Early war engineers

[Kool Kat]

Gents:

I located the following interesting quote from a paper titled; "The Italian Army in WWII" by W. W. Turnbow.

Engineers

A. Under Italian doctrine, engineers were considered to be technical, rather than combat, troops. Engineer functions were conventional; work communications zones, erect obstacles, clearance of obstacles, laying of minefields, water supply, and supply of engineer materials. Also, in the Italian army, the providing of signal communications and the supplying of hydrogen for captive ballons were engineer functions.

B. The success of the German Assault Engineers encouraged the formation of Assault Pioneers known as Guastatori (destroyers). These forces were organized into battalions. They were patterned after similar German units and the Assault Engineer School at Civitavecchia was organized by a German engineer, a Col Steiner, in March 1940. The attacks by pioneers (Guastatori) were nearly always carried out at dawn, the objective having been approached during the night. Assault engineers were used against tanks at night. Personnel did not lay mines, but were trained in removing them should they impede their progress.

So; indeed, Italian engineers should have similar combat capabilities as their German counterparts.