Battle of the Alps Squared

June 1940, the Italian army, ordered by the outsized ego of Il Duce - who was desperate to have a piece of France before Hitler had captured it all for himself -  trundled across the northern alpine border into France.

The stalwart defenders of ennui and champagne had expected as much and were dug in and ready.

The Italians used the woods to cover the left wing of their advance.

The French infantry were well dug-in and extricating them proved more difficult than discretely hiding ten pounds of good salami into your rucksack.

Calling a meeting of L3s with the FT17s a "tank duel" or a "clash of armor" stretches credulity. Let us say, they fired shots at each other while snacking on loaves of bread and drinking bottles of wine, with the wine merchants being the real winners, judging by the ineffectiveness of both sides.

Eventually the French armor, despite damage incurred from the Italian battery - drove back their Italian opposites - can you blame those poor Italian pilots? They only learned to drive the L3 a few days ago. 

It was all for naught, as they were just in time to find the Italian infantry had successfully captured the village. A halfhearted attempted to dislodge the Italians met with no success.

The French had run out of time and would have to fall back. Here is the battlefield at the end:

The scenario was "Late Arrivals", a favorite of mine from One Hour Wargames. It works equally well for Austrians streaming into Italy as it does for Italians invading France. The game lasted the OHW standard 15 turns. 

The rules were improvised, based on my own squad-per-base rules - a mash of Crossfire, Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit, and The Portable Wargame - but moved up a few levels of organization and no stacking allowed. I also used ideas borrowed from Ross Mac's Fast and Furious Fifties

Initially I thought of the units as companies of infantry, platoons of tanks, three or so guns, etc. 

However, while writing my narrative it didn't really seem to matter and I could just as easily think of them as battalions. I hear Memoir '44 is a bit like that - where the nominal scale changes based on the scenario? I don't know, I've never played it, but that's my understanding.

It seemed to work here at least.