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In my opinion, the Italians are too strong in this game. Ritchie with forces numbering about 36,000 against a much larger Italian army threw them back 500 miles while capturing 130,000 in North Africa resulting in Hitler sending Rommel and the DAK to save the day. The Italians invaded Greece and were fought to a standstill with Hitler having to intervene.

In this game, the Italians can hold North Africa without any German help and their air force and navy are significant. There have been a number of changes made in updates to "balance" the game so maybe this is a factor that should be considered.

Well, I think that the problem is on the land/air/sea experience. What I would do is to keep the Italians like they are. But, I would allow USA, UK and USSR to go up to 60% in land/air/sea experience.

Out of curiousity, I opened up the 1942 scenario and found the following effectiveness ratings.

Italian infantry - 50%
Italian motorized - 50%
Italian naval - 50%
Italian bombers - 45%
UK fighters - 50%

Hungarian and Romanian infantry - 50%

UK infantry - 50%
UK tank - 50%
UK naval - 60 %
UK bombers - 50%
UK fighters - 50%

USA infantry - 50%
Russian infantry and tanks - 40%

So the Italians except for naval are the equal of the UK and the USA while being better than the Russians. Hungarian and Romanian infantry are more effective then the Russians. Weren't they the ones who collapsed after being targeted for the Uranus offensive. I don't think many historians would rate the Italians the equal of the UK and the USA.

canuckgamer wrote: Mon May 22, 2023 9:00 pm
Hungarian and Romanian infantry are more effective then the Russians. Weren't they the ones who collapsed after being targeted for the Uranus offensive.

In 1941, against the Russians, Hungarians and Romanians did the job. Romanians and Italians suffered end of 1942 because they lacked AT weapons.

Sorry my mistake, I was referring to the EXPERIENCE ratings.

Italians are fine, maybe their armor is a bit too good.

It's still Germany that is all-powerful with neverending manpower.

Germany should be weakened a little or strategic bombing made more effective, But i have been saying for a long time that Italian units are to strong especially their mountain

1942 Italians shouldn't be 50%.

German manpower is fine. I played enough games where I was having to be careful late war with manpower so I kept at least 50% experience. 1944 and 1945 with the Allies Germany should see a drop in manpower.

Even the Russians should start suffering in 1944.

i always thought warplan was the one WW2 game i'd played where the italians seemed almost perfect.

any concerted effort by UK, in my experience, usually puts the italians on their heels unless the axis player works very hard at developing land based anti sea power and deploys significant german assets. that seems fairly realistic, because historically that would have been very dangerous to allied sea power.

With replacing the initial Italian armored unit for mechanized, and that Italy could not build armored units, I would be satisfied.

CHINCHIN wrote: Sun May 28, 2023 9:33 pm With replacing the initial Italian armored unit for mechanized, and that Italy could not build armored units, I would be satisfied.

A bad experience in USSR?

No, in North Africa, two Italian armored units are enough to hold off the British attack. It's not much help for Italy to hold out without German help, but it's something.

CHINCHIN wrote: Fri Jun 02, 2023 7:40 pm No, in North Africa, two Italian armored units are enough to hold off the British attack. It's not much help for Italy to hold out without German help, but it's something.

Have to use the Royal Navy and invade at a weak point. Walking to Tobruk doesn't work.

I'm saying this because of Canuckgamer's comment, which I agree with, without armored units the Italians would be a bit weaker.

The Italians are not so great cause the reality is they run on German Oil and if you're running Germany the way you should, Germany should be near empty on oil when she has peak armor/mech/air/naval forces around 1940-1942. You must use German Infantry to defend Italy cause Italians aren't strong enough to hold the key cities. Italians are great troops to get lots of Experience against and Italy can't really afford to reinforce it's Air Force or Navy. Not and field a strong land army if you're doing your job right.

I think the real issue if your Soviets are not run perfectly the issue gets big cause you run out of time. Germans have to put realistically 4-5 Infantry Corps/1 or 2 Mechs Armor in N.Africa with a few Air Units and intelligently deny giving Italy any oil at all aside enough to run maybe 1 or 2 Armor. Those can be useful as garrisons or counter offensive units if German Army Corps are left behind to defend where they're not. You'll need a giant blob of Units to defend Italy if you don't want a 3rd Front in 1942-43.

If the Soviets completely or partially collapse too early though the Germans don't get a challenge and don't worry about D-Days or Italy's collapse. . .