Topics created by Afrikakorps

This article was inspired by studies at defense academy on military strategy and consistent Axis and Allies victories. Many of it is also present in the excellent strategic reflection of AndrewAAGamer.

All warfare is based on 4 principles (and deception)

Principles of War

Know yourself Know your enemy Negate being dislocated Dislocate your enemy

Dislocation means bringing the enemy out of balance, taking away it’s ability to resist, so that you subdue him to your will. Your enemy will always try to dislocate you at the same time as well. In this strategic masterclass we will delve in how to make sure you emerge victorious after every battle.

In this Strategic Masterclass we will delve into the three major strategic principles you should keep in mind when playing (and winning) your next game: Center of Gravity, Defense, Timing.

1. Center of Gravity

A center of gravity is that point that when broken, the rest of the body collapses. To dislocate an enemy, it is most effective to focus on protecting your center of gravity, and attacking his center of gravity. Clausewitz believes that the best center of gravity was to defeat the enemy army. Sun Tzu, whom I prefer, believes that the best center of gravity is to defeat the enemy strategy.

In the global geopolitical landscape, there are two crucial centers of gravity, one in Europe, one in the Pacific. In Europe the center of gravity is Western Russia, in the Pacific it is South East Asia. The control of these areas decide every game. Ignore them, and you will be defeated. Why is this the case?

Armies cost money
In order to wage war, armies must be amassed. In order to amass them, finances are needed. As Cicero said: “The sinews of war are infinite money.” Therefore, one must always consider it’s economy above all else. There are three ways to gain money: territory, capitals and national objectives. These three elements are the most important aspect of every game.

Strategies versus Tactics
Let us delve into the difference of strategy and tactics for a moment.

Strategy
Strategy is the allocation of resources (time, human & material resources) or concentration of power to achieve a goal, in our case: competitive income and highly effective armies due to buying good composition, so that military units can defeat armies and capture victory cities and win the game.

Tactics
Tactics are always based on confrontation, so limited to the battle. Military units against enemy military units, to defeat them and thus gain a strategic advantage. Western generals and populations at large like to focus on tactics, this is our expertise (like Clausewitz). They often suffer from strategic inertia. As tactics are not concerned about money or centers of gravity – you can gain 100 victories in 100 battles yet still lose the war (as United States did in Vietnam or many other wars). So most important in tactics is army composition in moment of confrontation.

Back to why Western Russia and South East Asia are the centers of gravity in Axis and Allies Global 1940. We have observed that to amass armies, money is crucial. Money can be gained from territories, capitals and national objectives. Capitals are usually well defended and thus need an extreme concentration of force – this is not easy to achieve. Much easier is to capture national objectives coupled with territories, often less well defended as the priority of the defender is the protection of its capital.

Point Swing within the Balance of Power
When territories with national objectives are captured we call this a Point Swing, it affects the Balance of Power. The Balance of Power is in favor of the Allies due to the enormous industry of the United States, and due to Allies control over vast amounts of territory. The goal of the Axis is the push the Balance of Power into their favor, the goal of the Allies is to keep or return the Balance of Power in their favor.

The regions in the board that have the most dramatic point swings are thus the centers of gravity. We can make a distinction of 3 centers of gravity: crucial, important, valuable.

Crucial – 60 IPC Point Swing
These regions decide the game. If the Axis neglect them, they lose. If they conquer them, they win. The vast and luxurious trade routes and cities in South East Asia adds +30 IPC to Japan while it negates -28 IPC to the Allies. This is the center of gravity in the Pacific. The productive agriculture and industry in Western Russia adds +30 IPC to Germany while it negates -25 IPC to the Allies. This is the center of gravity in Europe.

Important – 35 IPC Point Swing
These regions heavily tilt the Balance of Power in favor of the Axis. They are important, yet the game can be won even without these regions. These are the oil from the Middle East and Caucasus, the conquest of China and the trade in the Mediterranean Sea.

Valuable – 20 IPC Point Swing
When the Axis is able to conquer these areas they add value, so they are always good to keep in mind. But, they will not decide the game or be worth sacrificing units that could otherwise focus on the crucial center of gravity. These are the gold from Africa below the Saharan and iron ore from Scandinavia.

2. Defense trumps Offense

While the attacker has a powerful advantage over the defender of having the initiative to strike, when the defender increases it’s defense to such extent that the strikes of the attacker can not penetrate it, it will win. So always follow this rule: negate being dislocated. When the enemy is unable to dislocate you, you will gain 100 victories in 100 battles. As when you can not be defeated, you can more consistently defeat the enemy before he defeats you. It might seem so simple, but is so powerful. What does this mean?

Strategic defense
You must always protect your capital. It is your most important objective, if you want to win. Of course, this depends on the availability of the attacker. When he is out of reach, nothing has to be defended. When he is in reach, all must be done to repel the attacker. Ideally, you even deter the enemy to consider assaulting your capital, or do you something to compel the enemy to stop the assault on your capital. Both deterrence and compellence are strategies to coerce your enemy to do or not do something. Deterrence is preventing the enemy to do something. Compellence is stopping an already undertaken action. What does this look like in the game?

For the United Kingdom, always buy 6 infantry and 1 fighter in your first turn. In the Pacific, also focus on buying only infantry for India and Sydney in your first turns. Your focus is to deter the enemy from thinking it is possible to conquer your capital. Italy has the luxury of a powerful German protector and potential safe zone in the Mediterranean, yet must also always be aware of its capital.

The United States is so well defended that when defended strategically it cannot be captured. The best defended mainland area is Western Europe, it is the best region to defend. As a result, it is not strategic to capture countries in Western Europe when you are unable to hold it against German counter-attack. Germany can easily repel minor invasions with minimal cost. The only way to negate this German defense is a combo-attack of UK and USA on Denmark to conquer Berlin.

Japan is very easy to defend from an amphibious assault, you can easily amass 10 ground troops per turn. What is not easy to defend against a powerful American fleet is Sea Zone 6. So always make sure your fleet has the ability to protect or counter-strike SZ6. When not approached strategically, defending the Empire of Japan at large is also difficult. As the Pacific is so vast and you need to be at different far away locations, ensure you have optimized your internal logistical routes. My preference is to build a harbour on French Indo China so you create the Triangle between Japan, South East Asia and the Lower Pacific. The Allies will attack you from all sides so your priority is to weaken different fronts, to negate the different fronts to attack at the same time and to be ready to counter-attack lost ground. However, when you are able to make use of timing to weaken enemy fronts early on, establish a strong internal logical safe zone and continue to empower your fleet, it can be well defended.

Russia, as centre of gravity, is most likely under heavy attack every game. There are two philosophies to defend Russia, the vast retreat or the mobile counter-attack. I prefer the mobile counter-attack as I find it more historical to Zhukov’s doctrine and more effective in my games. In the vast retreat you aim to amass as many troops as possible to Moscow for the final battle, even the Siberians. In the mobile counter-attack you use mobility to greatly increase your options, as Japan can do with the harbour on French Indo China. This mobility is provided mainly by mechanized infantry instead of infantry and the perfect geographic locations in Russia to optimize this. As a rule, you never retreat the Siberians are this would make their offensive/defensive power disappear for the majority of the game – while it is so decisive in concert with the other Allies on the Pacific board.

Tactical defense
The same strategic principle applies to the tactical level, the battles of army against army. For this we use the best unit of the game: infantry. It is by far most cost effective in defence, but also offensive (as it defends the high value starting pieces from dying all game long). We could summarize their power in two words: mass and fodder. Then we delve into their best reinforcements: fighter, bomber, tanks.

Mass
In all cases of defense infantry will be the decisive factor of winning a game. The one with most infantry, coupled with just several upgrades such as AA guns and high value units will win the game. As a result it is imperative to always build infantry constantly. In the case of Germany and Russia, you want to upgrade them to mechanized infantry when fighting each other at the Western Russian front. This is because of German’s ability to blitz with Italian can-openers (using combo-attack to sneak through Russian territory). It is also because of Russia being able to defend multiple fronts on land and being able to counter-strike when the opportunity arises, as Japan is doing on sea. Besides infantry the most important units are artillery on land and submarines on sea, that greatly enhance your offensive power. I like the composition of 70% infantry for 30% artillery.

Fodder
Every player has starting high value units, while most lack mass amounts of infantry. Your goal should always be to keep all your high value land troops alive: tanks & airplanes. These are your most precious and prized possessions. Never throw them away without a great strategic advantage. This is also why you build (mechanized) infantry as player always. You will often observe that the player that builds most infantry consistently will usually win the game. It is also why it is so difficult for the United States to capture mainland territories, as it can only bring infantry to the frontlines through transports, 2 at once. The most important units to combine with fodder is the fighter, bomber or tank.

Fighter
By far the best defence unit, as a nation you want to have 3 to 5 at least. Due to scramble the ideal joint defensive unit. Aircraft carriers do not add the value on their own, they add value because they allow 2 fighters to join your fleet. When you have a minimum amount of fighters (3-5) you will experience how every mass will greatly enhance your ability to win battles.

Bomber
Why bomber, as it only defends at 1? The defence of the bomber is not its ability to defend which it very low, but it’s vast mobility that enables it so always return back to safety. It range makes it the most effective offensive unit on both land and sea. The ultimate joint operations (and thus flexible) unit is thus the bomber. Yet as defensive trumps offensive, and this using attack as the best defense, bombers are much more niche – often reserved to Germany, USA, UK or a rich Italy.

Tank
As aircraft cannot land in just conquered territories (besides the Dutch islands) they are very powerful in either defense or offense, but not when you are waging a conquest in Russia or China, always ready to counter-attack your now unprotected ground troops. In that case, you want to have elite ground troops moving up with your armies. However, there is nothing worse than 4 Russian infantry with Russian air force destroying your 6 German tanks. So even more than with airplanes, make sure you have enough fodder reinforcing your lines preventing your original tanks from ever dying. Russia is here of course the power that can benefit above all others from some early tank investments, Germany already has them.

In this light, there is another reason why combo-attacking is so powerful such as Italy-Germany or UK-USA. You can reinforce the airforce of your friend in the territory you just captured. So when Italy captures that crucial Russian territory in it’s turn, now Germany can land it’s airforce before Russia attacks, the same applies to USA-UK order.

What does this mean? Never buy cruisers, only in limited cases battleships and tactical bombers. Your fleet will need 1-2 destroyers against submarines, but your sea fodder should always be submarines.

As Germany and Japan it should be a principle to always buy 1 submarine every turn, combined with lots of infantry. As our goal is win the economic game, we can use these submarines effectively to negate national objectives, hunt unprotected high value fleets or convoy capitals.

3. Timing (particular for Axis)

The most valuable resource, above human or material resources, is time. Especially in a game like Axis and Allies when the Balance of Power is in the favour of the Allies when the Axis are inactive. The Axis greatest strength is their explosive power and initiative to project that power. The United Kingdom has this same strength in relation to Italy.

In the beginning, most Allies are still quite weak, while the Axis are quite strong. This difference will disseappear with every turn due to the Balance of Power. The only way to overcome this as attacker is to push the Balance of Power into their favour by 1. Point Swings through conquest 2. Favorable Battles and thus more costly losses at the side of the defender.

Japan
That is why Japan must always declare war in it’s first turn, as the United States are not yet ready to counter-attack, the UK battleship (20 IPC) is still vulnerable and UK pacific economy can be crippled before it was able to buy infantry (from 17 to 10). As the center of gravity is South East Asia, conquering this as soon as possible will greatly change the Balance of Power in the Pacific. By impoverishing UK pacific, it greatly empowers Japanese strength to focus in the seas on USA and on land on China. You use timing to attack a front before the other fronts are powerful enough to take advantage of your concentrated power somewhere else. When you are not aggressive as Japan, you will lose, as you did not use timing to prevent the Allies from being able to work in concert while UK is a powerhouse due to it’s wealth. Besides always making sure you are empowering your fleet with aircraft carriers to land your fighters on, you are building fodder to fight Russians/Chinese, assault capitals or defend Japan.

Germany
That is also why Germany must always focus on Russia, with G1 buy to be able to conquer London when not well defended (but this should never be possible with must-buy of 6 infantry and 1 fighter) such as failed scrambles or over-ambitious against Italy. An ideal first buy is thus 6 artillery + extra. You always try to optimize your further buys for a G5 capture of Moscow, so mechanized infantry, tanks or planes. The longer it wait’s the more powerful it’s enemies will be at both fronts. Like Japan, you want to prevent having to commit to two fronts at the same time. Like Japan, you use timing as your greatest ally to attack and defend at the correct moments. Like Japan, when Germany conquered it’s center of gravity (Western Russia) it will win the game.

United Kingdom
As the United Kingdom your main goal is to cripple Italian fleet. This is possible because at the beginning you have the explosive power and initiative to attack Italy while divided. Never waste this opportunity as when Italy get’s the opportunity to expand, it will greatly shift the Balance of Power. It must only be possible for Italy to grow after heavy German investment and focus in the Mediterranean (and thus not on the center of gravity in Western Russia).

Russia
One more notable country on timing is Russia. When Germany tries to attack you from several fronts such as Scandinavia, Northern Route, Southern Route, Black Sea or even Caucasus, he will divide it’s forces. There is very likely to be a moment, either due to bad luck in a battle, or careless movement, that an opportunity arises for you to strike, when your striking force has mobility 2 instead of 1 (hence the mechanized Russians). When not all German fronts are fully mechanized (as I found is often the case due to starting troops) they can only counter-attack with 1 move, while you have 2. So that gives you timing to relocate your mobile mass to where it is most needed. Even when the Germans respond by concentrating all their troops in 1 army, your mobility gives you the opportunity to misuse it and sever their logistics / invade their soft belly. I believe both Napoleon and Hitler failed not because the Russians followed the vast retreat, but the mobile counter-attack. Try it and you will forever love playing guerrilla Russia. My first buy of Russia is either artillery to power starting Infantry or when feeling aggressive 6 tanks. Then focus on building mechanized defensive army always ready to counter-attack the opportunity arises. Bonus tip for Russia; get Iraq, send 2 Infantry to UK transport in Persia to get the two Italian countries in Africa and two islands in front of Italy. The extra IPC can make a crucial difference. Patience is crucial but will pay off most of the time.

Conclusion
My experience is that when you apply these strategic principles in your battles of Axis and Allies 1940, you will emerge victorious. I even believe that when we start applying these principles to our military or even civil disobedience campaigns, we will start winning. As the nature of war has been constant since the beginning of time. Like all those thousands of years ago, the four elements are still as relevant today, as when Sun Tzu wrote the Art of War.

So to recap:

Know yourself Know your enemy Negate being dislocated Dislocate your enemy

Strategic Principles

Center of Gravity Defense trumps Offense Timing

@Afrikakorps Mostly agree with Taamvan here – you’ve described an interesting gambit, but it sounds like your opponent fell for your trap by passively consolidating his Italian fleet and leaving it idle.

As other commenters have pointed out, the Axis can completely counter this strategy by using the Germans to clear away blockers, taking Egypt or Gibraltar pretty early and with potentially disastrous results for the British.

Even without German reinforcements, the Italian player can still actively consolidate their fleet by bringing it together in a different sea zone each turn, killing one British unit at a time. Italy-1, you kill a destroyer. Italy-2, you kill a cruiser. Take casualties on your air units or battleships, save your money on Italy’s first turn, and by turn 2 you can build an Italian carrier + sub, or carrier + fighter, or whatever else you need for naval parity. By passing up the opportunity to kill the Italian fleet on UK1, you may lose the opportunity to ever kill off that fleet, and if you follow through with plans to move the entire RAF to the Med, spend part of the UK economy in South Africa / Persia, etc., then Germany will have a free hand in the north Atlantic, and Moscow will be more vulnerable when the Germans are ready to attack it. Basically any time you concentrate the mobile British forces, you need to achieve decisive results within a couple of turns, because events will continue to develop elsewhere on the board, so if you’re merely stalemating the Italians in the Med while losing ground in the Atlantic and Moscow (and perhaps India as well), then you’re not making the right kind of forward progress on the globe as a whole.

I don’t buy it. It doesn’t excuse USSR to be this weak. The only conclusion I can come up with is ether they didn’t test Germany vs USSR enough OR they wanted USSR to be this weak.

G1: 2 subs, 1 bomber
G2: 8 tanks, 2 mech, bombers
G3: 10 mech, bombers
G4 onwards: some infantry, artillery and bombers (Western Front defence)

Goal: Dark Skies, swarm the Med with Luftwaffe to help Italy, bring 20 fast movers to Russian front before G4 so they can be overpowered. Bomb Russian factories back to stone age.

Most targeted unit: UK ships.

J1: 2 transports, 1 mic in shantung
J2: 3 mech, 1 mic in kiangsu (FIC could be take by UK), 1 carrier
J3: 1 naval base FIC, 2 carriers, 4 fighters
J4 onwards: tanks/mechs 2 chinese MIC + carriers and air

Goal: Conquer China completely and keep it with 2 early factories and steady flow of reinforcements, then invade Russia to reinforce German push. Take the initiative by all out J1 incl. Pearl Harbour, splitting fleet in two groups, then go for either Sydney or India based on Allied play. Get money islands asap to get to same economic level as USA. Start pumping carriers from J2 onwards. Keep India and ANZAC as small as possible to isolate USA.

Most targeted unit: Chinese Infantry.

I1: tank and mech
I2: tanks
I3: transport, troops for Africa
I4: mic in Egypt, troops for Africa

Provide German with mechanized can opening army (first 2 buys), reinforcing the starting 2 mainland tanks. Survive in Africa while German airforce flies in to destroy the British, so they can start their offensive I2 or I3 when UK is weakened and can be defeated. After Germans gave them a kickstart in NO, focus on keeping Egypt and in best case scenario start pushing Middle East/Africa.

Most targeted: weak spots in Russian defence.

Overal Axis focus: Egypt and Yunnan, all other are less important.

@Afrikakorps Hi. You are correct. The sub gets only one attack with each round of dice, so if it is able to conduct a surprise (or sneak) attack it does not get a further dice roll when all the other units involved are rolling.

I think people worry too much about activating the “UK original territories” NO. In the vast majority of games, you’ll collect the NO on your first turn, because Italy hasn’t gone yet. Likewise, in the vast majority of games, you’ll collect the NO on your fourth turn no matter what you do, because by then your South African troops can walk up to Kenya / Somaliland and knock out whatever Italians remain. So we’re really only talking about two turns’ worth of the NO, i.e., 10 IPCs.

How much do you want to pay to guarantee those 10 IPCs? Do you really want to use both transports on UK1 in east Africa, neglecting Persia and Iraq and Sumatra and Tobruk? Do you want to send one transport to east Africa on both UK1 and UK2, which means you’re short on troops for Egypt in your north African campaign? It just seems short-sighted to me. If you skip Sumatra, that could be the margin of victory for holding India. If you skip Persia, that could be the margin of victory for holding the Middle East. Meanwhile, what are you going to do with 10 extra IPCs in the Atlantic on turns 2, 3, or 4? Buy 1 extra fighter or 1 extra transport? Will that really help you break into Norway or France ahead of schedule? Typically, the Germans have enough airpower in Western Germany all through the opening to lock you out of key territories even if you spend 100% of UK income on an Atlantic fleet.

I often build a South African transport on UK1, and I don’t mind using that transport on UK2 to ferry South African troops up to East Africa to kill Italians there, because it’s sort of “on their way.” They’re headed north anyway, and if I build the extra transport, then I’m not hurting as badly for naval logistics, so it’s easier to spare the transport for a turn. Using two out of two transports on turn 1 in East Africa just seems like overkill to me.

Ditto using a bid for an early South African transport just to strengthen the attack on Ethiopia – it’s overkill. If you’ve got $7 to spare in your bid and want to spend it on the UK, then I’d much rather have an extra sub for Taranto, an extra transport for India (to claim Java), two infantry for London to help protect against Sea Lion and allow a UK1 purchase of an Egyptian factory, an extra tank in Egypt to add punch to an attack in Tobruk or Iraq, or even an extra destroyer for the British Home Fleet in the hopes of bringing down some Luftwaffe.

here is the way i’ve been attacking UK navy on G1
106 - 1 sub
110 - 2 subs, bb, bomber, 2 tac, 2 ftr
111 - 2 subs, bomber, 2 tac, 1 ftr

Use other tac on atak on S france

you can mitigate the losses next turn

I might have said this before, but most allied players might not be using the best strategies.  They typically take the allies at too low of a bid.  And then they win by either extremely good luck or they are playing a newer player who can’t take and hold the two key non-capital points on the map by round 4 or 5.  I’ve won probably 90%+ of my games as axis lately by a simple strategy:  use an odds calc to determine the ipc value gained by destroying allied units +2 *(times) territory value gained by these attacks + national objectives gained by axis + national objectives lost by allies.  If a player does this math for the first two rounds, they will have a very strong opening strat as axis.

I haven’t set up a board with the first two turns of moves to see possible Allied counterattack’s, but I am skeptical that you can take the Money Islands and Australia during the first four turns, while still holding most of Mainland Asia and threatening India. You must have very weak opposition if you can execute all of those strategies simultaneously. At some point you will have to deal with leaving sufficient forces to deter the 18 Russian ground units in Amur, opportunistic attacks in the Money Islands, counterstrikes against your W Australia landing force, and an ANZAC blocking ship that is very hard to clear out on J3.  You would be playing a weak opponent if you could do all that you stated by J7.  Having everything collapse like that by J4 is not credible. The only way you could achieve this time schedule is if the Allied Pacific forces are cowering out of incompetence.

Usually best to build 1 mech for each tank.  Build artillery in Ukraine.

@Cow:

^ I do this often, I prefer as USA, to send help faster with handful of bombers to Russia, since it makes it in time to defend against a big showdown… Sometimes Japan is crazy enough to attack into it because they know those forces are what holds Russia.

Yea Germany will be in the Japanese players ear to hit that $hit asap. Taking out 4-5 Russian planes and a few UK planes would lead to a much easier and earlier conquest of Moscow. Yea Japan would take a hit but once that multi national force is off the board Japan can refocus taking the rest of China and threaten India by land and sea. They could even skip India and threaten Persia/Egypt/S Africa helping w/Euro win.

@shadowhawk

To keep the discussion alive, i´ve been making some strategy videos.

Here´s one for the UK:

https://youtu.be/Z4vqnXhq4pU?si=YvdnR9tssBjlS1kE

@dazedwit said in The Afrika Korps:

@Afrikakorps

I have new ideas for this strategy.

G4 Sealion with all out economic warfare of convoys and SBR starting G1. The amount of money you can remove in first 3 turns is most of their income - lot less inf defending London. (The way you get there is up to you but new strat I want to try - buy AB and destroyer - you can also buy a trns or carry over the money. 2 subs to 106 - or if you’re frisky, one sub, and save the other to convoy 119;
2 subs to 91 to take out UK cruiser;
1 sub, 1 ftr to 109;
1 BB, 3 Tac, 2 ftr to 110

What would stop me from scrambling 4 fighters in SZ109, just wondering there is a verry good chance of killing both fighter and sub for just 1 destroyer ( or 1 fighter )

The BB in SZ110, can be attacked by the UK fleet of 1 BB 1 cruiser 1 destroyer with 3 fighters and 1 bomber. Could remove the bomber to do taranto, if you want to scramble 3 fighters in defence thats ok with me.

As UK gibastion is not an option now but you have a working BB in the area so id love to trade that for the german BB and a bunch of airforce.

Also 110 thats 1 BB 3 tacs and 2 fighters, so 3x@3 and 3@4 against the UK+scramble of 2x@3 and 4x@4 not a bad gamble for the UK to take either.

@WILD:

Ok, so you want to attack the 3 most important neutrals as axis at roughly the same time early in the game for strategic/econ purposes, maintain pressure on Russia, and keep the Anglo’s off your newly acquired territories. Pretty big task lol

What do you want the UK to do on the first couple turns? When do you want to bring the US into the war? You want to set-up and do Barbarossa to keep things looking normal and get to Moscow (axis goal). Should you set-up to hit the neutrals G2, or G3?
4a) Take Turkey to give the axis access to the Middle East and Southern Russia (income/strategic value).
4b) Hit Sweden for more income (easy enough), and probably Switz so the allies don’t ever get 2 free inf.
4c) Take Spain and set-up some kind of def/counter attack (or naval attack), because this is where you are going to be most vulnerable.

1 (UK) - You want the UK to build mostly inf UK1 (no IC in Egypt), so maybe buy 1 ship G1 to lightly threaten Sea Lion, or save most of your income? Sounds crazy, but you probably want the UK to do Taronto so you can kill the Med fleet leaving the UK fewer resources at their disposal to threaten Spain and Turkey.

2 (USA) - Have two choices, both have pro’s and con’s.
a) Leave USA out of the war until they come in on their own and cant preform attacks until US4 (may even entice the UK to attack Japan so the UK tie’s up more resources in the Pac still leaving the US out in the cold?) This will give the Euro axis some time, but the allies will be much stronger when they do come over and could build mostly Europe from the start

b) Hit US navy hard G1/J1. G1 attack sz101 w/German sub to try and kill cruiser/tpt. J1 hit both the Phil (fleet and island), and destroy US Hawaiian fleet (making sure the main Japanese fleet at Wake is safe from counter attack). Also hitting Britt BB etc… again leaving UK w/fewer resources. This sounds strange bringing the US into the war on the first turn when planning for an axis neutral invasion, but the US will be hard pressed to build in the Atlantic because of Japanese aggression. If they build Pac for the first couple turns in response, then you won’t have US ships sitting in sz101 able to hit Spain for a few turns (easier to def for the short term anyway).

I’m assuming you will still set-up and invade Russia G2 (or G3) because you don’t want to tip off the allies, and still need to take Moscow.

When to attack the neutrals G2/G3 or It2? Depends on if you have the use of the German air force on G2, and the Luftwaffe will probably be needed to take out the UK Med fleet G2 (more risk to your mechanized units vs those inf stacks w/o air power). Also who takes Turkey or Spain and when? The Italians could take Greece It1, and be ready to invade Turkey It2 (after the Anglo’s take their 2nd turn) and Germany moves in reinforcements G3. On the other hand Italy could take S France It1, and be ready to invade Spain It2 and the Germans could land some ground/air on Spain G3. In this case the Germans activate the Bulgarians G1, takes Greece G2, and invades Turkey G3 (hides intent). Either way I think Italy takes one, and the Germans reinforce it, then and invades the other (along w/Sweden of course). This allows the axis to basically go back to back and disguise it somewhat. Plus if the Germans hit the neutrals G2, the Americans would surly build Europe on US2.

As you described one of the main problem is that if you take Spain you will have yet another coastal territory to defend, and stacking it isn’t really a good option. Setting up a counter attack from Normandy or S France is a risk because again your units are on the coast and the allies could probably hit either of those territories and kill off your units by sea from Gibraltar. Even setting up mechanized units in Paris could be problematic because the allies could cut them off by taking Normandy and S France. Attacking the combined allied fleet would also be costly, and if it fails the axis are doomed if they lose the bulk of their air power.

I’m not advocating that the axis invading the neutrals early is a good strat, but if I were to attempt it think I would try to take out as much US/UK fleet in the first turn as possible (and turn 2), and try to disguise it best I can. Get the US building in the Pac theater the first couple turns would be key, to keep them out of Europe till like US5?. If they have to start from scratch on the Euro side on say US3 (after you take Spain etc…) then you could defend Spain for a couple turns before withdrawing forcing the US build more before coming over (either more ships, or more ground). Put some pressure on the UK so she builds mostly inf on the first turn, and make sure the UK Med fleet can’t interfere or be used to re-take my prizes (on the bottom of the Med would be the best place IMO). I think I would have Italy take either Spain or Turkey on It2 (Germany reinforces G3), then have Germany take the rest on G3. Need to watch what Russia has in the south because you don’t want them to be in position to counter attack your units in Turkey. Don’t think you can afford to delay Barbarossa past G3 though. Japan should also be ready to kill some Mongolians on J3 if they haven’t already activated them (breaking the NAP and turning them Russian).

Look at my Afrika Korps strategy where I answer all your question!