Bersaglieri

Started by Martyn, 16 June 2011, 06:18:48 PM

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sultanbev

Was thinking about the WW2 Italians, and the wishlist to complete the range is quite large. Feel free to add, but off the top of my head I get it to:
Desert Italians:
flamethrower teams
Bersaglieri infantry (riflemen, SMG, LMG, command)
Bersaglieri heavy weapons (MMG, 45mm mortars, gun crews for 47/32 and 20mm Solothurn, 81mm mortars)
Bersaglieri motorcycle combinations and motor-tricycles
65/17 infantry gun with shield, not sure how common this was?(I know the shieldless gun is in the WW1/SCW ranges)
20mm Solothurn A/T rifles
75/27 M1906 and M1911 field guns
20mm Breda AA
102mm MILMART gun truck (can'd do Operation Crusader Ariete Division without this one)
AS37 truck (including gun trucks)
Fiat 634 lorry with 65/17 gun
Fiat 626 armoured lorry
Folgore paratrooper heavy weapons

Russian front Italians:
Cavalry (rifles and sabres)
75/46 AA gun

Alpini would be nice (riflemen, LMG, command)
Alpini heavy weapons (MMG, 45mm mortars, gun crews, 81mm mortars) (engineers??)
Guastatori assault engineers (flamethrowers, pole charges, demo charges, SMG, rifles, LMG)

For late war:
Semovente 105/25
Semovente 75/46
Dovunque armoured lorry
AS37 APC

Almost worth a mini-none-kickstarter  ;)

Ithoriel

Wot? No "infantry surrendering"? ;)
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

sultanbev

Quote from: Ithoriel on 24 December 2020, 12:10:14 PM
Wot? No "infantry surrendering"? ;)

Well your infantry may be D class but mine aren't!  :D

holdfast

I am reminded of a tale from the Royal Tournament in the 1950s. The Bersaglieri Band was to perform and the bandmaster was being shown the Earls Court arena by the crusty old cove who ran the show then.
The Bersaglieri band, of course, makes a speciality of tootling as they run.
The bandmaster was horrified at the state of the surface of the arena and said to the organiser: 'This is impossible, we cannot run on sand'. To which the old buffer responded: 'You didn't have much difficulty doing so in 1941'.

Ben Waterhouse

My late father in law (Eighth Army El Alamein to Cassino then Greece) always said the Italian troops were brave and good fighters let down by incompetent generals and obsolete kit.
Arma Pacis Fulcra

hammurabi70

Quote from: Ben Waterhouse on 25 March 2021, 07:39:57 PM
My late father in law (Eighth Army El Alamein to Cassino then Greece) always said the Italian troops were brave and good fighters let down by incompetent generals and obsolete kit.

Unenthusiastic conscripts, fighting a war they did not want, against an enemy they did not hate, without adequate equipment or supplies.  No surprise they surrendered in large numbers.  By the time the Germans were surrendering in Normandy during the NWE campaign the Germans had established their reputation as tough fighters; the 200,000+ PoWs taken in Normandy suggests that many had similar views to the Italian troops.

paulr

And the alternative to surrender was often being stuck on foot in the desert with little or no water...
Lord Lensman of Wellington
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steve_holmes_11

Quote from: Ben Waterhouse on 25 March 2021, 07:39:57 PM
My late father in law (Eighth Army El Alamein to Cassino then Greece) always said the Italian troops were brave and good fighters let down by incompetent generals and obsolete kit.

I think we forget that the Italians in the desert were not fully motorised.
No prospects for them of hopping into the Opel or Volkswagen and bugging out a hundred miles to the rear.

Anybody doubting their courage ought to take a look at an L3/33.
Paper thin armour, leaky fuel handling, and you're up against 25 pounders and Matildas.

There's the site of an old POW camp just up the road from where I live.
Really nice lads by all accounts: worked on the local farms, caused no bother, attended the local chapel, some remained behind afterwards.
Much more agreeable than the airmen and U-boat crews who replaced them in '44.
Had to double the wire and arm the guards for that lot.


Lord Kermit of Birkenhead

Italians - good troops very badly lead. Plus in 40-41 O'Conner captured all the water supply. Really left em no choice.
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John Cook

My late father spent his entire war from 1941 to 1946 in North Africa and Palestine.  I remember him rebuking me for making a disparaging remark about Italians, to the effect "I saw a lot of dead Italians.  There is not much more you can ask of a soldier".

steve_holmes_11

Quote from: ianrs54 on 26 March 2021, 08:39:44 AM
Italians - good troops very badly lead. Plus in 40-41 O'Conner captured all the water supply. Really left em no choice.

Once you can't boil your spaghetti, it's game over.
(Tongue in cheek reference to a notorious set of boardgame rules).

https://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2017/09/18/pasta-rule-campaign-north-africa-not-actually-thing/#:~:text=In%20The%20Campaign%20for%20North,rule%20for%20a%20fiddly%20wargame.

FierceKitty

Quote from: ianrs54 on 26 March 2021, 08:39:44 AM
Italians - good troops very badly lead.

Pewter is better than lead, anyway.
I don't drink coffee to wake up. I wake up to drink coffee.

Ben Waterhouse

Arma Pacis Fulcra

henjed

Just bumping this one up as I'm getting desperate for 'em. (says more perhaps about my state of mind than anything else!).  Need 'em for those plumes, need 'em for holding the position my M11 and M13s seize  Please, please please...   ;D

Ben Waterhouse

Quote from: henjed on 01 September 2021, 10:10:37 AM
Just bumping this one up as I'm getting desperate for 'em. (says more perhaps about my state of mind than anything else!).  Need 'em for those plumes, need 'em for holding the position my M11 and M13s seize  Please, please please...   ;D

Seconded, agin....😬
Arma Pacis Fulcra