Do you take Ukraine as Germany or Italy?

I am faced with this very dilemma in a current forum game cal…

Am leaning towards letting Germany have it even though I’d like Italy to have the income. I don’t think I can rely on Italy being able to churn out the units I would like on the R front.

Will be very interested in your other responses …

I personally think it’s important for Germany to own the Ukraine factory. They are the one that’s going to be (hopefully) taking Moscow, and they need the front line production from Ukraine to make that happen optimally.
Yes, you want Italian units available for can openers, but even a small trickle of mecs/tanks from Northern Italy is plenty for that purpose.

Germany always. Italy will have its hands full, holding Rome soon. This means Germany can churn out 6 units a turn straight into Russia. Artillery for Novgorod and Mech for the Ukraine.

Germany, almost always.

I’d only ever let Italy retake it after Moscow had already fallen, or if there were no Germans in range to do it to potentially keep the Allies from producing out of it, or if Moscow was already so certain it just didn’t matter.

A lot of the other territory, though, like you, I leave up to Italy if they can nab them. Germany usually doesn’t desperately need the money, and it makes a huge difference for Italy.

I’d say Germany must have it, as Germany -eventually- wants to attack Moscow and putting 6 units per turn into Russia collapses Russia double as fast compared to 3.
If there hadn’t been a mIC in Ukraine I probably let Italy take it.

However, I’ve seen it happen that Germany had no choice but to let Italy take it; sometimes Russia built such a strong counterattack army that Germany can’t move into Ukraine without a lot of Luftwaffe-protection or be destroyed. I’ve seen it a couple of time during DS-games, or games where Germany produced 1 or 2 ships too much. And Germany can’t base no Luftwaffe in Ukraine if it takes that area for itself so Italy will have to if Germany is to advance towards Moscow and/or Middle East.

I would say Germany definitely, but I think we have a much different playing style for the Germany/Italy team. We don’t usually send much from Italy into Russia. The attack on Russia is almost always entirely a German effort while Italy is busy trying to spread out in Africa and get the Middle Eastern countries. Sometimes if Italy has quick success with Egypt and the Middle East, they will send a few units up through the Caucasus.

if you allow italy to activate bulgaria, then the italian canopeningforce will be quite formidable. Don’t think you need any extra italians then.

@ChocolatePancake:

I personally think it’s important for Germany to own the Ukraine factory. They are the one that’s going to be (hopefully) taking Moscow, and they need the front line production from Ukraine to make that happen optimally.
Yes, you want Italian units available for can openers, but even a small trickle of mecs/tanks from Northern Italy is plenty for that purpose.

This is what I think too
A medium sized Italian army that doesn’t dare touch the Russia stack is just as useless as a small Italian army that can’t touch the Russian stack.  You need a few Italian units to threaten can openers (along with a bomber or two that could be in Rome or WGer), and you need to get them there without the Ukraine complex, which Germany can make much better use of than Italy

There are some extraordinary circumstances when Italy should own it such as when Russia is about to fall, and therefore Italy can make better use of the Ukraine factory (for the Middle East).  But in most games Germany should own it because they need to build infantry and artillery there to attack Russia.