Want to beat the Russians?
Whilst building up your armor stacks - of 2 or 3 tanks a turn with germany and the odd mechanized, and yea if you get Ukraine build some infantry there…. also be building up your Italian airforce by 1 plane a turn.
The simple ABILITY of the Italians - say with 5 planes (you start with 3), to potentially punch through a russian stack of infantry 5 to 7 infantry, allowing a capital or otherwise blitz really messes with the Russian ability to defend themselves. They are constantly hampered in their design of defence.
Either they retreat - which is good for Germany,
Hold back, which is good for Germany,
Attack the German Stack - which is good for Germany,
Or leave medium stacks out to prevent the airway punch, that then get crushed by the german stacks, which is also good for germany.
In conjuction, with a german - forward moving, yet designed for defense stack (IE force the russian stacks to attack YOU) This leads to alot of oppurtunites.
In fact it’s how I won my last game, I highly reccommend it.
The Russian Counter? There really isn’t an effective one, other than a significant offensive against the german stack - which, if you play your cards right, shouldn’t be able to get beat in a stand up fight. The French fighter - if it ends up in Russia, can block this, but only once.
The downside? Yea, you committ alot of Italian resources to aircraft, which, althought they dual purpose in the med and middle east… could be better spent potentially? well… Maybe? Also, an Airbase build may be required in oh I don;t know, Romania say. To give you the best cutting edge of both worlds.
Thoughts?
I like it. It sounds similar to what I once tried.
Never work in our games. How do you convince an Italian player to give up playing the game. “Here, you do nothing but build planes and service the Germans”. Too much of this forum speaks ONLY to 1 on 1 games.
This coming from a guy who’s probably played the game once, and made 4 community posts.
Building aircraft is practically a must for Italy already. And at worst, we are talking about building 2 aircraft. It’s not like the game ends because italy builds fighter and a bomber.
Aren’t you going to need them to kill enemy ships anyways? And to hold desireable positions on defense? Or pop transports at long range?
Tell me what other unit can make it to your forces in the middle east, if you lose your transports early?
This can be done in any global game, with any conjuction of players, and if you READ the post, you would realize that the italians need only “manifest the threat”. Not actually committ to any action, other than maintaining a healthy sized airforce of 5 planes.
What they “could do” is more important than what they do do.
At the same time, the Germans constantly have to throw their bodies on the fire to save the Italians, if the axis hopes to succeed. With no or limited German support, Italy is doomed. Maybe that’s why things don’t work in your games, sounds like players are too self interested.
Gargantua, what abot letting Italy conquor Paris? They could then use all this cash to build up their air fleet.
There is only one country between Germany and Japan and that is Russia, plus Italy needs to make money too and there is a lot in Russia.
Weather it’s one on one or 2 against 3 the Axis need to be a team, in quite a few games when they didn’t team up it usually was their demise
Planes are a great buy look at their def and their range, they can hit targets and land safely behind the lines their not committed like a tank.
Tell me what other unit can make it to your forces in the middle east, if you lose your transports early?
Well if you have paratroopers or another IC :-D
Really Garg? Yes I have 4 posts total (now 5). Big deal. I would probably crush you beyond belief in any game you name. Ever play Europa? 1000 pages of rules? I didn’t think so. I’ve been playing wargames since 1970’s. So don’t run your useless mouth.
Now, all I’m saying is that it is very difficult for a person to play a game where someone else is always telling him/her what to do. We often have 5 or 6 players and it is a whole different story. Many of these strats discussed here would not work in a group. Thats because people have different personalities and different thoughts on how to do things.
As you have porbably ONLY played with your PC your whole life Garg, you would not know that would you?
Hey Gargantua, let me see if I got this right; you are suggesting that Italy fly in with planes against Russian infantry stacks in order to clear the way for German tanks? I could see that being very beneficial to Germany. For example, the Italians clear out infantry in Bessarabia, leaving it empty. Then Germany takes it’s stack of tanks on Romania, blitz’s Bessarabia and goes straight into Ukraine. Very good way to help Germany advance farther into Russia.
A couple of questions:
1 - Won’t attacking stacks of Russian infantry with fighters, tacs and bombers be awfully expensive for the Italians? I mean, Italian hits cause Russian Infantry losses while any Russian hits cost Italian fighters, tacs and bombers. I don’t think Italy can afford that. Also, what if the stack of infantry is pretty big and the Italians don’t have a lot of planes. Concievably, the Italians could lose all their planes and there still be Russians left.
2 - What about any advances for Italy in the Med and Africa? If Italy is busy supplying planes to Germany’s Russia offensive, then they won’t be able to afford the ships and land units needed to beat the Brits in Africa.
Really Garg? Yes I have 4 posts total (now 5). Big deal. I would probably crush you beyond belief in any game you name. Ever play Europa? 1000 pages of rules? I didn’t think so. I’ve been playing wargames since 1970’s. So don’t run your useless mouth.
Now, all I’m saying is that it is very difficult for a person to play a game where someone else is always telling him/her what to do. We often have 5 or 6 players and it is a whole different story. Many of these strats discussed here would not work in a group. Thats because people have different personalities and different thoughts on how to do this.
As you have porbably ONLY played with your PC your whole life Garg, you would not know that would you?
U MAD BRO???
The cost is less offensive (or defensive) Italy.
The benefit is not necessarily the win on Russia (because your opponent should be watching out for this) but a “check” on Russia. You don’t ever even have to USE 5 planes against Russian stacks of guys but the THREAT is there and it forces Russia’s hand. I would call it the “flying Italian electric can-opener” myself but I guess Axis Arrowhead sounds cool too…
P.S. chuck 1809 is that you again Karl?
P.S. chuck 1809 is that you again Karl?
i think this Chuck is Norris :-D
edit: as for italian can-opening airforce, i think it is a good idea (to wipe out small, blocking russian forces, not big stacks, i’d leave those to Germany) as long as there are enough mech’s to serve as casualties. This will accelerate taking Russia and later on those planes can return to help out in the Middle East and Egypt.
Haven’t actually played italy so i don’t know the consequences in Africa for them if they do this. I do know, as Russia, getting can-opened is a pest.
Many times I have planned to use Italian ground troops for the same purpose, but I can’t seem to actually get them over there. There is always some other use for them that seems like a better solution in the short term.
Late game you are desperately trying to keep the Americans at bay.
Early game you need to take out Greece, Egypt, Southern France, the Middle East etc. Also you need to buy additional protection for the navy which is very prone to (air)raids. Actually, planes might might offer som some great synergies here between potentially threatening Russian and scrambling to protect the navy! :-o
Of course the range in Russia is rather limited if you need to operate out of Italy, but flying through the Dardanelles can be a shortcut to the southern areas of Russia. Perhaps an Air Base in Greece is what is needed to cover both fronts? It is adjacent to both the Adriatic sea, the SZ around Cyprus (in which it is otherwise difficult to cover transports landing in Syria) and the Black sea. That would allow Italian figther & tactical bombers to attack all the way up to the Baltic states, Belarus, and Smolensk, which is basically the entire front.
Would that be worth the 15 IPCs?
Gargantua,
This tactic does sound like it can hurt the Russians. I have been able to sack Moscow as Germany in the games I played but it is very hard and I don’t always succeed. There have been other games where I died in the Russian Winter.
I don’t think I could use the Italian aircraft against the opponent I play because he is usually pretty adamnent about reducing Italy to next to nothing before he strikes anything else. On UK1 he sinks half of my Italian fleet. Which hurts a lot but the main problem is the US fleet he pulls out of the Pacific and sends into the Med along with some subs and transports to end Italy’s war efforts in Africa. Meanwhile he flys fighters to Hawaii and transports Infantry there. It would still be possible to take out Hawaii as Japan but would take a lot of resources for very little economic gain.
I have countered by trying to win the game as Japan and I have killed India J3 with the purchase of the Hainan Naval base. Yet even then by the time I set my sights on the last victory city Italy has been stomped to irrelevant and the US is back in the Pacific.
