Looking for pics of italian and french troops in action WWII

Skippy

Skippy

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I'm trying to find some pictures of Italian and French troops in action in WWII, specifically pictures featuring the use of the M 38 Carcano and MAS 36 rifles.

Can anyone help me out or point me to a good archive.
 
I recall seeing a bunch of pictures of smaller nation's armies in WWII.
They were in one of the books in the "World War 2" series. There are probably at least 20 of them, and they all have a big b/w pic taking up the whole cover (front/back) with no writing on the outside except metallic letters on the spine. I'm sure they won't be hard to find in a public library.

Theres one about the Mediterranean that has pics of Italian troops, and one about the partisans which should have some pics of Carcano's. I believe there's one called "The Early War" which should have some pics of French soldiers. Either way, find where they are in a library and browse through them until you find what you're looking for (there are hundreds of good pics in each book).
 
Laniru said:
Might be hard to get pics of those rifles in action as most were never fired and only dropped once.:p ;) :D
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As much as I despise the modern Republique Francaise, I take exception to your remarks. France lost more combattants than any other nation on the winning side of WW1 with the possible exception of Russia. In WW2 they fought as hard as any poorly trained and underfunded army could whilst stuck on the trench war mindset afforded by the Maginot line. They simply were not prepared to fight against the highly trained and battle hardened Nazi troops who had already conquered Poland and a few other countries, had served discreetly for years in Spain, and who had an entire nation's resources directed solely to bettering their armed forces.

Modern day France, on the other hand, is a political and military disgrace to the memories of their forefathers IMHO...
 
Here is a few from my WW2 folder :)

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Those pics of French soldiers are mostly WW1 era and all the depicted rifles are Berthier based rifles and carbines. I think he was looking for pics of the MAS36 in action?
 
If I recall, French colonial troops still had Berthiers in the early years of the conflict. They received mostly U.S. equipment later when they took part in the Lybian campaign at Bir-Hakeim, in Corsican and Sicilian landings and the subsequent operations in Italy (Moroccan "Goums" at Monte Cassino).
Much of the Mediterranean campaign that followed was made with U.S. issued equipment. My uncle Albert Ferrer used various US made armored vehicles during the Toulon landing and the subsequent Rhône valley operations during the following year.
PP.
 
Claven2 said:
As much as I despise the modern Republique Francaise, I take exception to your remarks. France lost more combattants than any other nation on the winning side of WW1 with the possible exception of Russia. In WW2 they fought as hard as any poorly trained and underfunded army could whilst stuck on the trench war mindset afforded by the Maginot line. They simply were not prepared to fight against the highly trained and battle hardened Nazi troops who had already conquered Poland and a few other countries, had served discreetly for years in Spain, and who had an entire nation's resources directed solely to bettering their armed forces.

Modern day France, on the other hand, is a political and military disgrace to the memories of their forefathers IMHO...
Click to expand...
I know that I dissed the french above, and in many ways they derserved it but some units fought well.
In the Battle of the Meuse from May 13-16, 1940 the 22nd fought of Rommel's 7th panzers before being orderd back and losing cohesion. More impresive was the 102nd Infantry Fortress Division which had practerly no support or transport. This unit held the line of the muese against the 8th Panzer division untill being flanked by the 1st, 2nd and 10th Panzers. The division then disintergrated. Equally the 61th Infantry, also held out against the 6th Panzer division.
These last two division held the german advance up for two days, which was pretty good considering the state of their equipment and the fact that they were at best, 2nd or 3rd line formations!
The General who had the most responsibilty for the loss of France was General Huntziger, Commander of the 2nd Army. He calmy retired from Sedan, ordered the Xth Crop on his left to dig in and allowed the XIX th Armoured Corp , Commanded by General Guderian to take Sedan and turn west and take the French 9th Army in the rear. He never followed through on ordering a counterattack!! Unfreaking-beliveable!!
 
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