Your own perception is correct in regards to the equipment, training, and motivation. Not all of Germany's European allies entered the war enthusiastically, and though each country was different, mostly they had relatively poorly-equipped forces with only a smattering of modern equipment, as well as outdated training and leadership. Though even the German Army was not always the invincible juggernaut we make it out to be, it was infinitely better prepared for war than the armies of, say, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, or even Italy.

For the most part the minor Axis powers were hampered by inadequate support from artillery, anti-tank, and anti-aircraft weapons. Battlefield transport relied on horses or Shank's mare, and a lack of radios and modern command and control systems meant they were slow to react. Largely there were infantry forces that would have been more familiar in the first world war than the second.

On the topic of enthusiasm for the war, it depended. Hungary, for example, harbored a lust to regain territories lost after the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy. However, support for the war dropped rapidly after their poorly equipped army was horribly mauled on the Eastern front.

Italy is another interesting case, in that it involved itself in the war quite readily but suffered constant setbacks. Italy has few natural resources and a poor industrial base, unlike Germany; it simply was not able to fight a war on such a scale. Despite delusions of grandeur, the Italian army was not equipped for the campaigns it undertook, and one must pity the Italian soldier sent to fight in Africa or Russia. Of course, there are still many examples of Italian soldiers fighting valiantly and succeeding. Perhaps the Italian memorial at El Alamein says it best - 'Without luck, not without valour.'

In short, none of Germany's European allies were truly prepared for a war on the scale of the second world war, and each of them suffered greatly for having chosen the wrong side. Does that answer your question?

My own perception is that they were poorly equipped, not as well trained, and also less motivated.

This is not far off the mark, but there is some room for greater nuance. With the notable exception of the Finns, the battlefield performance of the minor Axis powers on the Eastern Front was not stellar. There were multiple causes of this deficiency and these often reenforced one another throughout the course of the war.

German observers and liaisons to these formations frequently commentated that the rank and file of their Axis allies were actually rather capable soldiers, but usually under the caveat that these troops were not well led. There is a degree of truth to this charge; the officers of these satellite armies received less training and there was a degree of dead wood in the upper echelons of command. The domestic politics of these states, which were typically authoritarian dictatorships with trappings of fascism meant that political reliability was an important criterion for flag officers, which does not always coincide with martial skill. But there was also a degree of racialist snobbery in these charges. In a report to OKW given in May 1941, the head of Germany's military mission to Romania, General Erick Hansen claimed that Romanian officers were well acquainted with military theory, but they lacked the ability to implement them "on racial grounds, hardness and depth." This condescending attitude strained the relationship between the Germans and their allies throughout the invasion of the Soviet Union and the subsequent campaigns.

Part of the problem German officers had with their counterparts was the language barrier. Although German was part of the second language training for Hungarian and Finnish staff officers, it was not the norm for the other satellite armies. Italian and Romanian officer establishments preferred French as a second language, and sometimes learning German was up to the initiative of individual officers. The Germans exacerbated this problem by assigning relatively few liaison officers to these the satellite units, making it quite difficult to coordinate operations. This was apparent during Operation Uranus in November 1942 when General Ferdinand Heim's XLVIII Panzer Corps could not effectively coordinate with the only extant Romanian division with heavy equipment, the Romanian First Armored Division, because the latter's attached German signals unit had been overrun and its head liason officer wounded.

The language barrier was not the only problem facing Axis cooperation. One of the real problems facing the satellite armies, again with the Finnish exception, was that Barbarossa was not a war they had trained for. Most of their pre-1941 training emphasized defensive actions or cautious offensives, often planning against each other. There was a logic to this, since as small states, maintaining a smaller military establishment was within their economic means. It was also far more likely that they would face an invasion from one of their neighbors. These militaries did not envision participation in large mobile operations and cauldron battles as their forte. Despite their handicaps, these smaller armies were able to achieve some positive results. The Italian expeditionary corps (CSIR) arrived on the Eastern front in late summer 1941 and participated in the encirclements at Kiev despite the CSIR's many defects and German apprehensions about Italian capabilities. But such successes often came at a very high price which the satellite states could not afford to pay. The battles for Odessa in August-September 1941 bled the Romanian Army white, with some divisions suffering up to eighty percent casualties.

The high casualty rates underscore another key shortcoming of the satellite armies: equipment. These satellite armies often possessed obsolescent and an eclectic mixture of weaponry. The Romanians entered the war with four different calibers and type of infantry rifles. The small economies of these states could not reequip their forces entirely with up to date domestic equipment, forcing them to turn to foreign suppliers. The shifting and often confusing nature of the arms market of the 1930s meant that their arsenals had French, German, Italian, American (in the case of Finland), and German equipment. This created a logistical headache that was difficult to resolve. Again, German mentalities compounded this situation as economic and trade agreements with Eastern Europe were predicated upon a highly favorable balance of trade with Germany. The Germans were unwilling to part with modern equipment and their trade deals often damaged the economies of their allies. Shortages of equipment within the Wehrmacht often meant that Germany got the prize captured material and their allies the leftovers. Some Romanian artillery, for example, were pulled by French civilian limousines. This lack of motorization is apparent when comparing the ratio of men to vehicle in a typical infantry division. Axworthy cites figures that show a German division in 1939 had a ratio of 18:1, a Soviet division in 1941 21:, and a Romanian division in 1940 had only 176:1. This underdeveloped infrastructure fostered more inefficiencies. The lack of radios made artillery more inefficient as Romanian batteries often had to fire in one large barrage or none at all, further hampering the logistical nightmare. The CSIR, although it prided itself on motorization, had to self-cannibalize its own forces by stripping support units' equipment to function on the front.

The obvious solution to this problem was for the Germans to provide equipment and training. The problem was that German production shortfalls in armaments made equipping their allies a zero-sum game. Only in areas of immediate strategic need, such as the air defense of the Ploiesti oil fields, were the Germans more willing to part with up to date equipment. As the war progressed, the Germans relented and provided some more up to date equipment, sometimes recently superseded models, as an incentive for these satellite states to stay in the war. Finland, whose leaders had recognized quite early that Barbarossa had failed, received an influx of new equipment in 1943, which allowed them to stage a fighting retreat in Karelia the following year. The Slovak government in 1942 requested that its two divisions be removed from the Eastern front unless Hitler made good his promises to reequip these formations. The Slovak Premier Tuka also wrestled out guarantees of postwar arms supplies, asserting that the while the Slovak state "valued the protection promised by Germany, but the protection [should] not be that of the sheepdog for a flock o f sheep." Tuka's statement illustrates the larger shortfalls of the Axis alliance, as mutual hostilities and distrust permeated the coalition against the Soviet Union. Although Germany was the dominant partner of this coalition, these satellite states still possessed a degree of latitude within the alliance. The Germans often had to make half compromises in light of the demands of their allies for more support in the anti-Bolshevik crusade.

These interrelated deficiencies might not have been as serious to Germany's wider military misfortunes had Germany not needed their allies to fill in the gaps of their over-extended lines. This created a weak spot that the Soviets exploited, especially during Operation Uranus. Their satellite forces guarding the Sixth Army's salient lacked heavy equipment to deal with the Soviet counteroffensive, no matter how brave the soldiers on the ground were. The result was an alliance that was highly dysfunctional and is emblematic of the wider shortcomings of Third Reich's war effort.

Sources

Axworthy, Mark, Cornel I. Scafeş, and Cristian Crăciunoiu. Third Axis, Fourth Ally: Romanian Armed Forces in the European War, 1941-1945. London [u.a.]: Arms and Armour Press, 1995.

DiNardo, Richard L. "The dysfunctional coalition: The Axis powers and the eastern front in World War II." The Journal of Military History 60, no. 4 (1996): 711-30.

Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt. Germany and the Second World War, Volume IV: The Attack upon the Soviet Union Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.

-. Germany and the Second World War, Volume VI: the Global War* Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.

There were some crack Italian units. I mention three: the armoured divisions Ariete and Centauro, and the paratroop division Folgore. These units acquitted themselves well in Africa.

There are some answers, including one complex and counter-intuitive one. The first is simply that the troops were of lower quality. They received lower quality training and lower quality equipment because these countries simply couldn't afford the type of training and technical support that Germany could. Militaries are formed around needs. If the Rumanian staff says we need 300,000 men, then 300,000 are drafted and formed into units, trained, and sent to the front. Same happens if they need 600,000 men. But the amount of money doesn't change so equipment and training is worse. This happens in the modern world too. We say "Oh, we only need 80,000 men. We no longer need 100,000." So in theory the quality of training and equipment should improve. Naturally it does not as politicians seek to reduce spending always. Also in the modern world we do not really use our militaries so much so they often reduce size if spending falls to keep investment the same. But in emergency you need soldiers so this doesn't happen. A good example of this happening in postwar period is the British Army of the Rhine but that would be offtopic.

Rumania and Italy needed large armies because they were in a world war. Their economy couldn't keep up.

The other is institutional. These old-school armies, led by old-school officers (and this is true of the Italian NAVY too) felt that battle was a thing where two sides joined, fought it out, and then the winner took the field, the loser having withdrawn. If the loser hadn't the strength, he declined the fight and that was a rout. You can see this in how the Italians tried to attack Greece. They simply walked into Greek machineguns, having learned nothing from 1915. Germans had to bail them out.

Another example is Italian forces in Egypt. They were handed crushing defeat by Wavell. They expected to walk into the British, fight, and win due to huge numerical superiority. Didn't happen. They were not motorised and British used their motorised and armoured cavalry to attack their rear-area supply dumps. Consequently Italian troops were routed.

Why wasn't Italian army motorised? Firstly, Italy did not have the industrial output to motorise its army. Simply put it did not produce enough motors. This was true of Germany and Russia too and only Britain and the US fielded truly mechanised armies. But in Italy problem was more acute. They were less developed and so fielded a less developed army.

Secondly it did not really know about motorisation. Italy had experience with tanks. In 1935 it invaded Ethiopia (again) and used tanks. But they were more like tankettes and they suffered. In one case Ethiopian infantry actually gathered around an Italian tankette and pushed it over. So Italians weren't exactly enamoured with tanks. In 30s they did some exercises in Po Valley with mechanised forces and their most forward thinking officers, and established the two tank divisions I mentioned at the start. They never got around to making truly combined arms units or practicing combined arms except maybe some of their best units in Africa. Again Italy was not a developed country and couldn't produce so many good radios like US or Britain.

There are cultural reasons too. What does it mean to be a soldier in Germany in 1939? Especially a Prussian officer? What does its mean to be an Italian bersaglieri? I don't want to make any sweeping statements, but broadly cut, fighting wars was part of Germany's culture. And they had been successful in the field (And believed their only defeat due to stab in the back, not their strategic failure) ever since 1858 when Prussia defeated Denmark. Italy however lost its first war against Ethiopia, took almost nothing out of the first world war except a HUGE casualty list, and fared poorly against Greek and Ethiopian troops in 30s/1940. An Army needs a glorious tradition of victory. The British, Germans, French, Russians and Americans had all theirs. They had their Wellingtons, their Ludendorffs, their Napoleons and Suvorov and Washingtons. They had them in their dozens. Italy had none. Rumania had none. It had no tradition of decisive military victory and consequently (my supposition here) no reason to view war in the same way. If you win you can examine war objectively. You can say ah, war is good because it benefited us, let's improve on it. If you keep losing wars horribly then it's easier to see war for what it is, i.e. murder/disaster. And not to focus on how to be better at it.

The final answer is that smaller countries generally cannot develop militarily on their own. They don't have the wide technical access. Soviet Union was a poor country per capita, but in total it was a wealthy one, with a govt that could concentrate its resources on military technical/organisational development. True of Britain too - it was a rich developed country whose inventors, technical designers and researchers had a lot more resources, and its industry - along with Germany and America's - was more technically advanced, with more precision parts. Technical advancement in a /closed/ world is exponential. Today we live in an open world, so it is different - an advance in Belgium can be utilised in Estonia, or Sri Lanka. But in those days those type of advancements were secrets, and technology was not widely shared. Information was less free. So some countries may have a few good firms - Belgium's Fabrique Nationale - but little else. Italy was a middling power so it had some good producers like Fiat, for example, who were able to make tanks and aircraft on their own. But it could not keep up with the west, Germany, or Russia. It simply was not a heavyweight. In 1940 when it entered the war Italy had a GDP per capita, i.e. average productivity per person, of (1990$)3,500. Britain was about $6,800, almost twice as much. Average Briton could produce twice as many things as average Italian, but not quantity: value. This is a reflection on how developed the economy is and how capable it is of producing technical equipment. United States 7,000 and Germany 5,400. It reflects also capitalisation and mechanisation of an economy: one Briton with a better tractor can produce more food than an Italian with a worse tractor, for instance. Producing cars and radios makes a person more productive than producing, say, pencils. Source is Angus Maddison's GDP project, Historical Statistics of the World Economy: 1-2008 AD. (Actually I don't think much of estimating GDP at 1 AD, but the later data is interesting.)

edit: two more points. One: even a big economy that is not advanced is also bad. For example if you can make tractors or cars you can make tanks. US basically turned its car plants into tank plants almost overnight. USSR made a LOT of tractors and these tractor factories later became tank factories. Mussolini drained the Pontine marshes to destroy malaria. It was a huge thing. But it was all done by hand, pretty much. Italy hadn't the civilian heavy industry to later convert to military industry. Its economy wasn't mechanised. Unfortunately for them existence of firms like Fiat, Ansaldo, Savoia-Marchetti, etc, made them think they did. It gave impression of industrial country, but it was only superficial.

Second is that conscription isn't really important when considering motivation. Conscripts can be motivated. For example my grandfather and his two brothers fought in WWII and in fact my granddad drove tanks in Normandy and may even have landed on Gold beach. But he was a conscript. Neither are individual soldiers motivations based around their national motivations. If they were, all conscript armies would collapse. People rarely display the kind of loyalty to their country's aims that they do to their friends wellbeing. If one person harbours a problem with the war he still has to fight because if his comrades can't rely on him they could be harmed. But if the whole unit harbours a problem then that's it.

All problems I talk about in terms of institutions/economies were true of Japan to a lesser extent. Sorry if this is too long or not a good post because this is my first askhistorians post.

Something perhaps to bear in mind is that the Germans tended to treat their allies extremely badly. There are numerous instance - in the Crimea, in North Africa, where German units are pulled out of the lines to rest, whilst their Allies are expected to stay deployed effectively indefinitely. The German generals used their post-war memoirs, like von Manstein's execrable Lost Victories, and interviews, such as BL-H's The German Generals Talk, to construct an exculpatory myth for themselves: "We were apolitical and the best general staff of the war, and we'd have won if Hitler had listened to us. Also, we definitely had nothing to do with any warcrimes. kthnxbai" is basically how it goes. A part of that myth is blaming the Italians, Hitler, "Red hordes", and the rest of the Axis "minors" for German defeats.

There's also the language question: most historians of the German war effort try to actually learn some German, but the number who can speak Italian is considerably fewer.

If you look at some of the more recent work that's been done on the Italian military, such as James Sadkovich's 1989 article Understanding Defeat and Vincent O'Hara's The Struggle for the Middle Sea, you'll find that Italian forces performed well in the circumstances, and tended to be very badly let down by their German allies, who also liked to attribute losses to the Italians rather than their own poor performance.