Add reliability. That's one thing that's almost impossible to get right with limited experience. Even for Germany it was probably Tiger's biggest problem.
Italian Tank tech tree
- Thread starter Moppy771
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It is, but because we are trying to put historical Tanks in the dates where they are considered decent, it has to be arranged like that. The P43bis would not match up to a Tiger II, only maybe to a Tiger I. But, the P43 definitely can compete with the German Panther. I did try to link them in some way, by having the P26 required for the P43 and that it makes the P43bis cheaper.
Ok, I appropriately changed the 47mm to a 75mm.
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I don't think that it should be impossible. Italy should have poor leaders and negative national modifiers to simulate the total incompetence throughout the war in basically every field. If you can overcome those hurdles though, then you should gain the experience and whatever to be able to develop into a formidable contender. To achieve greatness though should be a vastly more difficult task for Italy due to their historical performance.
In HoI3 I mostly remember Italy as a strong ally that soundly beats Britain in Northern Africa. While that should be possible, it should also be highly unlikely. What-if does not equal randomness.
I couldn't agree more. I'm the biggest fan of the unromantic, purely logical American approach to the war. Numbers beat quality. Germany should have mass-produced planes and standard tanks (like the Sherman). First rule the skies, then it makes no difference if you sweep the ground with Shermans or Tigers.
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Moppy771 said:
Why??? How can you be 100% that a tank design beats a real tank that most consider being amongst the best of the entire war? That'd be like me boasting the the E-50 would massacre every other tank because it had some cool stuff to be implement. At least I could make the argument that most German tanks were actually pretty decent and thusly the E-50 would probably be alright as well. Until you can name a single awesome Italian tank, you don't have any case whatsoever!
All I'm saying is that I don't recall historical proof of sucessful Italian tanks in the field. Not saying that I'm 100% correct on that one.
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I never said it would "beat" the Panther, I said it could compete with it. Meaning that if I was a random nation trying to design a tank to somehow go up against the Panther, I would come up with something that could compete with it. It was a planned tank, and it could in a hypothetical sense, theoretically compete with the Panther.
And Italy was not incapable of producing good tanks. It's just that Mr. Mussolini favored big shiny battleships gleaming in the Mediterranean sun to bulky and ugly tanks covered in mud and sand.
Italy was able to produce models that were good, but they were two or three years behind due to lack of interest by the Italian military staff more concerned with the navy.
I consider the M15/42 a good achievement, it was just unfortunate that by the time quite a number were manufactured the Allies had landed.
In the future, when the game has been released, you could theoretically follow Mussolini's footsteps and try to invest Italy's little starting resources on naval research and production, mirroring the stagnation of the armour and aircraft manufacturing. But, Italy can't hope to create enough decent destroyers to compete with the British. And with the army and the airforce being stagnated as well, you have WW2 happening for Italy exactly as it did historically.
Well, you also wrote:
Moppy771 said:
... and you only have tank designs to base your assumptions on???
I took some of that exaggeration back, as you can see if you look at my latest tech tree. And note that even then I still say compete rather than "beat".
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You should try my mod then. I go to great length to capture Italy's fantastic nuttiness.
I agree that the P.43bis should not be the Italian Tiger equivalent, a Panther maybe. I think the Italian tank tree should have an imaginary tank in the Tiger slot, called something like P.50/45. 50 for fifty ton tank. 45 for year of design 1945.
I think you have to separate Italy's craptastic training, leadership and doctrine from the actual tools of war. In 1940-1941, the M13/40 was a very adequate tank. It had comparable armor and a better gun. It had a 47mm gun when the British had the inferior 2pdr and the Germans were using 20mm or 37mm. On the downside, the engine was underpowered making it slow for a tank of this weight and it had a two man turret instead of the more successful three man turret used by the Germans. It used riveted armor, but so did the USA's M3 Lee. I think the consensus opinion on the M13/40 was that it was an adequate tank when introduced. However, during the time period that it was adequate, the Italian crews were so poorly trained and led that it didn't matter. They were spanked. Then, by the time that the Italian armor crews and officers had acquired the experience necessary to know how to fight the British, their equipment was hopelessly outdated. The Italians received the mildly improved M14, whereas the British started receiving the much stronger M4 Sherman. If instead of supplying the Italians with an already obsolete M14, had Italian industry supplied them with P.40's, I imagine that the Ariete, Littorio and Centauro would have given the British a very good fight.
If "if's" and "but's" were candies and nuts...
And that's where imagination comes in my friend. I'll replace the P43 with P43bis in the medium slot if you can come up with a design for Italy's official heavy.
I'll replace the P43 with P43bis in the medium slot if you can come up with a design for Italy's official heavy.
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The WWI tank should be the Fiat 3000
The Pz I equivalent would be the CV-33, CV-35, CV-38 series (these were also known as L3/33 etc)
The Pz II equivalent would be the L6/40
The Pz III equivalent would be the M11/39 to M15/42 series
The Pz IV equivalent would be the P26/40 (only a few pre-production models)
The Panther equivalent would probably be the P43 (only to wooden model stage - 100mm frontal armour and long 75mm gun)
The Tiger I equivalent might be the P43bis
The Italians didn't have anything in the pipeline that matched the Tiger II or the planned Panther II.
The M16/43 looks like it might have matched the M24 Chafee so it would be the late war light tank if it had actually gone into production (the Germans didn't have an equivalent - the Luchs was vastly inferior to both)
The Pz I equivalent would be the CV-33, CV-35, CV-38 series (these were also known as L3/33 etc)
The Pz II equivalent would be the L6/40
The Pz III equivalent would be the M11/39 to M15/42 series
The Pz IV equivalent would be the P26/40 (only a few pre-production models)
The Panther equivalent would probably be the P43 (only to wooden model stage - 100mm frontal armour and long 75mm gun)
The Tiger I equivalent might be the P43bis
The Italians didn't have anything in the pipeline that matched the Tiger II or the planned Panther II.
The M16/43 looks like it might have matched the M24 Chafee so it would be the late war light tank if it had actually gone into production (the Germans didn't have an equivalent - the Luchs was vastly inferior to both)
If we are designing an Italian heavy it should be at least comparable to the Tiger I.
From what I could gather, there was talks of attaching a 105mm gun to a 480 hp gasoline engine. The armour would have been 100mm. Does anyone know how much this could have weighed? We could then work out the top speed (on road) and compare it to the Tiger I.
I'm planning to just take the P43bis and replace the P43 slot with it. But, we need to come up with a reasonable replacement for the heavy slot. Italy should have at least one heavy tank.
From what I could gather, there was talks of attaching a 105mm gun to a 480 hp gasoline engine. The armour would have been 100mm. Does anyone know how much this could have weighed? We could then work out the top speed (on road) and compare it to the Tiger I.
I'm planning to just take the P43bis and replace the P43 slot with it. But, we need to come up with a reasonable replacement for the heavy slot. Italy should have at least one heavy tank.
Okay, the current arrangement.
L3= Panzer I
L6= Panzer II
M15= Panzer III
M16= Leopard
P26= Panzer IV
P43bis=Panther
Since the P75 is a predecessor to the P26/40, I decided that they should make each other cheaper, much more historical that way.
L3= Panzer I
L6= Panzer II
M15= Panzer III
M16= Leopard
P26= Panzer IV
P43bis=Panther
Since the P75 is a predecessor to the P26/40, I decided that they should make each other cheaper, much more historical that way.
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Good work, but you are fogeting the most important part. What of Maus equivalent? This is a glaring omission
I'm almost hoping that Paradox will be a bit creative with the Super Heavies and come up with some suitably ridiculous concepts when there weren't any planned by the nation
I'm almost hoping that Paradox will be a bit creative with the Super Heavies and come up with some suitably ridiculous concepts when there weren't any planned by the nation
Good work, but you are fogeting the most important part. What of Maus equivalent? This is a glaring omission
I'm almost hoping that Paradox will be a bit creative with the Super Heavies and come up with some suitably ridiculous concepts when there weren't any planned by the nation
HA! I was thinking of starting the discussion on an Italian Super Heavy, but I figured it silly, since we are struggling to debate on if Italy would have even built a standard heavy.
A Super Heavy Tank of Italy would have used the 149mm gun (how about two?
) of the Semovente da 149/40 M42 tank destroyer. Now we just need a chassis for it!
HA! I was thinking of starting the discussion on an Italian Super Heavy, but I figured it silly, since we are struggling to debate on if Italy would have even built a standard heavy.
A Super Heavy Tank of Italy would have used the 149mm gun (how about two?
We'll call it Il Deuce
Because it didn't have them. And why it didn't? Because when embargoed, instead of being somewhat rational and try to get it lifted diplomatically, it went "nuh huh world, I don't need you, nyeeeh". Which more or less sank its hopes of getting a decent industry going in the period, like other nations did.
I like it!
The turret would need to be in an over under configuration for the two guns to show up clearly in profile like the other tank pictures though. But hey super heavy, it does not need to make sense, in fact, the less sense the better.
I think I'll steal that idea. I doubt it will ever make sense for Italy even in the craziest AARs to build super heavies though. Bad terrain for it and trying to ship them to africa :E
For SHs we are going to balance them around the ideas of the americans and british designs, so they will be good at breaking tough fortifications, another thing the italians dont really need probably.
This exactly. I just hope there is an event option (the devs did mention a lot more historical events, maybe even what-if events?) to maybe end the war in early 1936 or some other type of compromise which gives Italy limited influence in Ethiopia so that international embargoes are lessened or don't happen at all. By limited influence, I mean something like Britain with Egypt or Iraq. This does not mean Italy conquering Ethiopia and forming a puppet goverment, rather just having a lot of influence in the country's politics.