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    Con Tutto Il Cuore
    Con Tutto Il Cuore
    Con Tutto Il Cuore
    Ebook248 pages3 hours

    Con Tutto Il Cuore

    By Manny Granillo

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    About this ebook

    The complete General's handbook for Italian forces in World War II for use with Panzer Korps divisional rules system. Covers all of the Italian forces from 1939 thru 1945 including artillery, vehicles, aircraft, and organization of forces in the Spanish Civil War, Abyssinia, North Africa, Western Europe and in Russia.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLulu.com
    Release dateApr 11, 2011
    ISBN9781257534579
    Con Tutto Il Cuore

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      Book preview

      Con Tutto Il Cuore - Manny Granillo

      Bibliography

      Introduction

      This supplement covers Italian military operations during the era of the Second World War, beginning with the Italian campaign against Abyssinia and the defeat of Haile Selassie and ending with the surrender of the last elements of Mussolini’s Repubblica Socialte Italiana, or RSI, in 1945. It is intended to allow the wargamer to field Italian forces using the popular new Panzer Korps miniatures rules, with a minimum of difficulty. It could, likewise, be used for any regimental level WW2 rule-set, and as a simple reference guide, with very little modification required. This is not intended to be a detailed and comprehensive history of the Italian military in WW2, instead it is hoped that the information provided herein will assist in a more accurate, and ultimately enjoyable, portrayal of Italian forces at the divisional level.

      Perhaps no soldier of the Second World War has been as maligned, misunderstood, and slandered as the Italian. He has been called a number of things; though Coward, Buffoon, and Lazy seem to be the most predominant terms. These negative views are usually born out of a general ignorance, or at the very least, a misunderstanding, of actions involving Italian forces during the period, and a heavy reliance upon Allied propaganda. Italy’s friend and ally, Germany, had its own views of the Italian soldier, and they were rarely more complimentary. Nazi views of racial superiority, a general disdain for Italian Fascism, and a tendency among even the most enlightened German officers to blame major debacles on Italian blunders (some real, some imaginary), have helped to propagate the myth that the Italian soldier was a useless coward who was more interested in sitting in a foxhole and eating spaghetti than doing his job.

      A little reading on the subject of Italian forces in less biased accounts will, however, reveal a very different picture. Italian forces did fight hard, giving as well as they got, in the vast majority of instances. They even, shockingly enough, managed to win their fare share of battles. This is particularly remarkable given the criminal incompetence, at times, of Comando Supremo, the lack of experience among many of Italy’s highest ranking officers, and the frequently questionable equipment and supplies with which the Italian soldier was expected to fight his war.

      This is not to say that the Italians were supermen – far from it; nor does this supplement hope to make the M11/39 as popular as the Tiger in the wargamer’s consciousness. The Italian Army was a force comprised of normal men who sometimes did heroic things, just as they, like all men, were sometimes predisposed to incredible acts of incompetence.

      To that end, this book is respectfully dedicated to the millions of Italian veterans of the Second World War, to the hundreds of thousands of them who never returned home, and in particular to those brave men who fought to prevent the Nazis from gaining control of their beloved homeland, from the defense of Rome in 1943, to the triumphs of the co-belligerent Italian forces. A few of them are still with us, with fewer each year. Very few of them are remembered abroad, let alone by their own countrymen. Perhaps their actions deserve a second look.

      Notes on Format

      The format of Con Tutto Il Cuore is based upon the precedent laid down so far in other Panzer Korps series supplements. For ease of identification and reference, the forces herein are presented in a simple to read top-down organizational format. Morale is an average of all morale ratings within a given Division (or otherwise). Weapons systems, when they appear, are depicted along a similar concept: mixed batteries are represented by their most common weapon type, armored formations are represented by the majority of tanks in a formation, etc.

      Wherever possible, accurate listings have been used, though numbers are generally presented in an Arabic format (the Italians used a mixture of Arabic and Latin numerals when numbering their formations), and terminology has been standardized to reflect equivalent formations in other forces of the period, with a few notable exceptions. Specifically, Military Police formations are referred to with their proper Italian titles Carabinieri or Finance Guard, depending upon the campaign and/or unit in question, and Blackshirt (CCNN) forces use the proper unit designations: Zones, Legions and Cohorts, for their respective Divisional, Regimental, and Battalion sized formations.

      For ease of reference, I’ve organized the Italian Army of the period into roughly five (5) historical periods: The Abyssinian Campaign (1935-1936), the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), the Early War Period (1939-1941), the Mid-War Period (1942-1943) and the Late War Period (1944-1945). Where organizations do not significantly change in from period to period, I have referred to previously depicted organizations in earlier sections – this is mainly to save your sanity when looking through so much data, and my own when writing it! Decision Dice are handled in a unique way, which will be described shortly. However, for the purposes of scenarios, campaigns, etc. you should feel free to alter these as appropriate, particularly if using one of the excellent campaigns or scenarios being produced by the various Panzer Korps aficionados.

      Following the organizations, a series of tables displaying Italian weapons systems and aircraft have been provided. These differ in some ways from the Italian equipment tables given in the original Panzer Korps rules. When playing games with the Panzer Korps system you may use the tables in the original Panzer Korps rules, or you may use the tables in Con Tutto Il Cuore – but you may not use both.

      Notes on Support Companies: Light and Medium machine guns and mortars have been factored in to the firepower of the various battalions unless listed.

      Notes on Field Hospitals:

      These are smaller versions of the large Field hospitals at Corps or Army level,. They are placed before play, cannot move and will heal double that of a Med. Co.

      Italians advance near Tunis 1943

      A Brief Introduction to Italy in World War Two

      The Role of Italy in the Second War is a complex and controversial one, made more difficult by the preponderance of misconceptions and half-truths created out of propaganda and political chaos. This has been exacerbated by the unfortunate tendency among some modern Italians to completely ignore the Second World War, rather than confront it in the national memory.

      Post World War One Italy was a political hodgepodge of Nationalist, Communist, Socialist, Monarchist, even Anarchist movements. These movements had been buttressed by a weak economy made weaker by the Depression, and a feeling that the enormous loss of life in the previous conflict had been unappreciated by the Allies at best, an outright betrayal at worst. It is perhaps ironic that, as in Germany, a former Corporal would step forward to claim the reins of political power. Unlike Hitler, however, Mussolini had begun his life as an ardent Socialist, and a strong opponent to Italian colonial expansionism. It was the experience of the First World War that caused a marked change in his politics, and his approach. Italy had begun the First World War as a poor, semi-industrialized Great Power. It ended the war just as it had begun, minus some six hundred thousand lives.. Mussolini was determined that his country would never again suffer that ignominy.

      The rest, as they say, is history, and beyond the real scope of a mere war-gaming supplement, but it is worth mentioning if only for this reason: Italy entered the Second World War because of Mussolini.

      The Second World War was never universally popular among the Italian populace. Indeed, Mussolini’s friend and ally Hitler was generally reviled by the most dedicated of Fascists, his own National Socialist Party seen as a gross perversion of the roots of Classical Fascism. During the 1930s, in fact, it had initially seemed that Mussolini would be the strong man who would keep Hitler in line, as he demonstrated in personal conversations, and in twice preventing Hitler from annexing Austria, at one point even deploying forces to reiterate his opposition to Nazi expansionism in Europe.

      In 1935, however, Franco-British opposition to Mussolini’s operations in Ethiopia, and the next year to his policies in regards to the Spanish Civil War, were seen by Il Duce as a great betrayal of trust. Mussolini saw this perceived betrayal as evidence that the Allies would merely seek to manipulate Italy for their own purposes, never respecting Italy’s own right to prosper as a Great Power. This perceived betrayal drove Mussolini into a strange relationship between the Italian dictator, who had once referred to Hitler as a thug, and the Austrian Corporal-come-Chancellor, who saw the elder Mussolini as a mentor.

      In 1940, Italy chose to enter the Second World War against France. It was not a decision made lightly by Mussolini. The options had been weighed carefully, despite Italy’s alliance with Germany.. Ultimately, it was a belief that the Germans would soon be victorious, and Mussolini’s promise that the war would be brief, and profitable, that drove the country into fighting a war for which it was not yet prepared. Mussolini, however, was willing to pay the price. Italy, he said, must lose a few thousand lives to qualify for a place at the negotiating table. A few thousand lives would probably have been preferable to the actual result.

      Most of the major organizations that took part in Italy’s campaigns are discussed herein, with details that will allow you to field these in your war-games. Because of the sometimes conflicting and chaotic nature of Italy’s war effort, I have had to do some extrapolation and make a few assumptions here and there; I’ll note that whenever necessary. Where possible, I have also included references

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