Italian advice - Production

[alexvand]

I do not know what to do with the Italians at the beginning of a Global War game. (Part of it is that I am such a cautious player and the Italians just don't have the resources for how I'm used to playing.)

Given that they only have 2-6 BPs in 39 and 40, what do you build with them during that time?

[Klydon]

To me, A priority is getting the two battleships out of the repair pool.

You start with just 2 battleships and you will get two more (Jan/Feb 40 and May/Jun 40). You get those with the two in the repair pool and suddenly you have 6 battleships, which is enough to present the CW a very serious threat in the Med.

Not saying its right, but I look to increase their air capability, so I look to build pilots and planes with the occasional land unit.

Once the Italians are in the war, most guides would tell you to have the Germans lend them some build points so they can have 8-10 build points a turn to play with. That lets them make good headway with their build pool and again, probably a mix of planes, pilots and ground is most likely the way to go. You do want the paratrooper for sure. If playing with amphibs, then the marine unit is important as well otherwise you have no real invasion ability other than trying with divisions which would be rough with the notational defense.

[warspite1]

I would agree. The two Littorios can cause the RN to think carefully over what she needs to put in the Med. Anything to stretch the RN is a good thing.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

Before you decide what to build, you need to decide how involved the EuroAxis are going to be in the Med. Are you going to make a real throw to grab Suez? Is closing the water to allied shipping good enough? Do you not care much, and simply want to build a big sub fleet to harass shipping in the Atlantic? Do you want to Super Balbo? Etc; what you build is dictated by what you're trying to do.

First off, I'd recommend declaring war on the first turn most of the time. The Germans (usually) have excess resources, and you have unused factories. Your starting division should invade something opportunistically, either Malta (Great base), Cyprus (resource) Port Said/Damietta (risky, but can give you a backdoor into Egypt) or somewhere in Palestine (somewhat less risky, but less powerful, same idea. Can also go into Syria/Transjordan to try to pick up Iraq.)


You should decide right away whether you want to do more invvasions, which will require either an amph, or a marine. Both of those take a fairly long time, so if you do want them, get them early.

I would not repair the two battleships. The med has very good weather almost all year long, and planes kill ships a lot better than ships kill planes. You want to control the med? I recommend NAVs and FTRs, not battleships. You should be getting a lot of fighters anyway, especially if considering a Super Balbo. Subs are also a good buy, but for a teeny bit later most of the time for me. Remember, while your subs generally aren't as good as the German ones, you're often much more free to take naval actions. The flip side of this,is whenever possible, don't build land units, and just borrow German ones.


One other small note: One of the few things you have that are better than the German units in absolute terms are your ATRs. If Jerry is big on flying paras around, you might want to build a few for him, instead of those dinky Ju-52s. (Demand BP for their construction). In fact, especially if you're playing the whole side, don't think of a separate Italian strategy. Italy is there to supplement Germany. You should have one European strategy, with Italy and Germany essentially operating out of one production pool, since they can lend to each other over rail.

[Centuur]

ORIGINAL: Ur_Vile_WEdge

Before you decide what to build, you need to decide how involved the EuroAxis are going to be in the Med. Are you going to make a real throw to grab Suez? Is closing the water to allied shipping good enough? Do you not care much, and simply want to build a big sub fleet to harass shipping in the Atlantic? Do you want to Super Balbo? Etc; what you build is dictated by what you're trying to do.

First off, I'd recommend declaring war on the first turn most of the time. The Germans (usually) have excess resources, and you have unused factories. Your starting division should invade something opportunistically, either Malta (Great base), Cyprus (resource) Port Said/Damietta (risky, but can give you a backdoor into Egypt) or somewhere in Palestine (somewhat less risky, but less powerful, same idea. Can also go into Syria/Transjordan to try to pick up Iraq.)


You should decide right away whether you want to do more invvasions, which will require either an amph, or a marine. Both of those take a fairly long time, so if you do want them, get them early.

I would not repair the two battleships. The med has very good weather almost all year long, and planes kill ships a lot better than ships kill planes. You want to control the med? I recommend NAVs and FTRs, not battleships. You should be getting a lot of fighters anyway, especially if considering a Super Balbo. Subs are also a good buy, but for a teeny bit later most of the time for me. Remember, while your subs generally aren't as good as the German ones, you're often much more free to take naval actions. The flip side of this,is whenever possible, don't build land units, and just borrow German ones.


One other small note: One of the few things you have that are better than the German units in absolute terms are your ATRs. If Jerry is big on flying paras around, you might want to build a few for him, instead of those dinky Ju-52s. (Demand BP for their construction). In fact, especially if you're playing the whole side, don't think of a separate Italian strategy. Italy is there to supplement Germany. You should have one European strategy, with Italy and Germany essentially operating out of one production pool, since they can lend to each other over rail.

I agree on this. If you don't DoW by Italy in the first turn, personally I would save the build points to build the Marines with the Italians. Building this unit makes sure the CW has to garrison places like Malta with more than just a division or a gun.

[markb50k]

Super Balbo? Can someone explain as I am trying to learn how to play Italy as well. Thanks

[brian brian]

Italy is a lot of fun to play. They operate on a shoestring all the time. All countries need do an important thing in WiF, but Italy more than most - match what units they build to what they need to accomplish their strategy. Edit: in other words, pick your strategy, then your builds.

I would never spend a lire on an Italian battleship, unless or until the Axis really get rolling. However I do like to go against all good advice and lay down the Aquila CV (scrap the Sparviero, let's not get dumb here). That day will come when the doors to the Med are busted open, and it's time to go raiding from wonderful bases in Martinique or the Seychelles.....you have to play Italy like an optimist. The Aquila build is bad advice though, don't go there until you get the Med figured out pretty good.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

You essentially have Italy go full support mode for Germany in the air. Germany lends a lot of BP to Italy, and the Italians in turn, build a zillion FTR and LND. When the war with the Soviets rolls around, a significant fraction, if not the majority of the "Luftwaffe" is Italian.

This way, Germany can take Land actions, and Italy can take Air actions, which mitigates a lot of the problems the Germans face in the offensive of outrunning their air support and having to wait for it to get back up.


I'm not really sure how it got the name myself....

[Zorachus99]

Balbo is possibly one of the most interesting HQ's in the game.

He is worth the same value while in supply or out of supply, organized and disorganized, three points.

As far as Italian HQ's he is the cream of the crop, inexpensive to reorganize, foot movement of 3, movement unaffected by forest. Reorganizes 3 aircraft during an air impulse, which can be pretty effective if you have an Italian air arm in Russia.

[brian brian]

I believe the strategy originally got its name by using the Balbo HQ in a 1942 Barbarossa, with an Offensive Chit in an Air Impulse, which is sometimes known as a "Super Air" impulse. This was used to break a Russian line on the Dnepr, which can be quite formidable in 1942.

From there over time players learned to game the action limits by using a heavy amount of Italian air units in a Barbarossa of any year, and the name Super Balbo is applied to that strategy in general, which is an extremely effective one.

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: Ur_Vile_WEdge

You essentially have Italy go full support mode for Germany in the air. Germany lends a lot of BP to Italy, and the Italians in turn, build a zillion FTR and LND. When the war with the Soviets rolls around, a significant fraction, if not the majority of the "Luftwaffe" is Italian.

This way, Germany can take Land actions, and Italy can take Air actions, which mitigates a lot of the problems the Germans face in the offensive of outrunning their air support and having to wait for it to get back up.


I'm not really sure how it got the name myself....

Not sure I can take full credit, but I was one of the first to call it that. Balbo is usually the HQ that goes to Russia to do the re-orging and coincidentally he gained fame pre-war in aviation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo_Balbo

[Neilster]

Balbo got shot down by his own anti-aircraft artillery. Good to see the Italians showing their usual form in North Africa [;)]

Ok Ok they did fight well sometimes, especially when stiffened by German units. But seriously, that's a big c@ck-up.

Cheers, Neilster

[Klydon]

Sort of a side bar/OT thing with the Italian armed forces. It was a wonder they fought as well as they did given how corrupt the Italian armed forces, especially the army, was. There was absolutely no thought given to going to war in a desert climate, despite the fact the Italians had been in Libya since at least 1913.

Two easy ones to see:

The Italian army continued to use its standard ration in Libya, giving no thought to what it required. No special desert ration was developed. I can hardly think of a worse ration than to try to use pasta (requiring quantities of water to prepare since boiling is involved) in the desert.

In addition, Italian equipment is legendary on how bad it performed, especially in the desert. The Italian machine guns were not very good and had a tendency to jam. To fix this, the manufacturer decided to equip them with oilers. Cartridges were oiled as they went through the gun in order to cut down on jamming. Oil and sand/dust make for a pretty evil combo when it comes to screwing up mechanical devices.

[LiquidSky]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

Sort of a side bar/OT thing with the Italian armed forces. It was a wonder they fought as well as they did given how corrupt the Italian armed forces, especially the army, was. There was absolutely no thought given to going to war in a desert climate, despite the fact the Italians had been in Libya since at least 1913.

Two easy ones to see:

The Italian army continued to use its standard ration in Libya, giving no thought to what it required. No special desert ration was developed. I can hardly think of a worse ration than to try to use pasta (requiring quantities of water to prepare since boiling is involved) in the desert.

In addition, Italian equipment is legendary on how bad it performed, especially in the desert. The Italian machine guns were not very good and had a tendency to jam. To fix this, the manufacturer decided to equip them with oilers. Cartridges were oiled as they went through the gun in order to cut down on jamming. Oil and sand/dust make for a pretty evil combo when it comes to screwing up mechanical devices.

It's a myth that the Italians needed water for pasta in the desert. Probably propagated by a rather lame board game made in the 70's on desert warfare.

Taken from another site:

A 1915 Italian infantryman, after the improvements of the Lybia war of 1912, gets 750 gr. of bread, 300 gr. of pasta or rice, 375 gr. of meat, several vegetables, chocolate, cofee, cheese every day. More in the winter, less if behind the lines.
In 1916 bread is cut to 600 gr., meat to 250 (and often replaced by fish), vegetables are halved. Source:



Speaking about the Campaign for North Africa, when the British troops take Sidi El Barrani from the hands of the Italians, they find "109.000 rations of biscuit, 72.600 meat cans, 70.700 cans of Chiarizia "minestrone" (thick vegetables soup), 3.504 bottles of lemon juice, 18 casks of Marsala wine, 4 of olive oil, 900 kg of tea, 660 kg of tomato sauce, 700 of salt, 2.200 of sugar, 10.000 of hay, 5.650 of food for animals and 40.000 of barley". No mention of pasta; some could be in the minestrone, but no need to cook it. Source:


Serving the Northern Republic in 1944, on the Cassino front, no pasta again: see the 18th of April entry here


"On the morning a surrogate of coffee, not always with sugar, half roll of black bread (700 gr. for the whole day). At 11/12 a.m. gr.80 of butter, salami, jam, tins (two things for 160 gr.). 4/5 pm a mess tin of soup or something so called."


EDIT: Removed links as they were all dead.

[Neilster]

I once heard an Italian chef say that pasta should be cooked in water as salty as seawater. Seawater can't have been too difficult to obtain on the North African coast if they did need it for that.

Cheers, Neilster

[Majorball68]

ORIGINAL: Neilster

Balbo got shot down by his own anti-aircraft artillery. Good to see the Italians showing their usual form in North Africa [;)]

Ok Ok they did fight well sometimes, especially when stiffened by German units. But seriously, that's a big c@ck-up.

Cheers, Neilster

Balbo

How unlucky was he, probably the only aircraft the Italians shot down in the war!

[Xenocide]

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky
It's a myth that the Italians needed water for pasta in the desert. Probably propagated by a rather lame board game made in the 70's on desert warfare.

The game is legendary as it is virtually unplayable. The amount of detail for that game is insane. It requires multiple tables for the maps, has almost 2000 counters, and has a three volume rulebook (and they are not small rulebooks). It is recommended you have five players per side and reportedly it requires about 1500 hours of play to complete.

The rule about Italian pasta was slipped in as a joke by the designers and was never intended to be taken seriously.

[paulderynck]

Campaign for North Africa was perhaps the first boardgame ever published that should have been a computer game!

[Klydon]

Hmm. Can't remember where I read the "pasta ration" reference, but given the disorganization of the Italian armed forces, would anyone have been surprised?

[Numdydar]

ORIGINAL: Xenocide

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky
It's a myth that the Italians needed water for pasta in the desert. Probably propagated by a rather lame board game made in the 70's on desert warfare.

The game is legendary as it is virtually unplayable. The amount of detail for that game is insane. It requires multiple tables for the maps, has almost 2000 counters, and has a three volume rulebook (and they are not small rulebooks). It is recommended you have five players per side and reportedly it requires about 1500 hours of play to complete.

The rule about Italian pasta was slipped in as a joke by the designers and was never intended to be taken seriously.

Incorrect [:)]

This is actually one of my favorite games [X(]. Played quite a bit of both as a two player game and with two teams of two each. Both were a lot of fun.

The great thing about the game is that a lot of the activities could be done away from the map. So the two sides could have everything prepared prior to actually playing at the same time. I remember both sides had three ring binders to keep track of all the paperwork involved [:D]

The game really showcased the difficulties of supply and how important it was to both sides. Unlike any other game I had played before. Unfortunately it also ruined me for computer games that just add supply in as an afterthought versus something that really matters.