• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Aw man, I choose a week to ignore my AAR's, and I miss Italys entry into The Second Great War!:mad:

You are doing great! At first I saw the Battle of Gibralter, you were losing, and I thought "Oh shit." Then I read on, excellent work!

Egypt looks to be a landslide so far aswell. I see my old favourite "Electric Whiskers" Bergonzolli, and the motorised division. My bet is on him being the first into Alexandria!

Looking forward to the next update!
 
Maj. von Mauser: That's luck for you. ;) Also, you got the 1000th post in this thread! :p

Update coming up!
 
The Year Italy Joined the World War
Part 12: Operation Caesar Augustus II, October 17 – November 15, 1940

The month between the middle of October and the middle of November saw active operations only in, and off the coast of, Egypt. Indeed, early November marked the first time the Royal Navy made an appearance, more than a full month after the start of the war. This dilatory attitude on the Royal Navy’s part was wholly unexpected but not necessarily unwelcomed. Mahanian emphasis on decisive battle at all costs had given way in Mussolini’s thinking to the Corbettian realization that decisive battle was not an end in itself. It was merely a means to an end, this end being control of the sea. If the Royal Navy did not sally out to challenge Italy’s control of the Mediterranean then its existence was irrelevant except inasmuch as it was an inactive fleet-in-being. This evolution in Mussolini’s strategic thought was to be expected by any serious scholar on naval and maritime strategy, and indeed could be seen already in the war with Yugoslavia, though only now was it becoming blatant.

This is the context with which to view Operation Caesar Augustus and understand its true import. Vercellino’s army did not let up in its dash across the desert. With Bergonzoli in the lead and British units being routed back eastward, the Italians were threatening British control of Alexandria. The loss of Alexandria would utterly jeopardize the Royal Navy, leaving it with only two ports large enough to hold the Mediterranean Fleet: Valletta, in Malta, and Haifa, in Palestine. One was strategically untenable, Valletta, and the other was strategically negligible, letting the Mediterranean Fleet be pushed off to one side of the Middle Sea.

055-01-PushingontoAlexandria.jpg

The Italians, pushing toward Alexandria.

By the 7th of November, the battle for Alexandria had begun. Five Italian divisions threatened the city, including the three cavalry divisions of Cei’s mobile corps. Bergonzoli’s division, however, was not to be given the glory of entering the city or even fighting for it. Its task was a much more important one. He was to rush for the Suez Canal and attempt a crossing. This would not only cut off the defenders of Alexandria from supply except by sea, but would also cut the Mediterranean Fleet’s escape route out of the trap that was being set for it. It may be destined by land warfare to be pushed off to one side but as long as it existed it was by its very existence still a theoretical threat to all maritime traffic in the Mediterranean. Italy would not be fully secure until that fleet was broken and rusting at the bottom of the sea.

055-02-BattleforAlexandria.jpg

The battle for Alexandria.

As the guns began thundering outside Alexandria, the first units of the Royal Navy began evacuating and relocating, apparently toward Malta. This had been anticipated, though the apparent choice of Malta was somewhat confusing. Mussolini had ordered Italy’s submarine fleet to guard the approaches to Alexandria. Eleven submarine flotillas under Aimone di Savoia Aosta intercepted the British battleship HMS Rodney and the battlecruiser Renown, as well as two escorting destroyer flotillas. Damage was done on both sides but for the moment there were no sinkings and the British slipped away.

055-03-RNBeginsFleeing.jpg

The beginning of the evacuation of Alexandria harbor.

By the 8th of November, Bergonzoli was threatening Cairo from the southwest and Major General Frusci with the 47a Divisione ‘Bari’ was pushing southward toward Fayum. The British position in Egypt was collapsing around them. They clearly did not dedicate enough forces to safeguarding Egypt, and the isolation of two entire divisions by pushing them deep into the Egyptian Sahara desert only weakened their already thin defenses even more.

055-04-SlicingUpEgypt.jpg

The Italians eviscerating the British position in Egypt.

By the 11th, Alexandria was on the cusp of falling. Dall’Ora’s corps was redeploying to begin a push southward along the Nile River with the intent of establishing some sort of defensive line somewhere. Heading any deeper into Africa than was necessary for a safe defense was a foolish idea. Bergonzoli, meanwhile, had reached the Suez Canal but the guns of British gunboats patrolling the Canal prevented him from crossing. He decided to head north along the Canal until he could find a place to cross. It was necessary to prevent the Mediterranean Fleet from escaping.

055-05-ReachingtheCanal.jpg

Bergonzoli reaching the Canal and other Italian activities in Egypt that spell trouble for the British.

Alexandria fell mere hours after Bergonzoli reached the Canal. Nearly six hundred Italians and over twelve hundred British soldiers died for the city, but it was finally open for conquest and would fall by the 15th. On the 14th, the Royal Navy continued its evacuation of Alexandria. A fleet of twelve units under Ingram fled the port, containing such notable ships a the battlecruiser Hood. By this time, the Italian submarine tripwire had called Campioni’s fleet to within striking distance. Flying from north of Crete, Italian carrier pilots bombed the British ships as they were engaged by submarines. Many British ships were damaged, including the heavy cruisers HMS Sussex and HMS Shropshire. The HMS Hood and the light cruiser HMS Leander were sunk. This was, however, only a prelude to what was to occur on the 15th. The rest of the Mediterranean Fleet fled the harbor upon the fall of the city. By evening on the 15th the coast of Egypt was thronging with British ships: a total of eighty units were steaming out of port and heading east. This included the Rodney, the Renown and two fleet carriers: the Courageous and the Glorious. The Mediterranean Fleet by itself outnumbered the entire Regia Marina!

055-06-OMGOMGOMGFUCK.jpg

Oh shit.

The British Mediterranean Fleet had revealed its numerical superiority, but not its moral superiority. Rather than seeking out the Italian fleet and attempting to force a battle in the Mahanian tradition that it cherished, it instead began fleeing eastward toward Haifa. They would not flee the Mediterranean, but they would not fight. Perhaps the British chiefs of staff envisaged it as such a huge force that it could exist, isolated, as a fleet-in-being for long enough that a British counterattack from the Sudan or Palestine could throw Vercellino’s army back. Perhaps reinforcements were rushing from Britain. It was impossible to know what the British were truly planning.
 
Maj. von Mauser: That's luck for you. ;) Also, you got the 1000th post in this thread! :p

Update coming up!

rats ... I was eyeing up the 1000th.

Re Suez Canal it may have changed from 1.2 but what I found in my Turkish game when I took Alexandria was the British gleefully sailed down the Suez canal, despite me holding both banks ... and whilst they did so, prevented my from crossing :eek:
 
1000th post, nice.

Well this is certainly interesting. Suez is about to fall, but you will have a heck of a time destroying the Mediterranean Fleet!
 
Wow! An awesome series of updates. First The Rock is taken out (no, not the former wrestler turned actor) and now Egypt is neutralized in quick order. My feelings of doom carried over from the Yugoslav and Romanian campaigns are now dispelled Myth, thank you! Next steps for Il Duce...strike toward Persia?
 
Is this still 1.1? Or have you updated and prayed there were no crashes. If this is still an earlier version I commend you for not pulling your hair out with glitches/bad AI. I also commend you for having the patience to conquer africa as the italians. In my games I usually pull everything out of Africa because its so tedious and annoying. Still you make a good AAR out of something that is actually(imho) boring to do in-game.

p.s. does the combat interface reveal the stacking penalty for the british ships? I'd love to know.
 
Your AAR inspired me to try Italy, now that my German '36 game is practically over. Unfortunately for me, the Spanish Civil War began days into the '36 game, and I doubt I'll be able to replicate your early feats - the war will be over before I get anywhere near the required neutrality - threat level.

Your Abyssinian misadventures were a good warning though. I started the game with a thorough rearrangement of the Italian command structure, assigining logistics & commando trait commanders to the units, and relocating most militia units back to Italy. Ethipia surrendered on April 1st. The experience my commanders got was phenomenal. I never noticed that much experience gain in my German game - probably because the lowest skilled commander has 2 skill levels!

For now I'm without a war to fight...
 
Last edited:
On the plus side, once Palestine falls that fleet is out of supply. :)
 
I think you should take advantage of the British navies relocation and try to have a landing in Port Sudan, before Britain does.
 
Push forth and capture their fleet before it can do anymore damage!
 
Enewald: Yep. :p

loki100: Is that so? Well, we'll see how it goes. :p

cthulhu: Basically, yes. :D

Maj. von Mauser: Yeah, a heck of a time. :p

Jorath13: Hehe, ye of little faith. ;) As for post-Egypt plans, I've not particularly thought that far ahead yet! :p

Emerjent: With caution. :p

BlitzMartinDK: Not by land-based air, Haifa's just out of range of the nearest airfields. What a bugger. :p

EvilFishtank: This is 1.2 at the moment, though at the end of the year, going into 1941, it'll transit into 1.3. As for stacking penalties, there probably are (how could there not be? :eek:) but I don't know what that penalty is. :p

anweRU: Good stuff to hear. :D Yeah, the SCW thing was a complete fluke for me, it just happened to come a year and a half late, somehow. As for leaders, I actually prefer the smaller countries because when I'm playing Germany, I just don't even know what to do with all those many skill 5 leaders they have. Also, when you don't have a war to fight...find one. ;)

Judas Maccabeus: Hehe you'd think it was the entire fleet! But it most likely isn't. Note that many important capital ships are not present, such as the BC Repulse, the BBs Malaysia or Nelson, the CA Furious or the CVL Argus and so on. If I had to estimate, I'd place this concentration at about half their fleet at the most but probably more like a third. Which is worrying enough. :p

ColossusCrusher: Yep, that's true. :p

Merrick Chance': Hehe, the importance of Port Sudan has been pointed out by another reader earlier on. I'm definitely thinking of a way to take that port. ;)

billy bob: Capture it? Can you even do that? :p
 
BlitzMartinDK: Not by land-based air, Haifa's just out of range of the nearest airfields. What a bugger. :p

I'm sure I had planes over Haifa when the Savoy Cavalry overran it. I think they might have been TACs based out of Rhodes. Or maybe CAGs from Alexandria with small fuel tank improvements. Or there might have been no fighting, though I'm pretty sure I arranged aerial scouting all up that coast when I dispossessed the French and British of the Levant... The Corpo'd'Armata Celere did well in getting to Baghdad.
 
Mahanian emphasis on decisive battle at all costs had given way in Mussolini’s thinking to the Corbettian realization that decisive battle was not an end in itself. It was merely a means to an end, this end being control of the sea. If the Royal Navy did not sally out to challenge Italy’s control of the Mediterranean then its existence was irrelevant except inasmuch as it was an inactive fleet-in-being.

A quick question about this - and the implications.

Is what you're saying that, as opposed to building up a strategy from the conventional building blocks - in this case if you want naval control over the E Med you either have the biggest fleet or you deny the enemy naval access (Alexander's strategy of defeating a superior naval power by taking all their ports?) - all that matters is you get what you want (ie unhindered control)? And, in this case, the outcome of a passive RN is no better or worse than destroying it?
 
anweRU: Good stuff to hear. :D Yeah, the SCW thing was a complete fluke for me, it just happened to come a year and a half late, somehow. As for leaders, I actually prefer the smaller countries because when I'm playing Germany, I just don't even know what to do with all those many skill 5 leaders they have. Also, when you don't have a war to fight...find one. ;)

It's all about the starting neutrality levels. After joining the Axis in Feb'37, I was able to DoW on Yugoslavia by the end of that month. After mobilizing, I DoW'ed the first week of March, and the Yugoslavs were conquered within the four weeks predicted earlier in this thread.

I'll have to look up what AOI stands for, but it is my "professional expeditionary" army. It was landed near Split, and took Split - Belgrade and the one near the Greek border. The other two armies (2nd and 4th) attacked from Italy proper, and pushed eastwards, with the motorized division under Giorgis (ex-militia commander in Somalia) linking up with the AOI. Giorgis is the best Italian divisional commander at this point, having gained 1.5 levels in Ethiopia, and a full level in Yugoslavia. Not bad...

I'm also following a different track than you. I want to have a few light tank regiments to support my mostly infantry army, and I like triangular infantry divisions. I'm also upgrading my CAs.