Elusive Italians
 

I know they have a history of leging it when fired on but Italian formation
257 Mech Inf Comp+ the plus units are the only guys up for a fight the Mech Company seems to have gone AWOL.

Perhaps because seems quite a strange army looking at its MBT certainly not pitched against Russia it would struggle against forces in the Balkans area. There is a nice SP ATGM but the infantry dont get many & indeed decent RPGs are a bit thin on the ground.

Re: Elusive Italians
 

Don't complain :-p None of the greek formations have Carl Gustav although we have many of them.

Re: Elusive Italians
 

If you have data on & can supply start dates & how used. As in AT teams, given to support squad or whole platoon if so which, Mech Inf? I am sure Don & Andy will look at as I am sure they will have at the info you gave about tanks previosly.
Its a lot to keep on top of.
You will need more than 1 source & if in Greek run through a language translator they will at least get the gist of it.

Not complaining but would be intrested to here from anyone who has served in Italian Army who they expect to face. Its like it was designed to take on Russian tanks rather than MBTs or perhaps T-64. This sort of makes sense if assume they face Mech & 2nd line armour formations so I may have just answered my own question. It is in need of a new gun though as armour has progressed while it has mid 90s penetration levels.

Re: Elusive Italians
 

Somewhat overstated as far as the small units level goes, though I imagine british perspective/propaganda is still more widespread. Of course at the higher levels aspects such as strategy, leadership, procurement, organization, training etc. (as well as the general dearth of resources) left A LOT to be desired.:doh:

In the Cold War I believe the italian army was expected to deal with with was what left of a mainly hungarian force after they had knocked out Austria (we had some thread there which detailed how the hungarians were expecting to be essentially massacred in Austria); which to say not much in all likelihood. Yugoslavia could have been an other enemy, at least theoretically.
So we are speaking about mostly 2nd line forces with upgraded
T-55s and vanilla T-72s at most.
Nowadays we doing coalition warfare/peacekeeping on a shoestring budget; the Ariete and available antitank weapons are good enough for such scenarios. There is not need to match late Abrams or Leopard and doing so would be an useless extravaganza which would rob some more pressing need. For example there are some plans to build an heavy APC, such a thing would be more useful than some uber APFSDS.

Re: Elusive Italians
 

Marcello was overstating our propoganda is not that bad just fitted the missing units.

Thanks for the input & peacekeeping duties I tend to agree & thanks for the input on Hungary does indeed look a logical force so I will now take the Italians out for a spin.

Re: Elusive Italians
 

Another player already posted some info on this I think.

Re: Elusive Italians
 

Some relevant quotes from Warsaw Pact plans/wargames, by the parallel history project http://php.isn.ethz.ch/

I don't believe that the italian plan was marching into Austria but the soviets seemed to think otherwise.

It gives an idea of what sort of forces would have been committed towards Italy.

Not that going throught Austria would have been a cakewalk...

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...ght=spannocchi

Re: Elusive Italians
 

Marcello
Well you are a wealth of information.
You obviosly have your finger in many pies (error checking etc) with good access to info, thanks

Re: Elusive Italians
 

I have been asked in a PM about the italian army organization and planning for WW3
Since I though the matter could be of general interest I have decided to reply in this thread.
Detailed italian OOBs can be found on the web. Here for example is one for the late 80’s

http://s.scribd.com/doc/37695/NATO-Order-of-Battle-1989

Scroll down to pg 104 and forward

Organization varied a bit during the various periods (in 1971 there would have been a few additional units and older equipment for example) but overall what you can find there gives a good idea even for earlier periods.

What the Army was planning to do with these units is the sort of info which is less widely available, especially in english. The following is what I have pieced together.
Broadly speaking the general plan was to fight a defensive battle near the national borders, which overlap with the most formidable geographical obstacles available.
The best units available were either already placed in, or planned to go to if things got hot, to the North-Est of the country.

The Fourth corps with the five mountain infantry brigades was to hold the northern areas facing Austria. This is a mountainous area which channels the passage into a series of choke points which were rigged for demolition and defended by some fortifications IIRC. The quality of the troops tasked with defense of these areas was also very good. Overall it was the sector which gave the planners the least worries. Further, a WARPAC invasion throught these routes would have inevitably faced austrian resistance first.

The Third and Fifth corps, with the mechanized and armored formations, was planned to defend the North Est sector towards the Jugoslavia. This was considered the most critical sector because of what was called the “Gorizia Gap”: a natural breach in the Alps mountains wide enough to allow an easy access to enemy mechanized formations. This gap was the focus of italian military planning.
In order to defend it permanent fortifications, with a depth of approximatively 25km, were built near the border. Typically it was Pershing tank turrets mounted on Panzerturm style bunkers, placed to command roads; they were to be used as speed bumps or to close secondary avenues of enemy advance.
The two corps were to hold their ground near the border on a depth of approximately 50km roughly located between the rivers Isonzo and Tagliamento, fighting a mobile defensive battle with limited counterattacks.
Overall it would probably have been a “do it or die” effort to hold a relatively thin line on a depth of 50km near the border (though I imagine that a withdrawal to the Piave river 40km behind the Tagliamento �* la WW1 could have been a theoretical option). There were not enough forces for a defence in depth and in any case about 70km behind the Piave river , or about 170 from the Gorizia Gap, the northern italian plain opens making defense against superior mechanized formations almost impossible.
If the 3rd and 5th Corps containment of the enemy advance was defeated it would have been game over. There was not much of anything else except penny packets of low category units still riding of vanilla M47 in 1989 spread all over the country.

Re: Elusive Italians
 

I already have the document but the background info was very useful.

If you dont mind as you seem to have looked at military hardware extensivly could you comment on the following concerning autocannons or whatever you wish to call them.
The game seems to assume they fire in 10 round bursts looking at real life ammo loadouts & those provided in game I am wondering if this might be a bit high & considering adjusting to say 7 or so maybe 5 in some cases. I have not looked at in detail but 20mm cannon esp tend to have a low ammo load. This may well be justified due to high ROF to make up for the caliber I just would appreciate your thoughts on the mater.
From a purely game point of view if sticking with Italians you take Fiat Oto 6616-A armoured car it carries 12 shots 6 HE & 6 anti vehicle & is by no means the worst.
At present this type of vehicle I turn the range down on to stop it using all its ammo at range but they would just be nicer to use if a case could be had for slightly more ammo. Stops you having to keep an eye on or indeed avoiding buying because it will achieve little before the ammo is gone

Re: Elusive Italians
 

And I thought the greek Kentauros was bad with 5 and 10.

Re: Elusive Italians
 

I would not get to hung up on the "10 round bursts". It is just a quick rule of thumb. The 25mm M242 used in the american OOBs seem to assume 15 rounds burst when you check real life listed ammo loadouts against game ones.
With these weapons you have to account for vehicles ammo load, ROF, ammo mixture (AP mixed among HE or dual feed capability for example) and probably others factors as well.

That being said some italian sources credit the 6616 with a capacity for 650 rounds.12 shots with a HE kill of just 13 seems suspiciously low.
However now I don't have the time for the sort of research and comparisons necessary to make a robust case for changing it. There are a lot of 20mm users in the game.

Re: Elusive Italians
 

Cheers for having a quick look that was indeed what I did simply because have noticed several vehicles are capable really of only hit & run tactics due to loadouts. 65 shots would be going to the other extreme & really just wanted confirmation I was not being silly. Obviosly increased loadouts will push up the cost but will see what the guide has to say on the subject. I have a funny feeling some are based on whats in the magazine & some the total loadout depending on who did it

Re: Elusive Italians
 

I don't know what is realistic. But when the above Italian has 6 and 6 and the greek has 5 and 10 and the british scorpion has 38 and 38, then it just doesn't feel right.

Re: Elusive Italians
 

Pretty much why I thought it strange & had a quick look in the first place, according to Marcellos source they both in fact have similar loadouts 65 vs 76 shots instead of 12

Re: Elusive Italians
 

That would be a lot of 76mm then! - Scimitar, Shirley :)!. (and 27 + 28 usually)

The Rarden is not an autocannon, per se. It is a rather accurate self-loading 30mm with the ability to fire a maximum of 2 clips of 3 at a rather low (180RPM?) rate if required (AA fire really).

So it's classed as an autocannon weapon class 19 simply to enable the odd blast of auto at passing helos, but fire at ground targets will mainly be 1-2 rounds each individually triggered, not default bursts of 5-10 as with other autocannons. Thus the ammo lasts longer for a given quantity.

Andy

Re: Elusive Italians
 

As usual looking at this is not a simple mater then that makes sense & I am assuming without checking that my percieved view that some 20mm have low loads is due to high ROF as in number of shells in a burst.

Re: Elusive Italians
 

Actually no. I was wrong for the name :D but I meant to say Warrior II. It has 30mm and 38 and 38. :)

Re: Elusive Italians
 

Quote:
<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=3 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset" class=alt2>Originally Posted by Imp http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/viewpost.gif
Perhaps because seems quite a strange army looking at its MBT certainly not pitched against Russia it would struggle against forces in the Balkans area. There is a nice SP ATGM but the infantry dont get many & indeed decent RPGs are a bit thin on the ground.

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Just want to say thanks for this & other input Marcello it has been an intresting exercise playing these what ifs out.