Non-German Axis Troops in ME/QB

[Quintus]

Other than being part of a well designed scenario, has anyone had any success with the Romanians/Hungarians/Italians in Quick Battles?

(I'm excluding the Finns here as they are something of a case apart IMHO)

These Axis nations seem to suffer from woefully inadequate armour, troops that are armed almost exclusively with rifles and are very light on anti-tank weapons (even molotovs).

I'd be interested to hear if anyone has any success stories with these 'underdogs' on the Eastern Front.

(I am fully expecting a proper kicking at the hands of my soviet opponent against my Italian infantry in my present game)

[ April 01, 2003, 06:00 AM: Message edited by: Quintus ]

[Bone_Vulture]

I once managed to fight a draw with Italians, when defending against a Soviet attack.

In the case of Italy, yes, their tanks are a joke, and the infantry troops have mere hand grenades and are mostly armed with poor rifles. You have to spend big bucks on those insanely expensive (rarity factor) heavier AT guns, in order to have any chance against heavy Soviet armor.

[flamingknives]

Italian ATRs chomp up early Soviet armour in no seconds flat.

I've won a couple of MEs with them early war, as well as some with the other axis forces.

In one, a towed 75mm ATG managed to mangle all the soviet heavy armour (2 churchills, 2KV1s and 2 M4A2 Shermans) while a platoon of T38s took out the rest (Su-76s, T60/T70s)

Can't remmber if I had rarity on or not.

[Quintus]

I think rarity=off is about the only way to make the 'minors' truly viable (reflecting I suppose, those units that had all the best gear).

Sucks to be me : December 1942 with Rarity=On.

-le sigh-

[Engel]

This begs a question: were Italians historically really as bad as most wargames portray them as? Every wargame that I've played featuring Italians, they are almost always next to useless; they have poor weapons and morale and rout easily.

[Quintus]

Whilst the individual Italian soldier was probably every bit as brave as anyone else, the army as a whole did not do at all well.

Groggier souls than myself can probably go into deeper detail but if a British army with the sort of kit it had at the time can boot an Italian army most of the way to Casablanca in the time it takes you to say "Sapristi Indelible!" (*) then I think that says quite a lot.

Their record in the Balkans was no less awful.

Badly led, terribly equipped and not really all that enthusiastic about fighting a war that involved facing off against armed enemies (machine gunning spear waving Abysinnians didn't really provide much of a foretaste of what modern battle involved).

And if you think their army was bad... Lord, the airforce... Oh, the airforce! (Savio Marchetti and Folgore aside, Trumpton had sufficient air defences to see them off)

Their Navy however... for a non-radar navy, they had some good stuff.

(*) To quote a Goon show villain.

[Hans]

I had the luck to have my first game in a CMBB QB give me the Italians, I ecked out a draw.

I had some success with Roumanians - there ATGs and some AFVs are okay (especially the captured stuff). Romanian cavalry is not bad at all. But yes they seem (Hungarian, Italians and Romanians) to not have the same range of close in anti-tank weapons (molotovs, grenade bundles and demo charges)

Consider them a challenge.........but historically one can see why the Russians tended to attack them, they were weaker in equipment, training and motivation.

[Bone_Vulture]

I recall the trivia that historically Italy was unprepared for the war: Mussolini would've wanted several more years to build up Italy's army when Hitler was already on tour in Europe.

[xerxes]

If you're going to use one of the minors in a QB it would seem very reasonable to place some restrictions on what the Soviet can purchase.

[JasonC]

I've done OK with the Rumanians, who I consider the best of the minors. They have some limitations, but some strengths as well, if you use the right weapons and use them correctly. Some battle and force type combinations they aren't very good at, though.

The infantry is rifle heavy but otherwise solid. The cavalry are best. They have "motorized" 2 LMG squads with good firepower, and the standard squads (1 LMG, 1 SMG, rifles) come with good heavy weapons (1 HMG, 1 60mm mortar per platoon).

The Rumanian infantry heavy weapons are medium speed and hard hitting, a very useful combo. The 60mm has twice the blast of a 50mm. A pair of them do guns, mortars, and MGs rapidly. The "37" style HMG has good firepower, ammo, crew depth, and speed. You should also throw in a few ATRs, which are fast speed (more on their role later).

The infantry relies on those heavy weapons, and on fire by platoons at rifle ranges. Basically once you get close enough for full IDs you should be firing rather than closing. I trail one platoon behind another and let both fire once the first gets to 100-150 meters. With MGs helping as well. The ammo is abundant enough to do that, you avoid Russian SMGs.

For defenders in heavy cover, you want HE of course. The off map 120mm mortars, regimental level, are the most effective on the attack. Liveable response time, high rate of fire once they start coming down (from 6 tubes), and good blast. Not overly expensive, either, though the rarity isn't zero.

On defense all the medium modules are good - 100mm or 105mm (divisional 120mm if you happen to "roll" low rarity too, I guess). TRPs handle the response time issue, which is the only serious one. They fire a bit slower, but on defense you are often trying to stretch the shells anyway. The blast is somewhat less than the 120s, but adequate against attackers without good cover.

In a small fight, arty point limited or a high rarity roll for the regimental 120s, you can use the 100s or 105s on attack. They have a 6 minute delay, though, so you basically have to plan. If you have two, you can call them at 3 minute intervals and cancel/lift if not needed. You'll need 2 minutes of fire to suppress defenders (thus 2 missions per module), or the whole thing to break them.

The anti armor magic unit is the 76mm divisional gun, F-22. It becomes available late in 1941 and by early 1942 is down to modest rarity (40% typically). It will kill T-34s through any plate to essentially the limits of LOS. Its HE load is also decent, and hard hitting enough to deal with trenches and buildings.

You should never be without a pair of them, a whole battery of four in a large fight. And 1-2 trucks to help reposition. (SPWs will also do it, but rarity usually makes them far too expensive). You can't be shy about pushing them around by hand, either. The HMGs or ATRs can button tanks before you push one into LOS, inside cover of course.

If the rarity roll for those is truly nasty, a poor man's substitute is the "French 75" (75mm 97/38 model). Its HE isn't as strong, and its AP is range limited against T-34s but can kill them. It comes with a decent amount of HEAT, which is effective against T-34s (though borderline on the hull). Not nearly as accurate as the 76, though, due to lower muzzle velocity. Does have a lower profile and visibility, but not enough to help much.

The 47mm is the only thing you've got in early 1941. It is marginal against early model T-34 turret fronts, but then so is practically everything else in the 1941 arsenal. Of the other light guns, only the 25mm Hotchkiss AA is worth looking at if the rarity is low - as a light armor stopper and against infantry. Hard to spot, rapid ROF, twice the anti-infantry impact of a 20mm FLAK. But T-70s will bounce them.

The standard anti-light armor protection remains ATRs. You need a few of those along to prevent enemy light armor from stopping your infantry everywhere with MG fire in the open. And to save your 76mm ATGs for true enemy tanks, instead of revealing them to every light vehicle. You can trade ATGs for T-34s, but not for tankettes or BTs.

As for armor, there is only one really effective item, period and rarity limited. In the "Stalingrad" time window, from October 1942 to January 1943, they have access to Pz IV longs ("G4"). A 50mm front variety, and so vunerable to T-34s but not to 45mm from the front. The gun of course KOs T-34s to any range, accurately.

Their own R2 gun armed tanks are like the 1941 Russian lights. A gun that only kills those, and armor that only stops MG bullets. Not really useful. The R1 tankette is a mobile MG nest and cheap. Small outline. But the armor won't stop ATRs and the MG ammo is relatively limited. Think of them as MMG carriers out of CMBO.

Overall, the infantry arty and heavy weapons are effective, while the armor is missing except in the Stalingrad period, and then is rare. The stuff that works (the infantry war, mostly) fights much like CMBO Americans (rifle heavy vs. SMG, relatively speedy heavy weapons, reliance on arty vs. heavy cover).

I find my squad infantry does about 1/3 of the damage, arty does another 1/3 (towed 75/76 and FOs combined), heavy weapons (including lighter guns if any) do the other 1/3.

The difference is they don't have good anti infantry tanks, and instead rely on guns, the 76mm in particular. That makes them best on defense, or in infantry force type engagements, or in small battles. In those, the enemy has little armor, and a few guns can cover most of the map.

In a large combined arms meeting engagement, the absence of armor and size of the map combine to make a significant problem, though. If you can't cover much of the map from covered positions in the start line, or spots you can rapidly reach while entirely in dead ground, you don't have 76mm AT coverage.

You have to truck move 76s forward, which is not easy. Trucks aren't fast off road. They are extremely vunerable, so they have to move to back sides of cover completely unobserved. The guns themselves are pretty hard to see when pushed around inside trees, before they open up. But they have set up times, once they fire attract enemy mortars - overall they are hard to use compared to tanks.

[ April 02, 2003, 09:09 AM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Quintus]

Thank you to JasonC for that info on the Rumanians.

From what I can see, their infantry is all rifle armed until April of 1942 and then it gets that rather nice cavalry squad mentioned.

I shall have to definitely give them a try at some point.

It almost makes me wish that there was a Far-East version of this game out at present... Rifle armed infantry, odd calibre on-board field guns, AWFUL tanks but passable aircraft... it's just like the 1941 Japanese army I used to 1/300 wargame with.

[JasonC]

The other Axis minor that can hold its own is Hungarians in the late war, only. 1944 and 45. (They are weak in the early war period).

They have access to decent armor, though not great and suffering from modest to high rarity. Of their own vehicles, only the 105mm Zyrini is worth much against armor. But they also can take StuGs, Pz IV Hs, and Hetzers. The problem is they have these decent tanks in an era when the Russians have T-34/85s. And they pay rarity premiums to get them, while the Russians get discounts.

Their infantry is OK, 2 SMG types with 47 ammo. Their HMG is decent, with medium speed, but not as hard hitting as the Rumanian one. For mortars they have the 81mm (their 50s are pop guns with inadequate ammo). The towed guns are poor. The arty is so-so, medium stuff available for reasonable prices but with pretty long delays. They have a corps level 149mm that is powerful and not very expensive, but you need TRPs or planned fire to use it effectively.

You wind up with a force that has less available than the Germans, in an era when the Russians have quite good equipment. Everything is adequate or vanilla, nothing is outstanding. They fight with infantry, heavy weapons, and armor cooperating with each other in standard ways. Meeting engagements are their natural scenario type.