Italian Army conducted against the Suez Canal and targets in North Africa, to no effect whatever The Italian Air Force then sent several squadrons to fly on the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1943 Its main wartime achievements came in the Mediterranean, especially against British convoys making the run from Gibraltar to Malta But even there, undersized bombs and primitive tactics led to minimal success against merchantmen Almost nothing was achieved against enemy warships before new models of aircraft and bombs were introduced in 1942 Similarly, Italian Air Force ground support capabilities were limited in campaigns in East and North Africa By mid-1943 the Regia Aeronautica had suffered such losses that it ceased to be a combat factor in any theater, including defending its home skies Upon the surrender of Italy in September 1943, the Regia Aeronautica had only 447 planes still operating, while its total losses were nearly 5,300 aircraft See also ace; airborne; air power; bombers; fighters ITALIAN ARMY “Regio Esercito.” The Italian Army made a supreme effort in the Great War from 1915 to 1918 during 11 battles along the Isonzo River It broke at Caporetto in 1917, but recovered with help from the Allies at Vittorio Veneto in 1918 Then it became essentially an imperial-colonial force in the 1920s and 1930s, fighting native armies with harshly brutal methods in Tripoli and elsewhere The Army again showed a brutal character in the Abyssinian War (1935–1936), during which it carried out numerous atrocities Although the Italian Army was reasonably large at 1.6 million men, it was wholly unready as war in Europe approached in the late 1930s Most Italian divisions were underequipped as well as poorly equipped Moreover, the third regiment of each infantry division was actually a “legion” of barely functional fascisti militia In 1939 Mussolini boasted that he had available 12 million soldiers in over 150 divisions In fact, he had 160,000 in just 10 divisions Moreover, the Regio Esercito was the only army to experiment with binary divisions: smaller divisions with just two battalions each Italian motorized or “self-transportable” divisions still did not have sufficient organic motor transport for their regiments in 1940; all other infantry divisions hardly had modern motor transport for their supplies, let alone the men Many rifles dated to the late 19th century, and other weapons were comparably inadequate These fundamental weaknesses were first exposed by the sharp repulse handed 30 binary divisions of the Regio Esercito by just four modern French Army divisions defending southern France when Italy attacked on June 10, 1940 The East African campaign (1940–1941) by Italian and colonial troops against British Army, Indian Army, and East and South African colonial troops only piled on more military humiliation So, too, did a losing desert campaign in North Africa against British and Commonwealth forces in 1941–1942, where Italian 5th Army was shattered and dissolved and 10th Army was destroyed Italian tankettes proved wholly inadequate when facing British armored divisions The elite “Ariete” armored division was high quality, but even it was repulsed by a heroic Free French infantry stand at Bir Hakeim in May 1942 The “Folgore” airborne division was also a crack Italian unit, but its skills were most often wasted as it was used in battle as a regular infantry division In July 1941, Italy sent three divisions as an 581