So, I have always been a major Italian military history buff and I play CMFI and the much older CMAK exclusively as the Italians (for my sins).
In CMFI, there is a lot of bad news for the Italians:
-No splitting squads. This makes scouting hard. This also makes it easier for your squads to break as they are much more bunched up and exposed to HE fire.
-Italy’s best troops and best equipment were lost in Africa and Russia (and the equipment that was lost wasn’t that good to begin with).
-you have terrible armor
-your anti-tank capabilities are weak (your strongest AT gun is 47mm, your infantry AT is limited to some specialized units with satchel charges and your best AT is on your Semoventes)
-you have low moral
-you suffer from poor leadership and experience bonuses
-you have crushing rarity penalties for the equipment that is almost decent
-your infantry platoons in 1940 carried a fraction of the firepower held by German, English or American platoons, by mid-1943, it’s a small fraction of their firepower
-your most common organic support weapon, the Brixia mortar is not capable of indirect fire, only direct fire. The Brixia was a crappy weapon IRL and it’s not that great in CMFI either as far as I have found.
-Radios are few and far between, communication for things like calling in artillery can take forever.
So, what do you have going for you?
-the Beretta m38 submachine gun. BF seems to distribute these more widely in game than they were likely actually available and ammo can be limited, but the m38 was one of the best submachine guns of WWII (and one of the most expensive to produce), if you can get the enemy under its fire, you can win infantry engagements
-the Semoventes. The Semovente 75’s are comparable to Stugs in many ways, but have to be used more flexibly to support your forces. The Semovente 90/53 is another matter - the Italian 90mm gun is as good or better than the German 88mm, but most of the 90mm guns went to the Italian navy to provide AA firepower for the Littorio class battleships. In game, having a 90/53 is essential if you expect to face heavy armor... moving it, protecting its thin armor and managing its small ammo supply is a different matter. Remember, all armor produced in Italy was bolted, not welded, so you’re probably dead if you get hit by a real shell (the captured Renaults have better armor).
-your armored cars - as noted earlier in the thread, the AB41 is a pretty good armored car.
That’s about it.
The best way to play the Italians is as follows:
-pick what you want your off map support to do before the battle starts. Calling in off-map arty can take 15 minutes without a target reference point and 5+ even with one, so just pick your targets up front and order delayed fire. Note too that only fire ordered by spotters is remotely accurate.
-make aggressive use of mortar and artillery deployed smoke when you need to move into an attack. If you watch Italian newsreels during and before WWII, they are always laying smoke screens. Your infantry can also deploy smoke at close range, your vehicles cannot.
-use the map and terrain to maneuver your units outside enemy LoS as long as possible - maneuvering under even light fire is very hard as your squads bunch up.
-know your Italian units. Guastatori are assault troops who carry lots of submachine guns, organic medium and light mortars and have satchel charges. Pioneers are the other unit with satchel charges (but all bolt action rifles). The Assault & Landing Battalions are from the Livorno division and were being outfitted for the invasion of Malta - they have no infantry AT, but are otherwise excellent (well trained, well led, lots of Berettas - these were the troops that actually gave the stiffest Italian resistance during the invasion of Sicily).
-Recover your weaponry - if you lose a man with a Beretta or even with a Breda LMG, it’s usually worth trying to give buddy aid when the area is clear to get that weapon back.
-on defense, don’t hesitate to use AT mines.
-direct your fire where it will do damage... don’t let your 47mm gun fire at a Sherman if there is a Stewart in range. Don’t let your 65mm infantry gun fire at a tank if there is exposed infantry around.
-spend the points to get Semoventes with good experience levels and modifiers. Your Semoventes have to hit when they fire a shot. It's totally ahistorical, so if you care about historical authenticity tell yourself you have the one vehicle crewed by African veterans who were wounded and returned to Italy to convalesce.
-Closely manage your troops. Coordinating the timing of your operations to perfection is your only hope of gaining fire superiority since you probably need to post a full platoon to provide covering fire at once or unpack a whole HMG.
Hope this helps. I’m a fan of your videos.