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Chapter I: Glorious Beginnings
January 1936
Metropolitan Italy and its prime colony, Libya. The African territory had been part of Italy since Ottoman Tripolitania was ceded in the 1912 Italo-Ottoman war. In 1936 the vast Libyan oil reserves were not yet discovered, so the colony had little to offer, except for a prime position to dominate the Mediterranean. Also note the small British island of Malta in between.
Lo and behold, the Italian Kingdom. We’ll be playing a Constitutional Monarchy, under King Vittorio Emanuele III -
de jure. In practise, the King will do nothing noteworthy at all. Meet our strong, great, fascist Prime Minister, Il Duce (the Leader) Benito Mussolini - he handles all the important affairs. When he’s not busy managing the portfolios of the three ministries he presides, our titular character likes to bask in the glory of his country, read the papers, construct new brigades and ships, research new technology, visit Paris undercover, and command the Italian Armed Forces. The Dear Leader (of non-communist ilk) even has his very own defence unit, five brigades strong, stationed in Roma.
It would be understandable for a man that busy to make a lot of mistakes - which is why we’re here to help him. Let’s get to it.
Our Secretary is broke, I’m swiftly told, which does not amaze me at all. The financial situation of Italy is breathtakingly poor. We’re at 15 units of money, and counting down at a rate of 0.1 without even trading for resources. Which we should: the balance of Energy is dropping by 149 units a day. Luckily, there’s also an opportunity to solve Italy’s financial problems.
Black ICE allows the player to choose annual foci - an Espionage focus, and a generally more important Nation focus. All Nation foci have some kind of downside, and you can only pick one of them.
After setting the Espionage focus to “Reduce our neutrality” (I think I don’t care as much as I should), I set about picking a Nation focus. This is a difficult choice, but the result is a Financial focus. The Resource focus had too many downsides. Hopefully, the additional money will allow Italy to buy sufficient resources to fuel its economy anyway.
As Il Duce embarks on a diplomatic mission to propose a Berlin-Rome axis, we take a look at the state of our Army. The Navy and Air Force can wait, for now.
The Italian Army can only be described as varied, in all possible ways. Some units are state-of-the-art, some are nothing but irregular rabble. Some divisions are very large, some are actually mere brigades. Some are plain infantry, others are a mix of all sorts of Light Armour, Militia, Artillery, and Combined Arms support brigades. In case you were wondering, that was the
Forze dell’ Aiutante Corpo Eritreo division (I end up kicking out the Militia). If anything, there are quite a lot of divisions, which takes away the need for more infantry right now.
So, how do we reinforce the existing Army? On one hand, we’ll most certainly be defending somewhere sometime, but on the other hand, more mobile units are always good to have. I can’t decide, and take a little of both. Some fortress divisions with attached super-heavy artillery will prove a tough nut to crack, while semi-mobile light armoured divisions will provide both speed and an armour advantage.
Italy has a surprising lot of leadership points. Even though the officer corps is being seriously neglected, keeping up-to-date seems to be no problem at all. Production queue not pictured in full.
Motorcycle Recon Units? Wing guns? Assault gliders? 500kg bombs? Go right ahead. Damage control systems? Alright, but only if they are really necessary. We need Fascist inventions, and we need them fast. I’m putting a lot of research into the Air Force, mostly because everything else is at quite an upgrade backlog. Let’s get that out of the way before adding more technology to the queue.
There are a lot of decisions in Black ICE which are presented to you in the first few months. Some are technical (Do you want sea mines? And war bonds?), others are choices you need to make for your country (Diesel or petrol engines? Implement food rations or not?).
Now these are some welcome decisions. First of all, I take the minor dissent penalty to gain a massive amount of resources. My armoured fighting vehicles will have diesel engines, and cast armour. This makes them cheap, yet durable. I opt in favour of pretty much everything else, except for body armour. That’s a thing of the past, right? Or, to be more honest, I don’t mind if my soldiers die in heaps, as long as the heaps steadily move forward. My decisions, tactics and technology generally reflect this policy.
In spite of the additional resources, we’re still running a massive deficit. Luckily, courtesy of our financial focus and some oil sales, we do have enough money to buy some more. France is willing to nullify our deficit in rare materials, Sweden sells us some metal, while the Soviet Union and others attempt to close the massive gap in our energy balance.
Hold on a second, why are we using so many resources? Is our economy mobilized for war? Oh, of course it is. We’re Italy, the one country* that’s at war at game start! I quickly head down to Abyssinia to take inventory. The local Army Group, the
Forze di Armate Africa Orientale, consists of one army in Eritrea, a much smaller army in Somalia, and a close air support wing. Together, these units make up for 195.000 soldiers on station. I’m quite confident that we’ll be able to beat the Ethiopians with those odds, especially after drawing another air wing from Cagliari.
The Order of Battle of all units in the Abyssinian Theatre.
Now for a plan. I’ll stick with Field Marshal Badoglio’s deployments, expecting more resistance up north than in Somalia. There’s quite a range of mountains in the north, leading all the way up to the Ethiopian capital Addis Abeba. That range will prove troublesome, but at least, we have three (mixed) mountain divisions in the vanguard. I and II Corps should lead the way. IV Corps and the Eritreans will stand by to guard the flanks of these attacking corps. The Somalian Corps will attempt a broad-front offensive from the south. I’m not sure how far they will get, but it’s worth drawing the enemy attention here. 208a and 209a Divisione Costeria won’t be going anywhere: These are Navy garrison divisions, guarding the ports. Finally, the (worthless) militia divisions under Army Group command will serve as a defensive reserve for IV and Eritrean Corps.
Let’s hope this is as easy as it looks.
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, which had started on 3 October 1935, recently turned into an Italian nightmare. An Ethiopian Christmas Offensive had barely been halted, and the international status of Italy was at stake. An offensive towards the capital Addis Abeba had to be started, and finished, soon.
With an attack appearing inevitable, Emperor Haile Selassie ordered a general mobilization of the Army of the Ethiopian Empire. His new recruits consisted of around 500,000 men, many of whom were armed with nothing more than spears and bows. Other soldiers carried more modern weapons, including rifles, but many of these were from before 1900 and were badly outdated.
According to Italian estimates, on the eve of hostilities the Ethiopians had an army of 350,000–760,000 men. But only about one-quarter of this army had any kind of military training and the men were armed with 400,000 rifles of every type and in every kind of condition.
In general, the Ethiopian armies were poorly equipped. They had about 200 antiquated pieces of artillery mounted on rigid gun carriages. There were also about 50 light and heavy anti-aircraft guns (20 mm Oerlikons, 75 mm Schneiders, and Vickers). The Ethiopians even had some Ford truck-based armored cars and a small number of Fiat 3000 World War I-era tanks.
The serviceable portion of the Imperial Ethiopian Air Force included three outmoded Potez 25 biplanes. A few transport aircraft were also acquired between 1934 and 1935 for ambulance work. In all, the air force consisted of 13 aircraft and four pilots at the outbreak of the war. The Ethiopian Air Force was commanded by a French pilot, Andre Maillet.
The best Ethiopian units were the Emperor's "Imperial Guard" (Kebur Zabangna). These troops were well-trained and better equipped than the other Ethiopian troops. The Imperial Guard, however, wore a distinctive greenish-khaki uniform of the Belgian Army, which stood out from the white cotton cloak (shamma) worn by most Ethiopian fighters. Unfortunately for its wearers, the shamma proved to be an excellent target. The skills of the Rases, the generals of the Ethiopian armies, ranged from relatively good to incompetent.
* I find this mistake hilarious enough to leave it in.
ask Ikar, I've followed his Hungarian adventures and now following his, let's say Polish, adventures
