The Italians for Check Your 6!

Ahhh, the Italians for Check Your 6! - reminds me of a joke about Italian tires, which I will not offend anyone by repeating here. Italy is an oft overlooked power during the Second World War and in many players minds the Italian armed forces are the butt of many jokes. Italian fighters are similar in many aspects to their ally Japan - lightly armed, lightly armored (if at all), yet maneuverable. Their bombers suffered from a lack of robustness as well as light armament. If one reviews the ratings for Italian aircraft in the various Check Your 6! sources (and a complete list is available as a download on the Downloads page here on the blog), one might become discouraged from the Italian experience - in one game I had one of the best opportunities in my now many games of CY6! - a Fiat G.50 in the tail arc of the enemy at point blank range. Hitting was no issue (I think I needed a 3+ to hit after modifiers), but the damage dice failed me - with only a pair of heavy machineguns on the G.50 I happened to roll boxcars, resulting in zero damage! So frustrating, as gaming the Italians can be. However, if one can latch onto the tail of an opponent, one usually has the advantage in maneuverability and can peck away for a few turns, which might be enough to obtain a kill.

The Miniatures

I have scoured the interwebs to create a list of Italian aircraft available in 1/285 or 1/300 scales, listing only the preferred model (in my opinion, humble or otherwise) for each plane. My quality rankings are as follows (best to least desirable): Flight Deck Decals>Table Top Flights>Raiden Miniatures>MSD Games>Heroics & Ros>PT Dockyard. There are thirty (UPDATE: thirty-five - thanks to slugbalancer on The Miniatures Page) different models/types of planes available for the Italians (and if you know of any other planes in either scale not appearing on the following list, please leave a comment). 

The Scenarios

There are three excellent sources for scenarios that I know of that are Check Your 6! ready. The first is the SkirmishCampaigns publication entitled Falcon of the Duce, written by C. B. Stevens, while the second is The Falcon and the Gladiator: The Air War Over the Western Desert, 1940-February 1941, written by Chris Stoesen and available as a pdf download on Wargame Vault. The third is Battles Above 2, written by Brian Dewitt and available via I-94 Enterprises. Falcon of the Duce contains sixteen scenarios featuring Italian ace Franco Lucchini along with background and aircraft information. The Stoesen effort offers thirty-six scenarios, many that feature the CR.42 and Gloster Gladiator (hence the name) along with much background and historical information. Battles Above 2 yields another twenty-six scenarios. The size of the scenarios range from two to thirty-seven aircraft, so there is plenty of choices, ranging from smaller games to massive numbers of miniatures swarming the tabletop. One can download the scenario listing, which includes plane counts, from the Downloads page.

The Stats

I have also cobbled together the stats for Italian aircraft that I could locate from various sources. However, while I have been able to discover thirty-five Italian aircraft available in miniature form, I could only source statistics for twenty. The stats file can also be found on the Downloads page.

Aircrew Quality

Italian fighter pilots, in the early period of the war, were fairly experienced due to their involving in the Spanish Civil War. Contrary to one source, the Italians offered more gunnery training than their British opponents, while overall training time was less. Players may consider rating Italian fighter aircrews as overall skilled, but with a +1 firing modifier through 1940. Also, due to the aerobatic training Italian fighter pilots received, they may take all maneuver aircrew checks at one level higher than their aircrew quality.

When rating any pilots for Check Your 6! I use the following methodology:

Expert (+4) - forty or more victories

Ace (+3) - twenty to thirty-nine victories

Veteran (+2) - five to nineteen victories and/or long service

Skilled (+1) - highly trained and/or one to four victories

Green (+0) - standard training, no victories, and/or little active service

Poor (-1) - little to no training

Conversely, one might consider randomizing pilot skill using the following tables.

Summary

There you have it - about everything Italian in one location. The Italian aircraft are some of the most interesting of the war - colorful camouflage schemes, some sleek designs, lightly armed and lightly armored, and aircrew quality that can range from very good to very mediocre.

The Commissioned Projects - Part I

On the Check Your 6! front I have several planes getting ready to be sent to Miscellaneous Miniatures for painting. This series will break down what is being sent off and how they fit into existing or new projects.

Early Italian World War II - I am adding a Short S.25 Sunderland and six Gloster Gladiators to the existing collection from departed friend Bob. Adding the Sunderland will allow me to tackle a scenario from Falcon of the Duce that I have been wanting to do for sometime - Slow Boat to Bardia. It is a tough fight for the Italians with four CR.42s facing off against the flying boat, which has a Robustness of 4 and machineguns galore. For those who have flown CR.42s, you know there is little in the way of punch when it comes to the Falco's armament against such a robust aircraft. This will make a nice Check Your 6! introductory scenario as I would run the Sunderland and give each new player one CR.42. The Sunderland will be painted as above. The planes are resin prints from Flight Deck Decals, scaled to 1/285th.

It is a fine casting...er, I mean printing

The Gladiators will allow me to tackle a few scenarios from the The Falcon and the Gladiator: The Air War Over the Western Desert 1940 – February 1941. This is a pdf written by Chris Stoesen and available via Wargames Vault, containing thirty-eight scenarios. The Falcon and the Gladiator is definitely worth the price as the pdf is well over one hundred pages in length and is filled with information to go along with the scenarios. While I have four Gladiators already, having six more will allow me to do at least eight scenarios from the pdf, using a mix of CR.32s and CR.42s along with a few other assorted aircraft. The Gladiators will also have the Temporate Land Scheme of dark earth and dark green, with half black and half white undersides.

The details are fantastic and the quality is amazing

Next War, Next Enemy After Action Report

I was able to host the first scenario from the Falcon of the Duce Check Your 6! book that features the World War exploits of Franco Lucchini. I've ran this particular scenario before, but wanted to pull it out again as it features a variety of rules nuances, such as a diverse range of pilot skills (ace to green), early war slow but maneuverable aircraft, and light guns and frail airframes. I decided to run this on a three foot square Monday Knight Productions mat as the last time I hosted this scenario the comment was made of how long it took for the planes to close, and then in how little table space they wound up using once closing to range. The smaller mat helped greatly.

Not looking grand for the Brits on this end

The Italians had the advantage with aircrew skill (one ace and two skilled pilots), heavier armament (two heavy machineguns vs. for light machineguns for the Gladiators), a higher starting altitude, and a slightly better agility (the Gladiators suffering an agility loss when moving at maximum speed).

However, the Italians separated quickly, responding to the British splitting their planes as they struggled to climb. The Italian ace headed for a pair of Brits, comprising of one veteran and one green pilot. A head on pass failed to hit the Brits, but the Italian was able to get on the tail of the green Brit within just three hexes. At this point we all thought it was over for this green Gladiator, but the robustness check was ably passed. This green pilot had the best luck of the game, being shot at a few times and surviving, and even helping to knock one of the Italian planes out of the air.

The Italians lining up for the kill, but it was not to be

The other British pilot did not have the same run of luck, having taken one airframe hit and one engine hit on his two green pilots in a head on pass with the two skilled Italian pilots. It certainly looked as if they were easy pickings, with another turn of an advantageous position, but the Brits survived. Then the Italian player moved his Italians in a turn that placed him in front of the slower Brits. Down went one of the Cr.32s as a result! The other Cr.32 would take an airframe hit, and the Italian ace had taken an engine hit by this point. The ace took another hit, leaving one Italian left on the board, and that one unable to climb or dive due to a lucky hit. 

The result - an overwhelming British victory. They lost one Gladiator, had another damaged, but the Italians had two aircraft shot down and one damaged. Throw in the aircrew quality and the victory points piled up for the British players.

The death of an ace, the left Cr.42 about to go down

The planes were part of the collection of our good but departed friend Bob, so it was great to get them on the table once again.