Most useful way to use Italians??

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Strategic Command Series >> Strategic Command WWII War in Europe >> The War Room >> Most useful way to use Italians??

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Most useful way to use Italians?? - 7/27/2017 7:14:45 PM

GeneralJackDRipper

Posts: 49
Joined: 4/30/2017
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By and large, I've found the Italians fairly useless. For a country that you can research a fair amount for, they have a mild impact on overall strategy, largely due to restrictive build limits.

I've been experiments with a few different uses with only moderate successes. Here are the various ways I've used the Italians in order of most-useful to least, sorted by Land, Air, and Sea.

Land:
West Africa: I've had the most success with the Italians on land in Western Africa after not accepting the Vichy France terms. If you prep them in amphibious transports, you can strike immediately after refusing the agreement. For instance, sending a unit to the unoccupied port city of Oran, allows the player to then transport a few German units to the continent soon after reaching France's southern ports. You could even prep sooner and have a few German units waiting in Italian ports prior to capturing Paris. To augment this plan, you can also send Italian units to other opportune cities in Algeria to further compress Algiers. This tactic can limit France's ability to deploy enough units to mount a defense. In a hot seat, I was able to take enough unoccupied cities and compress Algiers to not allow the French to deploy their Corps and Army units which were ready in the queue. I'm still fine-tuning this strategy, but I'm confident it can work well.

East Africa/Middle East: supporting the DAK in Egypt is another clear use of the Italians, though they suffer a similar supply and movement challenge, so it is possible to have too many units there. As such, I've considered sneaking another invasion group along the coast of Greece to land behind the Brits, East of Port Said to sandwich their forces. Gotta be sneaky to avoid the royal navy though.

Supporting operations on the Eastern Front: the Italians have some use on the Eastern front with the Romanians and Hungarians in plugging Partisan hot spots and for swarming/encirclement/cutting of of supply lines.

Occupying France: Instead of using valuable German forces to defend France during Barbarossa, you could use Italians there. Unfortunately, unless you research the heck out of anti-aircraft defenses, they will be target practice for the Royal Air Force bombers. Further, they likely wouldn't stand much of a chance against Overlord, unless you commit to infantry research early and often, and even then I don't think they'd be effective.

Air:
Africa: I've had mild success researching Ground Attack in support of African battles (East and West) and/or supporting a joint effort to take Malta with German air power. Unfortunately, the build limits cap the Italian Air Force's usefulness in the skies. Potentially this could also be mildly useful on the Eastern front, but only after the Russian fighters have been destroyed. I see the air support as too expensive and capped to low to be useful by itself. It does have a limited role supporting ground tactics. Under no circumstances can you reasonably expect to equip the Italians to engage the RAF on the Western Front.

Sea:
The Mediterranean
The Italian ships are useless in the Med until MAYBE late in the game after researching Naval up to lvl 2. .Hide them in port until they reach lvl 2. Even then, I'm not sure they have much of a role outside of waiting to be slaughtered by American/British ships when they come to invade Southern France or Italy. They really cannot engage the powerful Royal Navy with their carriers. I thought about a sub campaign but I think you're capped to 2 subs so... probably best to spend your MPPs elsewhere.

All in all, I could use some tips on how best to use the Italians. I still feel that they should be more useful than they are -- but maybe that's my problem.

_____________________________

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RE: Most useful way to use Italians?? - 7/29/2017 12:18:25 AM

Leadwieght

Posts: 327
Joined: 2/23/2017
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I try to use the Italians more as feints or on weak Allied fronts to tie up Allied assets.

For instance, if you refuse the Vichy option and then manage to take all of France (including Syria) , slipping some Italian units over to Syria via Beirut can be very handy. An unwary player will let the Italians grab Amman and perhaps even Jerusalem. Even if that doesn't happen, you have opened a second front against Egypt to which the British must commit a corps or two that they sorely need elsewhere in the early years. And once the effect of Iraqi sanctions wears off, you can Operate a unit to Mesopotamia and gum up the British re-conquest of Iraq. Even an extra Italian garrison there can stall the British drive to Baghdad for months.

Likewise, the Italian fleet is most useful as a potential threat, staying in port unless there's a clear opportunity to pick off an isolated ship. This ties up lots of British ships

(in reply to GeneralJackDRipper)

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RE: Most useful way to use Italians?? - 8/13/2017 12:59:34 AM

kcole4001

Posts: 36
Joined: 9/22/2007
Status: offline

For clearing Egypt I'll send three Italian armies, an HQ, a fighter, and a med. bomber to push until resistance firms up, then wait for the DAK.

In Russia, I assign the Italians their own section of the front, since they can build a good sized army group with quite an effective air force.
Buy bombers for them and take the options to cheaply add to their ground forces.
They usually have several armies, three HQ, 8-10 corps, an airborne, an armor, a mech, a fighter, three TAC bombers and I like to throw in another med. bomber
and a strat. bomber so they're pretty much independent of needing German assistance.
This group should be able to eliminate one Russian strong point every other turn or better.

This force cleared Sevastopol and eventually worked it's way through the Kerch peninsula into the Caucasus with only an occasional helping hand from a German TAC bomber.

I use the Rumanians and Hungarians similarly, though having the ability to upgrade their units with German tech they have a much easier time than the Italians.

Still, the Italians are useful in their sector, and the garrison units of all four of these nations, as well as their weaker corps units, are absolutely essential for holding down partisan trouble spots.

Their fleet pretty much has to wait for a juicy (and relatively safe!) ambush to be effective, otherwise the Brits
will slaughter them in no time.

< Message edited by kcole4001 -- 8/13/2017 1:03:32 AM >

(in reply to Leadwieght)

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RE: Most useful way to use Italians?? - 8/14/2017 5:39:42 PM

Goodmongo

Posts: 346
Joined: 9/22/2011
Status: offline

Well it depends on SP or PBEM. In playing against the AI a simple but extremely effective strategy is to hide the Italian navy till you have 7-8 bombers and are getting ready to take Malta. Bomb the island and move 3 hips next to it with a hidden picket of subs or cheap ships just a bit farther out. Then when the UK fleet arrives to attack your ships next to Malta they hit the picket and are stopped. Then next turn blast them with all those bombers. You will lose 1 maybe 2 Italian ships but sink 4 and maybe 5 UK ships. Even in a PREM game the UK side has a tough choice to make. Let Malta fall or risk large losses to the fleet.

Personally I like taking out the UK BB's with the bombers and then the Italian BB's can sink the remaining UK ships starting with any CV's. I've often had 2, 3 or even 4 Italian ships greatly damaged but as long as they live the Italian fleet comes out ahead.

(in reply to kcole4001)

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