An idea for Italians in CMAK

[Panzer76]

Jesus Christ, lighten up you Grogs!

The surrender command was clearly meant as a joke, and people still goes on about it.

Anyways, the "Black Shirt Brigades" in N. Africa fought usually very well, the Germans trusted the, See "Panzer Commander" by Von Luck.

Other troops suffered, as others have pointed out, of poor leadership, poor equipment and poor food (pasta was the main meal, not a good choice in a water scarce territory). I can't say how the NCO was, but Ive read that the higher officers in the Italian army often was incompetent.

If BFC will, or how, simulate this, I have no idea.

In general, Ive read the Italian Arty performed well.

[GaMaX]

Originally posted by Romulus:

I have just looked at your email address. You should be from the "former" Yugoslavia, now known as Serbia and Montenegro.

That was cheating. I said guess!

Originally posted by Romulus:

There is no need to go to the WW2 in order to find a mass-surrender by your country.

One insult after another. Way to go Romulus. I never intended to insult anyone, but if I did, I’m really sorry.

If you allude to NATO bombing when you say mass-surrendering in my country, I’ll remind you that we were bombed because we didn’t surrender, not vise versa. And, of course, because we had crappy politicians running the country... But Serbs almost always have crappy politicians.

[GaMaX]

Originally posted by Dave H:

Just remember that there is very low tolerence for national insults (real or perceived) on this forum.

Ha! Really?

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by K_Tiger:

Thank you for the flowers Michael...or was it sarkasm?

Cant find a description in my dictionary for the word -delectable-...is this a own creation?

No, it wasn't sarcasm at all. And you may need to buy a new dictionary. Mine defines 'delectable' as: "1. Highly pleasing; delightful 2. Delicious." Which is how I have always understood it.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Panzer76:

Anyways, the "Black Shirt Brigades" in N. Africa fought usually very well, the Germans trusted the, See "Panzer Commander" by Von Luck.

Are you sure von Luck says this? It's been a while since I read him and I don't recall the specific reference. But my general impression is that the Black Shirts were not very good fighters. The Bersaglieri on the other hand usually did quite well.

Michael

[Ant]

Well the easy answer is to look at how the Italians are already simulated in CMBB and my guess is that's how they'll be in CMAK........apart from the spiffy desert uniforms of course

[K_Tiger]

Thx..now i know one more word in english. The other tree i know allready..but delectable i never read before.

[lcm1947]

It's amazing how a joke can bring the politically correct bunch out in droves. Sad too. I know, I know and you can save it as I won't be visiting this topic any more to hear it. It just amazes me how thin skinned people are now-a-days. Hell, there's jokes about every race, nation, gender, etc that you can think of. It's part of life that we tend to tease or make fun of others as we ourselves are made fun of but there is no need for this lynch mob mentality just because a guy tries to be cute or funny. If a post bothers you then don't read it. Simple as that but no you have to jump on him like he called your mother a bad name or something. Trying to force your politically correct views on everything you encounter is far more wrong in my opinion then a little joke. There's far too many tight asses in this world already we don't need more. Get a life or sense of humor at least. God spare us from you people.

[lcm1947]

On second thought I will continue reading on this topic. Wouldn't want to have anyone think I was a coward or can't take the heat. That is if it's not closed up.

[Berlichtingen]

Originally posted by Gamax:

Now, with my idea to reduce global moral of Italians I tried to SIMULATE problems in their army: poor leadership, lack of motivation to fight, poor equipment, etc. And yes, these problems are only Italian problems. Other armies had different problems. But here we are talking about Italians. My solution might not be the best solution, but that's what this thread is for. Making them "weakened or exhausted conscripts and start them out panicked" is not what I am looking for, because you can do that with any army, and I want something that will distinguish them (just as with Soviets).

Ok, last try...

Ok, let's build a battle, in which one side is, say, a battalion of Italians. Ok, now let's play around with dates and such...

First Example... let's set the date to February of 1941... North Africa. Now, this global morale reduction might make sense. We're talking about the time frame of Beda Fomm.

Second Example... let's change this to East Africa, same date. Now we're talking Keren. Whoops, here we have highly motivated, well led Italians. Global morale reduction does not fit here.

Third Example... let's make some more changes... say July 1943, Sicily. Ok let's make our Italians a Coastal Defense Battalion (lots of those on Sicily). Yep, low global morale makes sense.

Fourth Example... let's change them from Coastal Defense to Blackshirt... one of the Arditi Battalions. Oops, these are the same guys who helped slap the Red Devils down. Nope, low global morale doesn't work here.

Fifth Example... Let's try February 1943, North Africa. Now let's make that battalion American (part of CCB). Boy, did they suck. Yep low global morale fits here... wait... they're not Italians

Sixth Example... May 1942, North Africa (Gazala). How about we make that battalion South African. Good troops... didn't keep them out of a crap situation, and they surrendered. Yep, low global morale for them. Again, not Italians.

Seventh Example... January 1945, France (Vosges... Norwind). Let's make that battalion SS-Panzergrenadiers (17th SS). Talk about ground for low global morale... Russian POWs forced to fight the Americans by the Germans. Unfortunately, they aren't Italian

The idea of being able to lower global morale is a valid point... for all nationalities. Making it the default for the Italians is not. Making Soviet command delays is, to the best of my knowledge, valid. Find me some examples of Soviets in the early years that responded as though they weren't stuck in molassas and I will begin to question the command delays. Everything I have read backs the decision to increase Soviet command delays in the early years. I have read entirely to many accounts of Italians fighting well to accept that they should be made universally poor morale.

[Newbtler]

Gamax, you pretend to be a joking man, an hilarious man but then you get offended by just a joke I made (and not about you, mind it).

The "throwing up" thing was a joke, sorry I didn't post the " ", but I thought you could get it.

If I would now say that I think that ALL Serbs, Croats, Cetniks, Ustascia etc should get in the next CM game (but they won't be there unfortunately) a "Kill all the prisoners, cut their throats and amputate them" order, would you be offended?

Nooo... No way man, I'm 100% sure you are a guy with a sense of humour and you would get it as a joke.

Understand?

I really don't want to start a fight with you Gamax, it's pointless and useless in the end.

What I REALLY like in the Combat Mission series is the big options we can have playing it.

This is almost the first game ever to let you decide and create a scenario with your options, like a group of Russian "veterans" against "green" Germans in 1941.

You can raise or lower their morale, get them weakened or not, etc etc.

The Soviet delay command is just that: in the first years of the war they take more time to plan artillery etc, but the fighting infantry fires the exactly same number of rounds as the enemy and they fight as any other humans. They're not DUMB.

I remember playing the Eastern/Western Front games, and it was just plain frustrating that I couldn't modify my groups of soldiers.

THIS is the real war-game.

[ October 02, 2003, 03:56 AM: Message edited by: Newbtler ]

[Quintusarrius]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Quintusarrius:

I've got a lot of time for the Italians (their navy especially), poor s0ds were just on the wrong side.

I haven't looked deeply into the question, so I may be nurturing a misconception here, but didn't the anti-Fascist partisans fight well in the last two years of the war?

Michael </font>

[Romulus]

Originally posted by Berlichtingen:

Ok, last try...

Ok, let's build a battle, in which one side is, say, a battalion of Italians. Ok, now let's play around with dates and such...

Second Example... let's change this to East Africa, same date. Now we're talking Keren. Whoops, here we have highly motivated, well led Italians. Global morale reduction does not fit here.

[Panzer76]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

Are you sure von Luck says this? It's been a while since I read him and I don't recall the specific reference. But my general impression is that the Black Shirts were not very good fighters. The Bersaglieri on the other hand usually did quite well.

Michael

Going from memory here, didnt find my book to check it out, so I could ofcource be mistaken.

[GaMaX]

Originally posted by Newbtler:

Gamax, you pretend to be a joking man, an hilarious man but then you get offended by just a joke I made (and not about you, mind it).

The "throwing up" thing was a joke, sorry I didn't post the " ", but I thought you could get it.

"Throwing up" was a joke and got it. I even laughed. But than came another "joke", which clearly wasn't one. Both were "jokes" without " ". I will always put " " or " " next to my joke to make sure that people understand that it is only a joke.

I don't understand why all Italians are offended with my idea of lowering moral of Italian army. That is a historical fact. Italian army never won a major battle in WWII. I'm sure that they had some heroes and bright moments, but as a whole, Italian army had some serious problems. I just wanted to represent that somehow in CMAK. Please don't blame me for that.

Originally posted by Newbtler:

If I would now say that I think that ALL Serbs, Croats, Cetniks, Ustascia etc should get in the next CM game (but they won't be there unfortunately) a "Kill all the prisoners, cut their throats and amputate them" order, would you be offended?

Nooo... No way man, I'm 100% sure you are a guy with a sense of humour and you would get it as a joke.

Understand?

Of course, this is a joke. But, it's very dark humour, because that order is not necessary, Cetniks and Ustashas never took prisoners. WWII was VERY bloody in Yugoslavia, over one million Serbs died, most of them in Ustasha's death camps (as Jasenovac) and pits (all around Dalmatia).

Originally posted by Newbtler:

What I REALLY like in the Combat Mission series is the big options we can have playing it.

This is almost the first game ever to let you decide and create a scenario with your options, like a group of Russian "veterans" against "green" Germans in 1941.

You can raise or lower their morale, get them weakened or not, etc etc.

But you can't lower command delay of Russians. And that is fine, because Russian army of that time had its problems. I don't know if this offends Russian players.

Originally posted by Newbtler:

The Soviet delay command is just that: in the first years of the war they take more time to plan artillery etc, but the fighting infantry fires the exactly same number of rounds as the enemy and they fight as any other humans. They're not DUMB.

Italian moral penalty would be just that. Italian soldiers suffered of poor leadership, poor equipment, poor food, lack of enthusiasm to fight, etc. They're not COWARDS.

Originally posted by Newbtler:

THIS is the real war-game.

At least we agree of something.

And I'll repeat: I don't have anything against Italians. If I offended anybody with my joke, I'm sorry. I just hope I didn't offend anybody with my serious proposal, because it still stands.

[GaMaX]

Originally posted by Berlichtingen:

Ok, last try...

Ok, let's build a battle, in which one side is, say, a battalion of Italians. Ok, now let's play around with dates and such...

Fine, excellent, I agree. Obviously lowered moral depends of region and date. In CMBB we have South, Central, North and Finland. In CMAK could be something like that. And option to lower moral for any nationality in some specific battle is also good idea.

But lowered moral don’t have to be solution to problems Italian army had. That was my idea, my proposal. If somebody has different idea, please say it.

Anyway, I’m not making the game, so all this is a little bit pointless.

[gunnergoz]

One nice thing about BFC and their games is that they have tried very hard to differentiate between "objective" factors like armor thickness/angle versus "subjective" factors like psychological profiling of nationalities.

Once one, even in jest, opens up the "subjective" can of worms...well, things tend to go downhill pretty quickly.

As to political correctness, it seems to be a modern response to individual insensitivity about cultural and racial sterotyping. I used to (many years ago) enjoy the give and take of ethnic and national (and occasionally racial) humor. I have since outgrown that, in part because I understand now that such behavior disrespects others and demeans me.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by gunnergoz:

As to political correctness, it seems to be a modern response to individual insensitivity about cultural and racial sterotyping. I used to (many years ago) enjoy the give and take of ethnic and national (and occasionally racial) humor. I have since outgrown that, in part because I understand now that such behavior disrespects others and demeans me.

I think a distinction needs to be made between maliciously maligning a person or group through "humor" and recognizing those human foibles we are all heir to and celebrating them in jokes. We all need to have a little of the air let out of us once in a while, and I tend to mistrust those who can't take a bit of gentle ribbing once in a while. But as I say, that is a different matter from trying to hurt someone innocent of wrongdoing. A line needs to be drawn and recognized, and sometimes that's hard to do. Those who push "political correctness" (and I think that label too gets misapplied often times) may sometimes be overzealous and puritanical at times, but they have a point and for the time being I prefer to err on the side of tolerance.

Which is to say, I myself find nothing intrinsically wrong with ethnic humor, but I tend to shy away from it unless I am confident that everyone within earshot is going to understand it in the spirit with which it is offered.

Michael

[Newbtler]

"Throwing up" was a joke and got it. I even laughed. But than came another "joke", which clearly wasn't one. Both were "jokes" without " ". I will always put " " or " " next to my joke to make sure that people understand that it is only a joke.

I don't understand why all Italians are offended with my idea of lowering moral of Italian army. That is a historical fact. Italian army never won a major battle in WWII. I'm sure that they had some heroes and bright moments, but as a whole, Italian army had some serious problems. I just wanted to represent that somehow in CMAK. Please don't blame me for that.

I still don't get it, I'm sorry, maybe I'm a thick headed guy.

What I'm trying to say (and others before me) is that what you say isn't true in the whole: I've just finished reading a nice book called "Battaglione Aosta 1942: Destinazione Montenegro" (Aosta Btn, 1942: Destination Montenegro) which is about a personal diary of an Alpino fighting against ex-Yugo Partisans (Tito's partisans mostly).

There are accounts where the author says that normal Infantry Div. like the "Murge" were horrible, since they weren't trained enough and they didn't fight very well, but his unit and his division was formed by veterans who were always called to fill the gaps opened by the enemy.

All this happened in the same period and in the same campaign, so what you say is impossible to do in my opinion.

There were bad and good formations, and that's the greatness of Combat Mission: we can EDIT them in the editor, we can have green or veteran units in the same period just like in reality (-and just like in any nations I guess-).

Of course, this is a joke. But, it's very dark humour, because that order is not necessary, Cetniks and Ustashas never took prisoners. WWII was VERY bloody in Yugoslavia, over one million Serbs died, most of them in Ustasha's death camps (as Jasenovac) and pits (all around Dalmatia).]

Do you think that Italian soldiers didn't die in WW2? Around 350.000 IIRC died during the war.

Did you mind thinking that I could be offended by your "surrender" jokes, just because I could have had some relative who died in that war?

I could get the joke, ok, but we're not talking about joking like friends usually do here, we're joking about another guy's nation, their relatives, and this is really immature.

There are some who are not offended, some who are.

Why then say it? There are tons of other real humorous thing to say and to see in this world, this is just kinda stupid and immature.

But you can't lower command delay of Russians. And that is fine, because Russian army of that time had its problems. I don't know if this offends Russian players.

You can't lower that command delay of the Russians, (because they were imprepared for the war, and I could somehow accept that for the Italians in 1940) but you can raise their morale, and get them unweakened.

Italian moral penalty would be just that. Italian soldiers suffered of poor leadership, poor equipment, poor food, lack of enthusiasm to fight, etc. They're not COWARDS.

I don't think so, see above and the other posts in this thread.

There is a difference between command delay and quality of the troops in the field.

[ October 03, 2003, 03:31 AM: Message edited by: Newbtler ]

[GATT]

GaMax, better you go and read something about italian's army conditions, equipments, training and so on. An excellent book is:

"Hitler's Italian Allies: Royal Armed Forces, Fascist Regime, and the War of 1940-1943"

by MacGregor Knox

If you wanna read a first person view, take a look at Paolo Caccia Dominioni's excellent "Alamein". You'll discover something that official british historians and Monty forgot to mention about italian behaviour at El Alamein.

If you are interested in aviation history, then "Italian Aces of WW2" by Osprey is a nice one.

BTW, your post is first stupid then offensive. It shows how much ignorant and insensitive you are. Hundred thousands italians fought and died in horrible conditions in Africa, Russia and Mediterranean Sea theatres of war.

[ October 03, 2003, 04:05 AM: Message edited by: GATT ]

[GaMaX]

Originally posted by Newbtler:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Of course, this is a joke. But, it's very dark humour, because that order is not necessary, Cetniks and Ustashas never took prisoners. WWII was VERY bloody in Yugoslavia, over one million Serbs died, most of them in Ustasha's death camps (as Jasenovac) and pits (all around Dalmatia).]

Do you think that Italian soldiers didn't die in WW2? Around 350.000 IIRC died during the war.

Did you mind thinking that I could be offended by your "surrender" jokes, just because I could have had some relative who died in that war?

</font>

[GaMaX]

Originally posted by GATT:

BTW, your post is first stupid then offensive. It shows how much ignorant and insensitive you are.

No, it shows how lazy reader you are. Read the entire thread one more time.

Originally posted by GATT:

Hundred thousands italians fought and died in horrible conditions in Africa, Russia and Mediterranean Sea theatres of war.

Did I ever question that? You got it all wrong.

[Romulus]

@Gamax:

I understood you were clearly joking about the surrender command.

Yet it may sound offensive that you suggested to introduce a general low morale for all the Italians regardless to the specific unit or theatre.

Even the Germans experienced low morale levels (leading to mass-surrenders) of certain units during the North-African campaign, as it has been shown even in this thread, but you asked this cut in the morale only for the Italians. This is the reason why many did not agree with your proposal.

Hope the quarrel is now over.

Regards

Peppe

[MrSpkr]

Originally posted by xerxes:

A historical accurate force makeup in the early desert war might feature an Italian force attempting to breakout of an encirclement:

Italian:

2 battalions of green Italian infantry (0 bonus HQs): 2400 points

1 company of regular Italian infantry (reasonable HQs): 500 pts

5-6 guns of regular and vet quality: 300 pts

20 L3 tankettes: 1000 pts

total: 4,200 points

British:

8 Matildas: 1,000 points

1 company of vet infantry w/ transport: 700 points

1 25lb FO: 120 points

Total: 1,820 points

Now the bad thing is, the Matildas are almost indestructable. The Italians won't win this one.

True enough. I created a CMBB scenario titled "desert Redux" featuring a horde of M13/39s and a few Semoventes arrayed around teh map edges (map was less than 500m x 500m) vs. 3 Matildas located on a central hill.

The worst result I got for the 'Tildas was two abandoned after their guns were hit and they were immobilized. The 'Tildas still won that encounter by destroying darn near EVERY Italian "tank".

You couldn't pay me to fight in one of those coffins. Safer to be in the open where you can hit the ground and take cover.

Steve

[Romulus]

Originally posted by MrSpkr:

True enough. I created a CMBB scenario titled "desert Redux" featuring a horde of M13/39s and a few Semoventes arrayed around teh map edges (map was less than 500m x 500m) vs. 3 Matildas located on a central hill.

Hey MrSpkr, sorry for the stupid question: where did you get the M13/39? I thought they were not featured in CMBB. I have played as Italy several times but I have never found the M13/39 in the unit selection screen.

Thanks

Peppe