Mussolini's Navy: A Reference Guide to the Regia Marina, 1930-1945 Hardcover – October 15, 2012

I pulled the book out of the box last night, and was completely impressed. Photos I've never seen before, and a lot of wealth of information. Even though I have not read the book, I am very satisfied with the book and would highly recomend it to anyone interested in this subject. U.S. Naval Institute continues to live up to its reputation of top quality books. They recently released (last year) a hard cover book on the Italian Littorio class battleships, which goes way beyond "Outstanding!", filled with tons of great information and pictures.Just one comment from the Peanut Gallery: Is it my imagination, or am I witnessing more and more books, paintings, ship models, and other materials starting to make its way into the world and markets? Finally, the world is realizing that Italy had a very powerful navy in World War II. Definitely a force to be reconed with, and one that tied up the British fleet in knots during the first 3 years of the war. Finally, historians are starting to go around and bypass all the earlier writings from biased Britished authors and historians, who always seem to sum up the war in the Mediterranean with the phrase: "we had those bloody i-tise all the way!" For a second rate navy, and a nation completely isolated from the outside world, with no resources to replace its losses, the Italian Navy stood its ground with the British Navy until the day Italy surrendered. In fact, historians state that the British sank 3 Italian battleships in Taranto, which is false. All 3 were resurrected, 2 of which came back to haunt the British, while the third (Conte Di Cavour) was tied up in dry dock with no resources to fix her, or else she too, would have come back and joined the fight. In Cape Matapan, the HMS Warspite, Valliant, and Barham all joined on a point blank range masacre of 3 Italian Cruisers engaged in a rescue operation. The only Italian battleship that completely sank during the entire war came on the day of surrender, when the Germans dropped a guided bomb right into the B turret magazine of the Roma.This book looks very promising. Very well organized. A time chart of all events and activities. Photos I've never seen before, despite the fact that I have an extensive library on this subject. I give 5 stars.

I would like to echo the positive comments of other readers who have purchased this book.It is organized into ten chapters, which include: Chapter 1 - The Regia Marina from 1861 to 1939 (eight pages); Chapter 2 - Dockyards, Naval Bases, Ports, Shipyards, and Coast Defenses (eleven pages); Chapter 3 - Fleet Organization and Operations (sixteen pages); Chapter 4 - Ships in Service (118 pages divided into sections covering each type of vessel, e.g. battleships, cruisers, destroyers, war prizes, torpedo boats, etc.); Chapter 5 - Surface and underwater assault craft (six pages); Chapter 6 - Naval Aviation (six pages); Chapter 7 Italian Naval Camouflage in the Second World War (thirteen pages); Chapter 8 - Flags (one page); Chapter 9 - Uniforms, Ranks, Insignia and Decorations (three pages) and Chapter 10 - Who's Who of the Italian Navy in the Second World War (three pages).There is also a selected bibliography (two pages), Notes on photographic sources (one page) and the index (beginning on Page 236).Its only major shortcoming, in my opinion, is that a complete list of Italian naval vessels, with their commissioning dates and eventual fate, is not provided in a single accessible appendix.I have only been able to discern one factual error, in which the author states that the light cruiser Ulpio Traiano was sunk by British commandos in the Palermo shipyard on 1 March 1943 (p. 102). The wartime German Naval Staff War Diary notes the attack taking place on 3 January 1943. The explosion that fatally damaged the Ulpio Traiano also damaged three German R-boats (R-13, R-15 and RA-10).Despite the minor issues that I have highlighted, this book remains an outstanding and exceedingly useful reference source. The numerous pages of color plates (between pp. 208 - 209) showing the various camouflage schemes/ship profiles are particularly impressive. Highly recommended.

Mussolini’s Navy is an excellent piece of work, and Maurizio Brescia has done the English-speaking naval enthusiast an immensely valuable service in producing this book. It’s borderline breaking the laws of physics as to how much information and how many photographs are included in a book of 232 pages. Necessarily, the book is an overview, but having said that, there is more detail on some subjects here than I suspect there is in any book in English, and highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the Regia Marina during World War Two. About the only thing to keep in mind is that the book focuses on the Regia Marina, and doesn’t provide much information about Mussolini’s other navy, the RSI Navy after the September 1943 armistice.The book begins with a brief overview of the Regia Marina’s history from Italy’s independence through to the 1930s, and then has chapters on dockyards and bases, fleet organisation and operations and (by far the largest part of the book) ships in service between 1940 and 1945. It then has chapters on surface and underwater assault craft (a particular speciality of the Regia Marina), naval aviation, flags, uniforms, ranks, insignia and decorations, and a number of brief biographies of key figures in the Regia Marina during World War II.Throughout, the book is exceptionally well illustrated, with interesting photographs reproduced in good quality and at a good size (with a number of two-page spreads). Each illustration has an informative caption, and there is a 16-plate colour section containing plan profile views of selected ships and their camouflage schemes, some rare colour photographs, and flags, ranks and awards.The book itself is well-written (there is no sign at all it hasn’t been written by a native English speaker). The only black mark I’ve got against it is that when printed, the publisher managed to get the cover on upside-down, but given this is obscured by the dust jacket when the book is on the shelf, and not looked at when being read, this is immaterial.

A delightful book for those who fancy WWII naval lore. If the Italian navy had been better handled, had had access to better fuel supplies and not been subjected to so much political interference, it could have caused the Allies far more grief in the Mediterranean. Page upon page of crystal clear photographs showing deck and superstructure details. Exhaustive information on each of this navy's combat classes. The line drawings are very sharp showing the side profile of most combatant types. The only drawback is that there are no top view deck outline drawings, rather a disappointment for the modeler given the book's price. The color section is very well done showing the Italian navy's common camouflage patterns for all classes of vessels. This book is a natural complement to Bragadin's old classic "The Italian Navy in World War II" by USNI Press.

Das Buch geht in den ersten Kapiteln zunächst auf die Geschichte der italienischen Marine von 1861 bis 1939 sowie auf die Marinebasen einschl. Werften und Küstenverteidigungsanlagen und auf den Flottenaufbau ein. Bereits hier wird der sehr flüssig zu lesende Text durch eine gute und umfassende Bildauswahl ergänzt. Es schließen sich dann detaillierte Beschreibungen der einzelnen Schiffsklassen an. Auch hier ist wieder das sehr gute Bildmaterial zu erwähnen. Als nächstes folgen Kapitel über die Schiffstarnanstriche, Flaggen und Uniformen / Orden und ein "WhoŽs Who" der italienischen Marine im 2. Weltkrieg, sämtliche Kapitel ebenfalls sehr gut bebildert bzw. durch 12 Seiten Farbzeichnungen (Tarnanstriche) ergänzt.Ein weiteres gelungenes Werk von NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS, ich kann es jedem marinegeschichtlich Interessierten ohne Einschränkungen empfehlen.

Une pure merveille. Des photos fabuleuses. Je suis fou de cet ouvrage et pourtant j'ai déjà pas mal de bouquins sur le sujet, surtout italiens.

For some reason I was expecting an in- depth analysis of the fascinating political and strategic issues surrounding the Italian Navy in the 1930's, but this book, though written by a noted naval historian, does not really attempt that. This is what it claims to be, a 'Reference Guide', best used in support of other books dealing with naval history. It is most notable for its superb collection of period photographs, hundreds of them, mostly previously unpublished.The text is rather short- the historical background to the 1930's occupies just three pages. It does though makes some important points. The very extensive rebuilding of the old Cavour and Andrea Doria class battleships did not overcome their essential weaknesses and cost so much money that more useful construction was endlessly delayed: Italy built no new cruisers in the second half of the decade and completion of the new Littorio class battleships was protracted.There were many technical issues. The obscession with high speed resulted in unreliability and poor endurance. Heavy guns were mounted too close together: they had excessive velocity and thus gave poor accuracy. The author is uncritical of the controversial pugliese side defensive system, but he notes that although Italian ships were excellent in many ways the lack of advanced development, especially in radar and electronics generally, put the navy at a disadvantage in battle.Naval organization was bureocratic and relations with the Regia Aeronautica were disastrously bad. If convoy operations to north Africa were not very successful that had as much to do with lack of unloading facilities as with enemy action. The Italian author understandably defends the navys personnel with the comment that 'the Regia Marina earned the respect of its enemies and the gratitude of the entire Italian nation'- sadly neither statement (especially, as it happen, the second) is really true. Wartime operations are briefly covered in a 'time- line' fashion without much critical comment.'Miscellaneous warships' occupy the same space as battleships (12 pages) so detail given about the more important ships is necessarily limited. There are some nice side profile drawings, but no plan ones. However, If you are interested in such subjects as underwater assault craft (with which the Italians were very successful) these are well described and illustrated and we are reminded that Italy had many destroyers and a huge submarine fleet.This is a glossy, well produced large- format book and it covers a huge amount of ground, from dockyards and ships to uniforms and decorations. Given that so much space is given to photographs, overall a very good job is done, but really the best reason for buying it is for those photographs.