Initial Impressions of a Noob

[haruntaiwan]

1. Italians suck. They shouldn't have bothered making their tanks and sent their steel to Germany instead.

2. Russian tanks are much better. They take a lickin' and give back with interest. Riding infantry on tanks saves a lot of buys.

3. American tanks rival the Italians - okay, not that bad, but clearly inferior. Of course, as opposed to the worthless Italians, you can use the artillery strategy to keep the enemy armor so busy avoiding shell holes that eventually you can kill them. Hell, I found lots of abandoned and blown up enemy armor that my tanks never touched...just 81mmm mortars on their head every turn. Also, it seems hard to use bazookas on offense because they can hardly ever creep up on a tank from behind without the tank whirling about and MGing them...yes, the range is set to 1 or 0 and moving one hex at a time.

4. Have not played the Germans much yet, but I did find it enjoyable blowing up French tanks with 88 AT guns.

[Puukkoo]

1. Italians suck. They shouldn't have bothered making their tanks and sent their steel to Germany instead.

2. Russian tanks are much better. They take a lickin' and give back with interest. Riding infantry on tanks saves a lot of buys.

3. American tanks rival the Italians - okay, not that bad, but clearly inferior. Of course, as opposed to the worthless Italians, you can use the artillery strategy to keep the enemy armor so busy avoiding shell holes that eventually you can kill them. Hell, I found lots of abandoned and blown up enemy armor that my tanks never touched...just 81mmm mortars on their head every turn. Also, it seems hard to use bazookas on offense because they can hardly ever creep up on a tank from behind without the tank whirling about and MGing them...yes, the range is set to 1 or 0 and moving one hex at a time.

4. Have not played the Germans much yet, but I did find it enjoyable blowing up French tanks with 88 AT guns.

1. Have you read military history? Italians should have those problems with their morale. Their commanders led their units from a beautiful renaissance mansion at Capri while their men fought at the North Africa. And Believe it or not, Mussolini was working for peace in the 1930's and did not rebuild Italian army. That resulted in poor showing during early Italian campaigns. They got bathing from Abessinians, French, Greeks, Yugoslavians and the Brits bulldozed them. Americans faced in 1943 little more seasoned Italians (And censored the opening scene from my favourite non-military movie 'The Night at the Opera', because the Marx Bros. played Italians in that film gloryfying their culture.)

2. Good attention.

3. There are gamers who know how to play with Italians. Beware your talks. Bazooka is a nice weapon when you learn to use it properly. It is best to assume enemy tank moving towards your Bazooka team to get best use of your weapon. Creeping... it sometimes even works.

4. The 88's really turkey-shoot Somuas, Mathildas and T-34's.

[IBTyrone]

Hey! Some of us like to play Italians because of the challenge! [8D]

But seriously, I would not ever start out playing Italians unless you are a masochist. It makes learning a challenging game more difficult.

Puukkoo is right on--there were a multitude of reasons why the Italians reeked so bad in WW2. One issue was that there was no cooperation between the branches of the military. This led to competition between the different branches for the limited resources that were available which led to more distrust and resulted in a vicious circle.

Another reason for the pathetic quality of Italian equipment was the control corporations had over industrial production. The political climate in Italy was such that industry dictated to the military what equipment was produced and in what quantities. Not a way to run an efficient war machine. There are many other reasons why the Italians stink, but those are two reasons I can think of off the top of my head.

There are some exceptional Italian units out there, but you have to work to find them. And no, I am not talking about *any* of their armor with the possible exception of the Autoblindas. Even their best self-propelled anti-tank weapon, the SMV90, had serious drawbacks in reality. In the game, many of those deficiencies are glossed over.

[Terminus]

A less obvious reason for the low quality of the Italians was the huge difference in privileges between officers and enlisted ranks. Just look at some of the stuff the British captured when they overran the Italians during Operation Compass!

The Germans had a much tighter bond between the officer class and their men, and that helped the German army fight better.

[Puukkoo]

And the best stuff what Brits captured from the Italians were the fortifications at Tobruk. Cost lots of Axis blood to take 'em back.

Italians did have some good units too. Their divisions 'Ariete' and 'Folgore' fought brilliantly. And also, Italians were better in guerilla warfare than Germans. And there was the guy who sank a British battleship at Alexandria by inserting a bomb at its bottom.

[Terminus]

The two Italians branches of service that could be called good were their artillery and their construction troops. Those performed well in North Africa.

[IBTyrone]

Don't forget the 'Decima Mas' which Puukkoo alluded to earlier with the destruction of the Brit battleship in Alexandria. They are represented in Steel Panthers as the Incursori troops (incorrectly modelled for desert warfare) and the Gamma men (the frogmen). For more info about their exploits, check out:
http://www.comandosupremo.com/Decima.html

[Terminus]

Oh yeah, the Italians had some fine Special Forces.

[haruntaiwan]

I think once I learn more about how to play the game, the Italians will be a fine challenge.

With the Americans I'm learning how to be a little more sneaky in unit placement and enticing those tanks to traps where I can maybe hit them.

I do so love the sound of 3 shells plonking off the armor and realizing I only have MG fire left. (But you now have the tank fully targeted at 97% chance.) Once in while you do get lucky and, yeah, the bazooka teams sometimes do work...It's quite satisfying when they finally take down a tank. German tank crews tend to be killed with no mercy though.

[Terminus]

And sometimes you get REALLY lucky with the bazookas. It sounds like a fisherman's story, but I once killed a Jagdtiger with a bazooka. Can't prove it, obviously...

[Puukkoo]

Not to talk about veteran infantry with Panzerfausts setting up an ambush in a forest.

[Terminus]

Right, best not to talk about that...[;)]

[Gun Nut]

ORIGINAL: IBTyrone

Don't forget the 'Decima Mas' which Puukkoo alluded to earlier with the destruction of the Brit battleship in Alexandria. They are represented in Steel Panthers as the Incursori troops (incorrectly modelled for desert warfare) and the Gamma men (the frogmen). For more info about their exploits, check out:
http://www.comandosupremo.com/Decima.html

That site is quite informative on the italians I believe the french were also about the same level as the Italians it's just hard to stop a million and a half men when they go through Belgium past your static line of defence (Maginot Line).

But it is funny looking at their old ww2 service guns they always liked to make strange firearms, hell it is even thought of that they invented the first assault rifle the "Cei-Rigotti" though very little info exsists to prove that .The first"military service assault rifle" the Russian Federov Avtomat which only about 3000 were produced and it fired the old Japanese Japanese Arisaka 6.5×50 mm rifle cartridge. Now the germans they just perfected it with the Sturmgewehr 44 7.92x33mm Kurz "short". [:D].

[Terminus]

Heh! I saw some pictures from Iraq of insurgents armed with Sturmgewehre. Talk about longevity...

[Gun Nut]

Jeez that would be one old firearm haha, ah well it would still be a mighty fine firearm I would think [&o]

[Terminus]

Well, strictly speaking I don't know if it was an original... Could be a Pakistani copy; they make a huge number of very close copies of all sorts of weapons for sale on the black markets of Central Asia. Those could easily find their way to Iraq.

[Gun Nut]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Well, strictly speaking I don't know if it was an original... Could be a Pakistani copy; they make a huge number of very close copies of all sorts of weapons for sale on the black markets of Central Asia. Those could easily find their way to Iraq.

Yeah never really to pakistanis made their own guns over there every pic I seen they had the Heckler and Koch G3A3 7.62x51mm M80 or some other H&K gun but i'm sure they use a large variety! The only country I know of that doesn't employ high quality german made guns is Israeli but than again their Israeli Defence Force uses mostly our american made M16's M4's etc.

[Terminus]

Actually I was talking about copies made illegally by small shops. I believe the Pakistani military use both AK's and G3's.

[Gun Nut]

Oh in that case yeah they could, but the killing power would be quite limited according to Martin L Fackler a terminal ballistics expert.

The 7.62x39mm round is said to cause a low powered handgun style wound when using any FMJ type ammo. I was looking at paladin press and everywhere else, SOF, Guns and ammo etc. for info on the old 7.92x33mm Kurz but there is none [:(]. I magine it is worse wounding effect them 7.62x39mm M1943! (Note. this is in no way reflecting the west german 7.62x39mm cartridge used by most of the NVA and VC in the vietnam war, that had devasting effects on the body!).

[Terminus]

The Kurz round fired by the StG 44 was almost a pistol round. The NATO 7.62 fired by the G3 is far more powerful; the G3 itself is a real bitch to fire, too. Big, heavy thing...