Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Courtenay

With Palermo gone, the Allies now have a lot of places to land aircraft that are not in Axis ZOCs in Italy. They will have more if they take the mountain hex west of Taranto. If they do not take Messina, which they might not, fly the planes in Syracuse out of there, so that they are not in the Italian ZOC. Both sides should count the garrison values carefully, remembering that planes at sea can land in Italy. (CVPs don't help.) HQ-ARM, ARM, MECH, and MTN corps count as two units if not in ZOC, so the US MTN unit in Sicily at the moment counts double, as does the Italian MECH corps and the US ARM corps east of Taranto.

If the Axis decides that they can't hold Italy this turn, they should start shipping Italian units out. On the other hand, it embarrassing to have Italy surrender because you shipped too many Italian units out. If the Italians do decide that all is lost, at the least get the HQ out. Also, do not land Italian planes in Italy, but someplace else.

With just the visible units on the tops of stacks, the Allies have a higher garrison value at the moment, but I have no idea of what is underneath the top units. Also the Allies should be able to land a lot more planes in Sicily and the heel of the Italian boot than the Italians have.

If there are two Italian units in Messina, the Allies should think very hard about not attacking the place, and just screening it, so that they don't have to make a bloody assault.

If Italy is surrendering, the Axis has to make a decision on whether to hold Rome. WiF's rule is very strange here. If Italy surrenders this turn, and the Germans hold (or take) Rome, Italy will be liberated at the end of next turn. Then when the Allies take Rome, all Italian units fall off the map. If the Germans just let the Allies have Rome, then Italy stays in the fight until the Italian East African colonies (but not Ethiopia) are conquered. Thus it might make sense for the Axis not to fight for Rome. This is a very strange rule, and I am not at all sure what it is supposed to represent.

If the turn gets very late, with an excellent chance of the turn ending, and Italian surrender inevitable, the Italians might think of making suicidal attacks, in the hopes of taking some Allied units down with them. (Kamikaze isn't Italian? ) Of course, if you do do so, and then roll a nine and the turn doesn't end, it could be bad, so you have to decide if the risk is worth the possible reward.