Italy (Faction)

A country in Southern Europe .

In War of Tactics, Italy is an axis faction, this is despite Italy effectively breaking into an allied south, and axis north in 1943. Although Italy was descripted as "Europe's soft underbelly" by the likes of Winston Churchill, and it's military several times seemingly failed on all fronts it fought. It should not be overlooked that Italy was seemingly never afraid to fight. Be it low on supplies and with outdated equipment against well supplied and well lead foes. Across several theaters of war and almost none stop conflict from it's conquest of Ethiopia, participation in the Spanish civil war and fighting along side Germany across Europe (granted, they were obligated to via "the pact of steel")

Despite Italian hardware being often looked down upon, it can be traced across the world, be it captured or sold. Italy is a difficult faction to play as it is usually outdone and does not excel at either quality or quantity but find itself having to rely on unorthodox tactics, luck or experience by a player who is willing to sacrifice or play the high stake game.

Italian units tend to be focus-build with limited flexibility on the battlefield and where few units have to compensate for the lack of many others. It is not uncommon for SPGs to be but a mere truck equipped with a gun, which means it has plenty of mobility compared to a tank chasse, but is completely defenseless when it comes to even the lightest of enemy fire. This same "bare minimum" also means Italian units can excel at singular things (namely firepower) proportional to the investment done by the player.

Italy seemingly always fight with antiquated hardware or improvised equipment. This becomes obvious when studying their armoured, the average Italian tank seems to be a relic of the mid-1930s despite it being a brand new model from 1942. This does not mean Italy has not tried to update and modernize, but many Italien troops and tankers would fight against all odds and either win gloriously, or not live to tell the tale of their bravery.

## Infantry

Italian infantry is all about close quarters combat. They lack the firepower to effectively deal with enemy infantry or armour at range. This is specially enforced by the wide selection of SMGs and benefit when it comes to hand grenades.

The arsenal does not outright have gaps, as they have at least one example of anything. But the equipment is often subpar, specially the machineguns suffer from low rate of fire and their AT measures comes down to Elefant guns, AT rifles and hand grenades, leaving Italien infantry lacking when it comes to defending.

Italy's weakness lies in the expensive officers, and lack of either firepower at range or limited modern equipment. This is a challenge Italy will face on the battlefield time and time again.

Their infantry types are as followed

* CLN\*- Militia infantry -Currently not included-
* Bersaglieri - Professional infantry.
* Granatieri - Elite infantry with acces to more equipment including War gear.
* Folgore - paratroopers
* Ingegnere - Engineers

### Pros & Advantages

* Accel at assault and close quarters combat.
* Little total shortage in their arsenal
* Many SMGs available
* Italian VIPs are equipped with Sosso M1941 for better personal protection.

### Cons

* Lacking effective AT measures at range.
* Firepower at range is somewhat lacking
* (Currently) Lack militia units for ambush tactics
* Only Granatieri have acces to proper equipment and war gear

## Armour

Italian armour would see fighting for more than a decade with little pause and it's hardware would reach from Western Europe, to Asia and Africa. Through deserts, snow and forrest, while rarely the best around, Italien equipment would always be at the very front of battle or readily available.

While the late 1930s were a testament to Italien equipment, the 1940s would see it ever more outdated with each passing year. Not because there were no plans and projects to upgrade, as well as inspiration from Germany and captured equipment form France. But because by the time Italy made an update, be it minor or major, to it's armour. It's enemies would often release an entirely new serie of tanks with major improvements over the predecessor design. Forcing Italy to fight an every more desperate war on all fronts with equipment that deviates a tiny amount from it's predecessor.

This forces Italy to play a high stake game at every engagement, and they adopt to this to the best of their abilities. A mere jeep becomes a mobile artillery, a truck becomes an improvised AFV (more often IFV) and outdated tank chassis becomes a tank destroyer or an assault gun. All make a punch far over the their own weight and while forced into a specified and focused role, they will do their job in proportion to their value.

Italian prototypes often seem rather "clumsy" this is however more do to the developer deciding to include the oddest concepts and implement them as units. Paper projects and relics as far back as world war 1 and 1920's concepts are fully deployable. The doctrin of full focus on one trait is reflected here as well, as units like *Fiat 2000*, *Ansaldo Magrini Mangiapan* and *Mias/Moras* all deliver much more firepower than what the unit is worth while *M16/43* will outrun most enemy armour while bringing more then average firepower for an Italian armoured vehicle.

### Pros & Advantages

* Units tend to always deliver more firepower than their rival equivalent.
* Often focused on a singular performance of which they excel at.

### Cons

* With the exception of prototypes, the average gun caliber is a 47mm with the occasional medium velocity 75mm.
* Italian armour have the odds against it when going up against other factions with proper armour available.

## Artillery

Italian artillery is a mixture of old guns from the previous war as well as modern guns akin to the german *FlaK 88*. A common characteristic of Italian artillery is the long range as well as an often duel-purpose nature.

While Italy does have old guns in inventory, which makes up a fair part of their arsenal, they are usually copies or updated versions of foreign designs, specially of former *Austrian-Hungarian* medium artillery.

Italy do face shortages, their widespread AT guns is the *47/32 M35* which is better designed as an infantry field gun rather than a purpose built anti-tank gun, this doesn't mean it is a poor gun, but it is only a 47mm gun which would face Shermans. Another weak spot would be the 20mm autocannons which are either expensive or does not have the rate of fire to reliably take down planes.

### Pros & Advantages

* Lot of naval artillery included and relics from the Austro-Hungarian empire.
* Wide selection of both old and new guns available.

### Cons

* AT-guns can be somewhat lacking in range performance.
* While there is several modern guns available, the majority are old guns of limited effect in modern war and lacking flexibility.

## Railroad war

Italy wouldn't raise as much of a train fleet as Poland or USSR, neither would they bring as many Railroad guns as France. But they would not be outmatched entirely as some were captured and the Regia Marina (Italian navy) would be in charge of several armoured trains and carts equipped with everything from machine guns, autocannons and heavy artillery to defend the coast.

While perhaps not the mightiest of swords in the Italian arsenal, they can bring forth both rail-mounted armoured cars, steam engines as well as a (relatively) heavy armed train *Ansaldo "Libli"* which will punish any light armoured enemies who underekstremitet it's power.

*"Libli"* is a special case as the train posses a jack-of-all-trades character as it has several turets, machineguns and even mortars onboard and exists i 2 versions for economical flexibility.

## Airforce

While history would say the Regia Marina (Italien Navy) was the best supplied branch of the Italian war machine, the airforce is perhaps the saving grace in *War of Tactics.* This is because Italy always seem to have either a speed or a firepower advantage.

Italian aircraft, even the older ones, rely on modern Breda machine guns, rather than old Vickers MG. They also have acces to German equipment such as autocannons and while they do not have a wide selection of jet aircraft they still have basically a plane for any task they could come across.

Italian planes, do have a stain on their honor. Italian players can decide to replace their bombs with chemical weapons which allows them to more efficiently combat infantry on the ground or preform areal denial. This is however just an option for an airforce which doesn't need it to effectively assist the Italian ground forces or insure the airspace.

### Pro & Advantages

* 200 to 500kg bombs can be replaced with chemical weapons which are effective against infantry and areal denial, if the player has the heart to use it.
* The average Italian aircraft tend to have a speed or firepower advantage against their equals.

### Cons

* The aircraft often rely on german armament to maintain their advantages
* Italy does not have the same amount of Jet aircraft as other nations.
* It is not uncommon for aircraft to be equipped with just a pair of MGs or HMGs, even for proper fighters.

## Trivia

* The "CLN Resistance" has not been added to Italy's arsenal as of yet (19/9-22) as it a conflict of interest between the axis Italy, and the resistance of CLN.