peskpesk
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Bodyarmor for the soft underbelly, a option for good Italian AI?
So, it’s the end of July/August 1940. Germany has just captured Paris, and Vichied France. Every Axis power should be celebrating, but you just got a telegram from Adolph saying: ”Attack on Spain cancelled due to lack of time. Stop. Planning for Barbarossa 1941. Stop. *Minimum support available for North Africa. Stop.” You go pale, fearing that your worst nightmare will come true: The US has decided on a Europe first strategy, with top priority to hit the soft underbelly, Italy. Commonwealth and United States will be ready to invade Italy in summer 1942 and there are no Germans in sight! Don’t give in to panic, take a deep breath and analyse the situation from the beginning.
Let's face the bitter facts
Italy is the most vulnerable major power, aside from France. The problems are due to
• The strategic position.
• The poor army.
• The easy surrender (Italy is the only major power who will surrender without losing all her factories).
• The inability to cope with attrition.
Lets look at the problems one at a time
War of attrition
The problem with a war of attrition is that Italy can’t suffer heavy losses. Once a war of attrition begin, it’s hard for Italy to replace the losses due to the inferior production. What can you do about it then? Keep losses to a minimum. The key is to make Germany to take losses in a joint attack. Or if not possible, to compensate any Italian losses with extra resources apart from the normal resources sent to Italy. The hard part is to convince Germany of this incontrovertible fact. How should you do it? Allure him with promises of keeping the CW occupied for long time. Unable to perform any real operations against German interest while you are alive and kicking.
Easy surrender
We bit in the sour apple and accept that Italy surrenders when any 3 of these are true during the Peace step:
1) The Allies control Rome.
2) The Allies control Tripoli.
3) The Allies country any printed factory hex in Italy, apart from Rome.
4) The Allied Garrison value in Italy and Sicily is greater than the Italian garrison value there.
We can’t do anything about the above (except write to Harry Roland and complain), but there is a trick to play out regarding the garrison values. You should remember that only units out of enemy ZOC counts a garrison and by putting all Italian units away from the front-line and replacing them with German units (Yea, you need them badly). You do not only increase your own garrison value but you also decrease the Allied value!
The poor army.
Well, it's true. Looking just on raw fighting strength, supply and mobility the army is practically worthless.
It's has only slight more power than the Chinese.
But even a blind chicken some times find a corn. The special troops of the Italian army gets to see most of the world; Join the 1 Italian Infantry division and see all corners of the Med from SCS, fly with Fologre to Malt, England and the Russian plains, see the Alps, Scandinavia and the Spanish mountains with Alpini corps. No, to the defence the army is mostly canon food. But badly needed such. The real defence is from
Regina Aeronautica. Regina Aeronautica is a force to be recon with. Many Common Wealth players just ignores the power out of ignorance of what can happen. I have seen it. Uncareful British Taskforce have almost disappeared from the map after meeting the NAVs, protected by FTR in the two box.
Mark my words "The secret to success with the Italy is the airforces, the special operations and support from German troops".
German troops
Many players wonder what the minimum support the Germany should give to Italy. I say that the minimum support should be;
• One bomber, preferably a NAV or a good TAC,
• A long range fighter.
• 3 infantry units (one of them with print)
• The Rommel or von Bock HQ. The HQ is important as it allows Germany to enter Viche France territories under the foreign guest HQ rule.
What do the Germans receive as a compensation for these, so of you might wonder? Lots! As always you are a pain in the but for Commonwealth. And with these you will keep him of Germans back for years. And then we have the Italian support to Germany. This is the tricky part, you don’t have so many thing to lend out to Germany, but there are some things that Wermacht might find use full. Remember to barging with German about what you will recive if you send him support.
• During the first two turns of operation Barbarosa will Regina Aeronautica make a important contribution to the attack, since Luftwaffe will have trouble keeping up with the front-line. TAC and Fighter will be needed. Personally I don’t send more than three units, because that is so many air missions Italy has on a Combined.
• Air cover for Germans Factories. As you have limited use for you 3 range fighters these can be a good way to find use for them.
• An Italian HQ in France to keep the submarine bases and garrisons in supply.
• Italian garrisons in occupied countries to keep the partisans at the bay.
• An Italian HQ in Russia to help keep everything in supply when the front expands.
• Italian FTR/NAV to protect the Baltic sea area from the annoying CW Sunderland or irritating Russian navy/subs which try to raid, German convoys.
• With 2D10 option. Italian Armor and Mech are a fine addition to Wermacht forces in Russia.
Strategic problem
Italy’s strategic location problem comes with the huge coastline, which needs to be defended. And if that is not enough you have the island of Sicily to defend also. All together forty-seven hexes! Along the cost there is twelve minor ports, five major ports and five vital factories. The terrain looks good at the first glance, there are many mountain hexes in Italy and Sicily, but there are also seventeen clear hexes with out a city in them. For many players is the conclusion, it’s impossible to defend Italy.
Lets us act accordingly to Sun Tzu
I have talked a bit about Italy, but lets switch the table and plan a bit from the Allied side. Acting accordingly to Sun Tzu art of war ”Know your enemy and know your self and you can fight a hundred battles without defeat”
So we jump ahead and place our self in a imagined Allied position of Nov/Dec 1941. According to Allied high command the top priority is to make a invasion of Italy as soon as possible, hope fully not later than mid 42, and knock Italy out of the war. Just to be on the safe side and not making it to difficult for the Allies, lets assume that Italy’s position is a little worse than the historical one, at this time. Everything is the same ex Germany bogged down in Russia , but with the difference that CW have already cleared out North Africa.
General Patton is briefing the allied commanders
"To compete with the Italian aircover over the Italian coast sea area and to support the invasion forces we
place long range bombers and fighters here on Tunisia and Malta. The first wave to land is mixed force of CW and US units. It consist of six infantry corps and three divisions. As reinforcements we will send a HQ ,a armoured corp and two artilleries. Gentlemen, we are gathered here to agree on were we should land. After looking one the map and cleared our thoughts with intelligence we all can conclude that there are six possible ladning areas. They are;
• Taranto area (Bari to hex 3016)
• North of Rome (Leghorn to Civiatvecchia)
• South of Rome (hex 0518 to hex 0318)
• South Sicily (hex 0411 to hex 0210 + Syracuse)
• North Sicily (hex 0512 to Palermo)
• North Italy (0424 to 0523)
Lets look at them one at a time starting from the bottom.
North Italy: It goes to the bottom of the list because its location. It’s to far away from good aircover (unless Corsica is taken first) and the closeness to Germany, Whermacht will soon be all over our landing boys. And finally the fact the one lousy army in Venice will make it almost impossible to invade there.
North Sicily: It has same problem as North Italy did. A poor Italian army can ruin the invasion plans, but in this case the unit is in Palermo. There are however some advantage over North Italy. It’s within range from friendly airbases, but any way it goes second from the bottom because the possibility for two Italian units in the mountains (hex 0412 and 0312) can hold the invasion at the bay.
South Sicily: 'Ahh' now he start talking! Four connected clear hexes. One of them is even a port ( Syracuse). Same advantage as North Sicily, it’s within range from friendly aircover. Can it get any better? The only bad things you can say applies to both North and South Sicily is that it’s so long away from the Italian factories and there are so many mountain hexes in between. And the increase of Italian production must match the value of having friendly airbases in Sicily. We can only se Sicily as a stepping stone.
South of Rome This invasion area has the things that South Sicily lacks. The closeness to Italian factories (Rome and Naples) and the absence of many mountain hexes close by. The down side is that the area has not port and is likely to be more heavily defended, because it’s a main factory area and a key to knowing Italy out of the war. Also we can only count on our CV's and long range FTR for support.
North of Rome: It has a little, but significant advantage over Southern Rome. It has two ports (Leghorn and Civitavcchia) and from Corsica, if we take it first, can our marines just walk over and save our boys the trouble of invading. Also here we have chances of cutting the Italian railroad net, making a second invasion in south Italy more easy when German troops have trouble of redeploying there. And finally, the area is a little less likely to be as heavily defended as the south Rome area. The only real bad thing, if we set aside the air cover problem which is the same as the south of Rome area, is that you only get one hex against Rome and has one hex to go before you reach a another close by factory city, Genoa. But it could be worse.
Taranto: This area looks so good to invade. Like taking candy from child. It's a relatively isolated area with a factory as its price, and you get three hexes against the factory in Taranto right away. Another benefit is that only the units in Bari are likely to be counter attacked. The only down side is the mountains all around the area, we could get bogged down there for a long time. And you only one a port (Bari) from the start.
Choosing the time of the attack.
Let's us look back first. Before the US entered the war, were the possibilities to make a major invasion slim. As the Commonwealth we could as the best, perhaps, scrap together all the necessary landunits, and even the navy and airunits might be doable. But we would be hard pressed, with the Italians fighting hard with landbased aircraft’s fighting in two boxes of the Italian Cost sea zone and flying defensive airsupport on invasion hexes. And we would also find it tough to get all the rein-forcement needed to expand the bridgehead, problems with replacing our loses as the Axis response will be heavy. Russia might be saved by this, but CW will pay for it. And it will be a very costly battle mark my words. The best we could is to se it as a raid, to distract the Axis. We should instead be on the lookout for sloppy Italian play, taking Italian east Africa, Tobruk, possible the whole of North Africa, to take more airbases close to Italy (like Sardinia) and for other minor operations to perform against the Italians. Now, after the US is in the war, we have much more options.
When shall we invade? Many players have some difficulty with grasping the sound "rules" of invasions, because it seems to be backward from what happened historically. Let's examine the basic principals of invasions;
• Invade at the end of the turn, not the beginning. This limits the number of impulses before the feet unfilps, gives the enemy less time to react to the invasion and gives the possibility of double moves.
• Invade during rain turns. You might find hexes out of supply and therefor with less defence. The enemy response will also be slow because of the weather stopping their movements. You reinforcement are less hindered by this since they arrive by ship. Rain impulses also reduces the damage possible by hostile airforces to the Navy.
• There is one exception to the two rules above; If you have 2-1 superiority you will benefit more from the invading at summer turns and in the beginning of the turn. Many historical invasion to ok place under these conditions and therefor people seem to like to do the same, even if they can’t get the 2-1 superiority needed to take advantage of the invasion
With the rules of invasion in thought we look through the weather charts and find that Sep/Oct or Nov/Dec
1942 seems to be good months to invade and with bigger than 20% and 30% respectively chances of rain in the Mediterranean. Jan/Feb and Mar/Apr 1943 is followed close behind with bigger than 20% and 20% respectively chances of rain. A invasion to Italy in summer of 42 is less likely, since we will have trouble getting the 2-1 superiority we need put with a little luck on the entry and turn length still possible. We aim for that goal, going along with over strategic plan and the sound theory of attrition. As the allies we need to kill Axis land unit's even tough we might lose some more BP's in the process. Operation Husky is one for May/June 1942. The primary beach area for the invasion, Taranto. Secondary target Sicily.
Lets us get back in the drivers seat for Italy.
We must think about the knowledge we have gained from thinking as Allies and put it to good use when we are planing the Italian defence. Remember it is still only Jul/Aug. 1940 and we have allot of time to get our defences ready.
If we disregard from the three and a half hexes that borders the Western Mediterranean Sea, every other hex borders the Italian Cost sea area. If we could control this sea area we would keep 92,6% of our coastal area much, much more safe from the treat of invasion! So, how do we secure the Italian Cost sea area from the Allies? Our Navy can’t beat both the British and US navvies and to make it worse the Allies already have one port in this sea zone, the island of Malta. The NAVs from Regina Aeronautica will cause problems for the Allies if it’s position in the two box since then we have a handful of fighters that can support them. But facing a force Allied of carriers backed up by land based planes we be in trouble. Even if we build some aircraft carriers to increase our capabilities we will be pressed by the Allied forces. The solution is to deprive the Allies of so many naval and airbases as possible, near the Italian cost sea zone. This will make Italy a fortress until the parameter is broken
The defensive parameter
The defensive strategy for the outer parameter defence is designed to.
• Keep the Allies from having interesting landing beaches at main land Italy and Sicily directly, by stopping them from having Naval and airbases close to Italy.
• Stop the Allies from getting air superiority into the Italian coast sea zone. And thus giving Italy a chance of fighting with land based air against intruders in the Italian cost sea zone.
• Give Italy a warning that the Allies are strong enough to be on the offensive when they start to probe the outer defence parameter. And thereby stopping possibility of any surprise invasions of Italy.
Planing the defensive parameter is easy. You only need to control every thing close to the Italian Cost sea area or leaving it in neutral hands, like Greece, Viched Corsica and Yugoslavia. This means you have to control the rest. Lets step through each country/territory one at a time;
• Sardinia
• Malta
• Corsica
• Albania
• Yugoslavia
• Greece
Sardinia
Sardinia importance should not be over looked!
I have seen many Italian players leaving it undefended and easy captured by the Allies.
From Sardinia the Allies has the great airforce base
that they desperately need against Italy. And it’s easy for them to capture it. Especially if you play with limited over sea supply. If they cut the supply, they can make a quick invasion and land ex a division automatically, because Sardinia is not home country and being out of supply reduces the notional defenders strength to zero! But if you put two units in Sardinia, one in hex 0915 and one at 0816 you get ZOC in every hex at the island! Giving every hex at least one point in defence! If you can spare it is good to have the units being with print. Sardinia is one main defensive points in the parameter defence!
Malta
Malta is the key to success for the defensive parameter. First of all it is the only Allied base in the Italian cost sea area after the Fall of France and it is a major port from which the can dominate the sea are. A forward positioned airforce base to support the navy, harass the Italian navy and convoys, both at sea and in port, support invasions, strategically bombard or use a s spring board for future transport down to Egypt. The also have a place to put slow moving TRS and AMPH, that would otherwise have been useless to the first wave of invasion and finally they can station paratroopers to treat landings
Malta is a thorn in the axis side
Historically Rommel was given to order to regroup for operation Hercules - The invasion of Malta- on the first of august 1942. The invasion force was to be made of eight divisions (mostly Italian) and two German paratrooper battalions. But even the famous general made one big mistake he postponed operation Hercules!
If you can capture Malta with a surprise invasion early in the war, then do it! I say it’s worth the risks with an early declaration of war. If you can’t take it easy, don’t despair. With German help you should be able to capture it soon. The best time for a German/ Italian operation Hercules is between the fall of France and to spring 41 (later the planes are needed on the Eastern front). With no attack on Spain, has Luftwaffe little to do except make the blitz against CW and perhaps support a attack against Greece, Yugoslavia. If the Germans are reluctant to commit an force against Malta. Point out to the German that his short range (3 range) fighter and bombers are practically useless (No reach and limited strategically air values) in the air war over Britain. But they mean the difference between success and failure against Malta. Luftwaffe together with Regina Aeronautic is to big a match for the RAF defenders on Malta.
The plan to capture the island is simple, put the defenders out of supply with NAVs and Fighters in the two boxes of the connecting sea areas. Submarines and NAVY raids are useful if the CW tries to keep the supply open with his navy. It’s even more easily to accomplice it if you play with limited supply. Flip the garrison with ground strikes. Then attack with anything needed to capture it, ex air landing of paratroopers, invasions by infanterydivsions and Marines. Everything supported by shore- bombardment and lots of TAC.
Corsica
Corsica seems at first glance useless to the Allies, but isn’t. Even tough it only has one port and it’s in the wrong sea area does Corsica have it’s uses for the Allies. With a HQ on the island he can have one plane on it and two other planes in Ajaccio (hex 0918). This gives the Allies a big advantage if they wants to attack southern France, Sardinia or support a invasion of Italy with his airforce. Remember that the Allies also can move over the striates to Sardinia, or walk with a marine directly to Italy! Corsica is one main defensive points in the parameter defence.
The biggest problem with is that Corsica is that it becomes Vichy France. The best thing to do to avoid this, is to concur it before France Falls. If it goes Free France you must capture it! Apply the same principal as with Malta and you will succeed. If it goes Vichy France then you have another problem. You can’t enter it (unless it was you who installed the Vichy government). Until there is Allied unit in main land Vichy the Germans can’t enter it either. The solution is to send a German HQ together with a land unit to Corsica. They can enter under the foreign HQ rule. Then you remove the HQ as it is badly needed on other fronts. Place the German landunit in Ajaccio (hex 0918). This covers all the interesting invasion areas from the Western Mediterranean. If you want to be real secure place another one in hex 0819.
Albania
Albania is easily defended. You only need one unit in Tirana(hex 2817) to control the cost with ZOC. This is important because like Sardinia, is not home country and if it’s put out of supply the notional defenders strength will be zero! A word of caution, because the Allies have a trick to pull with a landing
in Albania. When they have four units in Albania the can activate Yugoslavia, if it’s still neutral!
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia is not as important as the rest of the above countries/territories. First of all it’s easily defended and offers only insignificant air force and navy bases for the Allies. One unit in hex 0122 and one in Dubrovnik (hex 3020) is all that is needed to even keep they Allies from looking at Yugoslavia.
They unit should not be Italian as they are needed in Italy. Make it a Hungarian, Rumanian or Bulgarian unit. A plus with having units there is that they still hunt partisans in Yugoslavia so they are not wasted.
The hex of Zara (0222) is Italian and important to remember if Yugoslavia still is neutral. Then you might consider putting a unit there. I have not done it my self, but if you have one over...
Greece
Greece is almost the same as Yugoslavia. One unit in hex 2714 and one in Patrai (hex 2513) is all that is needed to guard the interesting hexes. The garrison units should apply the same suggestion as with the Yugoslavian ones. Another word of caution,
the allies can make the Albania trick in Greece too!
Of course if Greece is neutral, you can' just ignore it.
The defence of main land Italy, including Sicily
According to our production plan Italy should have
the following 21 army/coresized and 5 division sized landunits available in MayJun 1942, possible loses are not include and anyway they should be German ones or compensated for by Germany!
Of these units is one Inf likely stuck in Italian E Africa, another one is placed in Albania, 2 Mil is defending Sardina and a Gar and one artillery division on Malta. On Tripoli, one Gar and one Mil. This leaves you with 14 Corps, and 4 division units. Not bad! Besides you will be able to produce some of the Mils and Gar again after they are killed. They will likely be in position in mail land Italy or Sicily to do more use there, before the Allies can land.
The defensive strategy is three folded.
• First it’s designed to boost potential landing hexes defences. Thus making it harder for the Allies to get ashore and if they do, making it more likely that the will be flipped after the landing.
• Second benefit is that a striking forces with armor is position near the interesting landing beaches and thus making it possible for the defender to throw the attacker back out into the sea.
• Position the airforce so that it both can strike at intruders in the Italian cost sea zone and cover interesting landing beaches and enabling both defensive and offensive support.
Producing for defence
Lets start with the fun part, German aid to Italy. The turn after France is Vichied (normally in Jul/Aug 1940) Italy will receive big support from Germany until the Germans can get there hands on more factories. This is all because Germany can’t use every thing for it self. Below is a table for location of friendly controlled/traded resources and factories for Germany, of a typical game situation in Sep/Oct 40.
Country Res/Oil Red/Friendly Factory
Belgium 1/ 1/
Czechoslovakia 1/ 2/
France 5/ 3/
Germany+Austria 8/2 7/13
Hungary 1/
Iraq /1
Netherlands 1/
Poland 2 1/
Rumania /2
Russia 4/2
Spain 1/
Sweden 3/
Turkey 1/
Total 35 27
Since Germanys only has 27 factories and thus only can use 27 resources is 8 resources left over to Italy! But hold your horses, these is the dream scenario. Lets calculate on a much more likely, dark outcome, then you will know the minimum resources sent to you and probably it will be more!
• Allied attack on convoys in Baltic/partisans will take one resource.
• Allies conquer Iraq takes another oil resource.
• Russia demands borderlands will take one resources
• And finally, if you play with the oil rule Germany will need 2-3 oils just to reorganise flipped units and save for future needs.
These means that Germany can send 2 or likely more resources to Italy each turn until the get more factories.
As Italy we control 5 (one oil trade from Rumania) resources and with the German sent resources we have a total 7. We use the oil for reorganisation of units.
These means we will have 6*0.75 (Italy's production multiple) = 4.5 which is rounded up to 5 build points for Italy Sep/Oct and Nov/Dec 1940.
When Greece is attacked and Yugoslavia conquered /aligned you should get one or two more resources. This will probably happen at the end of 40 or beginning of 41. Let's again assume the worst, only one more resource starting Mar/Apr 41. This gives you a production of 7 (8 resources/oil -1 for reorganisation and a production multiple of 1), except the first turn of 41 when you only get 6 build points
We assume Italy enters the war during the summer of 1940 at the May/Jun turn. Notes the drop in production, this due to the oil used to reorganise units instead of production.
According to our planed defence we will need more land units and since will want the so many as possible ready to a potential invasion in summer of 42 we must build one land unit each turn, starting from 1941 until the end of the game.
Starting 41, Italy should build 1 land unit each turn,
until the end of the game
Year Moth Units BP
1939 Sep/Oct 0 (+3)
Nov/Dec Mar 5 (-2)
1940 Jan/Fen P ,Amph(fd) 5 (-1)
Mar/Apr Nav2, TRS(fd) 4 (+1)
May/Jun Ftr2, P 4
Jul/Aug Ftr2, P 4
Sep/Oct Amph(fu), Nav3 6 (-1)
Nov/Dec TRS(fu), 3 (+2)
1941 Jan/Fen Nav3, P, Gar 5 (-1)
Mar/Apr Art4, CVP, P 7
May/Jun Armor, Frt2 8 (-1)
Jul/Aug Mtn, P, CVP 7
Sep/Oct Gar, 2*P, 6 (+1)
Nov/Dec Gar,Inf, Ftr2 7
1942 Jan/Fen Gar,Inf, Mil, P 9 (-2)
Mar/Apr 2*Mil, Lnd3 7
- Stop! Some of you scream. Where is the Italian sub program? Well, since Italian subs are better than German subs and Italy has easier access to Naval moves. Each extra resource send to Italy can easily become a sub on the production spiral. Kindly inform the German player/AI that if he wants you to win the submarine war for him, you will do it. But it will cost extra resources, more than the calculated 2 or 3 that you need to survive.
Another point is to think about is that is the CV program or lack of it. By putting the CV program aside you speeding up the airforce schedule. You will be ready to compete with CW much sooner and then you might catch CW with to few airunits in the Med.
What should you do with possible extra resources? Here is a list our useful tips;
• Some extra CPs are useful if you play with limited overseas supply.
• Your excellent submarines and frogmen can make life a living hell for Commonwealth
• Finishing and repairing Naval units
• Build more planes and pilots
• Replacing loses
Timing the pulling back
In many games the Italian player's makes the fatale mistakes of;
• Hopelessly continue attacking to reach objectives when the tide turns (like with the US entry into the war), is very unlikely to be taken. Ex What's the point of attacking Suez when Patton will be knocking on your front door?
• Defending a too big area and spreading the troops too thin. Ex The black gold of Iraq will turn in to a Staligrad, when your troops gets cut of by Russians or Englishmen. One or two extra turn of oil is not worth the 7+ BP that was guarding the oil wells.
• Retreating to quickly. Ex Did nobody learn from the historical Monte Casino? Excellent mountain positions along the cost in North West Africa are left empty without a fight. This gives the Allies quick access to airbases along the cost needed to support battle in the Italian Sea, attack Tripoli and Strategically Bomb Italy. When an even a speed bump could have brought you precious time to prepare.
• Been careless with transports. Recall it takes a long time to ship your troops back from Africa. Always guard your transport and if possible never leave the at sea or in a small port. The Allies loves to attack them. Ex Upps! Eh,Adolf? The Africa Corps will be in Africa a little while longer than we expected…
These are both stupid and unnecessary errors. Instead buy planing and preparing your a defence in good time you can avoid these errors. Of course this does not mean to pull back all your troops 1941. The trick
Is the to have all key positions in the defence parameter occupied early. Then is the risk of been caught with your pants down much less. Else is a good thumb rules two turns after US enters the European war you can expect things to start happen. Then by the latest you must start to pullback into good defence positions. But, if Gibraltar is in your hands these whole article is of no big use to you.
Only defensive?
Finally all this talk about defensive, has bored me too.
Should Italy only defend? No! It’s like playing chess, when you have an advantage you must attack, else you risk losing you advantage and missing your opportunity to expand the advantage. When you are on the defence, you must defend else you risk that the disadvantage gets even bigger. But remember that there is lots of different defence to use. Aggressive, passive, dynamic etc. If you see a opening, you must dare to attack a passive defence is almost like no defence at all.
If you want to read about Italy's offensive options early on in the game, then I warmly recommend earlier articles in previous annuals.
Summarising the knowledge gained
By seen the facts we know that Italy is one of the most vulnerable major power in the game. Also Italy must by all means possible try to keep losses to a minimum. The Italian army is mostly canon food and the real defence comes from the Airforce.
From thinking as Allies we learned that there are three main invasion areas; Taranto, Sicily and the other areas if the defence there is neglected. Remember it's the Allied player who has the choice, but by the way Italy's defence is set-up, you can steer the Allies to go for one of these areas that you want. The best time of the attack seems to be after the US has entered the war and near the end of a rain impulse. Sep/Oct or Nov/Dec 1942 is the most promising. An invasion to Italy in summer of 42 is less likely, but possible. Produce along the lines of the defence plan and demand resource from Germany. Landunits must be built at a steady rate from 1941 to the end of the game. Pullback into defensive positions while it's time left. A defence is not only defence, when a chance appears you must attack.
Optional rules
Lets look at some optional rules and how they affect Italy from a defence point of view.
• Artillery: This gives Italy a chance to screw up the fine Allied invasion plans by soothing defensively to help notional land units.
• Limited overseas supply: You can only trace supply path overseas if the sea area contains a friendly convoy, TRS or AMPH. This is a double edged sword. It puts your units in Sardinia, Corsica and Malta at risk from being cut from supply more easily, but it also makes it more easy for you to cut the allied invasion force from supply and it helps you to cut of Malta in the first place.
• SCS transport: Division can invade from SCS as if the were a transport. This gives the Allies more options to perform quick invasions with smaller forces and to have the invasion force more sea areas away, thus making it harder to detect and saving the transport to follow up with corps size land units the next impulse.
• Restricted invasions: You can only invade a hex if you are adjacent to a hex-dot. This secures five hexes from direct invasion threat, including three factories! But no they have sadly remove this rule
• Amphibious rules: his mean the Allies can’t invade from transports, unless they are a marine or a division. And that they can’t put together a invasion force until they have build some Amphibious transport. Which delays the Allies offensive options against Italy until 1941, at the earliest.
• Defensive shore bombardment; Makes all island more easy to defend and also makes invasions harder do throw back into the sea.
• Offensive chits: Well what can we say…
The Allies have them and will if necessary use them to get ashore and to knockout your strong holes. Later in the game be ready to se one every turn. Always calculate that they are used against you and always check your strong points, they might not be as strong as your thought. It's nasty thing to lose a factories in the North due to surprising landing with offensive chits. But if you can convince the Germans to have a HQ on your front and ask him to have a offensive chit ready… He can throw it at any attacker who land in Italy, well just to have the chit is enough in many cases (the Germans don't have to use it on your front) then we shall se how gets the final laugh.
• 2D10: Put your Armor and Mech in good use in Russia and in the desert. But almost never ever attack in terrain that require extra loss. A low roll on the assault table is crippling. 3 losses!
/Peter
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RE: AI for MWiF-Italy - 
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