Strafing France with Germany and taking with Italy


  • Hey all,

    I’m playing a game against a buddy right now, and in his attack against France G1 with Germany, he ended up killing everything but the fighter on the second round.  Which he then left for Italy to take, in order to give them the big production boost.  With Germany turn 1, he killed all the U.K. navies starting with destroyers, to protect his subs.  With Germany, he bought a Strategic bomber and 3 subs.  I did the standard kills on his Italian navy with the U.K. airforce, but I chickened out with the U.K. build and bought 9 guys for the mainland (instead of cow’s 5 guys+minor in Egypt)–I didn’t think I could hold Egypt.

    On the Italian turn 1, he bought a destroyer.  On Italian turn 2, I think he bought something like 4 transports and maybe a destroyer.  He took Egypt turn 3, and it’s kind of gone downhill from there.  Anyway, if you ever want to see Italy turn into a monster, this would be something worth play testing.

    (On the Japanese side, he held off attacking until turn 3, which ended up not hurting him that badly.)


  • Wow. If he bought as he did you should not have got those Inf(but you know that). Suppose 3 mech units for SA would have right. You must have been thrown though. Did he even  bluff a Sealion or go straight for Russia? (without a Destroyer). Waiting  and holding with Japan is my plan too


  • That’s an interesting strategy if the goal is to come up through the middle east and Caucasus, with Germany playing defensive in Eastern Europe.  If Germany takes South France on round 1, they can build ships in the med G2.  Maybe Germany takes Greece, builds a minor, then an airbase and some transports in z100.  By that time the middle east should be secure and the axis can murder Russia down south where the money is.  Then a slow steady march toward Novgorod and Russia slowly starves to death.  Especailly good if Japan can eat up their income by taking Soviet territories in the far east.  The challenge for the allies is to keep italy form making $30+ every turn with NOs.


  • I’m the one GDog is playing in that game.  My idea was that Italy could get its NOs much quicker with the extra French IPCs.  I had all of the Med area NOs after I3.  I took all of the Middle East with Italy on I5 and am at 49 IPCs.

    We’re on round 6 now.  India should have fallen either J5 or J6, but I lost a battle in Burma where I had a 94% chance to win thanks to the UK hitting 5 of 9 with its 3 AA guns.  I did take Southern France with Germany on G1.  I feel that I did a week Sealion bluff and was counting on the all infantry buy based on previous games we’ve played.


  • Nice. What are Germany and Japan on IPC wise? And Russia for that matter.


  • Whqt if the UK reinforce France with 5 fighters and 1 tac.bomber, then afteer Italy turn France builds 6 more inf and brings the French fighter?

  • Customizer

    @Noll:

    Whqt if the UK reinforce France with 5 fighters and 1 tac.bomber, then afteer Italy turn France builds 6 more inf and brings the French fighter?

    Sea Lion time?


  • Is a risk either way, but UK cannot change all its offensive plans to save France can it? Would be a massive pain for Germany,but I think Germany would be better off for it. And Italy would have 3 transports for Africa. As Italy and before France,  I would attack UK Air with my 4 ground and 3 Air. Without those planes UK would be very vulnerable. What would be its 1st turn buy? I want to try it.


  • If you try it out, you’ll see that the U.K. can’t sufficiently reinforce France, even with the additional 6 French troops, from having Germany crush it on round 2.  Even if every available plane is landed there, and the strafe leaves 2 tanks plus the fighter, it’s impossible to hold.  So all that landing planes accomplishes is wiping out the British airforce (and keeping France from falling to Italy).  The payoff isn’t worth it.

    The biggest downsides I can imagine are that (1) it is much more difficult to hold off serious landings at Normandy by the US and/or UK.  Italy then has to protect Western Europe and the Med–although with Germany taking S France, they can dump ships in the Med as well if it comes to that (subs backed up by planes would be cheap).  And (2) delaying the war on the Pacific side until round 3 (which would make this work much better at times, depending on the US builds) means that UK Pacific can shuttle some troops over.

    The really nice thing about this strategy is that it’s more efficient to have Italy be the 1 force in the Med, and not have to worry about building enough ships off the S France factory right away to protect them from UK planes.

    I think it’s going to be the standard opening in our play group for the foreseeable future.

    The counter someone mentioned above about making sure to buy troops in S Africa–either mechs, or infantry/artillery to go with transports, in combination with some shuttling from India, is probably the safe response.

    Grover and I just started another game, with me being the Axis, and I’ve got to say I’m enjoying the big Italian boost.

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