war effort. In addition to its major role in North Africa, Italy's army invaded, and later bore the main burden of occupying, the Balkan countries. Italy also sent 250,000 men to fight on the Russian Front. In this second book of a three-part study Philip Jowett covers the organisation, uniforms and insignia of the Italian troops committed to both the North African campaign, and the often neglected East African fighting of 1940-41, including the colourful colonial units. Stephen Andrew's meticulous colour plates illustrate a wide range of uniforms.

---

Product Description

At its peak the Italian Army contributed 2.5 million troops to the Axis war effort. In addition to its major role in North Africa, Italy's army invaded, and later bore the main burden of occupying, the Balkan countries. Italy also sent 250,000 men to fight on the Russian Front. In this second book of a three-part study Philip Jowett covers the organisation, uniforms and insignia of the Italian troops committed to both the North African campaign, and the often neglected East African fighting of 1940-41, including the colourful colonial units. Stephen Andrew's meticulous colour plates illustrate a wide range of uniforms.

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #104896 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-25
• Released on: 2001-01-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 48 pages

From the Publisher
Packed with specially commissioned artwork, maps and diagrams, the Men-at-Arms series is an unrivalled illustrated reference on the history, organisation, uniforms and equipment of the world's military forces, past and present.

About the Author
Philip S. Jowett was born in Leeds in 1961, and has been interested in military history for as long as he can remember. Before beginning his series on the Italian Army of World War II he was the author of the much praised Men-at-Arms 306 Chinese Civil War Armies 1911-49. A rugby league enthusiast and amateur genealogist, he is married and lives in Leeds.

---

Customer Reviews

The incomplete works of the Italian Army in WWII
The Osprey Men-at-Arms series are designed to provide quick thumbnail descriptions for wargamers and modeler. In this case, Mr. Jowett focus is the Italian Army in WWII, specifically against France, Greece, Russia, and the Occupation of Yugoslavia. As with all Osprey Men-at-Arms book there's drawing in the center (8 panels, each with 3 soldiers in uniform for the point of focus).

My Likes:
This book covers something that's a little hard to find, information on the Italian soldiers uniforms. With the supporting drawings and the detail text on the panels in the back, you're able to develop a good idea of the colors of Italian soldiers uniforms.

My Dislikes:
My first dislike is the drawings; namely that Mr. Andrew's Italian soldier's noses are so large. I really with he'd draw them a little more like normal peoples noses. Having said that, that's the minor one. My real problem with this book is that there's very little on the Italian Army. We see a little battle history for them fighting France, Greece, and Russia, but nothing on the composition of the different Italian units. This is especially poor given that the author constrained himself to infantry formations and failed to include uniforms for Italian armored and airborne formations. The last piece that I have a problem with this book is that Mr. Jowett defines this book as covering the Italian Army from 1940 to 1943. The last time I checked, Sicily and the Italian mainland were invaded during this time period. Very poor form to cut short the time period you're covering Mr. Jowett.

The Rating:
I was very disappointed with the content. While the drawings were nice, they couldn't compensate for the order and writing. Mr. Jowett failed to cover the complete era (no coverage of Sicily or when the Italian forces were waiting for the Allies to land on the mainland) and totally failed to cover the armored forces. When you add to this that he failed to provide any description of the different types of units (what's the difference between Folgore, Alpine, Bersaglieri, and Fucilieri) or their formation and weapons, this book barely makes the cut at 2 stars. The only redeeming feature is the drawings and the associated text in the back, while up to the usual Osprey levels, it can't raise this turkey to the three star level. This one barely makes the cut for a modeler, and that's assuming they want to know about painting vs. the forces. Osprey, please put out a better quality book on the Italian Army in WWII. You're slowly losing my business.

Not all Italians have big noses!
Osprey's "Men-at-Arms" series follows a predictable format. There is some brief history, description of equipment, and the color "centerfold" illustrations of the soldiers in their uniforms with the described gear, and so on... This book with the other companion volumes about the Italian Army in WW2 is reasonably written but a bit dry. However, the illustrator,Stephen Andrew, though he did a nice job on the uniforms and gear, has depicted the men wearing those nicely done uniforms with cartoonish, huge-nosed, swarthy faces who all rather look alike. As an artist, I was vexed by this glaring defect in the illustration, and was considering whether or not the illustrator had done this intentionally as some sort of jab at Italians or just a lack of effort. One merely by browsing photographs of Italians will see that Mr. Andrew's idea of an Italian face is bizarre. And for those who are interested primarily in the soldier's gear and organization of the Italian Army of WW2 Rex Tyre's "Mussolini's Soldiers" is a better choice.

Participation of the italian army in second world war
This book splain very well the participation of the italian army in the second world war in the theater of north afrika, the drawings is good but I think that they wil be more detailed, the test is good and show how was hard the figthing against the english because they have lack of suplies, power and leadership.