Italian Army Seems Underpowered

[GermanPower]

What ifs. What ifs. That seems to be the counter point. Trying to explain away the issue. Making excuses. There's no argument I've seen that shows Italy in any positive light. Just oh well it was a matter of time they defeated a nation that should have taken a few months. As Secret said above the accomplished nothing. It was a total failure. Just as their attempts in Africa. Defeat after defeat can be listed. They required German leadership to be competent. That's all this tells me. There's a gross and horrible level of incompetence that rivals that of France. It has nothing to do with the Italian people. The most successful conquers in Europe. IT HAS to do with the leadership. It's a issue and should be implemented in the game. I'm always annoyed...when playing Germany Italy literally conquers everything simply because they should be able to. I don't want HOI4 to make it like the past HOIs where Italy 50/50 totally reliefs pressure from North Africa & Balkans. I know from experience it seems more often then not Italy is capable of steam rolling Greece and Africa. I don't want that to happen and I would like this to be represented.

Italy fell flat on their face..it should be represented as such. Don't get me wrong. As I've said I love playing Italy. But the reality was poor performance in every aspect. The Italian Air Force is the only thing I can think of that kicked some ass. Even then the technical proficiency of the Air Power in Italy was shot by incompetence.

We know what happened. I just know if Italy is given what it had in real life..it's ability should have been to secure the Mediterranean, Take Egypt, Take Greece, and Yugoslavia. With some bumps on the road. But it nationally should have certainly been capable of that. I don't want that happening EVERY game. Where I forget about entire theaters of war because I know Italy's got it. That's why I think it's important to be hard on Italy. It's interesting. I'm not trying to offend anyone. Everyone looses wars. Italy happened to be on the bad side of this one. I'm going to be skeptical of the performance of Italy until I see someone pointing out some successes..not stalling. Actual winning. I really hope the Devs take care with this and put Italy in a precarious position.

 

[JerkyJerry]

what have you armchair historians been doing?

Dating an Italian woman

 

[Secret Master]

I think everyone agrees that Italy's involvement in Greece was a fail with a capital FAIL.

Perhaps I'm reacting to some of the other posts that made me think they were arguing that Italy could be considered a winner in the Greek campaign.

That's probably a reading failure on my part.

 

[Sir Garnet]

Well, Mussolini wanted to show Hitler what he could do, and indeed he did, and that he could play the same game as Hitler, and indeed he couldn't.

 

[WeissRaben]

Perhaps I'm reacting to some of the other posts that made me think they were arguing that Italy could be considered a winner in the Greek campaign.

That's probably a reading failure on my part.

Yes, but I'm not contesting you, or your points. I'm rather contesting the ones who say that, without German intervention, Italy would have been unable to take Greece ad libitum. Which is ridiculous, because Greece was already going down when Germany kicked down the door - this does nothing to lighten the absolute trainwreck of the Greek Campaign, but it does negate "Italy wouldn't even have been able to beat Greece without Germany".

Also, the main point of the OP is that Italy had some very precise issue - like the French - but, while the French have a national spirit they can remove with focuses, Italy is slammed with a third of its army and half of its battleships just evaporated. France gets a way to solve those problems; Italy doesn't. Why?

 

[Sun_Killer]

What ifs. What ifs. That seems to be the counter point. Trying to explain away the issue. Making excuses. There's no argument I've seen that shows Italy in any positive light. Just oh well it was a matter of time they defeated a nation that should have taken a few months. As Secret said above the accomplished nothing. It was a total failure. Just as their attempts in Africa. Defeat after defeat can be listed. They required German leadership to be competent. That's all this tells me. There's a gross and horrible level of incompetence that rivals that of France. It has nothing to do with the Italian people. The most successful conquers in Europe. IT HAS to do with the leadership. It's a issue and should be implemented in the game. I'm always annoyed...when playing Germany Italy literally conquers everything simply because they should be able to. I don't want HOI4 to make it like the past HOIs where Italy 50/50 totally reliefs pressure from North Africa & Balkans. I know from experience it seems more often then not Italy is capable of steam rolling Greece and Africa. I don't want that to happen and I would like this to be represented.

Italy fell flat on their face..it should be represented as such. Don't get me wrong. As I've said I love playing Italy. But the reality was poor performance in every aspect. The Italian Air Force is the only thing I can think of that kicked some ass. Even then the technical proficiency of the Air Power in Italy was shot by incompetence.

We know what happened. I just know if Italy is given what it had in real life..it's ability should have been to secure the Mediterranean, Take Egypt, Take Greece, and Yugoslavia. With some bumps on the road. But it nationally should have certainly been capable of that. I don't want that happening EVERY game. Where I forget about entire theaters of war because I know Italy's got it. That's why I think it's important to be hard on Italy. It's interesting. I'm not trying to offend anyone. Everyone looses wars. Italy happened to be on the bad side of this one. I'm going to be skeptical of the performance of Italy until I see someone pointing out some successes..not stalling. Actual winning. I really hope the Devs take care with this and put Italy in a precarious position.

I have to say that in nearly all my Germany HoI3 playthroughs, Italy did really bad in North Africa. Yeah they usally steamrolled Grecce, but only because Bulgary and Yugoslavia where in the Axis at that time and went for Grecce too.

 

[Praetonia]

If you are trying to talk about historical facts, it is fine. If you are trying to gauge strengths, it is not. Greece was in a downward spiral, which means that Italy did have the strength to beat Greece. Invalidating the argument "couldn't beat Greece -> weaker than Greece".

Huh - there's no evidence for that at all from what happened!

 

[Praetonia]

Actually, that offensive was also rushed. It was launched by the Italians in a hurried fashion in an attempt to preempt the Germans intervention. The Italians wanted to show some gains before the Germans swept in. It did not result in the gains hoped for by Mussolini, but it did wear out the Greek army to the point it was shooting deserters and couldn't redeploy forces to face the Germans without their army disintegrating. So there is that...

The invasion wasn't launched to pre-empt the Germans, who had no interest in Greece or the Balkans in general beyond the Romanian oil fields and access to them. Germany intervened first because of a pro-British coup in Yugoslavia and second because the on-going defeat of Italy was politically embarrassing and drawing Italian resources away from important theatres like North Africa and the upcoming invasion of the USSR. Germany's only interest in Yugoslavia and Greece was to stop the British building an army there, but if Italy hadn't invaded Greece the Greeks would never have invited the British in anyway and without unambiguous British commitment to the Balkans the Yugoslavians would never have broken their pro-Axis stance either. The Greek campaign was the strategic equivalent of a self-licking ice cream cone, a solution to problems that never would have existed had it not been launched. Worse, because in delaying Barbarossa it reduced the amount of damage the Germans could do to the USSR in one of their two good campaigning seasons. It is quite possible that this alone made Italian involvement in the war a net drain on the Axis war effort.

It's fine to say that the key problem was Italian political incompetence, which is true to some extent, but these campaigns were executed badly as well as politically incompetent. There is really no defence that can be made of them, other than possibly that Mussolini believed the British would give up in late 1940 and give him Greece and bits of North Africa at the peace table, in which case he simply never intended that the Italian army would do much fighting at all. That wasn't necessarily an unreasonable thing to believe in mid to late 1940 and had things been a little different Mussolini might well have won major concessions for little or no cost, but a political strategy based on your opponents not fighting you doesn't say much in favour of the capacity of your army!

 

[Harada.Taro]

"Italy wouldn't even have been able to beat Greece without Germany".

True.... If the inital attack of the italians troops went well, the greek finally gathered their troops and pushed the italian far beyond heir starting lines, threatening them to invade Albania and crush them.... Thanks to the german who saved their butts by invading from bulgaria, opening a new front line and taking them in the back to force them capitulate. So yup, italy alone would have lost the Greek campaign and the albanian protectorate.

Starting invasion...

Being kicked in the but by the Greeks.

 

[Jongmaster]

Seems like they did well against France in todays WWW

 

[amalric de g.]

What about the things people posted earlier in this thread? The Italians rapidly building up a numerical advantage and the greeks not having any reserves?

The greeks had raised some new Divisions, around 100.000 men, but they lacked any transport capacity, to send them to the frontline.

@All
Facts are: Italian Army 565,000
Germany 680,000 for Jugoslavia and Greece 12-15 Divisions only
Greek Army 530,000
GB and Allies 57- 60,000

28. October 1940 - 23. April 1941 italian war against greece

italy greece
490.000 and 11.000 albanian 300.000 manpower
38.832 dead (march 1941) 13.325 dead
102.982 wounded and illness 42.485 wounded
25.067 missing 1.237 missing


To me it looks like, the greeks kicked them in the butt. The greeks had maybe low morale and fighting spirit on the italian front, but the italians are not different, or did someone seriously think that the italian soldiers had not enough of this slaughter?

The germans faced over 100.000 greeks and 60.000 commonwealth troops. They needed 3 days to breakthrough the Metaxasline. The fortress Roupel was defended by 975 greek soldiers, they fought until half of them died and the whole fortress was a smoking ruin. That sounds not like they had low morale or fighting spirit.

Bunker M1 Bunker M5

 

[GermanPower]

I have to say that in nearly all my Germany HoI3 playthroughs, Italy did really bad in North Africa. Yeah they usally steamrolled Grecce, but only because Bulgary and Yugoslavia where in the Axis at that time and went for Grecce too.

I have a 50/50 ratio for myself. Half the time they'd win smashingly. Half the other time they wouldn't.

 

[RogalDorn]

If one wants to be precise, who lose their territory to Greek army were... the Albanians. Italian forces failed the first offensive, it is right. But a keypoint was the retreat of the Albanian forces in the Coriza sector, which forced the re-organizing Italian troops to a fully disorganized retreat. It has been a very smart decision to leave in command of the Albanian troops the same general who led the "resistance" to the Italian invasion in 1939.

Anyway, no matter of what and who, the real Italian handicap was not in the triangular or binary or pseudo-binary structure of its divisions. It was in the lack of leadership which led to a series of wrong decisions. For this reason, I think that it would be better if PDX nerfed Italy acting on the parameters which can be related to leadership, such as org, morale, or reducing the bonus to factory production efficiency, rather than forcing a completely a-historical structure to its OOB. IMHO, it would be better if Italy starts with the right OOB and then has to choose in the Focus Tree between quality and quantity for its Army, with the AI historically setted to choose quantity.

And THAT is the beautiful nature of HOI4...Italian leadership won't be terrible anymore because we will be at the helm!

 

[GermanPower]

The quote above by Rogal describes it best. A national spirit which negs organization. I will look forward to building a Italian Empire though. Mussolini out on his ass!

 

[panzerzombie]

The quote above by Rogal describes it best. A national spirit which negs organization. I will look forward to building a Italian Empire though. Mussolini out on his ass!

Right, Italy should begin at a historical SUCK HARD level ( with national modifiers) but be given the chance to reorganize leadership via timeconsuming NF to reach a normal level.

 

[Secret Master]

Yes, but I'm not contesting you, or your points. I'm rather contesting the ones who say that, without German intervention, Italy would have been unable to take Greece ad libitum. Which is ridiculous, because Greece was already going down when Germany kicked down the door - this does nothing to lighten the absolute trainwreck of the Greek Campaign, but it does negate "Italy wouldn't even have been able to beat Greece without Germany".

Okay, that much I can agree with.

With tommylotto's quotations, and some reading I did on my own, it looks to me like Greece was doomed. The fought wonderfully, and I wouldn't impugn their honor or courage, but without UK/Commonwealth aid in substantial amounts, it was going to be a lost cause whether or not the Germans showed up.

By the way, what did Italy gain in economic terms from their occupation of Greece (and Albania, for that matter)? With no forthcoming invasion of Cyprus or the Suez from Greece or Crete, was there any real gain from taking Greece? Even if the Greeks folded in November of 1940, would adding Greece to the Italian Empire have actually helped, or created an occupation that would still have cost more than the benefits of annexation?

 

[Praetonia]

With tommylotto's quotations, and some reading I did on my own, it looks to me like Greece was doomed.

As stated before, tommylotto's quotes are discussing Greek reactions to the impending German invasion, not the Greeks' assessment of their prospects continuing a solo war with Italy.

 

[FrancescoT]

Even if the Greeks folded in November of 1940, would adding Greece to the Italian Empire have actually helped

Ettore Majorana was working on a secret project for an advanced Synthetic Refinery to convert Olive oil to Rubber/Oil for military use .

 

[Secret Master]

Ettore Majorana was working on a secret project for an advanced Synthetic Refinery to convert Olive oil to Rubber/Oil for military use .

Illuminati confirmed.

 

[WeissRaben]

Okay, that much I can agree with.

With tommylotto's quotations, and some reading I did on my own, it looks to me like Greece was doomed. The fought wonderfully, and I wouldn't impugn their honor or courage, but without UK/Commonwealth aid in substantial amounts, it was going to be a lost cause whether or not the Germans showed up.

By the way, what did Italy gain in economic terms from their occupation of Greece (and Albania, for that matter)? With no forthcoming invasion of Cyprus or the Suez from Greece or Crete, was there any real gain from taking Greece? Even if the Greeks folded in November of 1940, would adding Greece to the Italian Empire have actually helped, or created an occupation that would still have cost more than the benefits of annexation?

A big, fat, absolute nothing. The whole campaign was mostly useless: while Greece was friendly towards the Allies, it was also completely surrounded, so for the most part it kept mum. The invasion was nothing but a kneejerk of Mussolini, as he felt (correctly, at least since late '39) that Hitler was trying to sideline him into puppet status. The fact that he still loathed Hitler didn't help him keeping calm and collected, so he chose a nation he could invade without too much fuss compared to the ongoing war, and coincindentally in his sphere of interest already, and told "invade that". There was no real benefit out of bombast.

Albania, on the other hand, was the other shore of the Otranto Strait, so it allowed complete control of the Adriatic trade - and, in fact, it's been of strategic interest for whoever controls Apulia since the early Middle Ages.

As stated before, tommylotto's quotes are discussing Greek reactions to the impending German invasion, not the Greeks' assessment of their prospects continuing a solo war with Italy.

Yes, it was the reaction to "how do we defend against the Germans", with the reply being "we don't because we're going to collapse already if we do as much as sneeze".