Well, as for the Italian tanks, they were basically a few years behind in their design technology as compared to the UK, France, Russia, and Germany. Their tanks were good, maneuverable vehicles...but they were not heavily enough armoured to have much change of survival in combat against the British and American-made tanks they encountered in the western desert. As a result, they got slaughtered...not because they were running away, I might add...but you DO tend to run away after all your tanks and other equipment are smashed up and destroyed, don't you? Or else you just die.

The Italians have long been slandered for supposed cowardice during the war. They were not cowardly in the least, they simply didn't have mechanized equipment (and technology) capable of matching the Allied equipment they came up against...nor did they have an industrial output capable of matching Allied production.

And that's why they lost battles, not because of cowardice.

You can't win if your basic equipment and technology don't measure up to the opposition.

(In terms of the Italian Navy...they had some excellent modern ships, but they lacked shipborne radar, they had no aircraft carriers, and they lacked a naval air force. Those 3 factors rendered their battle fleet more or less blind and helpless in the Battle of the Mediterranean, and the British used the situation to great advantage.)

I don't think any WWII army could rightly be accused of cowardice in the field. Some of them could certainly be accused of having had poor leadership at times, however, and some of them did fight under great material or technological disadvantages. All three of those factors were true in the case of the Italian forces.