Which are your favourite WWII Italian Campaign forces?

Laxen · Post by **Laxen** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 10:31 am

Team Assault will be released including a bunch of prebuilt forces. Some players might prefer playing with these for their entire gaming experience, while I think most will use them only while getting familiar with the gameplay and then will want to start designing their own forces.

I would like to know which divisions, battalions or infantry companies from the WWII Italian Campaign, both Axis and Allies, that are your favourites or that you for any reason request to be included in the game. Is it the Devil's Brigade? Or maybe Fallschirm-Panzer Division 1 Hermann Göring? There is a great chance that these forces will make it into the game.

If you want, feel free to add a short description of it and why you think it should be included!

And don't worry. Just because the force is originally included in the game doesn't mean that you can build it for yourself as well or edit the force designed by us.

junk2drive · Post by **junk2drive** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 1:42 pm

I'll say this first, the casual American wargamer is not very familiar with the Italian campaign. Probably his knowledge comes from the few movies made about it. Anzio, Go For Broke, Devil's Brigade, others?

As a veteran of Combat Mission series, there didn't seem to be much interest in Italy with the 3rd game, CMAK. But that game is armour centric with combined arms focus.

You may have to educate the forum lurkers as to the actions that you propose to include with links to your research websites.

sullafelix · Post by **sullafelix** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 3:47 pm

Cassino, Cassino, Cassino.

Hunters from the sky and all the allied forces used in the battles also. This battle by far was fought by infrantrymen. perfect for your game. The intensity of the combat for it's length and fierceness was second to none in the Western-Southern fronts.

Laxen · Post by **Laxen** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 5:40 pm

j2d: Ye, you're right. This campaign is not the most represented among those taking place during WWII, so I understand it's not easy picking divisions from the top of your head. Team Assault: Baptism of Fire will not cover any specific part of the Italian campaign, so anything and all about it is up for grabs. I'm not trying to force you guys to make the research. It's only if anyone has something he or she wish to have included among the forces, now is the time to talk. Else, I will go for own knowledge and do some additional research about it, and hopefully everyone will be happy anyway

To get people thoughts moving, here are some of the more renown battles/scenarios:
Monte Cassino (as antony said)
The Winter Line
The Bernhardt Line
The Gustav Line
Invasion of Sicily
Landings at Salerno
Operation Shingle
Operation Avenger

For those interested in doing some own research anyway, Wikipedia's articles about the Italian Campaign is a good place to start.

antony: I agree. Monto Cassino had some very interesting battles taking place. Fallchimjagers will be included in the core release of Team Assault because of this. Probably a large portion of our first playable campaign will play out around it. Are there any specific combat groups from Cassino you know of and wish to have included in Team Assault?

conger · Post by **conger** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 7:34 pm

I'd just like to see Italian units in the game, as so many other games tend to leave them out and US 10th Mountain Division; just because I'm stuck up at Ft Drum lol

Laxen · Post by **Laxen** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 8:04 pm

Italians and Brits will be released in the first expansion! We have the soldier and weapon models basically done already, so they are guaranteed.

I'll look into the US 10th Mountain Division. Sounds interesting. Thanks!

sullafelix · Post by **sullafelix** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 9:32 pm

I'll have to dig out some books and get some formations for you.

The Allied army in Italy had many nations present in it's ranks.I believe some Polish units were deeply involved in at least one battle.

British

9th and 2nd Gurkha Rifles

28th Maori Battalion

Polish

3rd and 5th divisions

I'm still trying to figure out where I've hidden a book that was written from the German viewpoint.

Laxen · Post by **Laxen** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 10:45 am

It was a huge mix of nationalities fighting for the allies side, which is one of the biggest reasons we chose that campaign. And even the Axis has some diversity due to Italian fascist support

Gurkhas are really something. Unfortunately they have a very unique look, which we will not able to ever justify ourselves using American or even British models for. I happen to know though, that the Gurkas was put onto the drawing table by our artists not too long ago, so it is not unthinkable they will enter the game in the future... not at all.

Thanks for the suggestions!

sullafelix · Post by **sullafelix** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 9:14 pm

Thank you, who wouldn't want to have control of soldiers from a culture that names their children gun,knife, club etc..

I actually learned about the Poles from my first father-in-law. He was in the Artillery in the U.S. army and unfortunately they had not been briefed on the Polish uniforms and flags etc.. So his story was that when they saw them from afar his unit opened fire on them.

conger · Post by **conger** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 3:02 am

what about tanks and off-map support?

Adraeth · Post by **Adraeth** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 6:41 am

There are interesting (and horrifing) elements in the Campaign of Italy in WW2:

Battles for the Gothic Line around Appenines in Toscana, especially around Massa, Lucca and the mountains nearby. In those fields of battle the struggle was between german foraging parties and "punishment assault" to civilian villages and countryside to secure positions or to take some italian who fought for the italian "resistance"; some scenario might be a probing allied force or commando try to defend some village to prevent those german assaults.

Indeed italian campaign is interesting when battles are for mountain passes or bridgheads like Anzio...

For Divisions and teams i can speak for German side where i live, for i work on some trials concerning "war crimes during italian campaign":

In Toscana there was near Pistoia/Florence the 26th Armoured Auflkarung commanded by Joseph Strauch

For Allied side i can remember French colonial units, mostly Algerinians

Laxen · Post by **Laxen** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 11:28 am

- what about tanks and off-map support?

- Tanks: No. Maybe (big maybe) for future expansions. Off-map support: Artillery, called in by on-map spotters, will be added for our first expansion. Other then that, none. Unless reinforcements and air dropped squads count. We wanted the game to be a battle between soldiers.

Adraeth: I will look into the sections you mention

Adraeth · Post by **Adraeth** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 2:56 pm

Maybe this should be helping:

http://www.custermen.com/ItalyWW2/ArmyO ... isions.htm

http://custermen.com/ItalyWW2/ArmyOrg/AlliesOrg.htm

Laxen · Post by **Laxen** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 4:24 pm

Wow. Thanks! I think that covers about everything. This will be very helpful.

Edit: All of you guys are of course still very welcome to post your requests. We will not be able to include all units from the campaign, so unless you guys make your wishes, I will include forces after my own liking.

funks · Post by **funks** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 7:33 am

as I said in the original forum everyone has fought in Italy, as usual.

To me the most interesting were the poles (since they have fought in the most interesting battles like Montecassino and the French Moorish soldiers. And why not the Brazilians... they fought only here.

But to me it can be very important to have the Italian fascists from the "Repubblica Sociale", the Italian fascist government in the north Italy after the 8th september 1943 and the Italian partisans that fought so hardly in the 1944-45. It can be another way to play the game.

Adraeth · Post by **Adraeth** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 8:24 am

A further add on providing italians divided between "Repubblica Sociale" - "partisians bands" - "Government of the King" should be highly appreciated.

The real problem is that italians (after the 8th of September) were often ordered to fight other italians, Germany was not so confindent in using "Salò" units against allied troops and tried to use them as "police against partisians" but this proved not a good strategy; allies considered italian army a beaten one (and i believe they were right) so they did not want to use it as a real ally.

funks · Post by **funks** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 2:09 pm

Adraeth wrote:A further add on providing italians divided between "Repubblica Sociale" - "partisians bands" - "Government of the King" should be highly appreciated.

The real problem is that italians (after the 8th of September) were often ordered to fight other italians, Germany was not so confindent in using "Salò" units against allied troops and tried to use them as "police against partisians" but this proved not a good strategy; allies considered italian army a beaten one (and i believe they were right) so they did not want to use it as a real ally.

There were some Italian regular units that fought on the allied side after the 8th of september but they weren't so important in the great scenario paramount.
But in 1944 behind the German line of the front there was a bitterly civil war with the partisans against the German and their fascist allies that was very important since the Italian front became a secondary front after the Normandy.

Laxen · Post by **Laxen** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 12:39 pm

Italians are planned for the first expansion along with the Brits

We've been looking a lot into the polish divisions too. Might very well get into the game sometime in the future.

For release forces however, only divisions wearing American or German uniforms will be included. So any interesting such divisions would be great! I'm gonna look into what uniforms the Brazilian forces had.

Adraeth · Post by **Adraeth** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 3:30 pm

Here a link for the Monte Castello battle were Brazilian units fought with "Bersaglieri" (italian units) Vs German units

http://digilander.libero.it/lacorsainfi ... taglia.htm

The link is in italian, i believe you may translate it to english, if not i will try (when i have time) to make a small digression about it

nikb · Post by **nikb** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 7:13 pm

My pick:

2nd New Zealand Div (General Freyberg)