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Battlefront.com has released some new information about the upcoming Combat Mission: Fortress Italy World War II strategy title. The update includes a new "Table of Organization and Equipment," as well as a collection of new screenshots.

The first in a "new family" of Combat Mission titles, CM:FI will focus on the Allied struggle to defeat Italy during World War II. The stand alone game will give players the chance to play as the American, Italian, and German forces in three unique campaigns. CM:FI will also feature a variety of new equipment and vehicles, and will be the first Combat Mission game to utilize the features of CMx2 engine Version 2.0.

Fortress Italy is a new "family" of Combat Mission games covering the Allied struggle to knock Italy out of the Second World War. This initial release deals explicitly with the battle for Sicily and sets the groundwork for future additions to simulate the hard fighting in the rugged terrain of "Europe's underbelly" up until the war's end in 1945.

The combat forces immediately available to players include the full range of historically available American, Italian, and German forces which fought in Sicily. In addition to the completely new Italian forces, both the American and German organizations differ significantly from those familiar to Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy players. Some of the highlights are elite formations such as:

• Italian Bersaglieri
  
• American Rangers
  
• German Herman Göring Division

Of course, the time frame and units involved require equipment new to the Combat Mission series. A full list is available on the new Fortress Italy website, however here are some particularly fun gadgets to play with:

• R-35 Light Tank
  
• Semovente 90/53
  
• Panzer Mk III
  
• Grille
  
• M3 GMC Halftrack
  
• T30 HMC Halftrack

Players get to dive in and try these forces out in three (!!!) campaigns, one from the perspective of each national force (USA, Germany, Italy), a host of new stand alone battles, and of course the automatically generated QuickBattles. It won't take long for Normandy players to feel how different this time period and setting is from what they are used to. And the Italian forces are very interesting indeed! Squads the size of Platoons, almost no radios at all, few antitank weapons, proportionally few support weapons, and relatively light armored vehicles present even the best CM player with a lot of new challenges.

Combat Mission Fortress Italy: Table Of Organization & Equipment

Combat Mission Fortress Italy: Screenshots

Combat Mission: Fortress Italy

Buy Combat Mission: Fortress Italy

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