(Long-form post(s) in-bound)
A conflict that’s very overlooked in media, be it movies, games, art, what have you, the Spanish civil war opens up a lot of options for a very early-war campaign that offers odd gameplay dynamics and interesting weapons, vehicles, and soldiers to play with.
Starting from the top, you’re going to have two factions, like most campaigns:
The Nationalists: A group comprised of various monarchists, traditionalists, and Falangists that supported the original 1936 coup against the 2nd Republic, provided manpower and equipment support by the Wehrmacht in the form of weapons, planes, and tanks.
The Republicans: A group made up of the Popular Front government deposed in 1936, and allied Anarchists, Communists, Socialists, etc. This faction is provided manpower and equipment by the USSR, as well as manufacturing their own weapons and vehicles.
I’ll be starting with one faction before the other, and describing each class of soldier’s likely arms and equipment.
Starting off: The Nationalist army:
The uniforms of both sides of the Civil War are to say the least, a little funky. Of the two factions, the Nationalist’s uniform is somewhat more standardized, as the revolt began within the army. As such they wear the uniform of the 2nd Spanish Republic, a dull brown-khaki uniform with puttees or gaiters, similar to uniforms of WWI and the interwar period.
Like uniforms, the rifles of the Nationalists will be somwhat standardized, but not entirely so.
The starter garrison rifle for all troops should be comparatively crummy to all the other nation starter rifles, so I’ll nominate the 1891 Mauser pattern carbine. Everybody bought them in the late 1800s, including Spain, who would go on to later produce and purchase new-pattern Mausers for better performance.
Since it’s a carbine and a pre-WWI gun, make the damage a little lower than the other 7mm guns, around 13 or so damage, a la the Gew.33/40 in Moscow.
The first unlocked rifle for Troopers will most likely be the 1893 7mm “Spanish Mauser” long rifle, the pre-WW1 arm of the Spanish army, built on license or imported from Germany.
It’s downsides ought to be that it’s slow to load, slower to fire, and less wieldy hipfiring, but very accurate and flat-shooting, as a 7mm mauser should be. Damage can match german K98s but the sound should be sharper, since it’s a smaller cartridge.
The second rifle ought to be the most common rifle in the war, the 1916 Short Rifle.
Light, handy at close range, and faster-firing than the 1893 Long rifle, but less accurate at range, with the same damage.
The fourth rifle could be an import K98 or Gew98 in 8mm mauser, similar to the 1893 rifle but slightly higher damage at the cost of firing speed and handyness in close combat.
For assaulters, the Nationalist army had options in the form of:
The Narajero: (It’s just an MP28 copy)
make it a little different from the MP28 by fire rate and reload or something, who knows
The Erma EMP:
Similar to the MP28, slightly higher ROF, and 32-round magazines, it’s a german side-stick SMG, what can I say.
Snipers:
Give them a 1916 or 1893 rifle with a scope mount, same treatment as any other sniper in the game so far:
Gunners: The republicans had available to them in terms of light machine guns:
Hotchkiss m1922: 7mm mauser, 20rd overhead mags like the ZB-26, or 15/24/30rd feed strips that run through the gun from the side. 450rpm RoF
Maxim MG08/15:
Absurdly heavy, very slow, slow to aim, slowest thing to reload you can think of, 7mm mauser, 200-round belt, hell you can make it overheat if you like too. “Slow. Slow. Slow but steady” should be the MO. No bunnyhopping here.
MG34:
The germans were testing these in spain during the civil war, make it the last MG you unlock, we already hear enough yelling about it.
As for bombers, well…Bombers are in a tough spot here. Anti-armor weapons at this point are mostly restricted to light field guns a la PaK 35/36s, makeshift weapons like fire blankets, molotovs or logs. My suggestion is as follows: Either make bomber squads spawn a light field gun ‘vehicle’ they have to position in a good spot to kill tanks, or just give them lots of grenade slots. Historically there’s not much to do here, Republican bombers are in the same boat.
Stats wise it’s just a mobile field gun with the same gun as a Pz. IIIE, you guys are already planning mobile field guns.
(this isn’t a PaK actually, just a Nationalist field gun more along the lines of Rheinmetall mountain guns of the late 1800s)
There’s not overmuch room for flame troopers here either, it’s very much an early campaign, so it feels more archaic than moscow by far.
Tankers are…interesting to say the least. The spanish civil war is a very odd mix of WW1 and mid-interwar armor. I’ve considered the tanks available to the Nationalists, and the Republicans, and i’ve come up with a reasonable list.
The starter tank for the Nationalists must be the Pz. I. The backbone of early blitzkrieg, the pz. I has a 2 man crew of driver and gunner/commander, same as the T-60. It has 7-13mm of armor, and an armament of 2 7.92 MG15 machineguns. This is no tank-killer at all, but a purely infantry-killing machine.
The second tank is equally underwhelming, being a captured Renault FT: The 2nd Spanish republic was supplied with over 60 of these WW1-era tanks, and of that number nearly half were captured and repurposed by the Nationalists. You can steal the nationalist paint jobs from period-captured T-26s to make them stand out as well. Unlike the Pz. I, the FT is slow, at a max speed of 7km/h, to the pz. I’s 37km/h. But also like the Pz. I, it’s 37mm Puteaux SA-18, though woefully under-gunned, can penetrate the skins of other armored vehicles, around 25-30mm of armor at 90 degrees.
For the third tank, it really can only be the logical choice given the conflict: A captured T-26. It’s underwhelming I know, i know, but in history, the Nationalists captured over half the 200+ T-26s donated to the Republican cause by the USSR, restoring 50 of that number cleaning them and repainting them in nationalist livery.
As for pilots, well, there’s a small, tiny issue, in that there’s no real attack aircraft or light bombers in this conflict, only heavy bombers and fighters. For the nationalist air forces your choice of vehicle that suits the scale are:
He 51
Fiat CR.32
He 112
At most you can have some bombs with these ones but don’t expect ground strikes to be very effective.
I’m going to cover the Republican forces in the next post, as in all honesty they’re a little weird equipment wise, so stay tuned while i get that together.
