Slitherine

Yes,, we need the M15/42.
Also, there was a dive bomber version of the Re 2002

For those who are interested, some info about Italian tanks. I was originally going to just write some in-game proposals, but I think designers and modders would be better in converting real-life statistics into the game than me, so I will give the most accurate figures I could find so you can use them too. So my apologies for another long post. Skip to the end to see my proposals for the medium tanks. Reliable info is difficult to come by, some is from books but I mainly used these webpages, mainly because they provide their sources:

http://www.italie1935-45.com/, see esp. http://www.italie1935-45.com/RE/photosc ... opere.html
and
http://ww2armor.jexiste.fr/Files/Axis/A ... /Italy.htm

Since the last few posts were about the medium tanks, I’ll start with those and skip the M11/39 and the light tanks for now.
The M13/40, M14/41 and the M15/42 are virtually the same tank, based on the running gear of the M11/39. I’ll try to describe them side-by-side per subject. I’ll give some comparisons with the Panzer IIIG. If you want to mod them, this is a fairly good guide.

The M13/40. Production was started in June 1940 and stopped in July 1941, with 710 units build. First in service around October 1940. During production there were small improvements (three ‘series’), like adding engine filters and powertrain upgrades, fitting a standard radio (they had virtually no radios initially!), and some were fitted with an anti-aircraft machinegun.

After upgrading the engine in July 1941 it was renamed the M14/41 when production started in September 1941, over 700 built until it was replaced by the M15/42. The first M15/42 rolled of the line on 21 November 1942, had a different engine, thicker armor and a slightly better gun.

Armor:

The maximum thickness of the armor is a bit uncertain and during the production changes where introduced. The basic M13/40 therefore, has 37mm or 42mm (depends on source) turret armor, hull front 30mm, hull sides and rear 25mm, hull top was 14mm. The M14/41 has the same armor, the M15/42 added some armor plates (max 12mm extra thickness) to the hull front (upper part) and the turret. But some sources quote a 45mm maximum armor thickness for this tank, to confuse matters further.

All these figures don’t really match up but since the differences are minor it should be no problem. Oh yeah, the armor was bolted on en somewhat brittle, so keep in mind the quality is below standard if you want to compare it.

So for the M14/41, the extra Ground Defense(8) vs. the M13/40 (7) is not really justified, even if we assume that the M41/41 had the slightly thicker turret armor quoted for the M13/40? I would keep it for balancing. So maybe Ground Defense 8 for the M15/42, or 9 if you want the M14/41 to be 8.

Armament:
The 47mm cannon was only slightly worse than the 50mm ‘short’ gun of the Panzer IIIG, so Soft Attack 5 and Hard Attack 8 seem reasonable. For the M15/42 with it’s slightly better gun Hard Attack can be increased to 9, maybe 10, but that might be too much. It carried about the same ammo supply as a PanzerIIIG, about 85-104 rounds, slighty more for the M15/42.

The mobility was as follows:

M13/40: 13ton, 125hp diesel engine. Top speed 32km/h, offroad max. 12km/h.
Range (227L fuel) 200km on roads (offroad 120km). The range of a M13/40 was 20-25% better than a PanzerIIIG, but speed 20-30% less.

M14/41: 14,5ton, 145hp diesel engine. Top speed 35km/h, offroad max. 15km/h.
Range (227L fuel) 280km, it was more economical than the M13/40. For the M14/41 compared to the PanzerIIIG, these figures mean 60% more range, 13-17% less speed.

M15/42: 15,5ton, 195hp petrol engine, gearbox had one more gear than the diesel, speed 40km/h, offroad max. 15-18km/h.
Range (360-400L fuel) 220km. It had much higher fuel consumption due to the petrol (benzin) engine. Compared to a Panzer IIIG the M15/42 has 30% better range, maybe 10% less speed.

So the movement of 4 for M13/40 and M14/41 is OK, maybe 5 for the M15/42.

My proposal:

M13/40: Hard Attack 7 or 8, Close Defense 2. (Why does it have 3 at the moment?)

M14/41: Hard Attack 7 or 8, Ground Defense 7 or 8 (8 is the current value), Air Defense 8 (maybe keep 9), Close Defense 2, Fuel 65. It was also introduced more than a year later than now in the game, so it should be available a bit (lot?) later. I’m thinking maybe early June 1941, between Brevity and Battleaxe? What do you think?

M15/42: Same as M14/41, but Ammo 11, Fuel 53, Move 5, Hard Attack 8 or 9, Ground Defense 8 or 9. Available in October 1942, around El Alamein/Palestine?
I don’t know about the costs, that depends on how good (or bad) you want to make them. Haven’t looked at the Initiative yet, because I don’t know exactly what it is supposed to represent, but the crew layout of the tanks is not the best for effective combat (two-man turret). So that would make Initiative lower than average I think. I'll post some other proposals later.

Feedback (positive or negative) would be welcome!

Here one source on M15/42: http://comandosupremo.com/carrom1542.html

The problem I see with this tank is it is not going to change anything in 1942. (Source claims its introduction in early 1943). At that point 75mm gun is taking over the battlefield and Italian tank slightly better than previous will not going to change much. On the other hand at some point in 1943 new Italian tank becomes available, P26 and it is significant jump in the game but no match to Tiger or Panther. P26 was modelled in game to be close to PzIV but if you are not going to use anything lower than Tiger it is simply question of variety.
So there is no linear upgrade for Italian tanks and there is a hole in year 1942. Including it is not a problem though, it would reuse existing art.

Thanks for the awesome post ThvN, very interesting stuff!

Uran: I think including the M15/42 would make a HUGE, *HUGE* difference and I will tell you why! I think the biggest problem with the Italians is that you have nothing at all to upgrade to from the M14/41 that you get at the beginning until the P-40 shows up way late in the game. It is kinda psychologically demoralizing to never be able to upgrade your Italian tanks while the Germans get innumerable fancy, shiny upgrades. It makes the Italian units feel like they are basically a dead end. Even if it is only a modest improvement over the M14/41, it would be incredibly beneficial from a pure gameplay perspective for the player to have *something* that he can upgrade his Italian tanks to before the P-40.

So if including it is not a problem, then I beg of you, please, please please do so!

-Edit Regarding the date of it's production, there are some sites that list it being produced in '42, perhaps we can run with this earlier date for gameplay purposes.
http://www.wwiivehicles.com/italy/tanks ... m15-42.asp

-One last edit: One other thing that others have asked for that I still think would be a smart addition would be '43 class Italian infantry that is still weaker than German/British infantry but offering a marginal improvement over the standard infantry. This is something else that you could reuse existing unit artwork for.

This is an interesting prototype.

I'm coming in quite late in this discussion, having only just begun playtesting AK, but here's my two cents worth. As the game is currently set up, I will dump any Italian units as soon as I can from the core and replace them with German. Why keep a unit that can't do anything when you have all the good German ones you can replace it with. I've seen this suggested already, and I'll second it. Give the player the option of playing either the full Army Group Afrika (with Italian units) or the option of choosing to play Afrika Korps with only German units. It choosing Army Group Afrika, you have a fixed number of core units which must be Italian. If choosing Afrika Korps, you have a core of only German units and all Italian are auxiliary. Auxiliary Italian units tend to end up as cannon fodder, but it gives the player an option of how he wants to play.

I have a new idea in which I have been wanting to post for two weeks.

Increase the chance for the Italian units to get a hero by increasing the rate of experience.

Razz1 wrote:I have a new idea in which I have been wanting to post for two weeks.

Increase the chance for the Italian units to get a hero by increasing the rate of experience.

Won't that require some new unit traits or splitting of eqp files? BTW, have you seen what big bonuses are given to the units you are given in 2nd Offensive, if I remember correctly? So with scenario parameters you could tweak some units in the campaign I guess. I have been investigating the capabilities of Italian hardware, would it be welcomed if I made a simple mod with some tweaked stats in the eqp file and/or add some extra units? It won't make life for the Italian units easier I'm afraid, as some of their units are already quite a bit stronger in the stats than actual combat results would suggest, but it might make them more interesting by adding some small upgrades.

Razz1 wrote:I have a new idea in which I have been wanting to post for two weeks.

Increase the chance for the Italian units to get a hero by increasing the rate of experience.

This, and make the italian heroes transferable from 1 unit to the next might solve the issue.
Eg the three Italian heroes one can get with reinforcements early on.

We've actually been thinking about this situation since launch. We might have a surprise in store for our players come Western DLCs... stay tuned!

Make italian troops cheaper and, if it is possible, allow 2 italians units for each core slot: example 1 PzIII = 1 core....2 M13/41 = 1 core...
So you have 2 good points: people would be interested to buy italians because they are cheaper and numerous, and you can have a good historic situation (in North Africa Italians were more numerous than Germans).
My Army is half Italians (132° Armoured Division "Ariete") and half Germans (21° Panzer Division); 6° Stormo for Italian Aircraft and X° Fliegerkorps for Germans. I like historical realism!