The French were no keener on an offensive across the Alps than the Italians. Offensive plans in case of war with Italy involved the capture of Libya, naval bombardment of Italian industry, followed some time in the future by a landing against Italian coasts. A frontal assault across the Alps was not a part of them, as far as I remember (and I did read them maybe I just forgot that bit, but I don't think so)Lupo Solitario wrote:The Italian strategy plans excluded offensive against France, in case of war Italy had to defend on alps and solve the war elsewhere. I ignore which were french plans.
In 1945, the French launched a limited attack with insufficient numbers of relatively raw troops (including Italians hastily recruited into the French army, though many were still wearing Italian uniforms), against relatively weak defenses - one German kampfgruppe and Italian RSI units - and got nowhere. Truth be told, their plan was about as imaginative as the 1940 Italian one had been.
Actually, the Regia Aeronautica made a serious attempt to attack the French fortifications. Due to bad weather, it ended up plastering nearby valleys and damaging cities but leaving the forts intact. Those few bombs that did hit were found to be too light to do real damage, even the 250kg ones.Lupo Solitario wrote:In those conditions italians could only try to launch some frontal attack against a well fortified enemy with scarce artillery support and without air force (bad weather).
This was probably the strongest portion of the Maginot Line, it was simply immune to level bombing with 1940 technology. Had the Wehrmacht been ordered to attack across the Alps it, too, would have been stopped cold.