Script for Company Challenge 4: Italian Rifle Company (Patreon)

There are two main takeaways from this one: first, that I'm undoubtedly learning this map, despite the AI plan variety.

Second, that you should never underestimate just bumrushing up the map under cover of indirect!***

Welcome back to Combat Mission Fortress Italy, where we are going to put the Italian Rifle company through our Company Challenge scenario. This means that I’ve had to port the map over to Fortress Italy, which has been pretty successful. I’ve only had to make one change: Building Yellow 3 at the back left of the objective is an independent building in CMBN that doesn’t line up with its counterpart in CMFI. To get round that I’ve simply swapped it for one of the modular buildings which is the right size and matched up all the doors and windows.

The Italians

That brings us on to our Italians. They weigh in at 489 points in the Combat Mission Force Selector, not too far behind the Brits at 506, but they’re a very different and in some ways quite antiquated force.

The company has three platoons, each made up of two squads instead of the more usual three, but each squad is 20 men strong, split into a squad HQ and two 9 man ‘groups’. One of these groups has two Breda M30 LMGs and some of the groups have a few random Beretta M38 SMGs scattered about.

There are no attached heavy weapons, no antitank weapons, no radios… this is a very World War One (or even pre-1917) kind of infantry company organisation.

How do we generate firepower then? It’s all about the riflemen, it’s all about massing squads and platoons. And that’s a problem. The Americans also went down the massed rifle route, but they were able to ramp up the firepower of individual men by handing out semi-automatic weapons. The Italians don’t have that luxury, so they need more men for the same effect.

This starts a sort of firepower-frontage death spiral. The more firepower we need, the more frontage we need, but the more frontage we use the more enemy positions we need to cover, which means we need more firepower…

This isn’t a great map for that simply because it’s compartmentalised. Obviously the terrain in the farm complex is broken up and complicated, making it harder to mass troops, but the approaches suffer a similar problem. The bocage and map edges turn them into corridors, if those corridors aren’t wide enough to accommodate the number of troops the Italians need to gain fire superiority then they’ve got a serious problem.

The Plan

Or, that’s the theory anyway… how does that translate into tackling this tactical problem?

I think it immediately means that the far left corridor is out of the picture. It’s just too narrow and the range to the far end too long for the Italians to generate effective firepower. The far right corridor is wider and broken up by hedgerows into smaller bounds, but it also opens up as it goes, like a funnel and if the White House was a problem the Germans couldn’t effectively suppress on their run, the Italians certainly aren’t going to manage. So the actual practical avenue of advance would be a lot smaller than the terrain suggests.

That leaves us with the two centre corridors. My natural inclination is always to write these off because open ground with concealment on the flanks has killing field written all over to me, but…

The wider base of these two corridors would allow me to mass the entire company and maximise my firepower. Combined with dumping all of the attached mortars onto the far hedgerows- which I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to do at the start because the company commander doesn’t have a radio to call them in later- I might have my best chance of getting up to the village.

What to do once I’ve gotten there is another question, but I think it’s going to come down to overwhelming the defenders with sheer numbers.

I should add that I do not like this plan. Some of you might be looking at this thinking that it looks straight out of WW1: I’m basically going to advance while the enemy is suppressed by the mortars and then try and storm his position when they lift. That’s not that unusual- it’s just how modern warfare works. The problem is that the other companies have the organic capability to save themselves when it goes sideways, whether that’s because they have firepower, flexibility, smoke etc. etc. I’m not confident in the Italian company’s ability to do that.

So if something goes wrong, some part of the plan doesn’t work or there’s an enemy machinegun that doesn’t get suppressed for whatever reason… I think we’re going to be in trouble.

Kick Off

The battle kicks off with as much suppressive fire as I can put out. 1st Platoon is covering the centre left corridor, 2nd Platoon is covering the centre right and 3rd Platoon is standing by to dash forward.

Despite having eight 9 man groups on line, there are some spots that I can’t quite area fire due to line of sight. The centre left field suffers most due to the obscuring effect of the wheat, but I’m able to leave one squad to watch and shoot while the other targets the upper floor of Building Red 6.

The centre right field is better, with one group firing across at the far left corner and the other three suppressing the kink on the right.

That’s the place I think is the most threatening: I’m not so worried about the far hedgerow because halfway into the turn the 81mm mortars start coming in and pasting it, but it’s pretty common for there to be a HMG in the kink which can dominate the centre right field so if it’s there, I want it shut down.

The mortars are a bit less concentrated than I would like, but the barrage looks like should be effective. That’s good news for 1st Squad 3rd Platoon because they’re leading off this turn regardless: I only have a couple minutes’ worth of mortar fire and I need to try and take advantage of it.

In the process, 1st Squad does reveal a bit of a technical oddity. This is a Battle for Normandy map that I’ve converted into Fortress Italy, meaning that I’ve inserted bocage into a game that doesn’t feature it. So instead of being impassable like in CMBN, it looks like CMFI is treating them like big hedges that the infantry can force their way through.

Functionally, I’m not sure that matters that much: I am ordering my troops through gaps, most of the time they seem to use them and the cover and concealment offered by the bocage seems to be retained… but it is a factor.

The Kink MG

1st Squad legs it up the right side of the centre-right field, staying out of the line of fire of 2nd Platoon’s supporting effort. They reach the kink just after the mortars fade out and, shot onto the position by the suppressive fire, they find a German HMG team cowering behind the bocage.

This is pretty much the best possible outcome and the 1st Squad rapidly mops them up, killing a handful and prompting the survivors to put their hands up.

It’s not painless though: 1st Squad takes a casualty to MG fire coming from the far right map edge where there’s another German HMG in a similar position. This pins Group 1, but on the next turn Group 2 is able to take the HMG under fire with its LMGs and kill the gunner. The HMG goes quiet and the next time it gets spotted the crew have abandoned their weapon and run off.

The Centre Hedgerow

While 3rd Platoon’s 1st Squad has been sorting out the enemy HMGs, 2nd Squad has leapfrogged past them and reached the centre hedgerow. This is clear- and there are no signs of enemy casualties so it looks like there was nobody there. Combined with a lack of enemy fire from the barns and farm buildings on the other side of the compound, it looks like I’ve found a gap in the defence.

There is a brief exchange of fire with the centre left. A couple of German riflemen get spotted in the little Red 10 compound, but by the time 2nd Squad flanks them they’re already bugged out through the bocage towards Red 7.

That leaves me having broken in to the farm complex and in a prime position to exploit only eight minutes in.

Storming Blue

I was not expecting the first phase of the battle to be this quick or this easy, but I’m able to rapidly reinforce for the next phase.

By Turn 15, I’m ready to go. 3rd Platoon is stacked up behind Blue buildings 3-7, ready to occupy those and take the opposite buildings under fire. 1st Platoon has extended right a little, with its 1st Squad already engaging the White House and the corner where the enemy antitank gun keeps popping up; leaving its 2nd Squad behind 3rd Platoon as a reserve.

2nd Platoon is not far behind: they’re going to be my manoeuvre element, crossing the road and getting onto the right flank of the Yellow buildings while the other platoons fix the defenders in place.

There are some signs that this might be easier than I’m expecting. The PaK 40 is, for whatever reason, in the middle of the road and not behind the wall where it usually is. The crew have already come under fire and abandoned it.

When they go in though, parts of 3rd Platoon would violently disagree about the attack looking easy.

On the left, 2nd Squad encounters Germans teams in Blue 1 and Yellow 6. The 1st Group, on the right, attracts all the fire and is rapidly shredded, though the 2nd Group with the LMGs manages to suppress Blue 2.

On the right, 1st Squad moves into Blues 6 and 7 where they get into the firefight with the White House. It looks like I’m on top though and, trying to quickly exploit, I throw 1st Platoon’s 2nd Squad through Blue 5 into Blue 2, where they can swamp both the White House and Blue 1 with rifle fire.

The Germans in Blue 1 go down, the White House is effectively suppressed and although the enemy in Yellow 6 is still a threat, they only really have a keyhole onto the mostly dead troops inside Blue 4.

The Right Hook

So the situation is stable. I’m able to bring the other half of 1st Platoon up on the right, throw out a load of smoke from the Blue buildings and dash across the road next to Yellow 10. From there, 1st Squad 1st Platoon is able to swing onto the White House and occupy it without any problems.

With 2nd Squad arriving to back them up, 1st Squad heads off down the back of the Yellow buildings to tackle the enemy in Yellow 6. They’re able to mop them up from behind pretty easily- only taking one casualty in the process- but when Group 1 moves in to occupy the building they get into trouble.

Across the road, German teams in Red 2 and Red 6 immediately take them under fire, causing a couple of casualties and pinning them in place. A bit like the firefight with Yellow 6 earlier, I don’t have weight of numbers on my side here and it’s difficult to bring mass to bear due to the layout of the buildings.

But that’s fine. There are fifteen minutes left, I have plenty of time.

Mopping Up

While 1st Platoon focuses enemy attention, 2nd Platoon has already crossed over and is leapfrogging them to deal with the far end of the objective. Buildings Yellow 4 and 5 are clear- Yellow 6 is not. The Germans in there hold out for a couple of turns against 2nd Platoon’s 1st Squad, but I’m able to quickly bring the 2nd Squad up to add more fire and eventually storm the building from the front.

At the same time, 1st Squad 3rd Platoon, no longer needed in the Blue buildings, has swung round to tackle the Red compound from the flank. Pressing into Red 10 and its yard, they come under fire, but now the Germans in that area are in between two Italian elements.

Wanting to keep the momentum up in the back of the objective, I start winding up to send 2nd Platoon into Yellow 1 and 2, but the squad in Yellow 3 has moved up to the upper floors and started engaging more enemy teams from the rear.

This provokes the AI to throw in the towel. They surrender at the 31 minute mark, with nine minutes left on the clock.

Endex

That makes this battle a Total Victory for the Italians, which is not what I was expecting. Overall they took 32 casualties out of 132 men, so 25% in raw numbers or 19% in terms of combat power according to the game. The Germans suffered 51 casualties which translates into 85% in raw numbers or 100% combat power because they all surrendered.

The Italians secured the objective and as far as the game is concerned, maintained both their ammunition and condition levels above 70%. Actually counting the ammunition, they had 61.02% left at the end, so they used almost 40% of their ammo.

Quantitatives

So. What happened here? First of all, I think it’s important not to get too carried away. Yes, the Italians secured the fastest victory and that is pretty impressive, but actually crunching the numbers, time and casualties inflicted are the only data points where they come out ahead of the curve.

Those are really important elements- everyone wants to get the job done fast and inflict maximum damage on the enemy- but the Italians also suffered the highest numbers of casualties- both raw and in percentage terms- and came away with the least ammunition. Which are also really important, especially if you are one of those Italian pixeltruppen staring down a 1 in 4 chance of not making it.

But this mix of success levels across different factors does make it a lot more difficult to slot the Italians into our leaderboard. To get around this, I’ve decided to rank the companies in each category, then add the ranks together to get a final score. The lower that final score, the better the company did overall.

That gives us the Americans at the top on 13 points, then the Germans on 18, the British on 19 and the Italians on 20. So by that reckoning, the order doesn’t actually change and the Italians come in last.

It also confirms the combat power pecking order according to CM’s QB points values: the more QB points a company costs, the better it’s doing here. But it is surprisingly close.

That is, however, all obviously very quantitative stuff from a small sample and a single player who is inevitably getting more and more familiar with the terrain and the potential enemy positions. So your mileage will, and should, vary.

Qualitatives

But, we’ve got plenty to talk about here on the qualitative side.

The big thing that stands out is the speed with which the Italians were successful. And this boils down to how fast they were able to get across the fields and reach la Grande Hameau.

That’s entirely because I wanted to take maximum advantage of the mortar support. With the other companies, I had varying degrees of confidence in their abilities to fight themselves forward. I didn’t have that with the Italians, so I felt like I needed to coordinate with the mortars and that translated into punching up the middle under cover of the barrage.

So that’s a tactical decision based on my personal appreciation of the Italian TOE. It wasn’t an option unique to the Italian Rifle company, I could have done it with any of the other companies but chose not to.

In a similar vein, once we got into the farm complex, the Italians chewed through the defenders surprisingly effectively. And I think this comes down to being forced to use mass.

With the other rifle squads, I’m basically primed to split them down into fire teams. This means that I’m dispersing my force and minimising the risk of sustaining a lot of casualties at once, I’m hopefully opening up multiple angles on the enemy and forcing them to dilute their fire across several targets instead of one. But this comes at the cost of splitting squad firepower into smaller chunks.

In CMFI, you just can’t do that with the Italians. Italian rifle squads are already broken down into two fire teams, they’re just giant 9 man fire teams. This means that they’re harder to disperse and when something goes wrong it’s a 9 man block that gets shredded instead of a 3-5 man team. And we saw that a couple of times clearing out the farm.

But at the same time, I had the same number of positions I wanted to occupy and enough squads to fill them up. If we think about pushing the centre from the Blue compound, I pretty much did exactly what I did with the Americans. But with the Americans, split down into smaller fire teams, I pushed 27 men into the firing line. With the Italians, I put 44 men in.

And sure, in both cases there was one subunit that got a face full of the defender’s firepower and had a bad day, translating into lower losses for the Americans and higher losses for the Italians because of the relative subunit size. But when they didn’t immediately get shot up, they could put enough fire out to get the job done. Sure, the Americans have semi-auto rifles, but clearly sheer volume of bolt actions, plus some LMGs, can make up the difference.

RoF

This brings up an interesting conundrum. What is the Italian’s basic tactical unit? Is it the entire 20 man squad? Or is it the individual 9-man groups?

If we dive into the rate of fire test, the complete squad does really well: in total it’s putting out 202 rounds a minute, which is significantly higher than the Americans, who are their closest competitor at 159 rounds per minute.

But when they’re split down, the first group only put out 65 rounds and the second group, with the LMGs, put out 137. 65 is by far the worst volume of fire, 137 is second best behind the Americans. Having two LMGs, even Breda M30s, will do that for you.

That said, obviously the rate that those rounds go downrange is the critical component, the fire from the LMGs is very swingy because they have 20 round magazines and the full 20 man Italian squad obviously takes up the same amount of room as two of any of the other squads, which would outcompete them because of the firepower-to-space death spiral I mentioned earlier.

The same point about rushing up under the mortar barrage applies here: I could have massed whole squads when playing the other companies, I chose not to. With the Italians, I didn’t have that choice. So even though it can clearly be effective, it’s enforced rigidity rather than a tactical option and it’s not going to be suitable in all situations.

Other Weapons

And of course, one of the reason why I can spend so long talking about the Italian squads here is that unlike the other companies, that’s all they have. There are no supporting weapons here, no light mortars or machineguns, no anti-tank weapons. Not even the company commander has a radio.

Caveats

So while the Italians obviously have some things going for them, at least in the context of this scenario. But there are some serious caveats we need to bear in mind here.

First, the threat environment for our testing involves no enemy indirect fire- so no mortars or artillery- and no armour. These are both big problems for the Italians because they can’t disperse very well and because they don’t have any anti-tank weapons.

And those are potentially fatal short-comings unique to the Italians in CM.

Second, I do think they got lucky. I basically hit a gap in the defensive layout: the avenue of approach was covered by a single HMG team. That team was in a position that I smothered in anticipatory suppressive fire before I spotted it- where on the sliding scale that fits between “I’ll shoot that particular spot because it looks threatening” and “I’ve played this scenario multiple times now and there’s usually a machinegun there” is hard to nail down.

Beyond that, the defence was weighted to the left flank. The Italians only ran directly into one enemy squad, the one around the White House: the other two squads were deployed in and around the Red Compound where they were ultimately engaged from the behind.

Third, our perception of all this stuff is very relative. The Italian forces modelled in CMFI are the poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly led defenders of Sicily and throughout the game, their soft factors reflect that.

Here, everyone has the same soft factors- regular with no modifiers- so the Italians for our scenario are probably a cut above the average Italian unit found elsewhere in CMFI. So it shouldn’t be that surprising that they performed above our pre-registered expectations.

The most critical point about these caveats though- hitting a gap, not having to deal with artillery or armour, all this- is that the Italians still took 25% casualties. That’s a lot and it’s certainly not in line with the other companies who had to slog through much more difficult break-ins and try to clear the objective a lot faster. So even though the Italians had a very good run, they still got chewed up the worst so far.

Conclusion

So, that’s the Italian Rifle Company taking on our Company Challenge. A really interesting result, surprisingly good, but on closer examination not quite enough to upset the leaderboard.

Mass can work. Definitely one where I’m going to be interested to hear what you guys think.

If you enjoyed this video and found it useful or interesting, you can always watch them a week early by supporting the channel via Patreon or Youtube memberships. Whether you do or not, thanks for watching… next up it’s the Soviets, who I feel really should do better than their QB points cost implies… but who knows after this one.