Advice for Axis in late 1940: Spain?

[Joseignacio]

ORIGINAL: Dabrion

ORIGINAL: Ur_Vile_WEdge

Greece only has 1 resource. And be careful, those mountains can be tough to break. Especially, I would think, if Italy hasn't been in the war up till now and therefore can't have that many navs to stuff in the Eastern Med and mess up the British from reinforcing.

Athens is a clear hex though. Aligning Bulgaria the same turn you DoW Greece helps.

Yes, I count on some units when the fry starts, to help the Italians, and supply them with the GE HQ.

[Joseignacio]

ORIGINAL: Ur_Vile_WEdge

It helps, but it's hardly a sure thing. The Bulgarians have no HQ, and if you haven't aligned or conquered Yugoslavia (which makes the whole exercise moot) it's hard to get a German HQ there.

Which means the Bulgarians are limited, once they penetrate a bit, to sticking near Salonica and relying on an Italian convoy to stay in supply. If Italy hasn't had generous aid from Germany, which isn't really possible if they only got into the war post fall of France, then a gang of British carriers operating in the 4 box of the Eastern Med can make it hard for those CP to survive.


Even if the British can't send any reinforcements, you've got the 2 Greek initial units, and then the mil that will be coming next turn, as well as a garrison the turn after if you're playing CBVs. And a MTN on the resource, the inf starting in Athens and then moving either to hex 2414 or 2413 depending on how the Axis maneuver, or if necessary bringing the MTN back to cover both if you have both a fast column coming down from Albania and a Bulgarian contingent.

It won't hold forever, but it will stall, or force the Axis to try a risky attack against dug in guys in the mountains.

And if Italy only joined the war in say, J/A, I just don't see how it works. Did the Germans have units sitting in Bavaria and Austria, ready to walk into Trieste and be shipped to Albania right that turn? If not, you probably won't have that many units, or if you do, they'll be the Italians themselves. And Italy only has 1 unit that can move 4, so their advance through the hills is going to be slow, even with no resistance whatsoever.



Edit: One thing I am assuming is that even if the British don't have any transports/bodies to send to help the Greeks out, they do have enough of a naval presence to put pressure on the Eastern Med, make that convoy keeping things in supply a risky venture. This might or might not be the case in an actual game. If the British are staying out of the med, an attack on Greece is enormously simplified.

Italy has had more production than it gets normally but way far from 100% of the factories, but it's main builds (almost exclusive) were FTRs and NAVs, plus repair or 2nd round SCSs.

Last turn (surprise against CW) I sent 2 CV and 2 battleships to the repair pool. Bad luck I had 4 X and all of them were saved and only got D.

The British fleet was divided, part of it having had to deal with the Kriegsmarine raids (all the same I repaired and second round), so they are based in Portsmouth, too far to be a problem by now, the transports, 2 of them about Southern Africa in their way to Egypt, and most of the other in few convenient locations.

Id say I have advantage in the Med Seas because with my 2 /3 navs + plenty of fighters, one ranged 6. He has no fighters except for an interceptor in Gibraltar, and he has only a 20 range naval there too with few naval points (1 or 2).

The Italian Fleet can more or less deal with his forces if necessary. We are not using the rule that there needs to be a convoy to supply so anyway I can try to sneak a crappy cruiser to supply the forces...

As for those units, I rely a lot in the Luftwaffe, which has some good units in Italy along with Italian bombers.

Yes, the Germans were in Bavaria, in the mountains, railed previous turn, since one of them was an HQ and it Works as a train station, they just walked to Venice.

And yes, my only concern are the British but they don't seem to be able to send corps or at least more tan 1 or 2 corps, hopefully none.

[Joseignacio]

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I like when an Axis player attacks the Netherlands and then Greece and then complains that they can't seem to hurt the Allied convoy system no matter what they do.

Well, I have been doing this, with the GE corsairs I have wiped out the Transfer Pool, mostly damaged and sunk, only less tan half aborted, in two impulses. UNfortunately I am a Little late with subs, I forgot to make the second round to the three you get, and I only have two, one of them a milk cow. But I have 4 italian ones that will start to itch soon enough. Besides, earlier I didn't have France to base them in Brest.

i didn't mention before that, for the Little cost that it has, I decided to give the second round to the GE CV, which I think will make the Kreigsmarine raids much deadlier as well as protect them by making the brit have to spend 4 points to make the battle full naval if this were profitable for them, which may be dubious, for now the Kriegsmarine has some nice battleships and good value cruisers.

[Dabrion]

You should have paras in southern Italy. Divisions that take the southern ports, this makes it rather hard to get corps in for the Allies. Bulgarians with Antonescou and the Hun+Rum CAV secure the rail line towards Athens. Air starts from the Dodecanese or southern Italy. It you are setup right you will have enough potential threat on Athens during the surprise impulse, that setting up two corps there is a must. Only way Greece is hard is if Allies try to get corps in early in the game when Axis is reacting to that move.

[Joseignacio]

I have the maximum IT divs I have of the INF class, including one mont div, all stacked with cruisers. However, it depends on wether the Brits can have an interdiction on my cruisers..., who has the initiative, and wether the climate is storm or worse or not.

There cannot be a railway line to Athens (at least for supply or deployment matters), since Rumania is neutral and will have to be until war with USSR or Yug aligned or surrendered (more or less).

[Centuur]

ORIGINAL: Dabrion

You should have paras in southern Italy. Divisions that take the southern ports, this makes it rather hard to get corps in for the Allies. Bulgarians with Antonescou and the Hun+Rum CAV secure the rail line towards Athens. Air starts from the Dodecanese or southern Italy. It you are setup right you will have enough potential threat on Athens during the surprise impulse, that setting up two corps there is a must. Only way Greece is hard is if Allies try to get corps in early in the game when Axis is reacting to that move.

Antonescu isn't always available. If you choose not to attack Yugoslavia and the USSR claims the borderlands and than you let Bulgaria and Hungaria claim their portions of Rumania, you don't have Rumania on the Axis side, until it is at war with the Soviets...

The Balkans... Always a messy thing...

[Joseignacio]

Yep, in my case, and with the ruleset we are playing, which is NOT RAW7, if I read it well, you should always give Bulgaria and Hungary those lands.

In my game, they have not asked for the borderlands, due to the fiery resistance of the Finnish to Soviet invasion (one year). I am worried he may not ask for them because if he doesn't:

- I need Yugoslavia to align Romania (unless I am at war with URSS)
- I need Romania to align Yugoslavia.

It's a vicious circle. [:@]

[Dabrion]

ORIGINAL: Centuur

ORIGINAL: Dabrion

You should have paras in southern Italy. Divisions that take the southern ports, this makes it rather hard to get corps in for the Allies. Bulgarians with Antonescou and the Hun+Rum CAV secure the rail line towards Athens. Air starts from the Dodecanese or southern Italy. It you are setup right you will have enough potential threat on Athens during the surprise impulse, that setting up two corps there is a must. Only way Greece is hard is if Allies try to get corps in early in the game when Axis is reacting to that move.

Antonescu isn't always available. If you choose not to attack Yugoslavia and the USSR claims the borderlands and than you let Bulgaria and Hungaria claim their portions of Rumania, you don't have Rumania on the Axis side, until it is at war with the Soviets...

The Balkans... Always a messy thing...

I thought he was doing 1) allow Bess claim 2) deny Hun+Bul claims->gets Rum+Hun 3) attack Bul with the Rumanians. And this was the final step with Greece. Doesn't work without Bess claim though.

Btw. what changed for the Balkan in that version of the rules that is not RAW7?

[Joseignacio]

Not sure if it changed something, I mentioned this because I was not sure and didn't want somebody to say "hey, it's not like that in the rules (RAW7)", but if I do what you say I could not align all the Balkans, including Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.

No reason to take the risk to lose one unit while spanking the Bulgarians (plus partisan garrison) , defending Romania as peacekeepers which is pretty bad role, I promise..., if you can give everyone what they want (except for Rom) and get Romania when you align Yug.

[Dabrion]

Denying Bessarabia in the first place is almost always a bad idea. I was talking about the Bul+Hun territorial claims on Rum, after the Bess claim was acknowledged. If you want to align Yug, denying Bul+Hun claims is still the easiest way and has the benefit of gaining Rum as a full ally. You only loose Bulgaria in the process, which has a negligible forcepool, and whose partisans (3) lack any determination compared to their neighbors. You are exposed to intervention in Bulgaria and Greece though, which is too much potential distraction when you need every last unit on the border for Barb41. That is why selling out Rum is the better option for that case (where you get Rum on DoW RU anyways), although a No-Bessarabia-Gambit is even better!

W/o Bessarabia claimed, you could just DoW Yug as that gets the neighbors on the map and you will need the Balkan crowd and the Fins to have a shot at the pact. You will ultimately have to DoW RU to unlock the Balkans and that is unlikely to happen w/o Rumania and Hungary on the Map.


If you are worried about CW intervention, a side show in North Africa towards Suez could make it at least a tougher decision to pull force out of that area. In late40 the Axis still has a considerable advantage in terms of land, air and HQs, so you can easily afford two theatres while CW will have to sprinkle or commit to one.
It sounds as if you don't go for Spain after France, so you should have enough spare HQs and air to pull off Greece and North Africa, which also have some synergy. Regia Marina amounts to ~65 surface (+CLs) with reasonable air cover while in the Med. Even with a bad split on the dice you are looking at at least 113 vs the enemy. A Condor in the Red Sea could be a good sentry for any Indian war tourists.

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: Dabrion

Denying Bessarabia in the first place is almost always a bad idea. I was talking about the Bul+Hun territorial claims on Rum, after the Bess claim was acknowledged. If you want to align Yug, denying Bul+Hun claims is still the easiest way and has the benefit of gaining Rum as a full ally. You only loose Bulgaria in the process, which has a negligible forcepool, and whose partisans (3) lack any determination compared to their neighbors.

Besides Russian Peacekeepers in Bulgaria, don't you also have a problem reinforcing the Rumanians? Certainly now the Russians are in East Poland and since Hungary is mad at you too, there's no hexes connecting between Rumania and Germany.

And if you don't DoW Bulgaria in the same DoW phase that you deny the Hun+Bul claims, then certainly the Russians will align Bulgaria at the next opportunity.

[Dabrion]

I guess you have to DoW Hun then, that costs a MECH corps..? I dont remember.. did this once for a SeaLion game and it turned out to be a good constellation.

The peace-keepers in Bul/Hun are a real threat! Esp with Paras in the equation. I think this has a potential to fail horribly if it is read early enough and encountert with determination on part of RU. Guess that is the reason why denying the Bul+Hun claims is not popular. Aligned Rum (full) + Yug (normal) and no Balkan partisans kind of makes up for that.