Italy setup & early war

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jjdenver
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Italy setup & early war

Post by jjdenver »

If Euro-axis wants to leave their options open (with regard to Barb 41 or Gib 41 or Sealion 41), what's a good IT setup look like?

Is it almost mandatory to put an HQ in Tobruk with some troops to tie down Wavell so he doesn't head to France? Is the fort usually best in Tripoli facing east? I guess always a unit in Albania? MTN + ART on FR border? Anything else the Italians should be doing for setup? Fleet in La Spezia or hiding in Trieste?

Again keeping their options open when does IT usually enter the war? SO 39 to get max lending from GE (to build air for Barb 41 or air+MAR+AMPH for other strategies)? Or some later turn and if so which? Is it best to wait until MJ 40 so you can use your surp impulse against France doing ground strikes? (if CW lets you wait that long) What other objectives should IT have on the surp impulse?

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Dabrion
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RE: Italy setup & early war

Post by Dabrion »

IT should enter as soon as possible imoh, at the latest for the summer offensive on France. You cannot keep your options open as the Axis, you have to decide early what you want to do and go for it (limitation being in the build plans).
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RE: Italy setup & early war

Post by Centuur »

ORIGINAL: Dabrion

IT should enter as soon as possible imoh, at the latest for the summer offensive on France. You cannot keep your options open as the Axis, you have to decide early what you want to do and go for it (limitation being in the build plans).

Agreed...
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RE: Italy setup & early war

Post by jjdenver »

So would you rather enter in SO or ND 39 than MJ 40 with Italy in almost all cases?
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RE: Italy setup & early war

Post by Dabrion »

ORIGINAL: jjdenver

So would you rather enter in SO or ND 39 than MJ 40 with Italy in almost all cases?

There are many strategic roles Italy can play. The most effective one is to be the Axis fighter force for a '41 Barbarossa, with an early trouble maker role in the Med. The when and how questions cannot be answered without consulting Germany. Italy is a sidekick after all..

General points to the argument of early entry:
pro: ND and JF are the turns when the Med is hit by nasty weather. Therefore it is worth it to exploit the SO39 weather for automatic invasion and reliable movement in the Atlas mountains. You can hit the FR TRS before the FR colonial troops are shipped in.
con: the '39 USE chits are the most "expensive" ones


To put this into perspective here is a more complete picture of an overall Euro-Axis strategy from IT PoV:
Lets assume Germany is going for early France, possibly starting light on Poland and using Rundstedt on the Reserves for Netherlands in SO39, Belgium ND39, and geting into contact with FR/CW lines by start of '40. Means CW will likely respond with an early BEF. CW lift will be completely booked out until '40 for the BEF, Gib, Malta, Egypt and maybe India shuttles. Ergo no CW lift to react to Italian aggression without compromising other priorities. IT is not at war with the CW, so lift is the only effective "weapon" against IT aggression. Might even make them contemplate CW DoW IT in '39 which would more than amortise the IT DoW FR USE cost.
If CW DoW IT, facing the CW fleet (specifically the CW carriers) will be unpleasant. CW will always have more surface assets than IT, yet the kicker in the force balance in the Med will be air projection beyond the 1box. He who rules the 2 and 3 boxes shall be king of the Med!
Builds should be 2 NAVs, 1 ATR and a PARA div (to be reformed to a corps once available), the HQ, all divisions and remainder PIL and FTR/ATR. Perhaps break down your worst INF corps and request German 4mover INF and divisions to replace it :P Also ask for the 110s and the Heinkel NAV. GE will probably get hold of your subs in return.

Early objectives are (roughly in order):
  • in the first extract the supply unit from your Africa possessions (use the bad TRS for that!)
  • taking out the French TRS before the colonial troops reach France. Count this as killing three FR corps. You want to damage the TRS so you have a 50% to get it on Vichyfication.
  • taking out the French Fleet, especially the CV
  • keep a latent threat in the Alps; between taking out the TRS and tackling three corps in the Alp IT is contributing a lot to the France campaign without having a particularly heroic role.
  • landing 1 divisions in Corsica to take away an important air field for later stages of the war
  • landing 2 divisions in Algeria, to be reinforced with Balbo and "others" to take out Algiers and Rabat
  • baiting CW into DOW IT
  • contribute the LND3 and FTRs to the France effort as they roll out of your factories
After Algiers, if GE send you 4movers and divisions (and only then) set up for a Greece take-out. Key here is Para-Threat on Athens, which will likely have them setup the two units in Athens; allowing you to take all remaining ports with automatic invasions to make it impossible for CW to ship in four corps (Greece can be a real biac! so be cautious). After Greece you build yourself up in a defensive perimeter and play Luftwaffe in disguise everywhere Germany sets boot. For Barbarossa IT is in charge of FTR cover and ATR operation (for German Paras). This allows the para-supported Panzer spearhead to be the pace maker in long summer turns and not the air cover.
Optionally and if you managed to take Rabat I would pledge for a fire-and-forget attempt on the Rock. But a conservative GE will not want to loose the quality assets required. By this stage it also depends on the general progress and success of Allied interventions along the way what is still achievable before you need to put pressure on the RU garrison.

As you can see this does not include going for Gibraltar, Egypt, Spain or any operations that would distract from gutting the Bear. The corner stones are an early pressure on the CW It is probably what most would understand to be a "all out Barbarossa".

--

Timetable and builds may not work out for other strategic routes and are just an example. So here is a nice thought experiment: The center-piece for every Euro-Axis strategy is the '41 Barb. Make a list of all assets you need for that and reverse engineer a build plan from MA41 back to SO39 that completely covers these assets. These assets will be your "strategic assets" that will considerably influence how the game goes for the Axis.
Now inspect this fundamental build plan and determine how much (or more accurately how little) room there is for other strategic options. Those holes you can fill how you see fit. In all that will be a bit of legwork, but it is well worth it!
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RE: Italy setup & early war

Post by Centuur »

Personally, I wouldn't write of a "Close the Med" strategy until the first turn has ended. Everything has to do with how the first turn is going along.

If it is a long turn and Germany is already on the outskirts of Paris (which can happen if you get very lucky with die rolls for weather and turn ending), you might get in a position where France collapses in N/D 1939. Sure, it's a long shot, but if that happens, I would go further towards Spain and Gibraltar and build accordingly, since a Barbarossa 1940 is not a very good thing for Germany at all. They lack the necessary manpower.

But if it looks like a "normal" campaign in France, meaning the capture of Paris in J/A 1940 (which is what happens on average), I would go for a Barbarossa 1941 "throw the kitchen sink at them" type too.
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RE: Italy setup & early war

Post by jjdenver »

Great post Dabrion. It sounds like you are recommending Barb 41 in every game. Is close the med 41, Barb 42 a bad option for Axis? My understanding is that it was one of 3 viable options (Barb 41, Med 41, Sealion), although I'm not so sure about Sealion as the other two.
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RE: Italy setup & early war

Post by Dabrion »

The Med strategy is viable, but will lead to a '42 Barbarossa and perhaps a Sitz.
Sealion I have only seen done successfully after Russia was already beaten.
I would always factor in opponent strength/experience too, you want to address your strongest opponent with your strategic route.

From my experience you can only learn one or two things per game. The pace and fate of the game will be decided a lot in the GE vs RU conflict, and to gain a good understanding of the dynamics of that conflict is what I would recommend to focus on first (from either perspective). Thus the advice to do the '41 Barbarossa without distraction for the Axis. Once you outgrow that route after a couple of games you can experiment, and you will be in a much better position to evaluate which strategic alternation are viable and how they compare.
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jjdenver
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RE: Italy setup & early war

Post by jjdenver »

Thanks, good stuff. I assume that your entire post is assuming Barb 41 is happening and you even manage to fit in Morocco/Algeria/Tunisia (or some of those) along with Greece before you have to belly up to the Russian border?
Some specific questions:
"Lets assume Germany is going for early France, possibly starting light on Poland and using Rundstedt on the Reserves for Netherlands in SO39, Belgium ND39, and geting into contact with FR/CW lines by start of '40."
When does Denmark occur with this strat? Usually summer 40? Spending units on Denmark while doing early France doesn't seem worth it.
This strat seems really tough to pull off. Do you go for Netherlands using strictly reserves + Runstedt or what other units are usually set up in the west at start?

"Builds should be 2 NAVs, 1 ATR and a PARA div (to be reformed to a corps once available), the HQ, all divisions and remainder PIL and FTR/ATR. Perhaps break down your worst INF corps and request German 4mover INF and divisions to replace it :P Also ask for the 110s and the Heinkel NAV."
How can you break down an INF? IT starts with 1 DIV on map and 1 MOTDIV in pool. That's not enough in pool to break down an INF.

Also I am missing part of what you are saying. What do you mean by request German INF + DIVs to replace your broken down INF? Are you trading your DIV+MOTDIV from breakdown over to Germany for his DIVs? Why? I'm missing the point or something here.

"in the first extract the supply unit from your Africa possessions "
Why the supply unit? It seems like an INF would be more useful for IT since IT doesn't have many non-oil burning units (INF/GAR/MIL) and needs plenty to garrison Italy, Albania, Corsica, etc. What do you use the supply unit for? I never saw much use for it and always thought I'd rather have the INF. Also if you use impulse 1 & 2 to move the TRS down and RTB it with the unit then you are already at impulse 3 before you can DOW allies in SO 39. Is this when you usually do it? impulse 3?

"landing 2 divisions in Algeria, to be reinforced with Balbo and "others" to take out Algiers and Rabat"
Why would you want Algeria (and possibly Morrocco and Tunisia) if you are going Barb 41. I don't completely understand how Vichy works but CW I think would usually clean up N Africa in 41 and at latest 42 while building up to invade Italy in 43. Having Mor/Alg/Tun as Vichy should hold out longer than as Italian possessions right? I think(?) CW doesn't want to attack Vichy minors until US is around in strength (i.e. late 42?) but if those are Italian held I'd expect CW to invade them and wipe them out in 41 or at latest summer 42. The resource isn't going to be consistently ship-able across W Med so you'd have to take Morocco to make that shippable and defending those countries puts your precious units at risk where they may be cut out of supply and die easily rather than putting them in Sardinia & Italy where they are likely to be harder to kill. I think Cagliari in Sardinia is Italian supply source right? So no supply probs there. Giving CW Mor/Alg/Tun in 41/42 just gives them an airbase to go after Sicily and Sardinia sooner than if they were Vichy? What am I missing?

A separate question. If Wavell heads to France, do you go for Egypt as IT? It seems almost mandatory to set up at least TER+INF+GUN on Egypt border so they can walk forward and you can drop Graziani 3 hexes into Egypt the impulse after you notice Wavell going to France? or is this not worth doing and you just let Wavell go to France?

Another separate question. Do you usually just leave Malta alone?
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RE: Italy setup & early war

Post by Dabrion »

ORIGINAL: jjdenver
I assume that your entire post is assuming Barb 41 is happening and you even manage to fit in Morocco/Algeria/Tunisia (or some of those) along with Greece before you have to belly up to the Russian border?
Some specific questions:
"Lets assume Germany is going for early France, possibly starting light on Poland and using Rundstedt on the Reserves for Netherlands in SO39, Belgium ND39, and geting into contact with FR/CW lines by start of '40."
When does Denmark occur with this strat? Usually summer 40? Spending units on Denmark while doing early France doesn't seem worth it.
This strat seems really tough to pull off. Do you go for Netherlands using strictly reserves + Runstedt or what other units are usually set up in the west at start?
I am playing RAW8 usually where the Baltic is by default closed to the Allies. The only necessity to take out Denmark is in response to a good mining roll in RAW8.
Denmark only needs two units to be taken, one 4mover to run to Copenhagen and one 5mover to run to Fredrickshavn. In the unlikely case CW is going into Denmark by DoW, they will probably do that to support Russian aggression of Finland or to bait an unpropotional response, e.g. for sports..
The former needs to be addressed! If they come for sports (like I saw they did in your game), you secure Kiel and your Baltic CPs and call them a nicely self-contained prisoner camp that can be smoked out later. The price is Paris early and they are obviously not putting their money where the price is. Their weak spot is in the supply lines, that is where you can hit with spare assets (I saw they have a TRS out of fighter cover in your game.. go for that with the Heinkel maybe).
ORIGINAL: jjdenver
"Builds should be 2 NAVs, 1 ATR and a PARA div (to be reformed to a corps once available), the HQ, all divisions and remainder PIL and FTR/ATR. Perhaps break down your worst INF corps and request German 4mover INF and divisions to replace it :P Also ask for the 110s and the Heinkel NAV."
How can you break down an INF? IT starts with 1 DIV on map and 1 MOTDIV in pool. That's not enough in pool to break down an INF.
There is a break down possible in '39. now that you say it, I guess it should be the MTN?
ORIGINAL: jjdenver
Also I am missing part of what you are saying. What do you mean by request German INF + DIVs to replace your broken down INF? Are you trading your DIV+MOTDIV from breakdown over to Germany for his DIVs? Why? I'm missing the point or something here.
No, I meant IT is asking for GE to send over units once they are done with Poland. Specifically 4mover INF and leg mover divisions, e.g. units that are secondary to the France front.
ORIGINAL: jjdenver
"in the first extract the supply unit from your Africa possessions "
Why the supply unit? It seems like an INF would be more useful for IT since IT doesn't have many non-oil burning units (INF/GAR/MIL) and needs plenty to garrison Italy, Albania, Corsica, etc. What do you use the supply unit for? I never saw much use for it and always thought I'd rather have the INF. Also if you use impulse 1 & 2 to move the TRS down and RTB it with the unit then you are already at impulse 3 before you can DOW allies in SO 39. Is this when you usually do it? impulse 3?
IT has really bad INF, all 3movers. Still a decent defense for Ethiopian capital or Mog to conserve a capital for conquest later or at least make the Wallies dig it out with effort. The supply unit will have its use when you defend in Northern Africa later. Your mileage may vary.
ORIGINAL: jjdenver
"landing 2 divisions in Algeria, to be reinforced with Balbo and "others" to take out Algiers and Rabat"
Why would you want Algeria (and possibly Morrocco and Tunisia) if you are going Barb 41. I don't completely understand how Vichy works but CW I think would usually clean up N Africa in 41 and at latest 42 while building up to invade Italy in 43. Having Mor/Alg/Tun as Vichy should hold out longer than as Italian possessions right? I think(?) CW doesn't want to attack Vichy minors until US is around in strength (i.e. late 42?) but if those are Italian held I'd expect CW to invade them and wipe them out in 41 or at latest summer 42. The resource isn't going to be consistently ship-able across W Med so you'd have to take Morocco to make that shippable and defending those countries puts your precious units at risk where they may be cut out of supply and die easily rather than putting them in Sardinia & Italy where they are likely to be harder to kill. I think Cagliari in Sardinia is Italian supply source right? So no supply probs there. Giving CW Mor/Alg/Tun in 41/42 just gives them an airbase to go after Sicily and Sardinia sooner than if they were Vichy? What am I missing?
All French colonies unconquored will go either Vichy or Free France once Paris falls. You cannot enter the Vichy colonies with Axis troops while Vichy is neutral and only with FTC when they are active. With Vichy Morocco and Algeria the Allies will usually land for free in Morocco the turn after Vichy happens start an early Torch (first with CW assets later supported by US, should be around the time when Alex and the CW phib hit the board). Since you cannot stage in Vichy territory, they can race Morroco and be in range or Oran without meaningful Axis response.
By conquoring Algeria and parking some WP units in the Altas mountians you can win as much as a year of Allied progress in the Med, or at least raise the logistic and force requirements for such an operation to very different quality. So yes, Algiers should be taken and you should try to race Rabat and hope the CW screws up or is tied in other places (like Denmark :P).
ORIGINAL: jjdenver
A separate question. If Wavell heads to France, do you go for Egypt as IT? It seems almost mandatory to set up at least TER+INF+GUN on Egypt border so they can walk forward and you can drop Graziani 3 hexes into Egypt the impulse after you notice Wavell going to France? or is this not worth doing and you just let Wavell go to France?
You want the fast Lybian TERR to run to Tunis and along the coast to Algiers, the GAR in Tripoli and the remainder on the border to Egypt. You will have to decide for a) closing the Torch route in the Atlas or b) going for Egypt. Egypt can develop into a serious mission creep if not finished quickly and in force. I think doing both is rather unrealistic in the context I layed out.
ORIGINAL: jjdenver
Another separate question. Do you usually just leave Malta alone?
Malta is not as important with RAW8 map too, as it doesn't have access to the IT Coast anymore and Sicily has an open flank to the WMed anyways. If you build the Para you have a latent option to do it anytime basically, depending on defences there. In general you want to deny as many air field close to Italy as possible, so it is nice to have.
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RE: Italy setup & early war

Post by Centuur »

A better trick for the Allies is to get a reasonable CW unit into Oran or Algiers in 1939. That makes it very difficult for Italy and frees up the French INF for use in France itself.

Since the CW has a maximum number of units to get into France, there's usually a CW INF sitting around in the UK doing nothing. Such a unit is very good to sail into Morocco and than rail into Algeria.

An Allied occupation of parts of Denmark in early war can be a little annoying for Germany, especially where the iron ore deliveries are concerned if the CW sends the right units into Denmark. It depends on the supply rules you are using. If playing with the standard supply rules, it's a good move. When playing with Limited Overseas Supply it's not good at all to land CW units in Denmark.

As was already noted, the Italians have a choice to make with North Africa. Egypt or French North Africa. Italy can't do both (but is usually capable of grabbing Tunis even when going into Egypt).
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RE: Italy setup & early war

Post by Dabrion »

FR MTN + Algerian TERR is the optimal garrison for Algiers.
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RE: Italy setup & early war

Post by Centuur »

ORIGINAL: Dabrion

FR MTN + Algerian TERR is the optimal garrison for Algiers.

Yes, it is. But the question is: can France afford to maintain such a garrison in Algeria, with the Wehrmacht on the doorstep? I don't think so. If I play the French, I will try to get as much units out of Syria and Algeria back to France. The more units in France, the higher the chance that the timetable that Paris falls gets a whole turn later than planned (I consider the capture of Paris by Germany in S/O 1940 to be the prelude of an Allied victory).

I want the Italians to DoW the French, for US entry purposes. And the best way to make the Axis a little bit worried is if they get lousy weather in the first turn and see the number of land units in France increasing and increasing with that French TRS getting 4 extra units into France in the first three turns of the war if Italy doesn't DoW me...
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