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War in the West is a complicated game. I've played a lot of games, mostly as the Axis. (Although I do prefer to play the Allies) I plan to discuss different game mechanics and how the German player can use them to minimize the Allied advantages to generating victory points.

There are a few different options that can affect how victory points are accumulated in the game. First off I am assuming the 1943-1945 campaign game, with East Front OFF, and with Optional City VP ON.

The Optional City VP was a later addition to the game because it was quite possible for the Allies to win by bombing alone. Without it the Germans probably have to try for a morale victory rather then a victory point one. (A morale victory is making your opponent concede).

You should be familiar with how victory points are accumulated from turn to turn in the game. In general, the Allies are in the driving seat. They gain points for bombing certain factories. They gain points for taking urban centers. They lose victory points for casualties and for failing to bomb. As the German player, you can only get a few points for over garrisoning zones or by attacking and causing casualties. What this really means is that you have to treat every turn as an opportunity to slow the Allies down. You won't be preventing a D-Day, or the allies taking hexes in Italy, so the penalty vps are meaningless. You won't be doing a Battle of the Bulge style attack where you push the allies back to the sea.

Of course you could win by making the opponent concede. Probably the most common way a game ends. This usually happens in Italy early on in a game due to defeating an allied invasion.

So some of my topics on Axis Strategy will include: garrison values (and how CV works), the air war, the Italian armed forces.....

Okay, you've just gotten the first turn. The allies will have probably invaded Sicily. They may have used all 6 amphibs, or more likely, invaded using only 4. The other two will be tasked with invading somewhere else. You should always keep in mind how many invasions can the allies do next turn.

The first turn is by far the longest turn of the game. I will assign the German air by type to it's own Air HQ. For example all the night fighters in my present game are in II Jag. All the factory defense fighters are in I Jag. All the LB are in Luftwaffe Reich....and so on. This makes it easy to manipulate them in later turns through the CR (commanders report).

I will also use this time to transfer all my air to different bases depending on what goals I may have. ( I will get into air in greater detail on another post) Basically I don't want them too close to allied fighters.

In Sicily the Germans start with a panzer division, a panzer grenadier division and a kampfgruppe. There is another division in Calabria that can move down and a couple more in rail distance. If the allies invaded Sicily with all 6 amphibs....great! You can move your German units around the river near Catania and Mt. Etna and leave Sicily over the next couple of turns. But there s a good chance they are retasking two of the amphibs to invade somewhere else....probably north of Reggio Calabria in order to cut off your units in Sicily.

SO your first priority is to get the Germans out. The 15th PzG doesn't have enough movement to get out of Sicily, and the HG Pz is probably only making it to Reggio Calabria. Messina is a better port though. The 90th PzG on Sardinia should have enough movement to get to the port, transport to Naples and get off but if not, leave it on Sardinia until the other units are free.

The Italians are interesting. I've played many games where I have ignored them and let them die. But they can be strong enough to defend on their own. At least strong enough to buy you time to get more Germans into Italy from your other garrisons. And their air can be a great spoiler at sea.
Their HQ's have a lot of support units in them. A LOT. And some of them have better CV's then the divisions themselves. You should be assigning them all to the on map units. Every mobile Italian division should be railed down to Calabria to guard the neck, the ports and the mountain hexes. The static divisions rail them down, but leave them on rail lines since they only move 2. And everything should get support units. I've seen an isolated Palermo hold out to multiple attacks because the divisions had good support units in them.

In general, the first few turns is one of build up. I use the Italians to hold the front and the Germans to guard the ports and rear areas. I build up an army near Taranto. Another near Salerno. No divisions on a coastal hex if I can help it (unless a port). If the Germans are more then 10 hexes from an allied unit, then they count for preventing Italian surrender.
Here you can see my Italians defending in a recent online game in late August.
Not bad defensive CV in the neck for pure Italians.

The strategy is to clog up the front with Italians to slow down the Allied advance until he invades. The Germans are protecting Taranto and the neck to Brindisi, all the ports up to around Rome, and the area around Naples and Salerno while building a fort line between Salerno and Termoli. When the Italians surrender I will back off to the Ofanto river by Barletta (in front of the Foggia airfields) and guard their until the next invasion.

A separate note about the Italian airforce. I keep their fighters on airbases near the front. Don't bother with assigning them an air directive....just let them intercept as they see fit. The Italian bombers I use around Foggia and Brindisi to patrol the sea around the entrance to the Adriatic or the Gulf of Taranto. Only fly on the enemy phase as that effects his naval movement (and your own supply phase). Flying on your own phase effects your own movement and his supply phase. They can put down near 9's at between Greece and Italy, or a large swath of 3-5's in the Gulf of Taranto.

The Italian air will suffer a fair bit of attrition doing this, so make sure you change Pct Fly under Air Doctrine to 0, which is the minimum percentage needed of remaining planes for the squadron to fly. (meaning all of that are left will fly). Even a single torpedo bomber can lay some interdiction.

The Italian TAC I attach to the Italian Luftwaffe with the German TAC, and the recon aircraft I try and fly interdiction recon to spot units behind the lines, or sometimes airfields to use the TAC on.

Here is the German/Italian air combined laying down defensive naval air:

As for the other two islands I have mixed feelings. It is not terribly difficult to hold the ports with Germans and stack either a regiment or fort counter on the Italians so that when they surrender, they are disarmed (and removed). The allied player if caught by surprise will have to retask an amphib or two for invasion, or may air transport to an airfield if he can hold/move onto one.

The disadvantage is that every time he invades a hex, he gets a free level 2 airfield. And Corsica especially, you don't want the allies to have more airfields. It would suck for Rome if he gets 6 free level 2 airfields on the coast facing Italy.

If you do decide to hold the islands, you should send only infantry divisions that have an early withdrawal date. That way they can sit on a port and all you have to do is make sure it is not isolated by flying naval air and when the time comes they can be safely removed without having to risk naval movement. Also using forts on the non-coastal hexes costs only a single admin point and can be removed by spending another point to disband them.