Shannon V. OKeets
Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005 From: Honolulu, Hawaii Status: offline
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I agree with Centuur. In general, Italy should be viewed as an ally of Germany. If Germany wants to do something, then Italy can help. Obvious choices are to attack France through the southern Alps. Or even to send some Italian units into the Lowlands to help out Germany's attack on France (even weak air units would be useful). Usually Italy concentrates on controlling the Med using air power: Naval Air and Fighters. Towards that end, German Naval Air units can be a big help. The Commonwealth doesn't have a lot of air power to use in the Med. Sending carriers is possible but losing one would make the Commonwealth player cry pitilessly. The Italian navy should be held in reserve until France is conquered. Once Vichy is declared, all the French naval units will go to Vichy. So having the Italian navy fight the French navy just means the Axis is destroying its own naval units. But once the French are Vichified and the Italian naval air forces have helped control the Med, then the Italian navy can be a serious threat to the Commonwealth's navy in the Med. But always remember, the Commonwealth can repair its units using a larger supply of build points and can even have the US help repair them eventually. The Italians don't have enough build points to do 1/4 of the things they would like to build, and refurbishing their navy would be both expensive and take a lot of time. Even worse, once the US enters the war, the Italian navy can easily be overwhelmed by the Allies. So the Italian navy has a short interval to shine: after the French are gone and the British cowed, and before the US appears in the Med. As for adventures in the NW Africa coast, that is quite feasible. Wandering territorials from Libya westward towards Morocco is the usual path. The idea is to force the Commonwealth to spread its land units all around: Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt, Algeria, the BEF to help the French, some for homeland defenses of the British Isles, India, Singapore, eastern Africa, ... The more places you can threaten, the better. If the British build a lot of land units to cover all the threatened areas, then they aren't build naval air and fighters (that they need everywhere), or building up their naval forces (e.g., transports to deploy those land and air units about the map). I think of Italy as providing small pinpricks to the Allies, to slowly bleed them dry.
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Steve Perfection is an elusive goal.
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