If germany attacked the maginot line

Could germany take on the maginot line and so they attacked it, and if failed would have it delayed the capture of france and also maybe reinforce the battlefield enabling france to stay in the war for months? Years? in the war? Though some of you will say they wouldn't do that, but what if it extended throughout the whole border between belguim and luxembourg?

 

Believe it or not the Germans in 1939/1940 actually came up with a plan of dealing with this exact situation or something along its lines.

The Germans while in reality bypassed the Maginot Line and attacked through the Ardennes; they like many other countries believed that fixed fortifications were like Gen. Patton in 1944 stated," They're monuments to the stupidity of man."

Their plan was to in the first phase of their invasion of France was to use the Luftwaffe to bomb key airfields, railroad, supply and communication areas so as to disrupt the flow of intelligence, supplies, reinforcements and air assets from getting to the Maginot Line and defend it against both air and land attacks. Simply, buying them time seize a foothold within the Maginot Line.

In the second phase the Germans would use the overwhelming superiority of aircaft and utilize the Luftwaffe again to create several holes within the Maginot as well as knocking out key installations within the Maginot Line allowing their ground forces to punch their way through the French defenses.

In the third phase the Germans now having a stranglehold on certain key areas of the Maginot Line they would allow through their Panzers allowing them to reak havoc all along the interior of the Maginot Line defenses quickly overwhelming the Maginot Line defenders and cutting them off from communication, supplies and reinforcements.

Once all of these key phases were complete the Germans would ensue the Blitzkrieg tactics they eventually used all the way through their actual Blitzkrieg of France in 1940.

There were several others that were proposed one actually utilized the German Fallschirmjagers to gain a foothold on the Maginot Line. However, that plan wasn't utilized seeing as they were untested in combat and they could easily be cut off and captured.

Regards,
MARNE

 

Interesting, I figured they'd get around it eventaully and such. thanks.

 

I don´t recall the Germans ever really trying to make an offensive through the Maginot line 1939-1940 ?! They did attack on it in may 1940 but that was only to fool the French mainly so that they would not know where the real attack was taking place.

Mostly I think they had modified Schlieffen plans of the WW1 and thus the main thrust would be through the Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg if it wasn´t to be the Sichelschnitt version.

 

A more interesting question would be what if the maginot line extended all the way to the english coast ?

 

Anything that would stop the allied forces being sent deep into Belgium ( once the Germans attacked ) probably would make the operation Sichelschnitt close to useless I guess. Wonder if the Allied ever had any war games where the Germans did try the Ardennes route...

 

So they attacked where the Maginot Line wasn't, which proves its value. What-if the Line followed up along the Belgian frontier instead of stopping there and trusting to other peoples capabilities?

 

Later in the war, when the Wehrmacht found itself defending parts of the Maginot Line against the Americans (or was it the French?), they were unable to hold out for too long due to the ferocity of the assaults. Fair enough, technology had vastly improved by 1944/5, particularly in the area of siege works, the Germans were short of vital supplies etc.
Given the military hardware available in 1940, I think they could have taken a fully complete Maginot Line-but at enormous cost.

 

I think the main trick of the German invasion of France was to lure the allies and make them believe the main thrust was to pass through Belgium, not the Maginot line.

While the Allied force advanced to meet them in Belgium area, they crossed the Ardennes and surrounded them by going north.

I don't think the allies ever tought the Germans were about to rush trough the Maginot lines.

As per "Ardennes wargames", I don't know about the British, but for France it was a no -no : the German army, especialy mechanized units, could not pass through the Ardennes, it was impossible...until germans did it.

Some French recon planes spotted the HUGE German columns marching through Ardennes very early, but a swift reaction following an air recon report was beyond French HQ capabilities at this time...

 

Chocapic,

as I understand it there was no strategic reserve to be used against the Germans pouring from the Ardennes . So that´s why the early report to Churchill about the war being lost already(?).

 

Yes, the fact is the Germans could have been stopped near Sedan, had the French GHQ properly answered to early warnings.

But after the breakthrough, a reaction would have required a massive and fast combined arms movement to pull many units where needed, well this is what you can expect from a strategic reserve.


I will try to find back in the very good book I got on this subject, at what time Churchill was told by the French there wasn't such thing as a strategic reserve strong and mobile enough to stop the Germans pouring (the words "Masse de manoeuvre – maneuver mass ? " were used by Churchill at this time).

Anyway, at this time (to be confirmed) the French army had still many units, but the fact is France had an abysmal intelligence and communications, moving orders could be delayed for hours when not for days, overall the French army was not mobile at all.

 

Churchill flew to Belgium on May 16. General Gamelin, shocking Churchill with the hemorrhage of the front at Sedan, listed defeat after defeat as the weight of five German divisions bared down on Paris. “Where is the strategic reserve?” asked Churchill. “There is none.” Replied Gamelin.

http://worldwar2database.com/html/france_40.htm

 

I guess the book will stay on the shelves

 

The French were finished right from the start. It wasn't at Sedan, or in Belgium, or because of the Maginot line. It was simply that French military doctrine, both army and air force, was cripplingly inefficent. The army's doctrine of Methodical battle was incredibly inflexible and unresponsive to the realities of a modern mobile battlefield. The French high command thought that the Germans at Sedan would require as much as a week or more to make an assault across the Meuse River.
The French though this because their doctrine called for a planned orchestrated river crossing. This meant that they thought the Germans would have to wait for additional artillery, infantry, and engineering assets to make an assault. The Germans had other ideas.
At Hannut in Belgium the French Cavalry Corps fought several relatively suceessful large tank actions but failed to hold their ground simply because doctrine called for them to act as a reconnissance and screening force only. Thus, they fought a delaying action rather than to hold ground.
In the air the French air force fought a campaign almost completely independent of what was occuring on the ground. There was a minimum of interaction between the French army and air force outside of a certain level of strategic and operational reconnissance.
It was these shortcomings in doctrine that did the French in, not a lack of bravery or a fifth column or some other such excuse.

 

100% agree

the doctrine left them totaly unable to cope with anything fast or unexpected

 

The German attack in the West began on 10 May 1940. Two days later an attempt was made to halt the German advance towards Brussels by bombing two road bridges over the Albert Canal near Maastricht. Six Battle aircraft were to be sent by No.12 Squadron. Split into two groups of three the Battles attacked through a withering barrage of anti-aircraft and small arms fire. All six aircraft were shot down.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/fairey-battle.htm

I know we´re drifting away from the topic but wonder if the destruction of these bridges could have made any change or given time to proceed with other troops movements? I have read some authors speculate it that way.

 

In Shirer's book, this meeting is supposed to have occured in Paris, at the foreign affairs ministry, in presence of French prime minister and some ministers

 

The meeting was held in Paris. I've read about it in theree books and they all state Paris.

 

What if the Germans attacked France directly -- through the "Clothesline"?

It is a historic curiousity the France chose to base its national defence on the Maginot Line and the presumption that Germany would attack in 1940 through the heart of the worst terrain for attack. Asearly as 1917 an American prfessor wrote a curious little book in which he analysises terrain for the Great War. And general terrain does not rapidly change; what was tre in 1917 was true in 1940.

"Topography and Strategy in the War" by Douglas Wilson Johnson, Associate Professor of Physiography in Columba University.

An approach to Paris directly from Germany faces a series of natural defences in the form of a series of Uplands alternating with rivers. This series of natural defences had been aded to by a series of fortification begun during the reign of Louis XIV and continually improved upon.

The much more clever approach is drive to the upland between the headwaters of the Meuse River and the Oise River, then to swing SOUTHWEST towards the region between Rouen and Paris. Yes, this drives through the Ardennes, but it affords the attacker few if any major river crossings until the Seine River.

 

Actually there was a much larger Allied air attack at Sedan. On 14 may, the day after the sucessfull German assualt across the river, over 140 Allied bombers attacked the bridgehead. The focus on the attack were the two pontoon bridges & ferry site. All three of Guderians panzer divsions were trying to crowd across the bridges and the attack seriouslly slowed them due to the need to keep the vehicals disperesed. Not a single Allied bomb hit the bridges tho a ferry barge was destroyed and some small boats as well. The counts of vehicals destroyed is contradictory. Anywhere from a few dozen to several hundred. (The official records of Guderians Corps were destroyed a few years later in a Allied air raid.)

After the war several German leaders in the pz corps stated that they had used (unexpectedlly) most of their bridge equipment crossing the Semois & other smaller streams in Belgium. Had the pontoon bridges been broken by a bomb they would have had to wait for new bridge equipment to arrive from some army supply column still in Luxembourg or Germany.