WWI Italian Front Organizing Considerations

Returning to contemplation of my WWI Italian Front project, I realized I had completely forgotten what my rationale was for the Austrian poses I had selected to paint That may have worked to my advantage as it forced me to dig through my source materials again and think through my intentions with this project.

According to Hell in the Trenches (Morisi, 2018), an Austrian sturmpatrouillen (assault patrol) consisted of 9 men:

• One patrol leader
• Two Grenade throwers
  
• Three Grenade bearers with rifles
• One sapper
• Two  riflemen to protect the rest "of the platoon" (these 9-men patrols are said platoons ).
  

 

At 1:1 the above could represent the aforementioned assault patrol. There are plenty of scenarios suitable for just an assault patrol or two. For a game of Trench Hammer, which I want to give a go, what does it represent?

Every base above represents an assault patrol in this case (the bases are "sections" in the rules, so say 10-15 men paper strength). What does four assault patrols represent? It's not quite anything in particular.

There is an example on page 173, of a company in the 31st Division crossing the Piave, and it consists of 12 sturmpatrouillen. So, while this is hardly definitive, the picture above represents  approximately 1/3 of a sturm kompanie It's not a singular unit the way a platoon would be in another army or time period, but rather, it's four independent patrols that, for the sake of the game, I'm putting under a singular leader.

To represent the proportional weaponry/functions of the individuals in an assault patrol, from left to right, I'm assigning the following unit types for Trench Hammer: 

1. Leader
2. Offensive Oriented Infantry (from the Trench Hammer Expansion Pack )
3. Bombing Squad
4. Another base of Offensive Oriented Infantry
5. Trench Raiders / Assault Troops. (Trench Hammer doesn't have a Sapper / Engineer unit type that I can find, but Assault Troops can clear a path through wire, so that seems like a fair choice).

All are rated as Experienced to give them an edge. 

Whether I stick with Trench Hammer or switch to single figure games (H.M.G. where 9 figures is an Austrian company, for example, or GASLIGHT,  or One Hour Skirmish Wargames, for 1:1 low figure count, for example) remains to be seen. Trying to find the right niche for these figures/this period, that isn't already occupied by my WWII collections or by my Great Game collection, is the challenge. However, this is a suitable starting point I think.

Alas, this rather enjoyable mental exercise was undermined by the discovery of just how small the ICM 1/35 MG crew figures are in comparison to AiP figures:

The figure is a British gunner with an Adrian helmet from the Italian Infantry equipment set.

These figures are just far too small even for my low standards of compatibility. They are a good bit slighter than my 1/35 Soviets and Germans for WWII even. So, plan B for the MGs (Irregular Miniatures British MG team with gun with a head swap) it is.