Maginot Line video >>>

Nice footage of the Maginot Line.

Even though it turned out to be next to useless it still impresses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qbZKxQ7k88

:-?

 

No audio, but still a sweet video.

 

still, what a waste of $, time and effort?
instead of building the line, they should invest in more planes , tanks and artillery

 

Well...

Actually the Line where attacked was remarkably successful. It kept the Italians out of France, and even the Germans only broke through in pne area, where the defensive works had been poorly sited in unsuitable terrain. Had the Line extended to the Belgian border, or had other suitable defenses been established to cover the Ardennes, things would have been rather different.

If France had had more tanks and more guns, the outcome in 1940 would likely have been more tanks and more guns captured by the Germans - though admittedly after a harder fight. What France needed was better tactical doctrine.

 

its not fair ...the germans cheated ...how was france to know the germans would just go ARROUND the wall ...no one could have forseen that kind of wild trickery ...so lay off the french! ..that wall woulda worked great ...and shoulda....blame the germans...

 

lol - the reason for not building the Line along the Belgian border was political.

 

Idd, IIRC the french feared that when the wall was being builded at the Belgian border that we would have turned over to the germany.
We Belgians would have had the feeling, when that wall was build at our border, that the French wouldn't try to defend our country.

 

Correct - the French didn't originally build the Line along the Belgium border for that very honourable but misguided reason - hwoever, Belgium then went and declared itself neutral ( :roll: ) leaving France with an open border that they did not have time to fortify properly in time for the Battle Of France - France's mistake though - the border was effectively open whether Belgium was neutral or not.

 

so really ,it the belgiens fault the dang wall didnt work ....well , if the germans had been so kind as to attack france from the correct direction , they would have been in for a nasty suprise !!!!....those pesky japs did the same kinda thing to the brits at fortress singapore too ...comeing at the fort from the land side was very unsportsman like ....and useing bicycles too ...the sneaky lil bastards....

 

Quite - they're just not playing the game.

 

well the german's did pay for there cheating in the game with the eventual los.

 

If the idea of the Maginot line was so bad, why did the Germans spend so much on the Siegfried line?

 

but it was not as elavorated as the frenchy line

 

Partly because their purpose was different.

The Maginot Line was intended to completely stop any attack, to be the Front Line of the war, with troops waiting behind to close off any potential breach.

The Siegfried Line was intended to keep an invading army occupied until the rest of the German army could rush over to that border and repell them.

 

Firstly because the French were building the Maginot Line. Secondly because Hitler gradually became more and more obsessed with defensive lines and structures, which convinced him that investing in the Siegfried Line would pay off in victory. Thirdly because the Rhineland, the West Bank of Germany so to speak, was politically contested in the 1930s, and Hitler did not want to lose control over it to the French; the area lacked natural borders so an artificial one had to be created.

These are just some of the reasons I could think of, I'm not sure if they're anything near official.

Like Ricky said, the Siegfried Line's defensive principle was quite different from that of the Maginot Line. The latter was truly a static line, a string of bunkers and positions, while the former was an in-depth, overlapping series of isolated positions intended to deny specific ground rather than to stop a full-scale attack dead in its tracks.

 

It was partly a rhetorical question. Von Manstein was one of the proponents of the West Wall. The real point is that even the "revolutionary" Germans were spending large amounts of money on defensive lines at around the same time (actually later I believe) as the French on the Maginot line.
Yet teh Maginot line is widely derided as a failure and a testament to outdated thinking, while a lot of GI's died proving that fortifications can make even poor troops good in defense.

 

there cheaters....

 

In fact most (if not all) of the footage taken outside is not from Maginot line forts but from captured German feste from around Metz and Thionville. Probably it was taken on the fortress of Guentrange or Koeningsmacker. These two fortresses were integrated in the Maginot line as support positions with their long ranged artillery batteries.

Aglooka

 

Interesting point ...

However, if they were "integrated" into the Maginot Line then they were, by definition, then part of the Maginot Line.

 

we used to have a seigfied and roy line in las vegas , but then one of them got ate up by a tiger or something...such a tragedy...