Italy go after France and Germany go after Russia.

after seeing the setup this sounds dumb
germany needs that cash from france on G1

It doesn’t even seem like Italy has the manpower to take Paris.

@Dylan:

Well while back when I heard about the game I though a strategy would have the Italians take on France and Germany get a quick start on Russia. Now I think that might seem stupid, but I’m not sure, what does everyone else think?

Based on posted setup, assuming Italy goes before France, a full press attack of all available units by Italy of 2 infantry, 2 artillery, 1 tank, and 2 fighters (one from northern italy, one from southern italy) nets a win 2% of the time if Britain doesn’t reinforce Paris and Germany doesn’t attack.  Germany at the least would have to soften Paris, with a hard attack and retreat, but the UK can reinforce Paris with 4 fighters and a tactical bomber (3 from UK, tac and fighter from carrier in SZ 91).

If Germany doesn’t commit to taking France, the allies WILL keep her and France will crush Italy.  Italy has other matters to attend to.

Italy needs to stop the UK fleet by Gibraltar. Thats #1
I guess they can ‘protect’ France once Germany finishes it off as they did in AA50.
Once Italy takes care of these two it should focus on Medd. to get its NO’s If you waste the bulk of Italy on some battle exchanging her entire army with france, you made them impotent for the game for the most port and wasted their turn. The key is to maintain the integrity of her armed forces to make a viable punch each turn, rather than a few table scraps fighting one small battle a turn. So she needs to preserve as much as possible and avoid equal battles. All the battles she fights should be easy until she can build up her army and income.

Italy can handle Southern France. Germany is good for the rest.

I am really not a big fan of making several high risk gambles in my axis and allies games and I prefer to have my big battles secured numerically.  I think the keys to Italy are taking out the UK Navy followed by Egypt and Gibraltar and taking the Balkans.  Attacking France itself makes it much harder you to achieve your primary objectives and Germany needs the money to attack Russia.  To be honest, 1 turn is not going to set you back that much with the Russians as they will collect 30 something dollars, but Germany will gain at least that in their first turn just off NOs and taking France which can be thrown against Russia.

France has 12 units on it. Italy doesn’t have enough to take it IMO. If Germany softens it up first, maybe. Why would you want Italy to get the IC there anyway? Germany would have a better chance of using the Paris tt IC (has more $) if the allies hit the Normandy coast for a counter attack. I wouldn’t want to depend on Italy for a counter attack from Paris. Then Italy is not only your soft underbelly, it is also responsible for you flank. Its ok for them to come up to help out, but I wouldn’t want them to be in control of the heart of France. Plus if they happen to lose Rome, your doubly screwed, because they couldn’t build in France either.

I believe that Germany has a much more important task than Italy.  For me it seems like Italy is more of the distraction than the big meal.  The Italians are tasked with keeping the British occupied and controlling the Mediteranian and the important roles of crushing Russia belong to Germany.  In that case I would want Italy to have some IPCS but for Germany to have the lions share of the European IPCS. 
I think due to the fact that countries can not attack simultaneously it is important to have one significantly strong power and one fairly weak power then two medicore powers.  That being said, lets hope the Germans take France and are enough to take out Russia, while Italy can cause the British some heartache in Africa.

Well Italy vs UK in Egypt area, slightly favors the Italians.

BUT UK plays before Italy and Italy can lose its fleet on UK1, then UK can move out of Egypt and funnel troops for the counterattack.

Italy is weaker in this game than in AA50. Look at the setup and turn order. If Italy messes up the first turn it can be over for them and like dominoes, Germany becomes more weak.