"Western Desert WWII Italian Organization" Topic

We are currently gaming the Western Desert with the Battlefront Rules set in 15mm. We have had some good games with British and DAK but thought that adding some Italians would be fun.

Bersaglieri seem interesting but there don't seem to be many figures available with pictures and reviews.

We would like to start out with a couple of platoon sized units, armor and infantry. What would you recomend?

Real world (as opposed to game interpretation) information on the organization and equipment of the Italians in North Africa is a bit sparse in English. There are a couple folks over on the Comando Supremo forum ( link ) with access to sources in Italian that have been quite helpful in the past.

As for figures in 15mm, you can find pictures for Battlefront/Flames of War and Peter Pig fairly readily as those sites have a lot of pictures. Both lines are reasonably well regarded, though BF has some mutants in some of its infantry lines.

Most people will recommend sourcing a specific class of vehicle from a single company. In the case of the Italians, you can lump the M13/40 and the M14/41 into one class, and avoid mixing manufacturers. The M13/40 was reputedly the most common Italian tank in North Africa, and the M14/41 is pretty close in appearance.

BF/FoW's Motociclisti are all two-seaters with machineguns on the handlebars (which matches their game stats), while the Peter Pig Moto are single-seaters. I haven't compared the two yet, but the reality seems to have been rather "whatever we can lay hands on" with rather fewer LMG's per squad than BF/FoW indicates.

Foot Bersaglieri are rather interesting, and not just in the sense of elites seeking to rebuild their nation's honor after horrible defeats (in East Africa earlier). The Germans apparently cheerfully used and abused their Italian allies, and the propaganda machine of the time that smeared the Italians thoroughly for their war record has apparently left English-language records biased for decades.

I rather like the BF/FoW Bersaglieri, but since I'm not building forces for FoW, their pack contents occasionally leave something to be desired. I've looked at Peter Pig but not ordered yet.

THe Battlefront rules set is not FOW. It is done by the same folks that did Fire and Fury. Battlefront is the company that does FOW miniatures. I am not the only one who got confused ;-)

Eureka do some very nice 15mm Italians. Their Bersaglieri also have tricycle versions, as well as motorcycles without riders so you can use them with dismounted motorcyle troops.

I would confirm Mal's comment.

Eureka seem to produce the best bersaglieri and Paratroops for the desert.

The hmg's are also good conversion for the 20mm Soluthern AT guns

Peter Pig don't do Italian Motorcycles nor do bersaglieri in Sun Helmets. Their range are all in helmets, so are more suitable for the russian front. You would require to do headswaps for desert forces.

The website for Battlefront WWII features some TOEs adapted to that game:

link

Hmm. I must have confused them with the German bikes, then. I was looking at the whole Pig line the other day.

The website for Battlefront WWII features some TOEs adapted to that game:

I use the italian 39-43 one direct…

There are a few minor typo's and the vehicles are often listed as As37's when mostly, they would have been other types of Italian trucks.

For the early part of the war in the desert, Frank Chadwick's "Benghazi Handicap" is an excellent sourcebook for Italian organizations. Designed for "Command Decision: Test of Battle", it can easily be converted for "Battlefront: WWII" or FoW, or used pretty much as is for "Blitzkrieg Commander".

My early Italians are mostly Old Glory/Command Decision/Skytrex, which are mostly in tropical helmets with a few in barretina. I supplement those with Peter Pig's Breda HMGS and antitank rifles, as well as Brixia light moratrs and medium mortars; there's no problem having some troops in steel helmets for the early Western Desert.

For later on, Flames of War's new "North Africa" supplement provides company organizations under the AS42 model, but the FoW forum provides the organizational daat to easily generate the same for other game systems.

I use Battlefront's normal infantry in steel helmets for the later period--those were common, though the tropical helmet never completely went out of use--and either they or the Peter Pig helmeted figures are fine for trrops either in (non-shorts!) tropical khaki *or* in European gray-green, which was worn by a lot of Italian troops in Africa as they were hurriedly funneled in to the war zone.

Battlefront's dismounted Bersaglieri trouble me, but I do prefer their motocyclisti to Eureka's: neither gets the tropical helmet shape just right, and I can bear (barely) the oversized BF ones. I do use the Eureka mototricycles for command and heavy weapons. Anyone seeking perfection in tropical helmet shape and size had best plan on using OG/CD figures or PP separate heads, along with putty feathers: there are no perfect Bersaglieri ones.

BF's paracadutisti look better to me than the clumsy-looking Eureka ones for the desert, even though some of their proportions are odd: they were some of the first to creep towards gnomishness.

But I'm still happiest with the OG/CD (tropical helmet) and PP (steel helmet) combo; they look great together. PP's Bersaglieri (in steel helmet, with feathers) are also excellent; I use them for Russia, but they would be fine for the desert as well. I just prefer the iconic tropical helmet for Bersaglieri there, even though the available tropical helmets are less than perfect.

For your starter force, an interesting choice might be Bersaglieri (however you source them) in combination with L6 light tanks. If you need some specific unit IDs which would allow that combination, just ask (or get "Benghazi Handicap", which really, really is worth the investment, not only for the Italians, but for all the forces in the Western Desert).

Allen

OMM Item: 1-41330
Nafziger, George
ITALIAN O/B's IN WWII, V1 Armored, Motorized, Airborne and Alpini Divosions1 vol, 116 pgs 1995 US, GEORGE NAFZIGER
NEW-softcover ……$20.00

OMM Item: 1-41340
Nafziger, George
ITALIAN O/B's IN WWII, V2 8.5x11, Infantry Divisions1 vol, 116 pgs 1995 US, GEORGE NAFZIGER NEW-softcover ……$20.00

OMM Item: 1-41350
Nafziger, George
ITALIAN O/B's IN WWII, V3 8.5x11, Black Shirt, Mountain & Assault Divisions,1944 Italian Army in Allied Service.1 vol, 116 pgs 1995 US, GEORGE NAFZIGER
NEW-softcover ……$20.00

Also:

1-SS6089
ITALIAN ARMOURED VEHICLES OF WWII
100+ b/w photos/illust/drawing, tech specs.1 vol, 64 pgs 2006 US, SQUADRON/SIGNAL NEW-softcover ……$15.00

And for a contemporary look:

OMM item: 1-75040
anon
HANDBOOK ON THE ITALIAN MILITARY FORCES 1943 Published in 1943 (TME 30-420), color & b/w maps/illust/drawings detail every aspect of the Italian Army, appendicies, notes, index.1 vol, 477 pgs 2004 NASHIVILLE, BATTERY PRESS
NEW-hardcover, facsimile reprint $60.00 USD

See our website:

Dennis from OMM
onmilitarymatters.com

There's also my handbook for PK, but designed for any system, entitled "Con Tutto Il Cuore", which will give a good overview, at least from the divisional level, of Italian forces in every theater, as well as the general motivations for Italy joining the Axis, yadda, yadda.

You can get it at OMM, and other fine purveyors;)

-A.

Mea Culpa!

Item: 88283
CON TUTTO IL CUORE: Italian General's Handbook A complete organizational guide to the Italian Armed Forces from 1935 thru 1945. Includes Spanish Civil War, WWII, Abyssinia, RSI and more. Can be used with any WWII rule system1 vol, 120 pgs 2008 US, HOPLITE RESEARCH NEW-softcover $30.00U

And…

Item: 73641
Chadwick, Frank & Kidd, Glenn
COMMAND DECISION:BENGHAZI HANDICAP Regardless of what rules system you play thiscampaign book is the defintive guide to the war in the Western Desert 1940-41, o/b's, equipmentcharts, (12)scenarios and much more. 1 vol, 180 pgs 2007 US, TEST OF BATTLE GAMES NEW-softcover $40.00 USD

Dennis from OMM
onmilitarymatters.com