Was Italy that weak in RL?

[Mannerheim84]

How comes some of you say Italy is Germany No. 2?
In almost every runs of the game Italy sucks. not even late game.

If I play on my own it's always a problem to beat the british in africa. If I stick to ethiopia, there are always around 4 times more armies from the brits than my italian ones in egypt, cutting of my ethiopian supplies. dunno how you manage to build up italy enaugh to prevent them from collapsing.
Latest point of defeat is when US gets involved. No chance to beat back their units.

Still - historically Italy is too strong

 

[kettyo]

How comes some of you say Italy is Germany No. 2?

You can make her Germany no. 2 by e.g. occupying the Balkans and then the Southern USSR. If you can get a bigger share of the USSR your industry will rival that of Germany. You can easily take a large chunk of France too.

 

[Te. Kenzo]

As Italian, and a History Researcher I can confirm that managements of our logistics, and our capability of production, was especially bad, so bad that shivers me read about it... just how we fielded troops in these conditions...

 

[mabus81]

The italian divisions lacked NCOs and field artillery on a large scale. Small arms were mostly from WW1, stuff that had been developed in the interwar years often was close to being useless due to poor design choices. On top of that, neither was the italian industry able to supply something of the size of what could be considered an army group, nor had italy access to the resources necessary to fuel their war machine. Most of these problems were though, at least in theory, solvable. If adequate reforms had been applied in time, ncos could have been trained, logistics organized, new weaponry developed and old weaponry modernized. But unlike Germany, which at least prepared half-heartedly for a world war, it never was Italys plan to go to war with both England and France at the same time. The italian participation in the war basically wasn't more than a landgrab gone bad.

 

[Col.Klink]

It's a figure made up from other figures, such as population, national income, steel and coal production, automobile production, level of modernity and automation of factories, managerial practice, worker productivity and so on.

Sounds like it's very subjective to whatever the author most approves of though admittedly there has to be good points in there. People don't grasp how important a quality bureaucracy actually is for example so I'm not saying that what he put in is completely wrong, just that the weighting of everything in that is terribly debatable.

The italian divisions lacked NCOs and field artillery on a large scale. Small arms were mostly from WW1, stuff that had been developed in the interwar years often was close to being useless due to poor design choices. On top of that, neither was the italian industry able to supply something of the size of what could be considered an army group, nor had italy access to the resources necessary to fuel their war machine. Most of these problems were though, at least in theory, solvable. If adequate reforms had been applied in time, ncos could have been trained, logistics organized, new weaponry developed and old weaponry modernized. But unlike Germany, which at least prepared half-heartedly for a world war, it never was Italys plan to go to war with both England and France at the same time. The italian participation in the war basically wasn't more than a landgrab gone bad.

Tbh the newer carcano was the best weapon the italians designed. It was honesty in a rifle. Fixed battle sights at 300m bc troops don't shoot rifles at the enemy farther than that. The new lighter cartridge was built around the same concept. Tbh it was one of the best thought out rifles of the war but there was no way italy was going to replace all of its ammunition stores in roughly a year do the panic of the war made them go back to the old cartridge.

People pick on Italy's emphasis on light tanks but that tank arm was designed to invade the Balkans not north africa and tbh... people over state how ineffective the actual armor was because the italian command just didn't utilize them well at all, sort of like the brits refusing to let the Matilda have high explosive or physically shield advancing infantry with its armor.

Consider two factors. 1) who is usually the winner in a tank on tank firefight? 2) what use is a .303 rifle against even an armored car?

1) the winner is usually the one who shoots first. In a confrontation if two opponents are capable of hurting each other the one who has the shot and the drop on the other usually wins. This means italian tanks lightly armored as they were wouldnt have fared better against enemy anti tank guns even if they had better armor. I shifted to saying better against anti tank guns because it's a waste of tanks to use them to fight other tanks. Anti tank guns when fighting on the defensive are cheaper and do the job better (its really hard to see them)

Summed up armor thickness can be nice but is over rated. The Matilda was an armored behemoth for its day and the italians lacking anti tank guns would knock it out with artillery pieces from the 1890s.

2) if your targeting the enemy correctly with supporting infantry to handle the enemy anti tank guns then those tanks don't need to be heavily armored. A machinegun or rifle is useless even against italys famously tiny tanks. Properly built tank divisions supported by the infantry and aircraft like the germans did and those tanks would have been fine.

The best way I can describe it is thinking of hoi4. We love armor rating in the game because it causes double damage scenarios but if your unit has a hardness of 75% then the enemy is pretty well crippled too unless its an anti tank geared unit. They don't have enough hard attacks to do well.

 

[Simon_9732495]

If I play on my own it's always a problem to beat the british in africa. If I stick to ethiopia, there are always around 4 times more armies from the brits than my italian ones in egypt, cutting of my ethiopian supplies. dunno how you manage to build up italy enaugh to prevent them from collapsing.
Latest point of defeat is when US gets involved. No chance to beat back their units.

You could try this:

• Release Ethiopia as puppet in the peace deal and never call it to war. (Then no one will attack them.)
• At the point when you are at war with the UK rush Suez with all might (Best Divisions, Fighther, CAS) and as fast as you can.
• (In all my runs I could easily break them with 14/4 Infantry divisions with air support. I would be very suprised to see a AI Egypt defense that needs stronger divisions)
• From Egypt go South and East. Supply is not an issue now until short before Ethiopia. Maybe build up Infrastructure there a bit.
• Dig in at the end of the Egypt Airzone in the west of Ethiopia with 24 10/0 divisions and some Air. Even the USA can't break that.

See also this thread for more detail:

Italy nuking Los Angeles (and humiliating the US-Navy)

I saw some threads about Italy here lately, so I thought I share my actual Italy run with you. It's an achivement run (Ironman, historical) I try to get the "Duce Nuked'em" achievement where I have to nuke LA. I'm trying to do it with a "normal"...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[Mannerheim84]

Hell. I did manage to conquer all of Africa in some runs past days (without puppeting Ethiopia), but when I do well, the German AI does not. They never manage to push back the Soviets a bit and pingpong their troops between East and West.
In one run I defended the French Coast as well, but I failed to look for 5 (!) days at the russian front (shame on me), and the russians cornered my 14 Tank divisions, 24 fully eqiped Infantry divisions and 24 mounted divisions (where there have been lots of German troops as well - before).
I was kind of surprised. Each time I do well, I have to fight off Allies, and Axis K.I.

Yet I did the same thing as you in Africa and wiped out every enemy and fleet that came across, before the U.S. entered war. After that, I threw them of the coast, but couldn't hold Germany as well, like said...

 

[Simon_9732495]

The game is easier when you can wage your wars one after another. I think for Italy that is possible.

• Secure Suez and Africa
• Secure the Mediterranean Sea (take out Gibraltar)
• Conquer the Balkans
• Conquer the Soviet Union together with Germany

That way you can fully concentrate on the Soviet Union from 1941 on, because the Allies are no threat to you.

Have you read my thread how I did it? What do you think about it?

 

[DukofDeth]

The Italians were one of the first to modernize their military with mechanized equipment, but by the time the war occurred that equipment was all hopelessly out of date, yet the Italians couldn't afford to upgrade all over again just to keep pace. I've heard their officer corps had issues - not sure what those were, but might have been something along the lines of the officers coming from the richer north, whereas the rank and file were from the poorer southern parts of Italy; also differences of opinion between the majority of officers and the more politicized ones. There was nothing wrong with their soldiers - multiple sources [read ages ago] have pointed out that they were ill-equipped vs. the British and poorly lead by their officers, who are said to have been halfhearted about Mussolini's imperial ambitions.

 

[Caeric]

One of the strangest claims that I just cant seem to verify is italy apparently had a surprising capacity to produce aircraft. Of course germany refused to license the 109 or the 190 and italy didn't have the best air designs. That would be a surprising and unexpected advantage for Italy crippled by one little tidbit easily remedied in game. But as I said, I can't verify that...

Anyway 100% agreement with you. Instead of focusing on a small elite army italy fielded as many men as it possibly could, like 2.5 million men. More men than it could arm adequately, more men than it could supply.

The north african campaign you bring up is the part that shows its failures in full view. The italian leadership had come up with a maneuver warfare doctrine in Ethiopia but instead of using a smaller elite force to solve the problem they massed morons in the desert with garbage equipment. They had more tanks but they went with massed crappy infantry that were basically helpless in the desert once they marched out and overburdened the limited supply capacity.

Italy isn't a "glorified minor" as some have derided it. It simply was crippled by moronic leaders who compounded its inbuilt problems.

In game I like Italy bc its not too strong, doesn't have too many people and if you pay attention in game just as in the real war it can teach a few lessons. Like, fewer men with better equipment and better supplied is superior. In game we see how 36 infantry equipment is literally twice as good as 1918. 39 infantry gear is 50% better still.

I'm sorry, what? Not the best plane designs? In terms of bombers and twin-engined fighters perhaps, but the Italian single-engined fighters were rather good and even outperformed their Luftwaffe counterparts in the Africa campaign with the M C.202 Folgore scoring a far better K/D than the Bf 109. Units of the Fiat G.55 Centauro also received high praise even from the Germans who operated a number of captured ones after the Italian armistice and the same goes for review by Allied test pilots who tested out captured Italian planes. All of this on inferior license-built downrated DB 600-series engines.

 

[DukofDeth]

Back then Italian industry was much better at producing small batches of good to high quality equipment - they were not really set up for mass-production.

 

[Pearcieboi]

It can simply be said that the Italians did not have a concrete reason to fight, and thus, no will to win a war that they never even wanted to start in the fist place.

 

[GrandVezir]

It's so pathetic in the game that one thinks it was intentionally weaken for the game?

The short answer is no: RL Italy was much weaker than the one we get in game. With few exceptions, they under-performed in every campaign where they didn't get massive help from Germany.

The long answer is: Italy needs a National Focus re-do. No question. There should also be a fairly stupid branch path that the historic AI is scripted to follow, because Mussolini and the boys didn't exactly cover themselves with glory.

 

[Col.Klink]

I'm sorry, what? Not the best plane designs? In terms of bombers and twin-engined fighters perhaps, but the Italian single-engined fighters were rather good and even outperformed their Luftwaffe counterparts in the Africa campaign with the M C.202 Folgore scoring a far better K/D than the Bf 109. Units of the Fiat G.55 Centauro also received high praise even from the Germans who operated a number of captured ones after the Italian armistice and the same goes for review by Allied test pilots who tested out captured Italian planes. All of this on inferior license-built downrated DB 600-series engines.

Thanks for updating me on that! My knowledge of italian aircraft is quite limited. My knowledge before this was that they were flying aircraft with inferior engines and even biplanes.

 

[CrazyZombie]

I'm sorry, what? Not the best plane designs? In terms of bombers and twin-engined fighters perhaps, but the Italian single-engined fighters were rather good and even outperformed their Luftwaffe counterparts in the Africa campaign with the M C.202 Folgore scoring a far better K/D than the Bf 109. Units of the Fiat G.55 Centauro also received high praise even from the Germans who operated a number of captured ones after the Italian armistice and the same goes for review by Allied test pilots who tested out captured Italian planes. All of this on inferior license-built downrated DB 600-series engines.

And they never had actually significant numbers of those fighters in production...

 

[Col.Klink]

And they never had actually significant numbers of those fighters in production...

Do you have any recommended sources for me to learn more about the Italian airforce, including production in ww2? As I said, I wasn't able to verify what is essentially a rumor I heard about their production numbers. Clearly my knowledge on this is near non existent.

 

[Col.Klink]

Back then Italian industry was much better at producing small batches of good to high quality equipment - they were not really set up for mass-production.

I may be wrong in this but isn't that the modern Italian economy? They aren't internationally known for say mass produced cheap or middle of the road cars. They are known for auto makers like Lamborghini. They are known for quality clothes and shoes, not mass produced cheap ect.

 

[Harin]

The short answer is no: RL Italy was much weaker than the one we get in game. With few exceptions, they under-performed in every campaign where they didn't get massive help from Germany.

The long answer is: Italy needs a National Focus re-do. No question. There should also be a fairly stupid branch path that the historic AI is scripted to follow, because Mussolini and the boys didn't exactly cover themselves with glory.

Good point!

A lot of branches the developers build for the majors are rather far fetched, but they can be fun to play. Italy, though, almost requires a rework, because, like you said, Mussolini and friends did a horrible job.

It would be fun to play Italy with a focus that allows us to address some of the what ifs that country had. For example, throwing out the political hack generals, building a smaller, more modern army, addressing the aircraft engine problems, maybe not joining the Axis, but go full Med expansion on their own, build up the people's support of the war through successes in the field, etc..

 

[Col.Klink]

Good point!

A lot of branches the developers build for the majors are rather far fetched, but they can be fun to play. Italy, though, almost requires a rework, because, like you said, Mussolini and friends did a horrible job.

It would be fun to play Italy with a focus that allows us to address some of the what ifs that country had. For example, throwing out the political hack generals, building a smaller, more modern army, addressing the aircraft engine problems, maybe not joining the Axis, but go full Med expansion on their own, build up the people's support of the war through successes in the field, etc..

Fixing what amounts to a pile of shit, isn't that the fun of playing a faction like China? .

 

[CrazyZombie]

Do you have any recommended sources for me to learn more about the Italian airforce, including production in ww2? As I said, I wasn't able to verify what is essentially a rumor I heard about their production numbers. Clearly my knowledge on this is near non existent.

Well, I wasn't studying this topic very hard, but what I would quote below (from this topic, btw) is in general line of what I've heard about Italian air forces.

The planes generally lacked firepower until the war was all but lost. They didn't come close to others in that regard until they started to incorporate German 20mm guns as well. Two, later on four, small caliber guns just don't cut it when everyone else either has far more guns, far more powerful ones, or both. Especially when you also lack speed. They also had a lot of trouble getting good engines. Their own ones were quite bad, and they never managed to produce the licensed German ones in the necessary numbers, nor did Germany have the means to supply them with any.

As for production numbers, it looked something like this (though I guess it depends a bit on which source you ask):

C.R.42 Falco: 1780 produced, though only around 1450 for Italy, the rest were exported to smaller nations or produced for Germany
G.50 Freccia: 774, though 100+ of them were training machines
M.C. 200 Saetta: 1153
M.C. 202 Folgore: ~1500
M.C. 205 Veltro: 66 until the split , another ~200 after the split, being used by Germany and the RSI
G.55 Centauro 31 until the split, 274 in total

The last two are the really capable ones. Up to par with what everyone else had to offer, but they obviously weren't around in large numbers, and only were ready for combat operations by summer 1943. The MC 202 was also quite capable but lacking in firepower, while the ones before had little to offer beyond agility.