<P> In 1940, the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) could not match the overall strength of the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean Sea . After some initial setbacks, the Italian Navy declined to engage in a confrontation of capital ships . Since the British Navy had as a principal task the supply and protection of convoys supplying Britain's outposts in the Mediterranean, the mere continued existence of the Italian fleet (the so - called "fleet in being" concept) caused problems to Britain, which had to utilise warships sorely needed elsewhere to protect Mediterranean convoys . On 11 November, Britain launched the first carrier strike of the war, using a squadron of Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers . This raid at Taranto left three Italian battleships crippled or destroyed for the loss of two British aircraft shot down . </P> <P> The Italian navy found other ways to attack the British . The most successful involved the use of frogmen and riding manned torpedoes to attack ships in harbour . The 10th Light Flotilla, also known as Decima Flottiglia MAS or Xa MAS, which carried out these attacks, sank or damaged 28 ships from September 1940 to the end of 1942 . These included the battleships HMS Queen Elizabeth and Valiant (damaged in the harbour of Alexandria on 18 December 1941), and 111,527 long tons (113,317 t) of merchant shipping . The XMAS used a particular kind of torpedo, the SLC (Siluro a Lenta Corsa), whose crew was composed of two frogmen, and motorboats packed with explosives, called MTM (Motoscafo da Turismo Modificato). </P> <P> Following the attacks on these two battleships, an Italian - dominated Mediterranean Sea appeared much more possible to achieve . However, this was only a brief happy time for Mussolini . The oil and supplies brought to Malta, despite heavy losses, by Operation Pedestal in August and the Allied landings in North Africa, Operation Torch, in November 1942, turned the fortunes of war against Italy . The Axis forces were ejected from Libya and Tunisia in six months after the Battle of El Alamein, while their supply lines were harassed day after day by the growing and overwhelming aerial and naval supremacy of the Allies . By the summer of 1943 the Allies were poised for an invasion of the Italian homeland . </P> <P> In July 1941, some 62,000 Italian troops of the Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia (Corpo di Spedizione Italiano in Russia, or CSIR) left for the Eastern Front to aid in the German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa). </P>

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