Better Italians in PzC2?

[proline]

Riiight. And Gazala was....what?

All due to Rommel?

The Val D'Aosta campaign was...what? All due to the tripline of German forces mixed in with the RSI?

And the fact that Giovanni Messe had to salvage Rommel's foolhardy offensives in Tunisia is what?

You're missing the forest for the trees here. The Italians had an enormous army and fought many battles in several theaters. By sheer luck, they should have one or two victories, especially when you're calling slight delays, such as holding on to Tunisia an extra couple days past when the allies wanted to have it, as victories. Nevertheless, the vast, vast majority of their actions involve them losing to numerically or technologically inferior enemies.

But it also has to contend with the fact that many of the major problems the Italians get were due to the very problems that the player is liable to fix. The player may not be able to micromanage what kind of gear gets produced (and thus used) with the Fascist Italian industrial cartels and may not be able to RP the weeding out of the NCO deadwood, but when one of your key problems is Strategic leadership (and the ability to have said leadership decide) and you stick them under the command of the player in a TBS, that gets minimized greatly.

The Italians shouldn't get a massive boost in the early game, but I see no reason why they can't gradually power up if anaged well and the war goes better. Which of course is up to the player to do.

The Italians had very little heavy industry. Few Italians had cars and their automotive production was near nothing. Their best tanks and fighters were produced by the dozens, not thousands or tens of thousands. They relied on coal imports from Germany. As a commander, you can't fix any of this. It would have taken a decade to industrialize Italy, and that's a decade without constant combat.

As for poor military leadership, yeah, they had that. But more to the point there was minimal buy-in from the general public for fighting fascist wars. Italy lost big in WW1 and the public was always going to resist the idea of another "total war" requiring 100% commitment from all citizens. A few victories didn't change that, and a few more wouldn't have. They were never going to get the support needed to produce the military output needed to field good armies.

[Turtler]

You're missing the forest for the trees here.

I despise this argument, because the fact is that the forest is made of trees. E

Most of which do not reveal the Italian Military to be well preforming, but also reveal that there tended to be reasons for this beyond sheer "Italian Units sucked" (though yeah, this was often a component it was rarely the early one).

And again, even the "forest" contradicts the magnitude you're attributing. The Italian military was not Spectacular. But it also didn't do things like lose Albania to Greece or fail to contribute notably to North Africa.

The Italians had an enormous army and fought many battles in several theaters.

They had an enormous army compared to most Great Powers it was quite small (albeit usually more concentrated).

By sheer luck, they should have one or two victories,

Try Dozens.

Especially if you actually factor in the proportion they made of Axis forces in several campaigns rather than attributing Magic Rommel or the Germans (since after all they had to contend with Italian commanders and troops, and several of the most disastrous defeats came when the Germans either didn't heed their concerns, as the fate of the Expeditionary Force in Russia showed).

Was the Italian military good? Not really, especially by the standards of the mid war or (God Forbid) late war. But it was hardly the completely impotent force you acted as.

especially when you're calling slight delays, such as holding on to Tunisia an extra couple days past when the allies wanted to have it, as victories.

Cute, except that's not what I did.

The battle of Medenine was a Rommel planned an executed catastrophe that severely weakened the armored striking forces of Panzer Armee Afrika. At which point Rommel got recalled back to Europe and Messe became defacto Commander. And he managed to reorganize it so that the Western Allied advance against the Eastern Coast road (alone) was delayed a month. And that's not exhaustive. That included a significant reversal to Patton's tanks at El Guettar.

Which is one reason why Panzer Armee Afrika lasted nearly three months after Rommel withdrew, and a lot of *that* was due to the Western Allies sinking, shooting, and otherwise blowing up everything that flew, floated, or paddled towards Tunis and Sicily.

is this the world's best performance? No. But it's hardly "an extra couple of days."

You didn't see me mention East Africa at all in spite of similar battles (including the mauling of Gazelle Force) because ultimately, that is what it amounted to. Delaying the inevitable, and frankly not doing it very well (when one of the highlights of your campaign is Keren you're not doing very well).

Nevertheless, the vast, vast majority of their actions involve them losing to numerically or technologically inferior enemies.

Except it wasn't a "vast, vast majority of their actions" and the fact that you couldn't even detail their actions correctly (including making such head bangingly, objective errors as claiming they lost Albania to the Greeks) further undercuts your credibility about being able to analyze.

The Italians had very little heavy industry.

Absolutely Agreed.

Few Italians had cars and their automotive production was near nothing.

Not a very good metric.

That was true, but it was also true that Italy was a Fascist nation preparing to turn itself into a Total War State like Ludendorff predicted, meaning that the civilian automotive center could FOAD as far as the Fascist Grand Council and Duce thought. Especially since- as you note- Italy didn't have much heavy industry so they were hellbent on using what they had to (try to) prepare for war.

Notably the US also almost completely shuttered civilian automotive production during the war in spite of being in a literally exponentially better situation in almost every way, and they were neither a totalitarian, half-agrarian nightmare run by Il Duce, not intending to start a war, and they had A LOOOT more heavy industry to throw around (probably more than all the Axis powers put together and then some).

Their best tanks and fighters were produced by the dozens, not thousands or tens of thousands.

Correct.

The problem is, the same can be said of other nations, particularly the US and UK.

You don't many Super Pershings clogging up the Western Front or Meteors soaring over it. And even the IS family produced in the war didn't make it to the 10K mark.

That's kind of how technology works. You don't magically get rid of everything you're already using just because you invent something new, and a lot of times you can't even afford to stop making the old stuff.

Now sure, these machines were exponentially better than the best homegrown Italian designs. They were also created simultaneously or well after, by powers with (again) exponentially more heavy industry.

They relied on coal imports from Germany. As a commander, you can't fix any of this.

Indeed, but you can greatly alleviate the pressure on the home front so that command can afford to produce and ship more modern $hit to you. And you can also make sure it's used much better.

It would have taken a decade to industrialize Italy, and that's a decade without constant combat.

Agreed.

But being able to do things like kick the British off of Malta means that Italy can get a little further along the process than it historically did due to avoiding stuff like Death By Blenheim, Death by B-17, and so forth.

As for poor military leadership, yeah, they had that.

Indeed.

But more to the point there was minimal buy-in from the general public for fighting fascist wars.

I wish that were true, but it wasn't.

The interventions in Corfu, Ethiopia, Spain, and Albania were generally widely supported, and there was at least lukewarm
general support for intervening in the war in 1940..

The problem with public buy in started to skyrocket after 1940 and especially 1941, when it became clear that

A: Britain and its exiled allies weren't going to give up and make peace so Mussolini could strut around the peace table as someone "who had fought."

B: They were increasingly getting support from the USA and to a lesser extent USSR.

and

C: The unprecedented military disasters (in the case of East Africa, Compass, and so on, with only Caporetto itself being comparable) coupled with less glorious stalemates or minor victories could not be neatly brushed aside.

So like most of the Axis powers, (even Japan) defeat bred dissent and a loss of buy-in.

Italy lost big in WW1

No, not really.

I'll be the first to rant at GREAT Length that Italy spent most of WWI as a very dysfunctional and bad military power and that Cadorna's name is used as an expletive for good reason.

But while the "Multiverse Battle of Isonzo" memes are cute, they aren't really true. Because the Italians won (for a certain variant of the term) about half of them, with the Habsburgs and Germans also spending their turns futilely bashing their heads in on the defensive line with comparable success and casualties to what Cadorna could show.

The reasons they're remembered as wall to wall defeats can mostly be summarized by the marginal gains that they got for what was achieved, Cadorna's own "winning personality" and lack of scruples towards his own people, and Caporetto. Which was unquestionably a major military disaster.

But also led to the Germans and Habsburgs bashing their heads against the next set of defensive lines (like Mont Grappa) and a successful counterattack, meaning that inside of a year the Italians and their Allies were back and blew away the remnants of their enemies at Veneto.

And that's ignoring the other fronts

Again, far from a great showing (almost as bad as WWI) but ultimately a victorious one. Just one they didn't.

and the public was always going to resist the idea of another "total war" requiring 100% commitment from all citizens.

Some people will always resist that, even in the face of significantly better situations. So that isn't surprising in and of itself. Nor is it necessarily decisive if you can prevent said imperfect contributions from being hammered down by defeat.

A few victories didn't change that, and a few more wouldn't have.

Depends on the nature of the victories, and particularly the ability to avoid crippling, debilitating defeats. Would it be a panacea? Of course not. Even Diaz's 10th hour reorganizations of the Italian Army and lots of Western aid wasn't a Panacea in WWI, and neither was German support here.

But it would help a great deal. Particularly in avoiding the collapse of the initial consensus supporting war in 1940.

They were never going to get the support needed to produce the military output needed to field good armies.

In large part because of the limitations of both themselves (and their capabilities) and their allies. But while many of the limitations you mentioned would not be fixed just by a supergood commander, some of them would be. And a number would be significantly lessened.

[AceDuceTrey]

To me, playing the game (PC), the Italian forces are best represented not by weak weapons: (their 47L32 was a better AT gun than the German 37L47; their 75/18 as good SP artillery as the 75/24 StuG; the 75 &100mm towed as the 75 & 105mm; their early M3/M4 armor thicker than early III/IV; etc., etc.,...) but by weaker STRENGTHS. Early on, the only full strength units were the Black Shirts and the Bersagliari(SP?). Most battalions only had 2 line companies vice 3 and brigades only two battalions vice 3. Their corps appeared quite large in numbers but only 2/3rds in size.

[George_Parr]

The strength of a gun or tank don't depend on what you see on paper, but on how well it can get used in the field.

E.g. a tank with good armor and firepower is nice and all, but if you have a one-man turret and little radio-communication it is a whole lot weaker than a tank with weaker armor and gun that does have everything it needs to fight to its capabilities. And that doesn't even include crew training or the general doctrin used.

Look at the French tanks.They look really good on paper, though most of them are a bit slow. Still, they have plenty of armor and at least in some cases good guns as well. But if your commander has to take a view of the battlefield, tell the driver where to go, grab the ammunition, load the ammunition, fire the gun and track the shot all at the same time, all while having poor visibility due to the woeful turret and no radio for internal or external communication, all that possible strength goes out of the window. It's simply impossible to do all these things at the same time.

That's where the advantage of German tanks lay early in the war. Apart from the Panzer I, they all had bigger crews, better visibility, better communication, and a good split of the work among the crew. This allowed the commander to actually command his tank, and also for tanks to operate together. Add a better doctrin, better training and better air-support, and you can more than make up for weaknesses that exist on paper.

Air-support obviously shouldn't have an impact on tank-stats. Having a two or three men turret compared to a one-man turret definately should. As should other issues with the interior, the main gun being in the turret or not, or whether the armor was welded, casted, or just bolted. As the latter is a significant downgrade in terms of safety.

[FOARP]

I never even looked at the numbers in such detail, I am probably not experienced enough to take full advantage of the Italian troops in PzC. But overall, I do hope to see Italy as an interesting Ally in PzC2, rather than just useless auxiliaries.

To make full use of them they would have to be a separate part of your core (i.e., you'd have some core slots that have to be Italian units if you chose the North Africa route, or have to be filled out with Axis minors if you choose the Barbarossa route). I don't foresee a sensible option to have an Italians-only campaign, at least not with historical battles, as most of the really notable battles they took part in (e.g., Crete, Battleaxe, Alamein, Tunisia, Stalingrad, Sicily) were under German command and in combination with Germans. Most of the theoretical battles they might have fought in would also have been incombination with the Germans (e.g., Sealion, an invasion of the Middle East, an assault on Malta etc.) The only major theatre where the Italians fought alone was East Africa, which had only one really intense battle (Keren/Agordat) and was a forgone conclusion.

[Retributarr]

The Alpine Line (French: Ligne Alpine) or Little Maginot Line
You know!... it just occurred to myself... that... why-not someone like the 'Developers' or some other ambitious adventurous "Modder"... make a Scenario or even a Campaign based on/of... "The Battle of the LITTLE MAGINOT ALPINE LINE".

I really have no real idea as to how incredibly difficult such a task would have been for the 'Italian Alpine Corps'... but perhaps someone with a Military Engineering background could come up with some realistic ideas as to how to task and overcome the formidable Fortified-Alpine-Bunker-System.


I keep seeing with some regularity that several seemingly... 'Inbred-Mercenaries' (Please don't take that label personally offensive anyone... I truly do admire such desperate grit-determination to achieve the impossible... but.. hey!... I gotta have fun somehow!) are beating their chests over how difficult a challenging Game that they can dominate/decimate and conquer so as to then ascend to the heights of an all conquering CAESAR!!!.

I would hate to see such an opportunity pass by without a loud shout in the dark!. This way... if this idea becomes a reality... then this will be one more 'Mount-Everest' to climb for those who like to 'Self-Inflict-Pain' on their persons.

Schematic of Ouvrage de Gordolon & Interior Workings of the Complex:
https://www.google.com/search?sa=G&chan ... 5375937562



Casemate de la ligne Maginot (Little Maginot Line_Alpine Line:)


Mortar Mount in Ouvrage of Gordolon




Ouvrage de la ligne Maginot




PICTURE: 2-75mm Artillery Cannons mounted in Coupula

[adiekmann]

With better training and equipment, the Italians could have fielded an effective fighting force. Proof of this in WW2 is the 185ª Divisione Paracadutisti Folgore, which is strangely missing from PzC.

Italy's industrial capacity was never anything close to the other major powers and therefore couldn't even produce enough equipment for a large modern army, regardless of its quality. Ferrari makes some fine automobiles, but they could never build enough vehicles to supply every Italian driver with one. Likewise, their heavy industry was more of boutique industry than a Henry Ford style of mass production, and that's to say nothing of the lack of natural resources to support it either.

The soldiers of the Afrika Korps joked during the North African campaign that Italian Army vehicles had 6 gears: 1 forward, 5 reverse (or something like that). But Rommel and other German African campaign officers seem to recognize in their writings that many had fought well when all things are considered, like what they were given to fight with. In all, the Italians may have in some ways overachieved given all of their disadvantages that was of no fault of the individual Italian soldier.

Then there's the poor leadership, starting with Mussolini...