1939 Storm over Europe: Italy, the sick man of Europe

[Paul_Russell]

Hello all. This is my first post so please bear with me.

First thanks to Hubert, Bill, the beta testers and everyone for two such great games! You have filled many of my hours with challenge and entertainment.

However, in playing the WW2 expansion, I am having a lot of trouble with Italy in this campaign. The MPP are so low it is hard to do any research, raise units or even upgrade units. Usually I try to conquer the Balkans and Greece and have an Italian unit take the capital to boost the MPP. But in my recent game, Yugoslavia came in for the Axis and the MPP are going to Germany, who really doesn't need them after a fully successful Fall Blau.

It would be a great improvement if it were possible to "gift" MPP from Germany to Italy, so it could be a better ally. At this point, I prefer to generate Romanian units since I can upgrade them!

I didn't see this issue in other posts, but forgive me if I am putting this in the incorrect thread.

Again, thanks to everyone involved for a really great game!

[SeaMonkey]

Excellent thought PR, one that has been expressed before but no less relevant. Hopefully Hubert, Bill & Co. will see the light and code us this ability for a parent or any nation so connected by the LoC to distribute MPPs at the players' discretion.

[ev]

Why does Italy produce so few MPPs?

How did Italy get such a high fleet to begin with if it had such a poor industrial base?

[Colin I]

Italy has one other problem - vulnerability to a preemptive Med strike by the UK. Actually, it should be but a more random set up for Italy's fleets would be help matters - all floating off the South end of the country is a tempting target.

[xwormwood]

Why does Italy produce so few MPPs?

How did Italy get such a high fleet to begin with if it had such a poor industrial base?

Well, maybe the high fleet got all or most of the avaiable ressources, so not much else remained for other branches of their armed forces?

Even germany wasn't able to build up a large fleet AND a large submarine fleet (just as an example).

The other problems were probably missing raw materials like ore, oil and rubber etc. During peace times Italy was part of the winners of WW1, and had probably free access to all raw material markets.

Once they sided with hitler these sources were gone, and germany hadn't enough to spare much for their italian ally / problem (you chose) in the south.

[kalkwerk2]

But in my recent game, Yugoslavia came in for the Axis and the MPP are going to Germany, who really doesn't need them after a fully successful Fall Blau.

It would be a great improvement if it were possible to "gift" MPP from Germany to Italy, so it could be a better ally. At this point, I prefer to generate Romanian units since I can upgrade them!

in my view that wouldnt be an improvement at all. we already had italy as a minor of germany on the other engine, taking advantage of german research and so on.

italy shall be weak, if you want to help them, you must send them units and stretch your force, as they had to do historically...

[Ivanov]

in my view that wouldnt be an improvement at all. we already had italy as a minor of germany on the other engine, taking advantage of german research and so on.

italy shall be weak, if you want to help them, you must send them units and stretch your force, as they had to do historically...

I totally agree. It's all about keeping the balance right. Italy making too much MMPs' would be able to single handed defeat or at least stop the British in the Med. Weak Italy ( just like in the history ) is vulnerable and may need some German assistance. That gives the Allies an opportunity to strike the soft underbelly of the Festung Europa and streaches the Axis armies, which is a plus;)

And what about USA having industrial tech level 2 in 1943 and making roughly miserable 350 MMPs'? US during WWII had already firmly established a status of the biggest industrial power of the world and yes, it was waging the war on two fronts, but the main effort was directed towards winning the war with Germany, not Japan. Still, I think that limiting the industrial output of the US for the game purpouses is correct. The armed forces of Uncle Sam may not be involved in combat for some prolonged period of time and too big production would allow them to expand too much, limiting the playability of the game.

What is deeply disturbing to me though and this subject has been discussed already, is the fact that German economy thanks to exploitation of the conquered resources, may somewhere round 1943 reach the level of 1000MMPs' per turn... The fact that Germany owes for example an ex Soviet coal mine, shouldn't mean that it's full ( or nearly full ) production capacity should be converted into MMPs' that can be then spent in 100% on the military production or research. It's not even a point of the game being realistic ( because this aspect of it is not ). If the Germany should ever be able to win the war, it should be due to the wise military strategy, competence of it's armed forces and the intelligent diplomacy, not due to the economical supremacy.

Amen

[Peter Palchinsky]

Excellent thought PR, one that has been expressed before but no less relevant. Hopefully Hubert, Bill & Co. will see the light and code us this ability for a parent or any nation so connected by the LoC to distribute MPPs at the players' discretion.

As long as player controlled economic exchanges are limited to a certain %. Also, maybe some economic/military DEs could be triggered when an ally is on the verge of collapse ($ and/or equivalent units could be sent). Also, in the case of Italy when Rome falls, a DE should allow Germany to form the Italian Socialist Republic as minor ally.

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

In general I think that Italy is okay as it is now.... in history italian performance was as bad as possible, and in this game you can give them the ability fight almost like german troops. In one game they had IW Level 3 and whacked US troops in Algeria.. so they can do way better than they did in history. But you need to be very careful: do not waste any MPPs, you never get them back.

And I really love the idea of having a DE for the ISR.. that would be great.

[Kommandant]

I guess it's correct to say that this ability should not exist, but if you stop to think that you are able to change history in this game, why not give the opportunity to invest MPP in Italian army and not to send German armies to the Africa front, this would, of course damage the German economy and would finance an military that do not possess the fighting capacity to even hold the Africa front or take over a small nation like Greece.

Italy is really a weak point for the strategy of the axis, but that does not mean that the military of Germany have to send soldiers to Africa.

This type of decision could be expanded to the WWI maps, to finance the Ottoman Empire, or the French army, just like the English do to the Italians.

[ev]

Well, maybe the high fleet got all or most of the avaiable ressources, so not much else remained for other branches of their armed forces?

Even germany wasn't able to build up a large fleet AND a large submarine fleet (just as an example).

So, prior to the war, Italy built a large fleet at the expense of preparing a large army. But, still, it must have a fair industrial capacity. Large enough to build all those boats. Yet, the amount of MPPs per turn Italy is really small. How could Italy build such a large fleet during peacetime with so few MPPs? Where did all that peacetime production go?

The other problems were probably missing raw materials like ore, oil and rubber etc. During peace times Italy was part of the winners of WW1, and had probably free access to all raw material markets.

Once they sided with hitler these sources were gone, and germany hadn't enough to spare much for their italian ally / problem (you chose) in the south.

Was Italy indeed so short of resources? Is there anyone familiar with Italian war production?

Suppose Italy captured a few mines in Yugoslavia, Ukraine, or elsewhere, would Italy get a production boost from those mines? should it?

I do not know how SOE's economic model works. Can someone explain the relationship between Factories, Ports, Mines, and, Oilfields?

Meanwhile, I wonder if ships are just too expensive in SOE. Does it really cost so much to build one single Cruiser or Battleship when compared to a full Army or Mech. Group?

And, I am also troubled by the combat performance of Aircraft Carriers. In SOE, each fighter units stands for an entire fleet of 600-800 planes. For example, when WWII started the Germans had 1,180 fighter planes. In SOE, these 1,180 planes are represented by Germany's starting 3 fighter units. I.E. each fighter unit represents about 400 fighters.

However, in SOE, a single aircraft carrier can put enough planes in the air to be a match a full SOE fighter unit, and, it gets to attack twice! So, one aircraft carrier is a match for a fleet of 400 fighters!

The Yorktown class carriers of WWII (e.g. Enterprise, etc.) carried 90 planes. These carriers were about as big as you could get at the time. So, for a Carrier unit in SOE to have comparable stats to a Fighter unit, it would have to represent not a single Carrier, but a fleet of 4-5 big Carriers.

...and, still the Carrier can attack twice.

...if we follow this logic, perhaps we should also consider each Battleship unit in SOE to stand for a full squadron of 4-5 Battleships. Accordingly, the Italians would only get one battleship unit instead of the current 5. ...and, we should perform a similar excercise for every other country.

[xwormwood]

Hi ev.

Take here a look.

I know that wikipedia is not the best source, but it might still answer some of your questions.

[ev]

Just had a quick look at your quote. It looks great.

I teach an evening class, and I have to get ready, so I cannot read the whole thing now. I will study the whole thing later.

My first reaction... from this article, it looks like that Italian low MPP's is justfied. But this leaves us with the question of how could a country with low industrial capacity produce such a large and expensive fleet.

And this brings me back to my other point, which, is that naval power is over-represented in SOE. Italy in particular, and all countries in general, have too many boats for the scale of the game.

This bankrupts Italy because it cannot upkeep such a huge fleet. But giving the Italians a proportionally smaller fleet makes it impossible for Italy to fend off the Brits because the British Fleet is also out of whack.

Again, I think the solution is to reduce the number of naval units in the game by a factor of 4 - 5. But, I want to do more research on this... and, share it with you all.

[Ivanov]

Meanwhile, I wonder if ships are just too expensive in SOE. Does it really cost so much to build one single Cruiser or Battleship when compared to a full Army or Mech. Group?

I would prefer to keep the ships very expensive, just as they are now. It prevents Italy and Germany from building enormous naval forces and helps to maintain British naval superiority, which is one of the few trumps that the Allies possess at the beginning of the war.

The high cost of ships compared to the land units, reflects also the lenghtly and technologically complicated proces, that was involved in shipbuilding programs. In reality, the countries like Germany, were actually able to field much faster let's say few armiey groups, than build numerically significant naval force and the game is reflecting it very well indeed.

[Ivanov]

And, I am also troubled by the combat performance of Aircraft Carriers. In SOE, each fighter units stands for an entire fleet of 600-800 planes. For example, when WWII started the Germans had 1,180 fighter planes. In SOE, these 1,180 planes are represented by Germany's starting 3 fighter units. I.E. each fighter unit represents about 400 fighters.

However, in SOE, a single aircraft carrier can put enough planes in the air to be a match a full SOE fighter unit, and, it gets to attack twice! So, one aircraft carrier is a match for a fleet of 400 fighters!

The Yorktown class carriers of WWII (e.g. Enterprise, etc.) carried 90 planes. These carriers were about as big as you could get at the time. So, for a Carrier unit in SOE to have comparable stats to a Fighter unit, it would have to represent not a single Carrier, but a fleet of 4-5 big Carriers.

...and, still the Carrier can attack twice.

...if we follow this logic, perhaps we should also consider each Battleship unit in SOE to stand for a full squadron of 4-5 Battleships. Accordingly, the Italians would only get one battleship unit instead of the current 5. ...and, we should perform a similar excercise for every other country.

It's all about the scale of the game. For example in September of 1939 the Royal Navy had on the home waters and Atlantic ( Med not included ) 9 battleships, 35 cruisers, 95 destroyers, 25 submarines and 4 carriers. Obviosly more than in the game because if I remember well, at the beginning of the Storm Over Europe campaign in the same theatre, RN starts for example with 2 carriers and no subs at all... So in fact a ship ( however it may be named after a historical predecessor ) represents a bigger battlegroup or a task force.

As if to comparison between the carriers and land based air fleets. I think they just shouldn't be compared at all:) It's just like my favorite example - German and Allied tank groups. The Allied tank groups simply didn't exist:) Yet they appear in the game and I have no objections to it. As we said before, a carrier in SC represents a bigger task force of more than one ship and secondly most of the times in would be probably hunting the subs, not combating enemy's airforce. Anyway it is limited to operating in the coastal areas and it represents the usual Allied air superiority around Britain or in the Med.

[wlape3]

I wonder how many of Italy's ships represented in the game are actually modern. As one of the Entente powers she probably "inherited" at least some ships from Austria-Hungary as well as retaining her surviving WWI fleet. Germany had to turn over her fleet to Britain at the end of WWI and it could be argued that the Germans started from near zero capital ships to what they had in 1939.

Just a thought.

[xwormwood]

the italian navy was quite modern, but lacking radar and air protection:

click me

[ev]

It's all about the scale of the game. For example in September of 1939 the Royal Navy had on the home waters and Atlantic ( Med not included ) 9 battleships, 35 cruisers, 95 destroyers, 25 submarines and 4 carriers. Obviosly more than in the game because if I remember well, at the beginning of the Storm Over Europe campaign in the same theatre, RN starts for example with 2 carriers and no subs at all... So in fact a ship ( however it may be named after a historical predecessor ) represents a bigger battlegroup or a task force.

As if to comparison between the carriers and land based air fleets. I think they just shouldn't be compared at all:) It's just like my favorite example - German and Allied tank groups. The Allied tank groups simply didn't exist:) Yet they appear in the game and I have no objections to it. As we said before, a carrier in SC represents a bigger task force of more than one ship and secondly most of the times in would be probably hunting the subs, not combating enemy's airforce. Anyway it is limited to operating in the coastal areas and it represents the usual Allied air superiority around Britain or in the Med.

(1) At the start of WWII Italy had seven battleships and eight heavy cruisers. At the start of SOE, Italy has seven battleships. Are these 7 SOE battleships meant to represent a pair of ships each? Or, should Italy start SOE with 4 battkeship units, each representing a squadron of 4 battleships and heavy cruisers?

(2) First, I must point to a typo in my previous post. In SOE each fighter unit seems to represent about 400 fighters.

It also seems each tank group stands for roughly 5 tank and mechanized infantry divisions.

I understand airfleets and tank groups were not arrange in this particular fashion by the armies of the time. No problem with that.

However, if a fighter unit stands for 400 planes, then a carrier unit should stand for a squadron of four to five carriers carrying a combined force of 400 planes. Similar units should represent a similar underlying reality. The air component of a carrier unit plays a similar role in the game as the air component of a fighter unit. Hence, they should both stand for the same number of planes.

And, yes perhapps the Royal Navy should start SOE with only one carrier unit instead of two. If, in real life, the four British carriers could only carry a combined force of 400 planes, consistency dictates they should be combined into one single unit.

I guess what I am trying to say is that the unit scale for naval unit is out of balance with the unit scale for land units. Either we reduce the number of naval units, or, increase the number of land and air units. Or, a bit of each.