Best tips for Italy during the surprise impulse?

[peskpesk]

In the global 39 campaign Italy has many interesting choices; whether to go to war with CW and or FR, when to go to war and so on. But appart from the two natural choices to attack Gibraltar / Malta during the surprise impulse what are your best tips for Italy during the surprise impulse and why? I know there are several more nice choices, but I want to see what other players often do.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

Often, the British player leaves it covered, but if you can slip a division into Damietta or Port Said and use it to either land an army behind the British or make an end run to Cairo, grab it.

And sometimes, a good old fashioned naval and striking with your submarine can yield quite a bit of damage. Especially if Malta is left undefended, there's no hurry to take it, it's very hard to reinforce and harder still to keep in supply. And if it is defended, you'll probably have to wait for it to be OOS and flipped before you can strike.

[Centuur]

Consider Oran or Algiers for a surprise invasion too. And there is a resource in Cyprus to (but that usually is very difficult to transport to Italy, if the British relocate the Indian Ocean fleet to Alexandria or Port Said...

[Dabrion]

Cyprus can be grabed for free once EMed looses supply (if there is no garrison). Given that you are likely limited to a combined (e.g one invasion), i would say it is not worth the surprise impulse.

Naval is an option if there is are good targets in the WMed and Gibraltar/Malta (lift, then shore factors and flattops should be targeted). You only have to hit your box during suprise, so even single SUB can wreck some havok to convoy lines (CSV BoB NA).

If Nice is weakly stacked (sometimes only an 3factor INF is placed there), you can build +14ish attack to crack the Marseille regian early and race for an Atlantic port. This is nicely combined with surprised ground strikes during a naval surprise impulse. Slightly depends on the unit draw to be viable.

Landing in the Oran region with a Div and later reinforcing with Rocky to race for Rabat before CW can build up presence in Marrocco is a very good option (even without the resource).

Declaring vs FR only can make sense if you are going for Gib/Spain. CW will have to declare on you at some point, but you are giving away the surprise impulse, yet are likely to regain the USE chit.

Egypt first is an option, but you will have to setup for that. Creep up through Sudan and get a landing in the Palistine area. This can get the MidEast aligment chain and the TERR swarm started.

You can look east an go for Yugo/Greece early, but this has a potential to stall early. And a war while neutral will allow CW to reinforce there for the alignment option and allied suport rolls. Not a good option imoh.