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Ok, so what determines what factories can build what units? Is it simply hardcoded? It appears that the Italian factories cannot produce Armor/Arty/AA/Infantry or any Aircraft in their factories, but only Milita, Supply, Research, and the various Fleets.

Is this to just represent their general inferiority in those type of units?

I believe I have seen Air units in the Production Spiral of the Italian factories near the beginning of the game. If these are 'damaged' units from the first turn, why do they go to Italian and not German factories (I thought they first went to a factory that could produce them if available). Is there some way to enable Italian (or other) factories to be able to expand the unit mix that they are able to produce?

Thanx in advance!

Hard coded. No way to expand what you can produce from Italy.

So the Air units I see in the Italian Spiral are ones that were damaged? Would they go to say, Kiev, if I had them damaged in Russia later in the game and Kiev was the closest?

Thanx again!

I always assumed taht this was to simulate the inferiority of the Italian units.

I did find it odd that they can build airborn units cinsidering that historically the Italians build a grand total of one airborne regiment, which I don't believe was ever dropped in combat.

If this is to give them some avenue of getting ground forces better than militia, I'd have rather seen Italian infantry take three turns instead of two. However, since Italy is part of Germany in this game, I doubt the game system would allow for different production costs by province. I know it does vary them for some players. I guess allowing paratroops to represent the few good italian divisions was a compromise.

If I recall AH's Third Reich docs, they stated that the Italians had two parachute divisions (Nembo and Folgore) and so you got an airborne unit. Googling around seems to confirm this. It does seem surprising that you can build an airborne corps though and not a real infantry in this game, but there probably isn't a good way to represent the relative crappiness of Italy & the minor allies other than using militia, which is a passable compromise.

Italian troops were not necessarily "crappy" and do not deserve to be denigrated. They get something of a bad rap after being hung out to dry in the SU, where they were inadequately equipped. (Note that the Finns were inadequately equipped, and I don't think anyone would call them "crappy" - not to their face, anyway [:)]. The Finns just had better luck than to be guarding Sixth Army's flank.)

After long debate on the boards the ability to add paratroops was added to simulate the fact that the Italians could turn out good troops, but not with the quick response frequency of the Germans. I think Oleg was the champion of this cause and much more the expert in this area, so probably better for him to respond.

Edit: I should add that the Italian units' primary weakness appears to have been a generally poor office corps and lack of equipment (at least, according to Rommel, who certainly had his own shortcomings).