The Italian surname "De Angelis" is a true although not very much common surname from central and northern Italy. It more of less mean "from angels".
At the Italian Armistiche of 8 September 1943 the Royal Italian Army was left without order and the king fled to Allied occupied territories. After limited fighting but also many criminal massacres by the Germans, most of the Italian army surrendered and was captured and used as slave labor. Thousands committed fascist Italians followed the German for the remainder of the war, but many more decide to join the allies as regular troopers or as partisans till the victory in Italy in 2 may 1945.
The Italian tactical bomber SM.79 Sparviero, a fast trimotor monoplane built during the second half of the thirties, was nicknamed "il gobbo maledetto" ("damned hunchback") because of the well positioned dorsal defensive machine-gun.
Like depicted in the game, the historical Montecassino abbey of 530 a.D. was completely destroyed by aerial allied bombing, ought to the fact it could serve as a favorable observation position for German troops. In reality the abbey was free of military presence, but after its destruction is was then converted in an especially hard to see or capture fortification manned by German Fallschjager.
Only later the Allied admitted their mistake and the abbey was rebuilt exactly as it was before in 1956.
The second Battle of El Alamein saw the forces of Montogomery well refueled and composed of: 195000 soldiers form all the Commonwealth (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and others), 1323 tanks: among them 246 Grant and 286 Sherman, American built and the best in the field, other older model were 421 Crusader, 223 Valentine and 167 light American Stuart and 435 armored cars. They were covered 892 artillery guns, 1451 anti-tank guns (but only 800 better 6 pounders) and 750 airplanes.
Rommel commanded only 116000 men, half of them Italian, 542 tanks: 28 Panzer II, 81 Panzer IIIH, 88 Panzer IIIJ, 8 Panzer IVD, Panzer IVF/2 and 279 Italian M13/40 and M14/41 plus only 30 good Semoventi da 75/18s and 192 armored cars. The artillery had 552 field guns and 496 anti-tank gun but, apart from the famous Flak 88 and the good Italian 90/53 was inferior to the British one and 770 airplane in bad operational conditions. Italo-German forces had little ammunition, fuel and general supplies.