Italy vs Germany any suggestion?

[marxianTJ]

In a normal game ITA game, I keep all the of the starting MIL and simply use them as port garrisons throughout the med and mainland Italy. Then I'll build more MIL because of course they're needed for port garrisoning, then once the Med is secured all of those MILs are gathered up and sent to Germany to help assist them with anti-partisan work (I typically disable partisans - but sometimes I'll fiddle with something else and reset it, because Germany often kills itself due to small partisan uprisings) or deployed to sub-Saharan Africa. Why Mils you ask? Mils have less supply draw and as such will move better in the low INFRA terrain down there. They also require FAR less leadership than other units which will save on LS points (less into officers than even GAR).

I tend to leave the cavalry intact and use them as intended in early Balkan wars if I'm focusing on air or navy (most games as ITA), and then I break them into single brigades with an AC attached for anti-partisan duty in Yugoslavia/Greece/Albania, and send the rest to Germany (if partisans are turned on) or Africa to help out down there. In this game I'd likely try to upgrade them to tanks.

In this scenario it *may* be OK, but I would in general opt for using the IC to produce *more* stuff than to make what stuff I do have better (with the exception of the MILs which should be upgraded being as we'll need no port garrisons unless the Kriegsmarine somehow magically defeats the combined RN, FN, and RM, ie, an impossibility lol).

My premise here is that it is not possible for Italy to fight toe to toe with Germany in any honest way due to its very weak MP pool. Italy vs. Germany is in much the same boat as France or Poland, where they *could* using reserves and concentrated build tactics, build an army that is capable of, if not besting, at least breaking even with Germany - the problem is they won't be able to do so in perpetuity, because their MP pool will eventually run dry. Poland is the most depressing case, because it *is* totally possible to hold off Germany into 1942-43, but by then, your MP pool will almost certainly be 0 and a decisive breakthrough will inevitably occur - and chances are the Allies will do nothing to save you.

 

[Phili]

Having read through this thread I'm beginning to think the best suggestion is going to be; play as Germany.

 

[iosys2]

Keep it simple yeah you are right I went a bit off board.
I will reload and rebuild my corps in 3inf+ART and 3MNT+ART
At present I haven't seen German ARM so I will postpone TD and AT

I do have already Air Superiority with all my INT and as soon as war brock I bombed all enemy near airport.
My bombers kill circa 1000 per day and help defend or attack; I believe on that area was good investment.
With the gamy forever bombing Addis Abeba I have very high level leaders

Militia upgraded; Cavalry no idea what to do whit it though.
Fleet useless I disbanded some units to spare Fuel.

However 5-10 divisions? rush to victory point?
Honestly I see it unlikely. Crossing Austria is very slow; all mountains Already tried and I could barely reach Rim before Ger stop me.
Already tried it.


I will never have enough Divisions at the break of the war. I hold the Alps to buy time to build new division.
Then try to use use encirclement to destroy German army fast that they can build.
Dunno for sure how though; Exploiting Puppet neutral Czech to catch Nazi from the back or giving out some of my land in a Cannae tactic.

 

[Animum24]

Honestly I see it unlikely. Crossing Austria is very slow; all mountains Already tried and I could barely reach Rim before Ger stop me.
Already tried it.

Well the Alps are definitely not the terrain where you want to go into an offensive (Ask the austrians and italians in WW1). But it is a damn good defensive line. Hold them there. You said you had annexed the czechs. Get the front going from there. It is very good located already driving a wedge partly through the middle of germany.

 

[Lightfighter]

Any suggestion IS WELCOME?

I play my standard scenario Rome vs Barbarians.

I gamely exploited Ethiopian war, never ended and for 2 years I send bombing mission on Addis Abeba so now I have rather high skill air leader plenty 3 some 4 and 5 even 6.

I tried to build IC along side with some units to try to raise the bad Italian IC.
As of Anschluss 1937 I went in an expatiation spree (Totally ignored by other power...)
Annexed Yugoslavia - 2 months
Puppet Czechoslovakia . 2 month
Puppet Hungary- 1,5 month
Annexed Greece - 1 month
Annexed Bulgaria - 2 weeks
Puppet Romania - 2 weeks
Annexed Turkey - 4 days !?
Puppet Persia - 3 months (very bad infrastructure never ending movement)
Annexed Afghanistan - 2 or 3 months (even worst infrastructure)

In this way I get some few IC, LP and all resources I need and I cut out Germany from South and east Europe (no ally, no resource).

Then I amassed my army on the border and guarantee Poland.

The Guarantee was a strategic (gamy) move that put me at war with Germany WITHOUT my puppets, so the front is limited to only Austrian.

The fact is that Germany is really overpowered, on Nov 1938 the ratio is
ITA GER
IC 207 278
LP 18.71 34.77!?!?!?!?!?!! (come on paradox!)
MP 457 1563!!!!!!! (and my land mass is far larger)
Land 185 412
Air 25 38
Naval 52 30 (useless I gonna dissolve it for MP)

I got slightly more LARM 23 ITA only 6 GER, But that was rather stupid as we fight in the mountains and Tank in mountains are bad.


My plan is to old the line and bomb like Hell in air superiority till I build more INF and Mountaineer, then try to cut from Bolzano to Czech border to encircle and vanquish some german division, then back to original defense line and repeat a couple of time, If I get stronger cut toward France encircle and free some France division.

Any suggestion?

I'd stick to special forces, abandon all armor research and build more transport planes instead of inferior LARM brigades and when you unlock paratroopers build them and use them when you need to encircle. You won't be able to do this as Italy by 1938 but if you wait a little bit you should be able to by mid-1939, maybe? I wouldn't mix anything else in with the MTN divisions, 4 brigades per division should do you just fine. I've found when playing Italy that I just don't have the leadership to be messing around with armor research. I still wouldn't take on Germany until they are preoccupied with someone else.

 

[Kovax]

With armor, it's not just the 4 techs which need to be researched constantly, it's also the associated doctrines, and those are extremely slow to research without a heavy focus on armor development and construction. You don't want to run pure tank armies either, so you also have to research the mobile doctrines to keep your attached motorized infantry current. Failure in any one of those areas means that you won't be competitive against Germany. In my opinion, I'd either drop armor completely, or else use it in small numbers with minimal tech and doctrine upgrades purely for exploitation (especially against the Balkan states), not as a serious part of your combat force.

Mountain troops will give you a major advantage in holding the Alps, but are too costly to field as the main contingent of your army. Dislodging any unit from Mountain terrain is difficult, and the only thing your INF need to fear there are German MTN troops and serious Armor (only due to the piercing mechanics). MTN can be confronted with your own MTN troops, where the defensive modifiers will still leave you with a major advantage, and you've got aircraft to soften any Armor.

As marxianTJ indicates, some MIL and traditional CAV are good to have in areas of poor infrastructure (East Africa), but on the other hand they won't stand up well against regular INF in a fight. I would move most of the forces in Ethiopia back to Italy or North Africa, to reduce the strain of supplying them at a distance, upgrade those to INF or MTN, and just keep a handful MIL, CAV, and INF at most in East Africa.

 

[iosys2]

Well the LARMs served me well in my conquering spree, was well spent. Besides may be useful as exploitation once out of Alps-
ARM maybe not good as I will never catch up for the moment German.

As for the pure MNT I made some calculation, YET I never been sure how a unit strength is cacolated; I supposed more Soft and HArd is the one while Org determines how fast it gives up.

Now Supposng thta the bonus I read for terrain affect Soft and Hard (CORRECT ME IF WRONG PLEASE)
Terrain modifier for Alps

-------------------base S/H---bonus Atk/Def----Atk W/BonusS/H-----Def W/ BonusS/H----#can field (10) ----tot Atk-----Tot Def
4x MNT------------11/2 ____+10%/+30%__________12.1/2.2_____________14.3/2.6______________2_______________24.2/4.4_____28.6/5.2
3x MNT + ART----13/3____-10%/+22,5%_________11.7/2.7___________15.925/2.675__________3_______________35.1/8.1_____47.77/11.02
2xMNT+2xART* --15/4____-30%/+15%__________10.5/2.8___________31.5/8.4_______________3_______________51.75/13.8___51.75/13.8
2xMNT+2xART---15/4____-30%/+15%__________10.5/2.8___________31.5/8.4________________5_______________52.5/14______86.25/23

* no max field-able but realistic IC for the beginning

So if I made it right 2Mx2A are the ultimate defensive Division; if can max up 5 Division then it is the best for both Atk and Def

Am I wrong? Wiki was never clear how strength works

 

[Big Nev]

I've got serious doubts about what happens to [2MTN+2Art] when a decent combined arms division roles up with some armour. Your bonuses & their penalties are going to have to go a long way to counter the ½ Org damage they suffer and the double Org damage you suffer for not being able to penetrate them.

If Germany puts a fairly poor [LArm+MOT+AC+MOT-AA], which get a whopping -66.2 when attacking in mountains, I think they'll stomp all over your [2MTN+2Art] because they get, at least +15 for CA (to your +5) and probably a lot more for armour doctrines & stacked Battle Masters, they're pretty much half Hard, so half the time you'll be using your HA, which is pitiful, and even with four divisions will never surpass their 22 Toughness to cause real damage. On the other hand, you're almost completely soft. So they'll be using their 11 SA (against your 12 Toughness) pretty-much all the time.

And, to cap it off, when you do use your decent SA, you only do half damage while they do double damage all the time. Uh-Oh...

And if you were to attack this division, where their CA will probably be greater than their -22½ defending in mountains, you'd get annihilated.

Seriously, not piercing your opponent is HUGE.

If you want a cheap foot division to hold in mountains, perhaps the classic {2Inf+Art+AT] might be the way to go. [2MTN+Art+AT] is better.

And the AT is both significantly cheaper than the Art & it'll get you an extra 5% CA bonus to (partly) offset the loss of SA.

 

[Lightfighter]

Well the LARMs served me well in my conquering spree, was well spent. Besides may be useful as exploitation once out of Alps-
ARM maybe not good as I will never catch up for the moment German.

As for the pure MNT I made some calculation, YET I never been sure how a unit strength is cacolated; I supposed more Soft and HArd is the one while Org determines how fast it gives up.

Now Supposng thta the bonus I read for terrain affect Soft and Hard (CORRECT ME IF WRONG PLEASE)
Terrain modifier for Alps

-------------------base S/H---bonus Atk/Def----Atk W/BonusS/H-----Def W/ BonusS/H----#can field (10) ----tot Atk-----Tot Def
4x MNT------------11/2 ____+10%/+30%__________12.1/2.2_____________14.3/2.6______________2_______________24.2/4.4_____28.6/5.2
3x MNT + ART----13/3____-10%/+22,5%_________11.7/2.7___________15.925/2.675__________3_______________35.1/8.1_____47.77/11.02
2xMNT+2xART* --15/4____-30%/+15%__________10.5/2.8___________31.5/8.4_______________3_______________51.75/13.8___51.75/13.8
2xMNT+2xART---15/4____-30%/+15%__________10.5/2.8___________31.5/8.4________________5_______________52.5/14______86.25/23

* no max field-able but realistic IC for the beginning

So if I made it right 2Mx2A are the ultimate defensive Division; if can max up 5 Division then it is the best for both Atk and Def

Am I wrong? Wiki was never clear how strength works

You are wrong. Your Alpine troops aren't for defending in the Alps, any division can defend, they're for maneuver and attack.

 

[iosys2]

Hey guys German went down with 3X (2MNT+2TD) and steam rolled me like hot knife in butter.
with a piercing of 7 impossible to out-armor them even with a 4xARM.
But TD got a CA 5 so yeah 2M1AR1AT may fit better to avoid CA malus.
However in the wiki is said that Armor bonus is only for defender not for attaker.eben if atacker has higher Armor no bonus. Is it right?

-------------------base S/H---bonus Atk/Def----Atk W/BonusS/H-----Def W/ BonusS/H----#can field (10) ----tot Atk-----Tot Def
2xMNT+2xART* --15/4____-30%/+15%__________10.5/2.8___________17.25/4.6_______________3_______________31.5/8.4___51.75/13.8
2xMNT+AR+AT* --11/7____-30%/+15%__________7.7/4.9___________12.65/8.05_______________3_______________23.1/14.7___37.95/24.15
2xMNT+2xART---15/4____-30%/+15%__________10.5/2.8___________17.25/4.6________________5_______________52.5/14______86.25/23
2xMNT+AR+AT* --11/7____-30%/+15%__________7.7/4.9___________12.65/8.05_______________5_______________38.5/24.5___63.25/40.25

It sacrifices 22% of soft attack but AP 7 vs 1 can beat in 1938 almost all Armor

BTW I checked and division got as AC the higher of the brigade not sum up, before getting +15 is a long way in 1939.

 

[iosys2]

Another important thing how can I in game check the real strength of the army?
The tool-tip only say Atk\Def efficiency but neither the base strength nor the resulting strengh after the bonus

So even if my defending Army as a much higher Def efficiency the real strength is much less and got beaten in no time. Difficult to figure out what I made wrong this way.

 

[Big Nev]

in the wiki is said that Armor bonus is only for defender not for attaker.eben if atacker has higher Armor no bonus. Is it right?

In this instance, when the WIKI talks about the 'deffender', it's talking about whoever is getting shot at, not what we would normaly considder the defending side in a battle. So... whenever armour is superior to the other sides piercing, the effect is applied.

As Italy, you're never going to out-armour Germany's piercing. Not without HArm. So concentrate on not getting stomped by making sure you pierce them.

AT bgds will easilly pierce a TD, I think even regualr infantry can, but you'll want to be protected against Arm, so you NEED AT guns or TDs.

 

[marxianTJ]

Oh, I wasn't meaning to suggest to create real armor divisions - my intention, as Italy, would be to combine the ARM (and eventually HARM) with INF divisions, purely for the piercing advantage - every single last drop of manpower is going to end up being super precious, and the firepower that comes from a single ARM brigade is going to be vital should one try to land in an open port and swarm through Germany in the quest to surround and take Berlin in 6-12 days. It's inefficient, but the piercing advantage is so strong when it's available it's an advantage one can't turn down. This also suits the divisions in the Alps well, because their motorized component's speed won't make a lick of difference up there, so there's no reason to even have it. Focusing on massed AT/ART is the tactic of a nation with MP to spare, and that is definitely *not* Italy.

The trouble fighting Germany is that their armies are built at specialist training - and older divisions have even more EXP than that - so they will inherently be superior to Italian units, furthermore, Germany likely has an officer ratio at or approaching 140%, and thus they likely have yet even more ORG than the Italian units, as the Italian player will have to make pretty big LS sacrifices to build an army capable of standing up to Germany while also maintaining 140% officer ratio.

In short my tech tree would consist of the 4 INF techs/4 ARM techs, 2 Blitz doctrines, 2 INF doctrines, and 1 MIL doctrine. For an expenditure of 13 LS - which Italy can withstand comfortably. I would ignore ART/AT techs unless I ended up with leadership to accommodate them (more firepower is a good thing if it can be found) - my thought is that the MP situation is so lopsided, there is no way to win unless you can win the war in a matter of weeks or hide behind impenetrable armor long enough to build HARM in mass quantities and steamroll Germany with massively superior armor spread into nearly every division.

 

[iosys2]

MP is sure he problem, in a previous game based mainly with INF I was able to have upper hand conquer till Danube and encircle and destroy 14 + 10 division in Romania front. I was starting to enjoy the game until MP run out and the whole front collapsed.

This time I spent more in ARM and Air and hold the front hopping to mass more troops in time.
I got Air superiority and it is quite useful.
But Arm do no seems useful at all.
Remember that while I research 13, German research 23,5 (tag switch) and uses TD in the front at same tech level TD beat ARM and there it goes my the Armor advantage.

with a much cheaper AT I can negate their Armor advantage (mostly against TD I so far never saw a German Arm in the Alps)
With batter skilled troops and if ahead in Inf Tech I need something to hold in the alps.
By holding and air superiority I hope to not consume all MP at once, build a decent army and exploit Czech or the short and plain Rumanian Front to encircle and deal enough damage as possible.

All if and only if I can keep German from beat France. If France fails ciao ciao

BTW at present German has 111% Officer Italy 124% but no much a difference I notice for me.

 

[marxianTJ]

I'll run a test game here to see if I can work out a method to get Italy to HARM before Germany would historically invade Poland (HARM BY SEPT 1st OR BUST!!! lol) and relay my findings.

 

[Kovax]

Doesn't matter. Italy simply can't afford to put HARM in every division. TD or AT might be doable, but not HARM, even if Italy can somehow spare the research for it. With TD, all you have to do is maintain one AT tech (ammo and carriage, I believe), and you can pierce whatever armor Germany throws at you. Granted, they'll pierce you right back, but at least you're not suffering the massive one-sided penalties for not being able to pierce the opposing armor, plus you've still got the terrain advantage.

As pointed out, Germany gets a lot of troop experience due to its training laws (Italy can do that for any new units, and normal manpower rotation should at least bring your starting divisions' experience levels up part way, unless you've enacted the most extreme service requirements). Germany also has a ridiculous number of highly skilled officers, while you've got only a handful of acceptable ones at the start to face them. Italy needs to "milk" those early Balkan wars to gain some officer and unit experience, as well as convert a few of the more experienced MIL divisions in Ethiopia into INF or MTN, in order to fight on at least semi-even terms. That's why I usually turn my HQs into semi-combat divisions (HQ + anywhere from INF to 2xINF+ART), so the officers get some direct combat experience as well as whatever's passed up the chain of command. By the time you've conquered Albania, Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria, possibly Czechoslovakia as well, your officers shouldn't be a problem.

I'm currently playing out an EU3 campaign, but this thread has infected me with the HOI3 bug again. Soon as that campaign is complete (probably another 2-4 weeks), I think I'm going to try playing Italy against Germany in HOI3. Might as well go the whole 9 yards and guarantee Nationalist China, so I've got a war in 1937 against Japan as well.

 

[iosys2]

er I try to squeeze some exp in Ethiopia but they are very soft. Yugoslavia was a bit more fighting, the rest was a blitz war very few fight and rush to victory point. The problem is that if I would go for attrition for exp, the drawback are MP lost (and there is no much there) and I can not get as far as Afghanistan in time for the war.

HArm seems to me very useless as armor piercing tech is much cheap and German will always be ahead even in a rush they will catch up very soon.
With such disparity of LP must focus in few area Inf and Air. In past game somehow paid of but then the problem is MP.
I build more LARM (than Germany) to spare MP, but then 2MNT+2TD in Alps just cut me in pieces.

I may try to enact law for have more experienced troop, and see whether the slower building time is bearable.

 

[marxianTJ]

Building HARM has *nothing* to do with piercing German armor - the point is that they can't EVER pierce you - and thus you always keep 50% more manpower after every fight. This is essential for Italy because you 100% *are* going to run out of MP fighting Germany - the point is you have to crush them completely before that occurs or you're doomed.


OK here are the results. Now, I should preface this that since it was only a test game there are lots of things that could've been done better. I just wanted a "proof of concept" so to speak. Is it possible for Italy to build and outfit a massive HARM based force?

So, here is what I did so that it can be mimiced and improved upon.

1. My basic division will be 3 INF brigades + 1 HARM brigade. Some other creation would maybe be better (such as 1 HARM, 2 INF, 1 ART).
2. I built no, 0 zilch, ART or AT
3. I neither researched nor built any air craft, or anything to do with them at all.
4. I kept 1 run of TPs running throughout the game, but I would note here that this is likely not needed.
5. I had the AI poorly manage trade, it did a poor job as expected lol.

Research:

- Blitzkrieg and Schwerpunkt, Infantry +org and +MOR boosters. All INF related fighting techs, all LARM techs up to the level necessary to research mARM, and then all mARM techs up to which enables HARM research. These were done ahead of time if necessary. Automotive theory was researched from day 1 and never taken off. HARMs only had their armor and gun upgraded.

Conquests and gameyness.

1. Maintain the war with Ethiopia until Neutrality reached 14 - which enabled war with Yugoslavia (who I also had threat generating on, as well as France).
2. End war with Ethiopia by puppeting them, conquer Yugoslavia in short order - puppet Hungary, Puppet Czechoslovakia, declare war on Tibet to maintain war footing.

Build order: Sort out all Metropolitan INF and ALP divisions into 3xINF divisions, count them out, and start a very long run of LARM. Count out INF and MIL divisions in Ethiopia, add LARM to the queue for them too. Set out a runs of 5 3xINF at a time and keep them producing, accompanied with 5x LARM brigades to get the covered. Convert producing mARM once they become available to save on IC later.

Once wars are over (Czech/Hungary/Yugo) and HARM is researched set all divisions to upgrade to HARM.

Before I talk about the perpetration of the war here are some things that could be obviously improved upon:

This isn't enough stuff to research - I had 140% officer ratio pretty quickly and was able to offset most of the loss due to production of land units. There is space for perhaps air doctrines. Production space may be there are ART to be added to divisions to save MP on the division's production over all.

Perpetration of the war with Germany:

I set units on ALL my borders with Germany - Including Czechoslovakia and Hungary - proclaimed on Poland, and Called to Arms my allies - so as to make the front as big as possible. Germany declared on Poland on Sept 1st 1939 as expected.

As of Sept 1st I had 41 HARM brigades - due to war with Germany granting far better economics laws ALL HARM was done by September-midOctober.

- I set the AI to offensive and just let it run wild - a human controlling this could have done MUCH better and preserved MP more efficiently. Invading Germany from the North or South is actually pretty simple because the rivers are meaningless.

By March of 1940 Germany is in a state of near total collapse because the AI can't respond to so many attacks in so many places that were almost wholly unguarded. I decided it best to spread Germany out as much as possible - because ALL of my units cannot be pierced by anything they have - so the only way they can ever defeat me is if I run out of MP and eventually die from attrition or they manage to focus down my units by attacking with overwhelming force. With such a large front that's a lot harder to do for the AI.

Then July of 1940 the AI began it's assault on Berlin.

Note we're out of MP - so this HAS to be done - had a human been controlling the assaults, perhaps we may still have MP left over - or had I built less MP heavy divisions.

The war was over completely only a few months later FRANCE ACTUALLY HELPED well a bit - they ended up getting a lot of NW Germany and blocked Belgium and the Netherlands from expanding.

So a HARM bearing Italy is completely capable of defeating Germany and is completely possible to do.

If one were to want to continue playing, I assume the next little trick would be to take out the USSR solo once your MP pool recovers a bit. Or zap France and Greece (who had joined the Allies).

In short, early HARM are ultra-OP.

 

[Big Nev]

Very interesting.
I don’t think it’s that HArm is overpowered (well, maybe a little. It’s also too cheap to run) but this is the way the game works. A simple historical fact is that Italy was totally incapable of building such tanks so early.

I'm looking at the possibility of putting early British HArm in to a mod.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

 

[marxianTJ]

Yeah Italy was still using riveted armor even later into the war because of production issues - and frankly, having no armor at all is probably preferable to riveted armor that is going to sheer off and cause hundreds of tiny projectiles to fly around inside the tank if your vehicle is hit by a high velocity round. And the game more or less reflects that - you *have* to participate in a lot of gamesmanship to get it to even work correctly - though perhaps without it you could still use HARM against the USSR since you would have a deadline that's ~2 years later.

France and Britain both had a pretty big interest in heavy armor, France in particular. This is actually represented in the game somewhat for France because they start with, IIRC, the very best armor tech levels in the game. Doing a full HARM spread like I did in my example above is even easier for France to do and they can do *more* of it, and better, than Italy, and a lot sooner.

I could see *some* argument for giving Britain a particular HARM unit - the issue is they can already construct early HARM if they want to pretty easily - and being as MP limited as the UK is, it may not even make them completely invincible or capable of soloing Germany, so it probably wouldn't be too harmful.