Worse units in any CM game?

[Soddball]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Italians were "really good soldiers" if "really good" means "worst in the war", maybe, in the land of unhurt national pride where all children are above average. In the real world, they sucked at least as much as they do in CM. They never won a battle under their own command, and were smashed to atoms whenever they were in the main line of a major allied attack.

You know full well that several of the units of the Italian army fought well and fought hard. They had inadequate supplies, almost no anti-tank weapons, and poor leadership.

[von Churov]

My country (Montenegro, in former Yugoslavia) was in Italian occupation zone. When rebelion started in 13th of July 1941 the 98% of territory of Montenegro was liberated in 24 hours. The Italians were surrendering themselves in hundreds even though they outnumbered partisan rebels by factor of 3 maybe even 5. There are credits of a company sized units of Montenegrian partisans capturing entire (batalion sized) columns of Italians.

There are reports that some of Italian troops surrendered as soon as they were attacked.

And the equipment and ammo supply level of partisans was waaaay below that of Italian.

This is not to say that MN Partisans fought so well (but they did, and Montenegro really was a warrior nation with strong military tradition, maybe even stronger than that of Prussians) but to show how bad Italians performed.

But after the rebelion, Italians had sent the elite troops and things had changed...drasticly.

They showed that they know how to fight, if they want so. The problem may be that for the most of the time THEY JUST DIDN'T WANT TO FIGHT.

[Joachim]

Comparison of Italians vs (early) Soviets:

Both were hardy people, but usually ill-led.

The Soviets had better equipment and were motivated by defending their homeland.

The Italians had obsolete tanks and ATGs.

The Soviets had the Red God of War aka massive arty. The Italians had little arty.

The Soviets had commissars and the NKVD to stop their soldiers from fleeing - yet many surrendered.

The Italians had no commissars.

So what do you expect from them?

They can fill support roles in CM. But look at the firepower of the inf squads or the MGs. Look at the penetration charts of their guns. Check the armor of their tanks. It was an army designed for colonial warfare... that got caught in a modern war.

Gruß

Joachim

[ October 03, 2005, 03:27 PM: Message edited by: Joachim ]

[JasonC]

Soddball - I deny the Italian army was ill-equipped by the standards of most powers in WW II. It was not deficient in artillery. If they had remained in the war until late, they might have faced AT deficiencies against improved late war tanks, but they dropped out by then. In the early war, their 75mm field guns - the standard in their "gun lines" - was perfectly adequate against the tanks they faced. (Their 47mm ATG was superior to the Russian 45mm, the German 37mm, comparable to the 2-pdr or US 37mm. But the 75mm firing direct had to do the heavy lifting).

I've been looking at the force the Italians sent in to Russia. For 68 infantry type battalions (including engineers), they had 52 battalions of supporting artillery. Not batteries, battalions. A typical regiment could count on the support of a 75mm battalion - just like the Russians - and another battalion's worth of 100s, 105s, or 149s. A force that in Russian terms would have been a small army of 2 rifle corps and a few mobile brigades (some motorized infantry, some cavalry), had one battalion of 210s and 11 battalions of 149s.

Nor where these unsupported logistically, compared to the Russians. A third of the artillery in the leg infantry divisions was motorized, as was most of the higher formation stuff. The Italians brought over 15000 trucks to Russia. Find me a pair of Russian rifle corps with 15000 trucks.

In infantry arms, they were equipped with MGs and mortars up to Russian levels, meaning slightly deficient in LMGs and adequate in other respects. The Russians had 120s, but then those and their corps level 122s had to counterbalance all the corps level 149s the Italians were packing, in every way superior to them.

What the Italian force in Russia did lack was tanks. It was essentially a pure infantry formation, by the standards of the Germans ot Russians of that year. Their tanks were in North Africa, in Arete for the most part.

Nor did the Italians formations give a particularly good account of themselves for the equipment they had. On the contrary. On occasion their commanders were so incompetent they lost entire armies to forces a quarter their own size. Tactically, they lost high odds attacks, were penetrated by numerically inferior forces at times, and were smashed to pieces when hit with sufficient odds. When the late 1942 Russian offensives hit, they performed worse than the Rumanians.

In the western desert, their largest problem was scarcity of transport, tying them to static roles, and leading to wholesale captures after significant shifts in the front. But they never fought as toughly as many Allied "boxes" similarly roughly handled by armor. Their mobile force was better, but never the equivalent of an equal number of Indians, let alone Germans.

I know people think it is somehow sporting to save nice things about put upon forces, but some reps are deserved. The Italian armed forces drastically underperformed for their weight, throughout WW II. Low motivation is one reason, poor leadership another. But it all boils down to, they just didn't have what it takes to stand toe to toe with the big boys. That isn't slander it is fact. PC revisionism and "spin" can't change it.

[Soddball]

I noticed that you have managed to casually skip over with the two critical deficiences - armour and aircraft.

Italian tanks were atrocious. We don't need to go into details - you know them as well as I.

Some of their aircraft (MC202) were good but for the most part they were outclassed by everyone else in the field. They were being beaten over Malta by Hurricanes and Gladiators, both obsolete by 1941. Their medium bombers had insufficient payloads and inadequate protection.

Banging on about how many artillery tubes they fielded makes no difference. Warfare is about Combined Arms, as you well know. And saying they had parity with the Russians in artillery and MGs means nothing when they couldn't field a single good tank for the entire war and failed to achieve anything of any substance with their air force.

[The_Enigma]

if you look through some of the topics on the comando supermo forums, the italians on there all state how the italians where great etc

examples i can think of is, they state that the 10th army was made up of conscipts hence its complete desctucion early on to the 7th armour and 4th indian.

they claim there tanks even though not good compared to allied tanks could take matildas.

etc etc etc

they blame every fault or defeat of the italain armies during ww2 down to western (mainly british in there opinions) propaganda.

thinking about, most of what ive read about the italain army has came from the british pov (my main intrest in the war).

So is it all or mostly all propaganda or where they just incompent and to put it simply mainly crappy?

[Soddball]

I think that they were, as you put it, 'mainly crappy'.

But you can go too far one way, and worship their greatness, as the forum you describe appears to do, or you can go too far the other, and generalise as JasonC does about how dreadful every single Italian soldier was.

The truth is in between. Many of their soldiers were illiterate agricultural conscripts. No familiarity with modern technology, let alone modern warfare. They routed early and often. Some of the units (Ariete division) performed well even with their atrocious tanks. They had nothing that could take on a Matilda, though (except perhaps their 90mm AA gun). The best way to escape a Matilda attack was to walk slowly away from it and there was a fair chance it would run out of fuel before it overtook you.

Their paratroopers were pretty good though.

[SpitfireXI]

On a similar topic I would like to see some battles of the Italians in CMBB. I have played the ones already in the cd but I cannot understand how they were able to advance more than 5 miles across the Russian border. A platoon of conscript T-26 can hold the Italians for a bit and forget a T-34. So how were the Italians able to get so far into Russia? Did they only fight against infantry?

[The_Enigma]

arty? one of the dudes above stated they carted a hell load of arty with them, maybe thats how?

on a note, when did the italian troops on the russian front return home? If they where still there after facist italy fell where they rounded up by the germans?

another thing comes to mind, if the russians overran any german pow camps with italaians in, were they treated ok by the russians?

(btw is it true that when the russian overran the german pow camps, they where preety nasty to western allied prisoners they found. Also is it true in some cases that the germans let the allied pows go just before the reds rolled in?

again is this story true, i read somewhere that a german pow commander at the end of the war protected his prisoners from either the russian horde or German troops coming to kill them, for a night the mgs pointed outwards and not inwards. the next day him, his guards and the pows boarded troops and headed for allied lines or Switzerland... or something simlar to that?)

[JasonC]

Soddball - Joachim specifically claimed the Italians had little arty and contrasted that with the Russians having tons. This is far from accurate, so I corrected it. It is not like I brought the subject up.

As for air, since the operated under Luftwaffe support it is pretty irrelevant. The same is true for operational armor groupings in Russia.

In North Africa, they had early war tanks and so did the Brits they faced, half the time. A Crusader or an M13/40 is not much difference - at least the M13/40 has HE. Against a Grant or a Sherman or even a Valentine, sure, no contest.

They had AA guns that could take out I tanks - even the 75mm AA is sufficient. It is not like the Germans could kill them with Pz III shorts. You could strip infantry off them with arty and if you had a gun line try hail fire - the same it true for the Germans. They were just a lot better at gun front tactics.

As for the other fellow's fears of T-26s, I can only assume few people know how to use infantry force types effectively. An infantry force type has direct fire heavy weapons, same as an armored one. The guns are just dismounted field pieces and the MGs are foot teams. A T-26 can be KOed with an ATR, let alone 47mm ATGs, let alone the heavy hitters of a tactical Italian infantry force - 75mm field guns firing direct.

A 1-2 company attack by Italian infantry would take the infantry itself, form weapons groups (with MGs etc) around 2-4 on map 81mm mortars to knock out guns and MGs, might or might not have a few 47mm ATGs (if expecting enemy armor early in the war, then take 2), one FO preferably 149mm, and 2 to 4 on map 75mm guns.

The infantry are scouts and find positions for the heavy weapons groups, which advance to places with LOS. The guns overwatch at first from the set up areas, then 1 or 2 at a time displace to closer positions that the infantry have already reached and are known to be safe. Eyes and shells before legs and bodies. That is, the LOS of guns and mortars extends forward before the infantry moves to a location. Once they have the previously sighted areas, the weapons move up to cover more, and the process repeats.

The infantry doesn't have to break enemy infantry in cover, HE does that. They take their lumps finding things, and they get their licks in mopping up. If tanks come up to stop the infantry, then they pull back briefly, avoiding immediate contact. If the tanks follow they are draw into the sights of the guns. If they don't, then you have time to reposition a few to the back side of woods or what have you, and push one up to LOS.

If you play infantry force types like this - not just Italians, Russians and Germans did it too - then you will find tanks a welcome convenience because they make the gun part more mobile, and the overwatching MGs cutting up enemy infantry repositioning, more resistent to enemy suppression as a coaxial MG than as a foot team. But you won't *need* tanks; they are gravy.