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Completed I can't believe this is a game from 2020: Let's Play Armoured Commander II

tindrli

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why? seems like a great game
 

Dayyālu

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I can't believe people are paying money for this in 2020 either!

Should I give them to AAA producers or to some Jap making games where you skullfuck a highschooler? I'll need to think about that.



HISTORICAL MUTTERINGS

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DECEMBER 1940- JANUARY 1941: EXPLOITATION AND CONQUEST

15 DECEMBER 1940 : The border posts of the Italian colony of Lybia and the essential Halfaya pass fall to the British with barely a fight.

3-5 JANUARY 1941 : After the capture of Sidi Barrani in early December, the Italian troops retreated towards Bardia and the Lybian border. Bardia was quite the strong fortress, defended by the combined remnants of four divisions , with anti-tank defenses and a significant artillery detachment. Its commander, Annibale Bergonzoli (creatively nicknamed "Electric Whiskers" due some peculiar grooming preferences) knew well that if Bardia help up the British would have to stop their advance. Desert warfare requires serious logistics, son.

The British sent in the 6th Australian division. Amusingly disproving the opinion that of "low quality antipodean troops", the Australian attack cut like butter in the Italian defensive positions, sappers quickly filling-up anti-tank trenches and infantry surrounding and forcing to surrender enemy strongpoints. When Matilda IIs cut in half the fortress the majority of the Italians simply gave up, while General Bergonzoli escaped on foot. Add 44k prisoners to the war total, and another massive blow to the Italian 10th Army.

The way west was wide open.

20 JANUARY 1941 : The British reach Tobruk (Tobruch in Itaspeak), capital of Italian Cyrenaica. A single Italian division and stragglers are all what's left to defend one of the major cities of the Italian colonial Empire against brutal Antipodean rage. And we're there. Shit.

At this point, one could ask why the fuck the Italians weren't sending everything they could to save the situation. Sure, the Mediterranean has the Royal Navy an' stuff, but...

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Aaaah shit, those pesky Balkanites are very naughty, they defend themselves if attacked, how could this happen

The Greco-Italian war is beyond my little tidbits of writing: but I can guarantee you that it made the initial part of the North African campaign look like a triumph of military genius. From the Italian side.



GAME UPDATE

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Look. Villages. Spiffy.

I'd like to point out that both our air and artillery support are steadily being reduced to crappy values. This won't help.

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We reach the defensive line and start patrolling the area. The first push is a small detachment of British fast vehicles.

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While we engage the Cruiser tank, we...

We're dead. Our platoon mates are shitty M11/39s. We are down to MGs and prayers. BUT WE FEAR NO DEATH FOR THE KING AND COUNTRY

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Also the Cruiser tank survives two direct hits that we got in before the breakdown. I WILL COMPLAIN TO THE AMMUNITION DIRECTORATE THIS IS A SCANDAL

A TRAVESTY

Let me say that we required more of an in-game hour of cat&mouse to win the field. And we're the bait now. ONWARD

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We're incredibly lucky so far. The few British attacks are mostly infantry, and we can Overrun and engage with the MGs. A Matilda II would be complete death now, but even 1-2 Cruiser tanks. Maybe we can do this if the British don't push too hard.

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The British give up. No surprises. I don't think tomorrow we'll be as lucky.

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Or not. We don't go down in flames in Tobruk, but we escape further West, joining the Babini Group. A bunch of promotions are given, we're still alive after all. I think we didn't lose a single man, quite a feat compared to my previous campaigns.

HISTORICAL MUTTERINGS II

Tobruk falls between the 21st and the 22nd of December 1940. Graziani orders Tellera, the commander of the 10th Army, to escape and the last Italian Division in more-or-less fighting order, with the support of a Armoured Group of around 100 tonks (the aforementioned Babini Group) complies. Many Italian civilians follow the retreating Army.

Tobruk is left to fend for itself, the forces defending it bereft of radios, modern artillery and air recon. The battle is somewhat hard-fought, but no one is having any illusions. The San Giorgio cruiser (used as an AA battery), that helped shooting down Balbo almost a year before, scuttles itself to avoid capture.

The British gain 24k prisoners, and the last Italian forces in Cyrenaica are a single division, a bunch of tanks, and columns of civilians, all fleeing West.

The Italians, under General Tellera (second in command to Graziani) choose to delay the British as long as possible to safeguard the retreat, hoping to avoid new encirclements.


BACK TO THE GAME

Well, good news: we're in an almost adequate formation. Bad news, our job is to delay the British as long as possible to let the infantrymen retreat properly, and we'll make our stand around the coastal town of Derna.

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The day begins well, with a strong British attack. Infantry and cruisers.


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We welcome the British tank in the best way possible.

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Reducing the infantry is a risky job, but someone has to do it.

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We gotta keep our strongpoints. The British conquer the local oasis and we lead the charge to reconquer it. The battle is short, as the enemy has barely some infantry and a truck in the area.

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The day is almost over when a massive British attack overruns our Northern positions and tries to push South. If we manage this it's another day we survive.

It starts well, we score a critical on an unseen target.

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It's just infantry and a single scout car. We overrun the infantry and the Scout car retreats. We keep the southern position at least!

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We had better days in Victory Points, but hey, survival.

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Another day, another defensive fight. The Italians actually managed to stop the British/Australian advance for 4-5 days at Derna, even managing some counterattacks! See guys, we're IMPROVING!

We're holding a line for some days!

For sure the 5th Army in Western Lybia won't leave us to die, right? And we got reinforcements.

British riflemen ambush us and destroy one of our platoon mates. Bad.

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GODDAMN AUSTRALIANS

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

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We manage to extract ourselves from the tank, that helpfully doesn't burn up, and retreat on foot towards our lines. Fuck.

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WELL AT LEAST ITS NOT A TANKETTE

It's still a shit tank and probably one of the last remnants of its awful, awful kind. Gotta use those random rolls tho.

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At least we can lead a counter against the British. With a fairly shitty tank.

You know it's some kind of miracle we didn't lose anyone despite playing like blood-crazed madmen? I guess we should tank the low-power British guns.

Also, let's end the update here. It's almost on a positive note! For the first time the Italians managed to put up a defensive line and develop an almost adequate defensive battle plan.

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Look at the FIAT publicity! It's all a mindset. We'll manage. Everything will be fine.
 

Dayyālu

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This LP is fun and all... but are you saying we can't criticize the game without non-sequiturs being thrown back at us? :|

It's my God-given right to be snarky about replies! What if I was truly thinking to support some poor Jap developer on DLsite that has the sad tendency to develop games in which characters get eviscerated, but ACII came first?

No offense intended. But I do think the game is worthy the five bucks I gave the developer, and I'm going to defend my position!

Ah, I guess I can then dump my line of thinking about the problems of ACII!

ACII isn't a perfect game in any way. The basic problem is that it's repetitive. The nature of roguelikes is in variety: in ACII you may have different tanks, but the end gameplay is essentially the same - imagine playing a roguelike where you can just play Warrior and your pick is mostly between the different weapons you can get. That's ACII. The repetitiveness truly make the biggest campaigns into a grind: I have personally finished ACI's campaign only once, mostly because I grew bored. ACII gives you far more variety, campaigns and enemies, making shorter games far more interesting and rewarding.

The second weak point is that it ain't organic. I mean, there's no real simulation going under the hood, so to speak, every time you get into a hex it's a dice roll and a table getting you opponents. The game could simulate a "organic" approach to enemy offensives, giving you enemy artillery-infantry-ambushes.... but the mechanics in the game itself would not translate well.

It helps to consider ACII not a simulation but a roguelite with WW2 tank dressing: it attempts pseudo-realism, but it ain't realistic. WW2 tank combat would require a degree of granularity far beyond the simplified commands we get.

It's fun but it's limited: I'd honestly say that you should get it just if you like shorter, requirement-low games that can satisfy your threadhead interests. Steel Armour it ain't, but for sure on the level of good old Panzer General.

Can someone throw a game with the Greek front to Dayallu so we get some stories about that too!

The Greco-Italian war is little covered in gaming, both in tabletop or vydia. The only one I know of is Command Ops: Battle for Greece:

TermopilaiLine.jpg


The entire conflict does not lend well to traditional gaming (of course, something like "fighter pilot simulator" can still work, the air battles were interesting mostly due the older planes we got).

Much like the Italian front in WW1, it's a grind on a mountain between two forces with mostly WW1-era tech, and few people find the Italians glamorous, even fewer people do know that the Greeks exist in WW2. I think Hidden and Dangerous 1 had an expansion pack with the messy Greek postwar Civil War, but that's it.

No love for the Balkans.
 
Last edited:

Dayyālu

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D'Annunzio

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Sir Arthur Harris said:
I never engaged in these idiotic pamphlet-dropping exercises. They only served two purposes really - they gave the German defences endless practice in getting ready for it, and apart from that they supplied a considerable quantity of toilet paper to the Germans.

(I seriously hope they won't take down the statue of Bomber Harris, he was a madman with a goal)



GAME PROPER

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The British aren't pulling their punches to manage our counterattack, that's three armoured cars and two Bren carriers carrying infantry.

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*sigh* there's a reason they built just 100 M11s. We fail to penetrate a goddamn ARMOURED CAR.

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But they're essentially inferior to us, and we drive them off or destroy them.

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We try to advance, but the Australian infantry is numerous and merciless. They advance aggressively and survive our MG fire, before engaging in close. We're hit, AGAIN.

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It's a wonderful failure. We get at least a new M13 instead of a shitty M11, but our new loader is a shifty guy named Pierre. I have no idea where the fuck Command found a frenchman. Didn't they like, lose the war or something?

(NOTE: Keeping Begue around for fun. Historically both Free French Forces and Vichy forces hated the guts of the Italians, and their treatment of Italian prisoners is somewhat notorious in certain circles. One could argue they lacked the means, or that the French have a tendency for.... retribution.)


But we're back on track! Eheh. Track.

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And we immediately run into a British ambush and an AT gun blows us up.

This is starting to get hard, guys.

Also, Commander Bertorelli, our valiant and DARING commander, gets obliterated by a direct turret hit.

His death was quick and painless. We barely have time to give him an improvised burial in the desert before moving on. He was a good commander, he feared nothing, and no one died under his command, despite the awful disaster befalling the 10th Army.

Our new Commander is a newb, Oscar Pavone. But hey, we're getting a new tank from what is left and a new commander. We should not complain.

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We did lose some guys between re-assignments and the like, but Bertorelli is our first combat loss. Maybe it was a proof of his skill, and his successor is considerably more cautious.

We'll see if Pavone will manage fine.

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Easier mission this time, keep a defense up against a British attack.

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The British recon units are engaged and defeated handily. A Light Tank blows up thanks to a critical hit and the enemy infantrymen surrender.

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D'Annunzio BURNS with the desire to avenge his fallen junior Commander. Two critical hits in a row? Seriously? Poor Vickers.

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No attack comes. Maybe the Brits were scared by the dire failure of their recon.

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For all the good it does. We need to retreat from Derna: the situation is apparently untenable. It's the job of our unit, more mobile than the remnants of the 10th Army, to slow down the British advance.

But that we'll see next time, kinda tired now.

HISTORICAL RAMBLINGS

LATE JANUARY 1941 General Graziani, commander in chief of the Italian 10th Army, chooses to evacuate Cyrenaica. I mean, personally, he dumps the place and retreats to Western Lybia (Tripolitania) because the Brits have a real chance to get Benghazi now. Kinda dangerous. General Giuseppe Tellera is left as the overall commander in Cyrenaica, and he kinda can't dump the place because he's leading the defense.

23-28 JANUARY 1941: You know, the Itas actually managed to keep the British/Australians at bay for almost a week.

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The British advance is starting to have logistical issues (despite the vast amount of supplies captured) and the Italians manage to rebuke several attacks on the Derna-Mechilli defensive line, mostly thanks to efficient artillery use. Tank exchanges still shows the lack of tactics by the Italians, but the numbers of losses aren't for once too negative for the poor Itas.

Of course, both Tellera and Graziani are utterly convinced that the British forces are overpowering. The retreat is ordered and the Italian troops leave Derna unopposed on the 28th of January, and the British take it without a fight.

The Babini Tank group has the job of making the British pursuit harder, but what was planned as an ordered retreat quickly degenerates into almost a rout.

However, things are starting to move beyond Africa itself: back in Northern lands, angry judgements are made regarding the Italian performance. Disappointment is clear for the war in Greece. The preparations for the Great Crusade against the East will go on as it was decided since December 1940, but the failure, humiliation and cries of help by the Southern ally won't go unanswered. Plans are drawn, both to crush the Greeks and reinforce Africa.

"Unternehmen Sonnenblume" has a certain ring to it.
 

Dayyālu

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Next update may be a bit late, because I'm a tad swamped.

I'll post a little bit of gun porn because I can and hey, we don't want to waste a post, don't we?

A mate of mine last month managed to go to a fairly interesting event about Italian small arms, and met a fairly interesting guy that did an excellent job in re-creating one of the rarest variants of the Italian standard bolt-action rifle, the Carcano 1891: the sniper version.

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All Italian sniper rifles are of WW1 vintage, and from archival data they were built in exceedingly small numbers, some believe as low as 100. Less than five survive nowadays. This one is a "re-construction", the guy dug up original pieces and built a "reproduction".

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Initially, they were built with French optics, but then "La Filotecnica" from Milan managed to replicate the designs and improve on them. Custom work for every rifle.

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As you can see, the optic is mounted laterally, not to impede the action, a common solution for older patterns of rifles. Not doing so would make shooting and reloading far more difficult.

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It still fires the old 6,5mm cartridge. The Carcano wasn't exactly a bad rifle, but even by bolt-action standards it was utterly obsolete by WW2.

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Amusingly enough, Italy didn't bother with sniper training or doctrine in WW2. There was of course interest in marksmen, but nothing similar to Allied, Soviet or German doctrine managed to evolve, despite experiences in WW1.

I've found one author trying to explain it with the focus on "rapid warfare" in the 30ies, making sniper rifles and specialized training seems useless to the Italian officers. They changed opinions midwar, but I guess it was too late: what we find regarding sniping in the Italian Army around 1943 works around German rifles and Zeiss optics.

Sorry for the spergin', but hey, it's a nice gun. And I will need some time for a proper update, sadly.
 

oscar

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Wikipedia tells me they've been seeing heavy usage in the Libyan Civil War of this decade

Of these, Carcano-style rifles and carbines have been the most frequently observed style of bolt-action rifle. They were predominantly used by rebels in the Nafusa Mountains. These old weapons saw combat once again due to the rebels' limited access to modern firearms. Additionally, some Libyan rebels preferred to use their familiar hunting weapons over the more modern, yet unfamiliar, assault rifles available.[9][10] According to Al-Fitouri Muftah, a member of the rebel military council overseeing the western mountain front, as many as 1 in 10 rebels in the region were armed with World War II-era weapons.[11]
 

CappenVarra

phase-based phantasmist
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Dayyālu for all i care (might not be much), you can skip or accelerate the game and focus on the commentary - it might be a cliche but i'm lovin' it
 

Dayyālu

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Someone on the Paradox Interactive Forum does an AAR with the Poles, and I convinced him to do the same kind of "historical mutterings" as you did, but from the Polish point of view

If the Paradox forums weren't a shitstain requiring a frankly asinine system of registration (for example, I can't check that thread because I refuse to link my Steam Account and give the thrice-accursed Swedes free information) I would love to read it. But alas, I can't.

May the worst curses of the Gods scour clear their entire development team and blight take their land.

Dayyālu for all i care (might not be much), you can skip or accelerate the game and focus on the commentary - it might be a cliche but i'm lovin' it

I can go very in-depth on the historical sperging, but there needs to be a balance.

Also updates will begin again when life stops trying to murderfuck me. That may require some time, and let's hope the dev does not throw out 6.0 while I'm waiting.
 

Andnjord

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I would love to read it. But alas, I can't.
Got your back bro

Very well


The polish strategic situation was quite poor in the autumn on 1939. Germany had previous year run over Chekoslovakia, annexing Bohemia and western parts, and forming the Slovak puppet state of the eastern part. Germany had in spring 1939 cancelled both non-aggression pacts they had with Poland.


Germany thus could attack Poland from three directions, from west mainland Germany, from north from East Prussia, and from south from Slovakia. The eastern border however was thought to be safe, as Poland and Soviet Union had both unilater and international non-aggression pacts assigned. The "Romanian gateway" in south-east was regarded as the vein of polish life-blood, as through that Poland expected to recieve help from Great Britain and France in the even of war, and it was also the route through which the polish governement intended to evacuate the state treasury to ensure the money would be safe to wage the war.


Germany had given ultimatums to Poland regarding the free city of Danzig and the so called Polish corridor to Baltic Sea. While the polish ambassador in Germany (on the urging of Great Britain) informed Germany that Poland would accept the ultimatum, he also was forced to inform he didn't actually have authority to sign the agreement, but would have to ask the polish governement to send somebody who had the power to sign the agreement. Germany told Great Britain and France that Poland had rejected the agreement.


The polish strategy relied on keeping the routes open to south-east to Romania, while defending a line from Warsaw to the industrial heart of Poland in Silesia. The forces at the border were thin and didn't have many prepared positions. The strategy relied on leaving gaps between the various polish armies, which would allow german forces to moved further in, where polish reinforcement armies would stop and engage them and then the front armies would be able to cut off the advanced armies, destroying the encircled german troops. Poland didn't have any dreams of winning alone though, they assumed Poland would alone fall in six month, and thus help from Great Britain and France were expected.


Poland did smell the coffee, and general mobilization was ordered on August 29th. Poland sent their destroyer fleet to Britain (they arrived on August 30th), as it was apparent the ships would else be sunk. The general mobilisation was crucial to get the reinforcement armies into position, so that the polish strategy could be carried out. However, next day the mobilisation was cancelled, as France and Great Britain threathened to cut their alliance with Poland if the poles were adamant of going into war. The mobilisation was cancelled, which caused lot of confusion and the public transport nearly collapsed as men were trying to get home and others (who hadn't yet got the orders the mobilisation was cancellend) tried to get to their position, and the public transport companies didn't know if they should give the mobilised men priority passage or not. When the hostilities broke out, only some 300 thousand men were in position of the 1.35 million men that would have been in position if France and Great Britain hadn't meddled.


Germany and Poland would have had near parity in men if Poland would have been allowed to mobilise their troops, but that wasn't meant to be (in the end, only some 70% of the 1.35 million men made it to their units, as the polish public transport system collapsed because of air-attacks). Although Germany had a tenfold of tanks compared to Poland, the new german armour doctrine wasn't yet in use (although the orders of the new doctrined had been given earlier), and tanks mostly operated as support weapons for infantry (quite opposite to what the german propaganda led everybody to believe, where Hitler painted pictures of german tanks rolling through the polish lands). Poland also had no lancer units (except for parade use), and there were no real cases of polish cavalry charging tanks (again, quite the contrary to the nazi propaganda). The heavily outnumbered polish airforce wasn't destroyed on the airfields as the nazi propaganda claimed, but fought on until they ran out of fuels and air-fields from where to operate from.


During the early hours of September 1st German forces crossed the border in west, north and south. Germany and Poland were at war.

Poland had on September 1st quite the fleet of armoured fighting vehicles, in all some 880. Ie compared to Germany about a third of their 2750 AFV's. Unfortunately, more than two thirds of the polish ones were small tankettes, and many of those the nearly useless machinegun tankettes (they could kill Pz I's on a lucky day, and of course take out lighter recon vehicles).


To understand why tankettes were so popular in the 1920's and early 1930's one has to understand what led to their development. During WW1 the real tanks had no problems of breaking through trench-lines, but they could then easily be cut off and destroyed as friendly infantry were not able to move to help them. The tankettes proved the answer to this, being essentially mobile machine-gun nests, which allowed friendly forces to move in after the tanks had broken through the trenches.


In Poland, as in many other countries too, it was in 1920's thought actual tanks would be useless in situations where war hadn't stagnated to trench-war. The tanks were heavy and slow lumbering hulks who could be sighted from miles, and who would be lucky if they could move 5 km before breaking down. Tankettes on the other hand were fast, nearly invisible in broken terrain, mechanically quite reliable (and so easy to fix any tanker would be able to fix the usual problems themselves). In Poland it was seen very unlikely warfare would become trench war anywhere except perhaps around Warsaw, if an enemy by some miracle would make it there. Thus Poland did show great interest for the quite affordable tankette concept, and only mild interest for actual tanks (who by defauly were manyfold more expensive than tankettes).


Poland bought a few Carden Loyd tankettes from Britain in 1929. Poland also acquired a license to build more of their own, and to further develope the tankette for polish needs. The polish weren't entirely happy with the tankette, so immediatly began to plan improvements. The first two prototypes (TK-1 and TK-2) were seen as improvements, but not good enough yet.


The third version, TK-3, was the first polish model that went into production (in 1931). The tankette had as armament a 7.92 mm machinegun, Ford truck-engine, could reach around 45km/h, and had an operational range of well over 100 km. In all some 280 were built. In game this tankette is shit, it can only hurt soft targets, and during rain it gets bogged down all the time.

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The improved version of TK-3 was the TKS. Same shitty equipment, with a polish Fiat engine instead of the Ford, and with improved suspension and armour lay-out. Some 260 were built in all. It is essentially just a utter crap as the TK-3, though it does not get bogged up as easily in mud.

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The Spanish Civil War had shown the world the power of tanks. In Poland it was realised the tankettes might be utter shit if they could not be used against tanks. In 1939 a frantic program to upgrade TKS tankettes with the new (had entered production in 1938) polish 20mm machineguns (originally intended for AA work, but it was soon realised they were pretty good as AT guns too vs the lighter armoured vehicles). While ammuntion load for the 20 mm machinguns had to be kept to just a couple hundred rounds (instead of the 2000 7.92mm rounds in the earlier version), this proved to be of little problem, as the tankette hardly could use the 20mm gun on autofire mode. Only 24 TKS tankettes had thus been refitted before the war broke out, and yet these 24 proved to be much more useful than the hundreds of the earlier version. In game these tankettes are pretty good, as they have low profile (aka hard to hit), don't become easily bogged, and can punch through even PzIV armour (admittedly, reliably from the flank or rear only). The problem is that they are destroyed by anything hitting them, so even Light Mortars and machine-gun equipped motorcycles can kill these with ease when they just hit.

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Carden Loyd had presented Poland the opportunity to buy also their tank version in addition to the tankettes. Poland got interested, and bought some 50 Vickers 6-Ton tanks. Some 36 were in service at the outbreak of the war. The basic concept of the tank were extremely sound, though it was under-gunned and its frontal armour too weak. In game this tank is a bit meh, it is hard to hit anything with the short gun, and when you hit something armoured shells just tend to bounce off of them.

300px-Vickers6ton_front.JPG


Just like Soviet Union built their T-26's based on the Vickers 6-Ton tanks, so did Poland build their 7TP's based on the same tank. The difference is that Soviet Union built about 11,000 T-26's while Poland built some 135 7TP's between 1935 and 1939. The design was quite excellent. Reasonably sturdy frontal armour for a light tank, an accurate main-gun (the 37mm Bofors gun), good cross-country ability, reliable diesel engine, good optics; their only drawback was the thin roof armour, so they were dead meat against hostile strafing planes. The 7TP's were quite the match for german tanks of the time (while the armour couldn't stop a shell from a close-range PzIII or PzIV, the 7TP could engage german tanks accurately and reliably from much further ranges), but there were just so woefully few of them. In game this is the only Polish vehicle that feels like a proper tank; you have a good chance of hitting your target, and you have a good chance to actually hurt the target.

300px-7_TP_tank.PNG
 

Dayyālu

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Maybe I can throw out an update.

GAME PROPER

Our air support and artillery support are dogshit. We're fleeing the place after all.

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We're quickly engaged by British infantry and cruiser tanks. We lose a team mate.

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We try to retaliate, but our gun breaks as we fire an AP shell.

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The last shot of the day was a good one, at least. The enemy cruiser tank blows up at a rather long range. But we're kind of fucked as we're down to a single team mate and MGs.

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In the chaos, we hit a landmine - WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG TODAY I START AGAIN THIS LP AND WE BLOW UP DESTROY BARRELS AND HIT MINES

At least all's good, must have been an Italian one.

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We try to relocate to... FUCKING FUCK

And now we're immobilized. Waiting for the British to kill us. But we will die as HEROES

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A bunch of Australian riflemen approach our immobilized steel fort. Time to let our turret MG roar.

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Our artillery and friendly platoon mate manage to cover us and the Aussies are sent fleeing.

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Maybe we can recover our tank. Quick repairs?

And indeed we do!

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The next day we're back on our ride (a single day repair? BEYOND BELIEF) and defending a bunch of villages in our retreat.

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Not much time passes as waves of determined Britons swarm upon our position. We lose a team mate but blow up a charging Vickers Light Tank. We aren't going down without a fight!

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Wait. We are. SECOND MATILDA OF THE CAMPAIGN

There's only ONE WAY TO FIGHT IT

(I forgot in my bloodlust that Pavone is supposedly cautious. Well, this move will for sure not end badly for him, no?)


AVANTI SAVOIA PER IL RE E PER L'ITALIA

We charge.

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We charge forward, and the enemy 2-pounders hiss all around us, all missing. We get point blank near the enemy AT truck and blast him at close range .

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Divine protection from the Holy Mother of the Baton for sure (historical! A funny example of the clerical-pastoral deviations of the Fascist regime).

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La vedo agra Bepi, qua ce restemo

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The Matilda II blasts us at close range. We stand no chance against the British behemoth. Our commander dies istantly, and the tank burns brightly. The majority of the crew manages to escape safely, D'Annunzio and the gypsy rescuing the unconscious loader.

The loader is taken away, and he has suffered from atrocious burns. Pavone's body is quickly buried in the desert, can't stop with the British running behind us.

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WE STILL HAVE SOME OF THOSE PIECES OF JUNK

BY THE GODS I LOST LIKE THREE AND WE BUILD ONLY ONE HUNDRED

IS THIS TANK HAUNTING US

Whatever, it will work. D'Annunzio and the gypsy are reassigned under a new commander, tale Giuseppe Saragat. Doesn't look like a proper Fascist to me.

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The next day the British keep up their pursuit. We keep shooting them with our increasingly shittier weapons and our increasingly diminishing air/artillery support. No biggie, we defeat the first wave effortlessly and their tanks retreat.

Let's proceed and...

AMBUSH

FROM THE DESERT FIGURES APPEAR THROWING GRENADES AT US

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And it's a critical hit.

WHAT IS HAPPENING TODAY

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At least we won't have to deal with the shitty M11/39 anymore. Everyone survives, good.

This is getting hard, guys.

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CURSED TODAY I AM CURSED

ANOTHER SHITTY m11/39

DO THEY KEEP THEM IN RESERVE JUST FOR ME

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We roll out the next day and try to estabilish a defensive line....

and while we try to destroy an enemy Bren AT carrier on the first fight of the day we blow up.

Everyone survives. Third tank lost in this session. What the goddamn fuck.

Has the Madonna del Manganello abandoned us?

(probably)

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Enough. Next update will be the last.Will the old geezer D'Annunzio and the gypsy manage to escape Cyrenaica and live to fight for the Duce another day?

Who knows.

HISTORICAL SETTING: PRELUDE TO DISASTER

Ok, the performance was atrocious. Historically, the Italians managed a tad better, making this a peculiar case of myself shitting the bed. Let's see what was happening tho.

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I'll quickly refresh the situation because it has been , like, two weeks or something. The Italians have managed to keep the Brits at bay around Derna for a time, but Graziani ( the theoretical commander in chief of the 10th Italian Army) is convinced that any further resistance is useless and wants to defend Western Lybia. This means dumping Benghazi and retreating EVERYTHING as fast as they can. Graziani writes desperate letters to the Duce himself, saying that "The last happenings have shaken deeply my nerves and my strength" and that he's suffering from a psychological collapse and wants to return to Italy.

The man left to command locally the Italian troops left in Cyrenaica is Giuseppe Tellera, a pudgy fellow.

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Relatively young for a high-ranking Italian officer, Tellera was 58 years old and was personally chosen by Balbo (the previous governor of Lybia who got a bad case of AA friendly fire). He has to manage a rather chaotic retreat, but there's little chance that the Australians can get him, no?

The British have different plans. Intercepting Italian communications, they knew that the 10th Army was trying to abandon Cyrenaica wholesale, and the objective now wasn't just conquest but destruction. While the Australians followed the Italians on the main retreat route, the 7th Armoured Division was sent to cut their retreat: their vehicles were overloaded with fuel and spare parts and sent without recon in a wild rush. See the intro pic, green Italians Red British flanking force.

They managed despite the horrible conditions to reach Msus, and from there they would attempt in any way to cut the Italians off, despite their tracked vehicles being in a sorry state.

What will happen, well, we can say next time.
 

Andnjord

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Madonna_manganello.jpg
Is she about to club that poor kid on the left?

And damn, looks like the commander position is a cursed one. Did they run out of black shirts and had to give him a red ones by any chance?
 
Last edited:

Dayyālu

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Let's finish this.

GAME PROPER

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Another day, another desperate retreat from the encroaching British forces. And we're still saddled with a M11/39.

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Wait. Wait. We got a game update and now we have a M13/40. BUGS

I AM NOT COMPLAINING

Our new loader looks suspicious, tho. I swear I already saw this Musolesi guy around. Didn't he like lead the platoon for a while?

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We apparently picked him up from the rear echelon, and he insists he wants to be the first in Western Lybia. This is suspicious.

Whatever.

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Waves of determined Australian infantry crash on us, and our MG fires so much that it breaks down. They still come in endless waves, enganging closely. This is hard.

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They're swarming at us, not fearing MG fire or HE shell. What the fuck.

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Santa Maria this was close. They break and retreat, but the area is mined so it won't be wise to pursue. We weathered the attacks though.

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The follow-up doesn't wait. Infantry in trucks, a cruiser tank and a Marmon-Herrington armoured car. I don't know this one...

*checks*

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You always learn new stuff! We seen a heritage of Empire, an armoured car built in South Africa, land of hope and crazy weapon designs. Nothing too spectacular about this one , it seems a tad...

WAIT IT HAS A 2 POUNDER GUN IT CAN BLOW US UP

PRIORITY TARGET GUYS

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The second wave is easily defeated by disciplined fire, the car and tank left as burning husks.

Good.

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Scattered attacks keep us occupied all day, but nothing compares to the ferocity of the first infantry assault. We deal with them easily and the day is ours.

Well, the ordered retreat is ours at least. C'mon, a bit more and we will safe in Western Lybia....

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The rearguard action keeps up. We've managed to keep them off the back of the retreating Army until now, and we'll defend Benghasi until we are sure the others are safe.

This is pretty much our final lineup, with the most experienced members of our crew being D'Annunzio and the gypsy. Lucky bastards.

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The first attack of the day is a massive wave of British armour, with several armoured cars, a cruiser tank and our beloved behemoth, a Matilda II.

Fuck it.

We charge again. If we stand still we'll die, at least running we have a chance. A slight chance. better to go as heroes, no?

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We weather an hurricane of fire from the British tanks, we get up close and start flanking the Matilda while engaging its escort (lighter armour). Mobile and fast, and the first Armoured Car blows up.

One down, three to go. We can do this. Mobile and fast.

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We lose a team mate, blown up by the escort cruiser.

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The Matilda hits us. Metal flies like shrapnel inside the tank, but no one is wounded and our ride is still operational. We won't retreat.

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Second escort down. Yes, just a shitty MG armoured car, but less fire on our asses. Two to go. We can do this.

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Up and close to the Cruiser tank. Third escort down. Just the Matilda to go. Down to 15 or so AP shells. Most exciting combat in the entire campaign, a wrong move and we're toast.

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Our last comrade is disabled. I'd like to say it's just us, but British reinforcements are closing in and we're down to 10 AP shells. No matter. To the last.

Our artillery wakes up and precise shells blow up the enemy reinforcements. We're alone again. 9 AP shells left.

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For a moment, the metal monster stops in our duel. Engine stalling? We quickly flank it and shot close range. We keep up the rate of fire, the first shell hits. Second shell hits. Third shell hits. If this doesn't work we're done.

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8% chance of penetration. First shot, ricochet. Second shot, ricochet. Third shot, penetration.

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The Matilda burns. We're left alone in a battlefield full of wrecks and down to 3 AP shells. We're kinda dead. Time to quickly retreat to a safe area and ask for resupply, we need ammo and maybe patching up the hole in our armour.

We did this tho. This one was legit great.

We barely manage to reach friendly positions and beg for ammunition. Relentless British attacks interrupt our reloading, but we manage to defeat them all and get some precious new shells.

It's just like, midday. This will be a long one.

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The rest of the day is easier. We stand alone in the desert, and shell random British infantry that tries to attack our fortified positions. At the end of the day, we retreat in good order.

Great job.

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Nothing interesting happens the last day, bar some scattered probing attacks. It's like their attention is elsewhere.

Good, I may say!

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And after our hard work, all we get is a small blurb (not even accurate!) on our last surviving Commander. The real heroes are D'Annunzio and the gypsy, that managed to get to level 15 and never die. My hat to you, Eroi Dell'Impero!

That's a moot point though, as our last day ends, we're recalled south. General Tellera needs armoured forces to break through some kind of British position that's stopping our retreat, and then this is over.

And we can get all home. We deserve it.

Don't we?

HISTORICAL: BEDA FOMM

Ah, yes home.

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Shitty resolution, yes

ACII doesn't give you a very detailed retelling of the battle, but the engine would make it difficult. Well, what happens?

5th February 1941

The British managed to reach Western Cyrenaica by cutting through the desert. Problem was that their tracked vehicles were beaten up: but in a daring move they organized a flying column of tracked vehicles (so-called Combeforce, from their commanding officer, John Combe), and in a rush managed to reach the coast scant minutes before the Italian forces. They quickly deployed, building up defensive positions and scattering mines on the roads.

The Italian vanguard convoys and colums had no tanks, and all their attempts proved futile against the dug-in British. The British tanks and tracked vehicles followed up and attacked the long Italian columns, sowing chaos and destruction and cutting the long "snake" of the retreating 10th Army in several places. General Tellera could not focus his forces in a single place nor reinforce directly any attempt on the main blocking force stopping the Italians from fleeing Cyrenaica, and recon was impossible in the chaotic situation.

6th February 1941

In a series of attacks, Italian tank forces utterly fail to break through the British positions. The entire Army becomes disorganized under costant British artillery fire, and local success against the British is obtained only with atrocious losses. By the end of the day, the main column and 30 tanks barely manages to organize for a last push the following day, while the British, despite being bloodied, are still in control of the battleground. Many Italian infantrymen and rear echelon forces simply give up and surrender.

7th February 1941

The British started mopping up as the last desperate push by the Italians was made, and as the Australians advanced as fast as they could from the North. The entire area was a 25 kilometers killing zone of burning trucks and craters.

General Tellera himself gets on a tank and tries to reach the frontline to support the push: he never manages to reach the area as he encounters British armoured vehicles and in a crazy melee his tanks gets knocked out. Gravely wounded, he dies in the early afternoon of February 7th. Apparently, being a Lieutenant General, he managed the heroic feat of being one of the highest ranked military men to die in direct combat during WW2.

With their general dead and all the breakout attempts failed, the Italians surrender en-masse. It's over, the 10th Army is no more.

In barely three months, the British have managed to utterly defeat in detail an entire Italian Army, get more than 130k+ prisoners and vast amounts of military material (the Australians will organize tank platoons with restored Italian tanks). Cyrenaica, one of the richest areas of the Impero, has been lost.

For Italy, this was only one of many disasters and not even the lesser one. The fighting in Greece was going on atrociously, with the Greeks counterattacking and taking ground in Albania, another prize of the Impero. The much-hoped for Italian Spring Offensive counted to nothing.

For the British forces, it was an unmitigated success that would cause deep problems. Believing that the Italians were shattered, the focus switched on Greece and only a skeleton force was left to guard Cyrenaica.

Just three days after Tellera's death, the first members of the German divisions of the Afrikakorps reached the shores of Africa. In a few months and under a different leadership, they would force the British to reconsider much of what they learned in fighting the 10th Army.

But it's kind of another story, no?

What about our other protagonists.... Rodolfo Graziani, supposed commander in chief of Lybia, suffered a nervous breakdown, Mussolini sacked him and he took a flight to Italy on the 11th of February, with general Gariboldi taking the rein of what was left in Lybia.

Graziani would survive unscathed a military inquiry, but would lead no formation until the collapse of Italy in september 1943. He would then pledge himself to the German Puppet State of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana, becoming its Defense Minister and doing essentially nothing of value bar a massive amount of infighting.

After the war and a messy amount of international/national scrutiny (for both his warcrimes against Lybians and Ethiopians and his role with the RSI) he was condemned to 20 years of prison just for his role in the RSI.

He was out in four months and died in 1954 in his bed.


What's more to tell? In the Italian cultural memory the mess in Cyrenaica is pretty much ignored, and it's striking how little there is about it compared to British and Australian works. The main focus of Italian remembrance is on the later parts of the North African campaigns, some that could be sold as victories and c'mon, everyone knows Rommel and El Alamein an' shit.

A disastrous story of failure and death that underlines the many failures of the Fascist state isn't as easy to sell, and there isn't even a good chance to sell us as the "victims" as in the El-Alamein narrative.

From a general point of view, together with the disasters in the Mediterranean (Taranto) and the mess in Greece, Cyrenaica signalled the end of the Mussolinian theory of "Guerra Parallela", "Parallel War", where Italy and Germany would follow different targets as equals in different spheres of influence. The repeated failure of Italian plans forced the Germans to intervene. The basic problems of Fascist policy in wasting the few Italian strengths in harebrained schemes didn't stop though, as the Italian forces in the Soviet Union prove.

The Fascist regime tried to save itself by excising Mussolini, causing the collapse of the Italian state in 1943. What a mess.


Annd it's over. Too much blabbering, but the LP went into a weird direction and Cyrenaica isn't widely known. I already told what I think are the problems of ACII, but it's a fun and relaxing game if taken in short bursts (and some fights are great, like our last duel with a Matilda II).

Buy if you want a fun timewaster with some limits. Can't wait for the messy Soviet campaigns, a grinder inside a grind.

Well, that's all for me. Time to close shop and run away.

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ValeVelKal

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Aug 24, 2011
Messages
1,605
Pimping that up. It was really a great Let's Play. At least for the non-game historical part :)
 

lightbane

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:necro:

That was a fun read. Sadly it doesn't seem like my cup of tea, and the game is seemingly still stuck in EA, but your LP provided enough amusement. You seem to enjoy doing short LPs, for good or bad. Also, from your historical trivia and what I read somewhere else, one of the reasons why the "good" goys won the war is because Italians were terrible allies of the Germans.
 

Dayyālu

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That was a fun read. Sadly it doesn't seem like my cup of tea, and the game is seemingly still stuck in EA, but your LP provided enough amusement.

Thanks! But I won't define ACII as "stuck in EA" exactly, since I wrote this LP the amount of stuff added has been noticeable:

- Early-war campaigns like Afrika Korps and the initial Barbarossa push;
- Mid War campaigns;
- "Support units", instead of a simple RNG roll for what you get the dev is apparently trying to make it more "simulative" with the presence of allied units and enemy units on the battlemap and their interaction.

The game is already quite different from the version I LP'ed and I legit think it's worth the 6 bucks. It ain't the next Legionary's Life tho.

You seem to enjoy doing short LPs, for good or bad. Also, from your historical trivia and what I read somewhere else, one of the reasons why the "good" goys won the war is because Italians were terrible allies of the Germans.

Everyone was a terrible ally for everyone else. The Allies were essentially better at being allies for each other than the Axis was, and the shortcomings of the Fascist regime were exaggerated by the peculiarities of Nazi diplomacy that were worsened by the industrial limits of Germany.

The "good and won wars" for the Fascist regime (as Renzo De Felice says) were Ethiopia and Spain: both were quickly forgotten by the public after 45 because in Spain Franco had the utmost interest in forgetting who put him there and even during the war he pretty much left Mussolini to wait uselessly (and in the "public sphere" the only battle remembered is Guadalajara, where Fascist units lost, mostly because it fits both the Republican narrative and the Spanish Nationalist one in showing the Italians as gutless and the Spaniards as "real fighters"), while Ethiopia was a colonial conflict, little glory to be won despite the heroic media attempts.

Also Albania, but that barely counts.
 

ValeVelKal

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Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
1,605
Also Albania, but that barely counts.
Isn't the story about Albania is that in one of the landing zone the Italians put all their troops in ONE [1] transport ship, but said ship's engine stopped working a few hundred meters from the port, and the only reason the Albanians did not shoot at the ship was that the Italians had bribed the Coast Guards and bought all their ammos beforehand ?
 

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