Italian Armoured Units from the Armistice to the end of the Second World War

The Armistice of September 8, 1943, affected the Royal Italian Army's armored units not only in the country but also abroad. As with all the other Armed Forces, they were not immune to the storm and even these units' reactions to Badoglio's tragic announcement were disparate. The text begins by analyzing how the armored units behaved in those tragic moments: some disbanded, but others resisted the attacks launched by the Germans, recalling the heroic episodes of Resistance that occurred in Rome, Piombino, Parma, Piacenza, Sardinia, and beyond. The text proceeds with an analysis of the (failed) attempts to rebuild armored units within the co-belligerent Royal Italian Army. On the other side, in Northern Italy, with the birth of the Italian Social Republic, the reconstitution of an Army was a difficult process, in part strongly opposed by the Germans. The few armored units were formed mostly on the personal initiative of a few officers and, for this reason, were small in size. The study summarizes the history of the main armored units (the "Leoncello" Armored Group, the "San Giusto" Armored Squadron Group, and the "Leonessa" M Armored Group) and the units that employed only a few armored vehicles. The book is completed by the description of the contribution made by the Tank Corp to the partisan struggle for liberation.