December 16th, 2007, 09:41 PM
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Join Date: Mar 2007
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Re: What if the Alpine Redoubt was reality?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Asterix
Given the area described, it would not have been possible. Without an industrial base supporting it, either from within or from elsewhere, there's is no way such a redoubt could have been sucessful except to prolong everyone's sufferings.
I would like to add, that near the end of the Fall of France in 1940, a very few within the French government and military (namely Gen. de Gaulle and PM Reynaud) had entertained the idea of a "Breton Redoubt" on the Brittany penninsula. Likewise, the region had no large industrial base to support such an operation. Despite having a coastline, and possibly being supplied and reinforced by sea in limited fashion, there was really not enough deepwater ports to sustain such a defense, or even the notion of an offense. It too, would have failed.
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Note that the Ruhr industrial pocket was surrounded and left behind by the Allied armys in 1945, as was the city of Breslau. In either case the isolated industrial city or cities were living on borrowed time and existed mostly because they were not worth assualting. While the Ruhr pocket had a lot of heavy industry it was still unable to sustain itself or the army defending it.
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