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Explorations in Strategy - Italy at War

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Baltasar: I think nearly a dozen, yeah. Yeah, some of them have arrived. No, the Red Air Force is gone. My manpower is good. :p

Jonny5tyle: That sort of maneuver had come to mind, but I didn't have the ready forces to try to achieve it, so I decided against it in the end. :p

Maj. von Mauser: Yeah, fairly reasonable. *nod* :p

Krogzar: Yep. Also, thanks! :D

Jemisi: Headquarters are terrible when it comes to combat. Whenever I end up attacking an enemy hq, I take maybe one casualty and they take 300+. So I don't want the same to happen to me. :p

Lordban: Hehe. :D

cthulhu: Well, that's the problem with this war: is anything I do just postponing eventual defeat? :p

rasmus40: Yeah the dilemma is a bit of a bastard. Offensive action can't really accomplish victory, but defensive action will probably only result in defeat. So what do I do? I guess spoiling operations until my army is big enough that I can consider bigger things to come. :p
 
Great update! You know I wonder what is happening on the rest of the Soviet Fronts esp with Germany. I expect swift reinforcements but am puzzled by the low man power we saw earlier with the Greece units you attacked. Just hope You don't run out of man power yourself with that offensive.:wacko:
 
Another great update: Italy marches on.

On the one hand, even he did not quite know what the purpose of his offensive was.
Click to expand...

Don't lose sight of the objective here - to disrupt the Red Army's fighting ability. Your invasion grabbed the initiative from the Soviets, forcing them to fight on ground of your choosing. Without that, your only option was to wait for whatever Stalin decided to do, up to the point that the Soviet forces appear at the Alps, after destroying Germany. Unless you can recover the oil fields in Romania, there is no need to push further east - as you say, there is not a good defensible position close enough to be supplied.

You need an idea of what is coming, maybe CAG patrols throught Bulgaria and Romania to give an early warning. You can't hold Yugoslavia, so destroy what division you can and pull back to your former defensive line. Maybe move the HQ's up to it to dig in. Let the Soviets return, and maybe do it again. (Or try Istanbul next time?)
 
Push and kill and annihilate as much as you can.
For now you can do it, but tomorrow is a different day.

It seems that Stalin has never even heard of Clausewitz... whilst Mussolini seems to sleep with his booklet. :cool:

So how far shall you push?
To Dniestr and Constantinople?

Or to Armenia in east?

You have a superb tactical initiative, but with time the soviet defences will get stronger. You have the ability to punch the bear, and keep punching the bear in front of it's cave, but when you enter the cave, doomed will you be. :D

Unless the Germans achieve a miracle. And manage to use it properly. :rofl:
 
Nope. He will push as long as he still can surround and destroy some units. Then he will retreat to the former line, wait a bit, and make a new landing in greece....Hopefully he will kill soviets divisions faster than they can build new ones...
 
I would object those opinions. The situation looks promising currently. If the Italians manage to knock out more Soviet divisions, they may even be able to deliver a decisive blow against their forces in the whole of Illyra, by encircling and destroying the whole Russian force. A giganting Cannae, played upon Italian soil. Stalin can only divert so many units towards the Balkan, as he is still struggling with the Germans further North. The more units the Italians destroy, the better the chances of success for Germany and Italy.

Besides, there's still neutral Hungary. The Russians can not march through it (yet), so it's like a wall to anchor a line of defense. The other side of that line would strech towards the Black Sea.

The HQ units could truly do something better than just sit idle. They could help the advances by moving into unoccupied hostile provinces, thereby cutting their lines. If attacked, they could be withdrawn quite quickly and still annoy the Russians.
 
Baltasar said:
I would object those opinions. The situation looks promising currently.
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True. I keep forgetting that SU is apparently in trouble with manpower. Be nice to see an espionage report on the Soviets. If they were having trouble reinforcing the units they had to full strength, they probably are in a bigger bind to produce new units to replace the ones destroyed.

More reason to find out what awaits in the east.
 
rasmus40 said:
This offensive doesn't seem to have a real objective, which is surprising given your background. There is not really anywhere you can stop, take a break and regroup unless you are able to get back to your old frontline i Dacia and hold Istanbul as well..
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This is what concerns me as well - you are very ably counter-attacking, but when will you consider the mission complete? When you are back to being surrounded and outnumbered and it's time to retreat again?

It seems like overall you are inflicting roughly 2 soviet casualties for every 1 italian casualties, which sadly is probably a ratio Uncle Joe would accept indefinitely. Short of a game-changing event like Japanese intervention, the German AI getting hugely better, or nukes, it seems this is all just delaying the inevitable.

Enjoying this AAR very much, thanks again for writing it!
 
It seems like overall you are inflicting roughly 2 soviet casualties for every 1 italian casualties, which sadly is probably a ratio Uncle Joe would accept indefinitely.
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That is combat losses only. Do not forget the losses inflicted by forcing encircled units to surrender.
 
And also Italy has some advances in First aid, and the tech that gives trickle back. (Embarrassed that I have forgotten the tech.):eek:o
I would say that if things go as they have he has about a 20% chance at getting back to his old lines in Dacia and then up to Istanbul. Not great odds, but not bad considering. If not this battle has been a huge positive all in all. This is also going to pull a few troops away from the Germans and may, just may, help the germans advance maybe a Provence or two? :rofl:
 
Well, that campaign went better than I expected, congrats on that. Hope youcan stabilize that line in Bosnia, guess the bear's angry now.
 
FrodoB said:
Another great update: Italy marches on.



Don't lose sight of the objective here - to disrupt the Red Army's fighting ability. Your invasion grabbed the initiative from the Soviets, forcing them to fight on ground of your choosing. Without that, your only option was to wait for whatever Stalin decided to do, up to the point that the Soviet forces appear at the Alps, after destroying Germany. Unless you can recover the oil fields in Romania, there is no need to push further east - as you say, there is not a good defensible position close enough to be supplied.

You need an idea of what is coming, maybe CAG patrols throught Bulgaria and Romania to give an early warning. You can't hold Yugoslavia, so destroy what division you can and pull back to your former defensive line. Maybe move the HQ's up to it to dig in. Let the Soviets return, and maybe do it again. (Or try Istanbul next time?)
Click to expand...

I agree with the hobbit!

Unless continued advance is much easier than you make it sound like, you should seriously consider to fall back and just do the same thing all over. Then you will have the momentum to reach Dacia and perhaps bring the war across the border yet again!
 
Hopefully now that we have 1.4, Germany will step up and carry its fair share of the load. Btw, Myth, if you give the HQ a combat brigade for security, they aren't anywhere near as fragile.
 
I would say the objective is to keep pushing east because I would think you need to take pressure off the Germans. If the Germans start to fall back, or worse collapse, I can't image the fascist experiment in Europe lasting much longer. So the more you push east the more the Soviets will have to recognize your threat and divert divisions to the Italian front.

Hopefully if you can get the Soviets to bring down more troops the Germans could push east and create a larger front. Without one another neither of your fascist governments will survive long.
 
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FrodoB said:
Another great update: Italy marches on.



Don't lose sight of the objective here - to disrupt the Red Army's fighting ability. Your invasion grabbed the initiative from the Soviets, forcing them to fight on ground of your choosing. Without that, your only option was to wait for whatever Stalin decided to do, up to the point that the Soviet forces appear at the Alps, after destroying Germany. Unless you can recover the oil fields in Romania, there is no need to push further east - as you say, there is not a good defensible position close enough to be supplied.

You need an idea of what is coming, maybe CAG patrols throught Bulgaria and Romania to give an early warning. You can't hold Yugoslavia, so destroy what division you can and pull back to your former defensive line. Maybe move the HQ's up to it to dig in. Let the Soviets return, and maybe do it again. (Or try Istanbul next time?)
Click to expand...

I too agree this is good advice. My concern is that you are going to get stretched to the limit and then collapse under the weight that Russia can bring to bare. However if they really are having manpower issues, resetting and doing this again to drain their manpower farther can pay off in time as you drain them dry.

Shadow
 
Myth said:
Jemisi: Headquarters are terrible when it comes to combat. Whenever I end up attacking an enemy hq, I take maybe one casualty and they take 300+. So I don't want the same to happen to me. :p
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I didn't mean for slugfests, just for this particular situation of requiring more units to close off pockets. I think the HQs could help even if it is just attacking into empty spaces.
 
Juan_de_Marco: Hehe. Well, to be fair, I routinely don't tell you people my objectives until I've accomplished them, so that's plausible. ;)

Tribal: Nah I won't, I have over 900 manpower myself. :p

FrodoB: Well, that's the rationalization and it could be the objective, but it's more the former than the latter I think. I think mostly it's a preemption of the inevitable Soviet attack. :p

Enewald: I think you may be a bit optimistic about my chances of pushing that far. :p

BlitzMartinDK: Hehe, maybe. Though don't forget the paradoxical logic of war: something may not work today specifically because it worked yesterday! Then again, it is the AI we're talking about...:p

Baltasar: It's true that the Soviets can only take so many formations from the German front, but that's still probably a lot of units! :p

FrodoB: Unfortunately the Soviet intelligence services are better at counterespionage than I am at espionage, at least with the current leadership I'm putting in, leading to a basic abandonment on my part of espionage in other countries. :p

badger_ken: Mission complete when I can't advance any further. ;)

Baltasar: Yep. :p

AreoHotah: If we're lucky, the Germans might wake up! :eek:

FlyingDutchie: Hehe yeah, the bear's definitely probably angry. :D

Ahura Mazda: Well, advancing isn't actually hard yet, though it is getting bloodier. Remember I still have superiority in the southern bit of front at least. ;)

Papa Schultz: Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying it! :D

Forster: Well that's true, but I don't have anything to tack onto my HQs. :p

Jonny5tyle: Possibly, though I don't really think the Germans are under much pressure. The German-Soviet front is basically in stasis, and no one's trying to change that. :p

SFCShadow: Hehe, quite possibly. :p

Jemisi: The problem with empty spaces though is that the AI, particularly if it has the resources of the Soviet Union, will try to fill all of them. :p

Papa Schultz: I have no idea. Probably, to be fair. :p

Update tomorrow evening! I think I may have to return to replying twice a day. It's getting too hard replying to a dozen and a half posts in just one. :eek:
 
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