Germany Attacking Italy

[Walter Warlimont]

I'm looking for your experiences if you've attacked Italy as Germany early on.
It looks like a possible early 'freebie'. You'd get the Med., and your feet in Afrika
very early..
Would anyone jump in?
Curious anyway

[PuttBlug]

I usually prefer to annex all of the Allies (Great Britain, France and all of the Allies faction) by 1938 but if you want Italy in particular this is what you have to do.

You justify on France ASAP, draw a fallback line 4 tiles away from the Maginot forts, use your 3 tank divisions to encircle the French divisions and annex or puppet France to gain their fleet (fascist Germany gets a nice decision which allows you to annex France in 7 days for 50 pp).

After you're done with France you have a nice land border with Italy to attack them from. It should be easy for anybody who's not new to HOI4.

[|H|H| Fr3ddi3]

Yes I have done it a few times and No the Allies will not stop you.

Italy will only wind up on the Allied side if you attack them while you already at war with the Allies OR if you puppet Greece / Yugoslavia and they go for the focus which gives them a war goal on them. Otherwise Italy, like all facist countries are basically fair game.

It will however kick up World Tension very high, very early. Which'll make subsequent non violent expansion harder and it'll also bring the US into the war far early too. Giving you even less time to knock the UK out of the war to finish the Allies off before the US joins.

It's also not a freebie by any means, they have a sizeable army and favourable defensive terrain. It'll be a slog to break through and ultimately just weakens you in the long run.

You did not ask, but ultimately I would suggest you take on France if you are dead set on an early war. It's not such a tough nut to crack once you get past the Maginot line and what you stand to gain is far more worth while in the long run.

[ExistentialCrisis(Slowed+Reverb)]

What I would do is rush the anschluss. Then justify on Italy before you finish the forcus so you could go to war right away. Declare war, then do the same move Pastor LuL was taking about and encircle the Italian army.