@Herr:
@Herr:
Isn’t that a bit slow?
I1: take Bulgaria
I2: units move to Romania
I3: can-opening into Bessarabia and/or Eastern PolandSo in that scenario, the German followup will be as late as G4.
I think the important can-opening happens around (I4), I5, I6 in order to break through into volgograd and caucasus and later to threaten middle east by italy taking NW persia
The idea of can-opening is, to take the territory with Italy in order to allow Germany, and especially the German planes, to reinforce it against a Russian counterstrike. So I don’t think that any Italian drive to the south servers the purpose of can-opening because Russia is unlikely to have sufficient forces to strike back at either Volgograd or the Caucasus anyway in case the Germans would have taken it without Italian assistance. Which doesn’t imply that going that way is bad for Italy because there’s a lot of bonus to be had. But if you’re talking can-opening, then I’d say Bryansk on I5 would be the way to go.
@aequitas:
With Bulgaria, Yugo and Greece given to Italy, what punch will Germany have?
Any Allied player will be happy to harvest Italy…Agreed. I’d much rather give Bulgaria to Germany to assimilate those troops and add some punch to the German drive into Russia.
I might be using it idfferent than you. The other idea of canopening is to force a russian retreat.
let say you stand in rostov with a german and italian stack, with at least 40 german tank+mech and 5-7 italian units., and 7+ italians. Then ussr has to retreat to moscow. if he stacks byransk, you can take tambov with the italians, and moscow falls on the german turn. Since ussr has to retreat, you get to take cauc, stalingrad and begin taking the middle east immediately.
