Comments on 1991 Italy army after short test game

[exsonic01]

I just finished very short 1991 test game of Italy vs USSR

1. Italy infantry fights really well. Especially Marines and Alpinis. They usually dominate the most of the urban combat or infantry close combat within 500m distance, plus far less chance to break morale under artillery. Good shock infantry.

2. But their AT is really problematic. M20 super bazooka and Energa is definitely not enough. So any Italy player should invest enough AT assets with infantry, like RCL team, APILAS team, and ATGM traps. I purchase APILAS + ATGM team (80:20 ratio) enough to allocate one team per one squad. Italy also lacks autocannon vehicles.

3. Italy's armor, M60A1 + Leo1 series, is really not enough to withstand against push of most of PACT nations. I miss Ariete tank but that toy is deployed from 1995 so no chance in this game Ambush + hit and run is the best option for Italy, but offensive breakthrough with Italy armor against T-72 variants wouldn't be easy. I feel like Italy force is mostly centered for defense operations, not offensive ones.

4. North east Italy is mostly flat plain. Not easy place to defend, especially with poor armors. Ambush + ATGM traps seems only viable options against the wave of PACT tanks.

Any idea about Italy army strategy and tactics?

ps) Meanwhile, I like Yugo T-84s, and I feels like Yugo in this game has well balanced army. But what is the story behind all those WW2 vehicles in Yugo support tab?

[nikolas93TS]

There was a tendency of Italian military leadership, above all but not only that of the Army, to create a number of units and divisions hardly sustainable by the effectively available national resources (Italian Cold War Army was actually larger than any peacetime army in the Italian history, including under Fascism). This tendency was strengthened by the flow of auxiliary resources activated by the Italian membership in NATO and by the massive US aid. However once such aid ended, it left Italy with the heritage of a excessively large military system, above all unbalanced, which proved prohibitively expensive to modernize until it was downscaled at the end of the Cold War. I found a note that "several thousand" M72 LAW were acquired, but never issued, probably because they were too few in numbers to be effective. In the 1970s military appropriations were approved only after long, contentious parliamentary debates. A series of ten-year modernization programs were approved, but much of the funding was delayed because of domestic inflation. APILAS was an urgent stop-gap measure (only 500 were bought) to equip rapid reaction force. They mostly relied on terrain, fortifications and battalion level assets like large calibre RCL and ATGMs to provide AT protection.

I was only able to find out that APFSDS were purchased in 1985, but the type is unknown (likely Israeli-German design, so DM-33). I was under impression military was trying to hide their purchases from Parliament (judging by parliamentary sessions on MILAN and cluster ammunition) in order to secure at least something.

You best bet is to maximise combined arms approach, including jeep mounted weapons.

As for Yugoslavia, it was geographically situated between a NATO anvil and the Soviet hammer, so the prospect of invasion would permanently dominate Yugoslav strategic plans. According to Yugoslav thinking, the final goal of the global powers was to overthrow the socialist state and its self-managed political system and that is why stockpiling and self-reliance was meticulously enforced. Particularly since witnessing the Warsaw Pact intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968, Yugoslav military doctrine focused on combining its large field army with the guerrilla experience of the Partisans in World War II. In planning, this would entail the armed forces forces to conduct conventional warfare along a nationwide front, buying time for reserves and the general population to mobilize. Small Territorial Defence units would engage alongside beside regular troops in their local areas, emphasizing mobility and light anti-personnel and anti-armor weapons. Because armament parity with likely opponents, both in quality and quantity, was hard to achieve, Yugoslavs tried to use limited national defense resources in the most efficient way, rarely if ever squandering even the most obsolete weapons. And while the center of gravity of the Yugoslav Army were the infantry formations that were highly varied, logistically undemanding and survivable, armoured and mechanized were certainly capable of making it tough for any adversary.

While this proved to be a successful deterrence to outside attack, it also created the conditions for demise of Yugoslavia itself, and unknowingly endorsed tactics and strategies that would cause untold suffering among its own people in brutal civil war that ensued after the end of Cold War.

[exsonic01]

ORIGINAL: nikolas93TS

There was a tendency of Italian military leadership, above all but not only that of the Army, to create a number of units and divisions hardly sustainable by the effectively available national resources (Italian Cold War Army was actually larger than any peacetime army in the Italian history, including under Fascism). This tendency was strengthened by the flow of auxiliary resources activated by the Italian membership in NATO and by the massive US aid. However once such aid ended, it left Italy with the heritage of a excessively large military system, above all unbalanced, which proved prohibitively expensive to modernize until it was downscaled at the end of the Cold War. I found a note that "several thousand" M72 LAW were acquired, but never issued, probably because they were too few in numbers to be effective. In the 1970s military appropriations were approved only after long, contentious parliamentary debates. A series of ten-year modernization programs were approved, but much of the funding was delayed because of domestic inflation. APILAS was an urgent stop-gap measure (only 500 were bought) to equip rapid reaction force. They mostly relied on terrain, fortifications and battalion level assets like large calibre RCL and ATGMs to provide AT protection.

I was only able to find out that APFSDS were purchased in 1985, but the type is unknown (likely Israeli-German design, so DM-33). I was under impression military was trying to hide their purchases from Parliament (judging by parliamentary sessions on MILAN and cluster ammunition) in order to secure at least something.

You best bet is to maximise combined arms approach, including jeep mounted weapons.

As for Yugoslavia, it was geographically situated between a NATO anvil and the Soviet hammer, so the prospect of invasion would permanently dominate Yugoslav strategic plans. According to Yugoslav thinking, the final goal of the global powers was to overthrow the socialist state and its self-managed political system and that is why stockpiling and self-reliance was meticulously enforced. Particularly since witnessing the Warsaw Pact intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968, Yugoslav military doctrine focused on combining its large field army with the guerrilla experience of the Partisans in World War II. In planning, this would entail the armed forces forces to conduct conventional warfare along a nationwide front, buying time for reserves and the general population to mobilize. Small Territorial Defence units would engage alongside beside regular troops in their local areas, emphasizing mobility and light anti-personnel and anti-armor weapons. Because armament parity with likely opponents, both in quality and quantity, was hard to achieve, Yugoslavs tried to use limited national defense resources in the most efficient way, rarely if ever squandering even the most obsolete weapons. And while the center of gravity of the Yugoslav Army were the infantry formations that were highly varied, logistically undemanding and survivable, armoured and mechanized were certainly capable of making it tough for any adversary.

While this proved to be a successful deterrence to outside attack, it also created the conditions for demise of Yugoslavia itself, and unknowingly endorsed tactics and strategies that would cause untold suffering among its own people in brutal civil war that ensued after the end of Cold War.

Thanks for the detailed behind stories! This gave me more immersion.

[nikolas93TS]

There was also another peculiarity of the Italian land forces: the absurd proliferation of expensive and large police and paramilitary forces. For example Carabinieri, while under nominal Army control but normally tasked with civil control services, possessed entire divisions and integrated tank battalions. Perhaps there is no other nation in the world that has as many as three different police agencies to perform task very similar among them, while each of them being substantially large and well spread over the territory, with plenty of offices, officers, helicopters, fixed wing planes, tanks, and coastal patrol boats. To make things worse, often they were competing against each other, rendering the task of effectively using the military budget rather hard.

[Rosseau]

All I know is the Carabinieri are pretty liberal about speeding as long as you are driving a domestic brand. [:)]

I didn't know they had tanks, though!

[Andrea G]

Never seen a blue tank with red stripes [:D]

Moreover, the Carabinieri had no real divisions, they are just administrative body of the different italian regions.
They act as military police in combat mission outside italy, and they are also the embassies protection force.

[nikolas93TS]

[Andrea G]

Well I didn't know they have been equipped with Leopard 1, but they were intended to be used as security not as combat elements.

[amatteucci]

ORIGINAL: Andrea G
Well I didn't know they have been equipped with Leopard 1, but they were intended to be used as security not as combat elements.

BTW, only the tank company of the 13th Battalion was equipped with Leopards in the period 1975-1989. The other Carabinieri tank units still had M47s (the Carabinieri acquired 130 M47 tanks in 1963).

You are right regarding the use of mobilized Carabinieri mainly as security forces but consider that, considering deployment and doctrine, at least the 1st Parachute, 7th and 13th Battalions would have seen action against front line enemy troops in a hypothetical WW3.