Welcome to The Few Good Men

Thanks for visiting our club and having a look around, there is a lot to see. Why not consider becoming a member?

Any tips on playing as the Italians?

Josey Wales

FGM Company Sergeant Major
FGM MEMBER
Joined
Jul 22, 2016
Messages
750
Reaction score
963
Location
Berkshire, UK
Website
www.youtube.com
After a long break from CM I am dipping my toe back in with a single player CMFI game. I have had a request on my YT channel to play as the Italians, so I've picked my scenario (i'm playing against the AI) and I'm just looking for some general tips and 'what not to do's' as I've never played as them before.
 
I vaguely recall @Anschlag doing a DAR or comic or something with them, and had some interesting commentary. But it was eons ago, and I may be confusing individuals?
 
I usually play on 'typical' setting when selecting troops, and as expected, finding a positive leadership or morale modifier on regular Italian troops is rarer than rocking horse shit. Don't know about the blackshirts, haven't played with them yet. The Brixia mortars are handy for annoying your opponent to death, similar to a 2 inch mortar but a lot more ammo.
 
I only played with them in Singleplayer a while back (the campaign mainly iirc). So, a bit rusty on the memories.
However: basically all their equipment is even crap compared to the crappy equipment some other factions had in 43 :).

The brixia is an exception probably, like other said. Their red handgrenades and the troops with the feathers on their caps look cool though (bersaglieri orso?). I think those also have 2 mg's per squad. Not sure if they still aren't allowed to split squads, when CMFI came out they definetely weren't. Their infantry doesn't have any AT weapons. They don't have any decent tanks iirc, they do have some (barely) armored cars with heavy weapons on m. And light tanks with crappy cannons. Their best armor is the Semovente iirc.

So, best tip is not to expect too much of m I guess :)
 
I vaguely recall @Anschlag doing a DAR or comic or something with them, and had some interesting commentary. But it was eons ago, and I may be confusing individuals?

I believe you might be thinking of

IMG_0547.JPG



The story is from the Canadian perspective so I have no insights into the Italians. The couple of times I played them was HTH and settings were typical which meant the Italians had less than stellar morale or leadership.
 
I have played quite a few of the scenarios they are in and two mirrored H2H games. Their soft skinned vehicles and the tankette are not that great and I would only bring them out when you have fire superiority. The AB 41 is ok. If you are using the French two man tank (cant remember the name) do not un-botton. If you loose the commander/gunner its useless. Its not to bad against infantry and maybe even AT guns.

As mentioned above, their mortars are an important component to their force composition. They play a bit like the British hand held mortar teams. I think they have more ammo but are less effective. Radio's are lacking. The HMG they use is not to bad.

Stay at range as much as possible and try and use the mortars, HMG's and LMG's in the squads to do your damage.
 
Are the Italian infantry units cheaper to compensate for their lack of effectiveness?
 
I presume so, I never checked. You would think that BF would need to do this for quick battle game balance purposes. I played two H2H mirror matches, Italians against the Luftwaffe. I won all four matches. This suggests that they are balanced otherwise the results would more likely have been 2:2. One mirror match was infantry only, the other with armour.

From both the perspective of their AFV's and AT weapons I do not think they are balanced for quick battles. I am pretty sure they only have infantry guns, no AT guns. Also no portable AT weapons like bazooka's or schrecks. So best to make it infantry only or limit your opponents armour if you are playing H2H as the Italians.

An Italian force with armour versus the Luftwaffe(Airborne Infantry) is an interesting match up. Semovente versus Marder, AB 41's and German flaks guns, etc. Sort of historical/what if, given Operation Achse. It has to be done in July 1943 (rather than Sep 1943) because in the game the Italian TOE is severely restricted after July 1943.
 
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.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
-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.
They Italians pick up SMG when they do buddy aid? None of the other factions does that, at least not the US, Germans, or Brits.
 
Nar all nationalities do it, some will pick up the dead/wounded pixeltruppens weapon, sometimes they don't. Not sure if it's a chance based thing or what.

Make sure you get a guy carrying a bolt action rifle to buddy aid the guy with the SMG/LMG though, or you can get silly things happen like an SMG-wielding platoon leader decide to trade it in for a sniper rifle! (Ask me how I know!)
 
They Italians pick up SMG when they do buddy aid? None of the other factions does that, at least not the US, Germans, or Brits.
The aid has to be performed by the same squad the downed pixeltruppen was part of in order to collect the weapon. The SMG’s and LMG’s will get recovered along with their ammo. Officers and riflemen will both do this.
 
Back
Top