Whether it was planned or just a case of serendipity, HMS Bulldog getting a cameo here is quite apropos, considering what she was most known for IOTL.
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A very interesting little story and one I was unaware of until now. Good work on getting Butler involved somehow and weaving in your future Italian spies without it seeming in anyway forced.
I can understand not making a formal protest, by this point Italy has already flounced out of the Second London Naval Treaty so it's not going to achieve anything in treaty terms and as everyone was flexing limits it won't make much difference anywhere else. Italy is still seen as having value as a counter to Germany and keeping them 'on side', or at least not going full on Axis, is probably more valuable than any slight benefit from revealing Mussolini's treaty breaking. After all France and the UK did succeed in keeping Italy neutral until France had basically fallen, so on it's own terms that part of the plan worked, sadly it was one of the few that did.
Our author does like these little details.
I can understand not making a formal protest, by this point Italy has already flounced out of the Second London Naval Treaty so it's not going to achieve anything in treaty terms and as everyone was flexing limits it won't make much difference anywhere else. Italy is still seen as having value as a counter to Germany and keeping them 'on side', or at least not going full on Axis, is probably more valuable than any slight benefit from revealing Mussolini's treaty breaking. After all France and the UK did succeed in keeping Italy neutral until France had basically fallen, so on it's own terms that part of the plan worked, sadly it was one of the few that did.
I do feel that governors get a a bit of a rum deal in popular imagination. Oh you do get the duds, but mostly they do important if unheralded work and do it well, despite the best attempts of the foreign office to prevent them doing so. Indeed I also believe that most governors feel that the real "enemy" they have to face is not whatever immediate local situation they have in front of them, but the foreign office and whichever rhubarb is currently Secretary of State. So it was nice to see one given a chance to shine, if at once remove.
Very nice, I couldn't tell which way things would go as the door was being opened, luckily for our heroes the Italians kept to their usual level of competence. 
One has to feel bad for the Italian navy, they were not particulary good shots and could be lax at times, but they displayed valor and agressive tactics during the war... and had some absolutely beautiful ships!
@Captured Joe - if not for a fatal lack of oil, the Italian Navy might have proved itself to be a formidable foe. But... if Germany, Japan or Italy had possessed a ready supply of oil the history of that century would be vastly different.
Naturally. And had strong industrial bases.
Or had Wraith solve all their problems for them...
In an unrelated matter, its time to update the
The Great Big List of Madhouse AAR prompts and Ideas (from A Royal Prerogative) [threadmarked] once again.
And I'm wondering how we might utilise this resource for the betterment of aarkind. Recent and past threads have demonstrated a strong thirst for topic threads on the writing process, aars, ideas, narratives and all that stuff. Should there be a separate thread somewhere for the prompt list so we can continue to add to it (even post short story/rough drafts of ideas) and talk about stuff like that and just have a general natter, much like the old bAAR system? Or is it a product of this thread that would die swiftly if I foolishly tore it out?
And actually funding their radar scientist. And better fire control. And reliable shell factories. And different leadership. And some sort of co-operation between air and sea. And different tactics. And better morale. And not having orders that torpedoes were 'too expensive to fire'. And ideally not fighting the Royal Navy, but only the French which all their tactics, strategy and ship building had been focused on.
Fuel shortages might not even make their top 10 problems now I think about it. Italy managed plenty of sorties and operations in the first two years of the war, they just didn't have much success when they did leave port, though they did manage some. It wasn't till late in '42 that fuel became a problem and the die had long since been cast by then.
There's another AAR prompt - Top of the Flops. Due to the relentless awfulness of naval combat in all Paradox games the AAR represents all naval battles as actually being games of Top Trumps between the national leaders, complete with outrageous stereotypes, fourth-wall breaking verbal jousting and far too much over detailed tech pron. Bonus points for when the chasm between the actual unit, and whatever monstrosity has been put in the game, is particularly wide.
The prompt lists does risk crossing over with Guess the Author I think. Not quite the same thing I know, but similar ground. That said I have a pile of prompts and ideas that didn't come from this thread and that I know I will never actually have time to write, so somewhere to share and discuss them would be good. Let GtA finish this round (and see how popular it is), then pick the best prompt to post/discuss and stick it up as a new thread?
As I said, have @Wraith11B 'fix' everything.
Italy's problems aren't germany's, true. They're under no real threat from Russia, the allies at least speak to them even if they don't like them, and they have a colonial empire. It's shit, but it does/will have oil. Eventually. And all their neighbours are weak or French, so they're basically playing on easy mode, so long as they don't deliberately muck it up for themselves...
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Is there a way Mussolini can stay and Italy won't combust? Or does he defiantly have to go, for prompts sake?
Catchy, if nothing else.
Oh delicious. Especially when you start a playground fight over whether 'N/A Not Avaliable' means insta win or insta lose against anything.
Apocalypse did this a lot in the Marvel Trump collection.
It's more reading through past community threads again and noting how many devolve into lets talk about writing, and the best ones were designed for the purpose. Everything to do with bARR, and the podcast threads especially were good for this. Launching another one of those might be an idea, but I suspect the massive list of silly and not so silly prompts to constantly work off of and add to would be a bit more robust.
Just caught up reading through all the updates. Great writing and coverage of events and working through the game-play vs good, believable story.
They don't even have to wait for Libyan oil, the largest onshore oil reserves in Europe are in Albania and Italy can/did grab them for minimal cost. It's not the best quality, but that is a trivial detail unlikely to bother Il Duce and his demands for autarky.
I wouldn't call Mussolini's economics a success, but they were not the usual Axis disaster area. Italy did not have the huge stored up debt/spending problems of Germany and Japan, the economy was not running particularly hot (there was a bit of money printing going on and wages were not keeping up with inflation, so not pleasant but not a disaster).
Italy could do better under someone else absolutely, but I don't think it is doomed if Mussolini stays in power. He was always more cautious so probably isn't going to do anything too stupid. After all it was fairly rational to look at the summer of 1940 and conclude that as France was doomed, of course the British would make peace. You would have to be mad to carry on fighting if you were in London's position, so why not play the jackal and jump in to claim some of the scraps?
Avoid that and it probably goes like Franco Spain - not a nice place but nothing blatantly and publiclly horrific, propped up by US money post-war as it's anti-communist and then a return to democracy when the leader dies.
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Not sure how much oil Italy can get out of Albania in HOI4? I don't recall it being amazing without supplementing it with foreign exports or Libya. At least, not enough to keep up with a mobile land army and a navy burning fuel. But in game, it is very easy for Italy to take over the balkans, get Spain in an alliance or take their med islands, and Turkey as well. Then stay out of every war unless and until the amercians show up, and just pick their side as per usual.
I am in no way surprised. That sort of alternate history would be the wrong-sort-of-fun so obviously Paradox wouldn't include it.
That said there is always the chance that the upcoming HOI4 eastern Med DLC includes an Albanian focus tree, adding in the oil, 15 bunkers per square mile and the option to bring in CB Fry to replace Zog. I fully expect to be disappointed.
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Well, I would say they seem obsessed with adding in as many royalist factions as possible to every country they update so...I wouldn't be surprised if they did. I hope at least a mod is working on it.
@TheButterflyComposer - "And had strong industrial bases." No, a strong industrial base was not a necessity for an effective Italian fleet, just a necessity for rapidly replacing losses and maintaining naval strength. France and the Soviet Union had a stronger industrial base and arguably no better a navy, and Japan's navy was far stronger on an equivalent or weaker base.
@El Pip - "And actually funding their radar scientist. And better fire control. And reliable shell factories. And different leadership. And some sort of co-operation between air and sea. And different tactics. And better morale. And not having orders that torpedoes were 'too expensive to fire'. And ideally not fighting the Royal Navy, but only the French which all their tactics, strategy and ship building had been focused on."
Radar would have been nice to have, but really no-one but Britain did, and both German and Japanese navies managed to fight effectively without it - at least for a while.
Italian fire control was apparently quite good, at least on the 'Littorio' class. Apparently, shell quality-control was to blame for the inaccuracy... but while we could look at British issues with shells cracking rather than penetrating, or German and American issues with fuzing, we can just say that most navies had issues of some sort or another. As for different leadership... they didn't do badly considering they were not able to do a lot of training or make many sorties (see 'lack of oil'). It's true they didn't want to risk the big ships, but you are conflating British strategy with Italian. Britain needed the Italians to come out and fight and lose - the Italians were not well-served by doing that.
And as for leadership - read up on the actions of the light forces. A lot of Italian units fought hard and well, though the men weren't gung-ho for the war.
No, I don't agree that Italy needed all of those things you list. I do think the single most necessary thing was a steady oil supply, making naval operations more frequent, giving operational experience and enabling larger components to be used. Britain would still have won but they'd have needed a lot more forces in the Med, I think. I won;t argue that Italy's navy was good - just that, with sufficient oil, it would have performed better.
"Due to the relentless awfulness of naval combat in all Paradox games the AAR represents all naval battles as actually being games of Top Trumps between the national leaders, complete with outrageous stereotypes, fourth-wall breaking verbal jousting and far too much over detailed tech pron. Bonus points for when the chasm between the actual unit, and whatever monstrosity has been put in the game, is particularly wide."
I agree that Paradox's naval ideas need a complete make-over, as in burning down and replacing from scratch. That's true for every Paradox game I've ever played... As I recall, we put up a list of good suggestions for mechanics when HoI3 was in planning and Paradox ignored all of them.
@El Pip - "And actually funding their radar scientist. And better fire control. And reliable shell factories. And different leadership. And some sort of co-operation between air and sea. And different tactics. And better morale. And not having orders that torpedoes were 'too expensive to fire'. And ideally not fighting the Royal Navy, but only the French which all their tactics, strategy and ship building had been focused on."
Radar would have been nice to have, but really no-one but Britain did, and both German and Japanese navies managed to fight effectively without it - at least for a while.
Italian fire control was apparently quite good, at least on the 'Littorio' class. Apparently, shell quality-control was to blame for the inaccuracy... but while we could look at British issues with shells cracking rather than penetrating, or German and American issues with fuzing, we can just say that most navies had issues of some sort or another. As for different leadership... they didn't do badly considering they were not able to do a lot of training or make many sorties (see 'lack of oil'). It's true they didn't want to risk the big ships, but you are conflating British strategy with Italian. Britain needed the Italians to come out and fight and lose - the Italians were not well-served by doing that.
And as for leadership - read up on the actions of the light forces. A lot of Italian units fought hard and well, though the men weren't gung-ho for the war.
No, I don't agree that Italy needed all of those things you list. I do think the single most necessary thing was a steady oil supply, making naval operations more frequent, giving operational experience and enabling larger components to be used. Britain would still have won but they'd have needed a lot more forces in the Med, I think. I won;t argue that Italy's navy was good - just that, with sufficient oil, it would have performed better.
"Due to the relentless awfulness of naval combat in all Paradox games the AAR represents all naval battles as actually being games of Top Trumps between the national leaders, complete with outrageous stereotypes, fourth-wall breaking verbal jousting and far too much over detailed tech pron. Bonus points for when the chasm between the actual unit, and whatever monstrosity has been put in the game, is particularly wide."
I agree that Paradox's naval ideas need a complete make-over, as in burning down and replacing from scratch. That's true for every Paradox game I've ever played... As I recall, we put up a list of good suggestions for mechanics when HoI3 was in planning and Paradox ignored all of them.
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There is a difference between shells that don't always do their job when they hit and shells you struggle to even achieve a hit with. One seems much worse than the other.
You are trying to have you cake and eat it. Or perhaps bunker your oil and burn it. Italy was either not coming out to fight due to strategy (fleet in being, etc) or wanted to come out more but couldn't (lack of oil). It can't be both and I think it was neither;
Take Vittorio Veneto. Commissioned and operational August 1940 and straight out to attack Convoy MB.3, then sortieing after the British fleet, then out again in October after MB.5 Then in November the Italian Fleet got Tarranto-ed (that is a verb right?). Veneto went out to fight the Battle of Cape Spartivento in December, shortly after Giulio Cesare got bombed by the RAF and put into dock for a few months and Veneto was the only operational battleship Italy had left. But stil she went out to intercept Force H in February '41. Battle of Cape Matapan was March and it took until August for her to be repaired, but then straight back out to try and intercept the British fleet. Then in September trying to attack the Operation Halbeard convoy, a few more sorties later in the year and then getting torpedoed by HMS Urge in Decemeber and out for repairs until early '42, then straight out to try and attack the Op Vigorous convoy in June.
My point is that the Italian fleet seemed busy enough, lots of sorties made and sailing out. Now I accept that having so much of the fleet in dry dock after Taranto made it easier to spread the fuel around the few available units, but for the early years of the war fuel shortages do not appear to be that much of a limiting factor. Middle of 1942 things do change, fuel shortages do start to bite, but in the early years there is enough stocks to enable a lot of operations. That so many sorties end in nothing is in large part because the aerial recon and naval intelligence keep letting them down and fail to find the enemy (and in fairness the RAF also often fail to find the Italians either).
With some radar, better co-ordination with the air force, better tactics around scouting with light units all those sorties might have achieved something, instead a lot of fuel was spent sailing around failing to even make contact.
I'm well aware of their and exploits and I see them as proof of how bad the leadership and morale in the main fleet was. As you say Italian sailors could and did fight well in some units, so the fact that so many did not points to failures in the leadership of the main fleet. Had the light units attached to the fleet shown the same aggression and flair as the MAS forces you'd expect the set piece naval battles to have gone better.
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The Italians suffered by fighting wars they weren't really prepared for (the British in Africa, and on the Med Sea, and arguably Greece). It is though the world began and ended with an Italian war against France, with no one else getting involved.
The bAAR just reopened, by the way.
The bAAR just reopened, by the way.
@El Pip -
You have it exactly back-ways round. You cannot be a credible fleet-in-being if you never come out and fight. And choosing a strategy for reasons of strength and oil reserves doesn't mean you'd choose the same one if you had more oil.
You have it exactly back-ways round. You cannot be a credible fleet-in-being if you never come out and fight. And choosing a strategy for reasons of strength and oil reserves doesn't mean you'd choose the same one if you had more oil.
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Leaving aside clearly irreconcilable arguments about fuel strategy, I have been wondering about Edward.
One of his problems appears to be that he lacks a trusted advisor. he has friends/sycophants in the Belvedere Set and he has inherited his fathers advisors, but it appears he has no-one he trusts and believes who will tell him what he needs to be told but doesn't want to hear. If Duff Cooper did decide to side with parliament and the country told the King "It is love or duty, in this instance you cannot have both." I doubt the King would listen and the result would be cutting his ties with Duff Cooper not a change in the King's thinking.
To be fair I've read that Wallace would also have been prepared to settle as a mistress as even she could see the problems, so if even she couldn't tell him the hard truth I think this is just a fundamental problem with Edward.
One of his problems appears to be that he lacks a trusted advisor. he has friends/sycophants in the Belvedere Set and he has inherited his fathers advisors, but it appears he has no-one he trusts and believes who will tell him what he needs to be told but doesn't want to hear. If Duff Cooper did decide to side with parliament and the country told the King "It is love or duty, in this instance you cannot have both." I doubt the King would listen and the result would be cutting his ties with Duff Cooper not a change in the King's thinking.
To be fair I've read that Wallace would also have been prepared to settle as a mistress as even she could see the problems, so if even she couldn't tell him the hard truth I think this is just a fundamental problem with Edward.
AAR prompt, heal the divide between both sides of the fuel strategy debate.