What would of happened? More Casualties? Only a delay? Perhaps maybe as a halt and forming another clog?

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In several places they did try to attack the Maginot Line, at Villy la Ferte and Fermont. In these two cases they failed. Villy was only captured as the garrison had been asphixiated when the smoke extracters from their gun turrets packed up... the Germans got in by blowing the doors off and finding the bodies inside. Fermont was never taken; it surrendered well after the fall of France itself. For details of Fermont see:

Fort Fermont

For Villy:

Fort de Villy-la-Ferté (Ardennes ) : ligne Maginot

I have visited both these locations, and they are pretty impressive.

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Defenses were not as obsolete as people like to believe. The Maginot line fulfilled its purpose, it protected teh French-German border. Now if the line had ben built to the same extent all the way around France the whole face of the war would have been changed. IMO.

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I agree.

The Maginot line stopped at the frontier because theoretically continuation was to be provided bt the Belgian fortification system.

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Bah!

there is many reason to stop maginot line at the belgian border
the first is that ardenne's forest is impraticable as the VISSPzA and VPzA will proove in december 44.
the second is simple diplomatical reason how explain to belgian government that the french army will help them behind a fortified line.
the third is the will to push warfare away of national territory (come to verdun or Peronne to understand this will)
the maginot lin resist at many places (in fact in few cases, germans tried hardly to pass trough and they managed a succes)
Many forts resist until firecease.
try to take all fort will be very expensive and the mobile reserve wait near.
the fortified line was not a bad idea even they seems obsolete. remeber Patton in front of metz and ,after, face to the west wall. honesty, how many Driant, Huertgen and Schmidt vicinity, would have allies accepted if germans keep theirs troops in reserve ?
the failure of maginot is not the line itself but the mobile arms sensed to complete her.

Total carnage. The Germans would have been stopped cold, with heavy casualties.

Are we assuming Belgium remains neutral? Then not only are the Germans up against the fanatical defenders of the line itself, but the French still have a few mobile formations left over to deal with any who get through.

The problem with the line was that the French left too many troops there. It was supposed to be a way to economize manpower, but not enough of a strategic reserve was pulled back and left mobile in case any problems developed.

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51st Highland Division were manning the Maginot Line in May 1940.
They had some action there.
I have read elsewhere that the Highlanders thought very little of the offensive spirit of the French troops manning the Line. I suppose if you're sat in a supposedly impregnable fortifcation, you're not going to feel very offensive minded.
See
CHAPTER XVII FROM THE SAAR TO THE SOMME

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-NWE-Flanders/UK-NWE-Flanders-17.html

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Looking over the field formations posted to the fortified zoe I'd agree. The infantry divsions there seem to be average R & A types with a few of the third wave B divsions. Those were all configured for defensive fighting, with any attacking to be in the form of methodical carefully planned counter strikes with heavy artilery support.

The other type of unit posted to the fortress zone were the fortification regiments. These were a elite organization, but their sole offensive role was to provide fire support. Defending against the German attacks they did well and were amoung the last French soldiers to surrender.

The force for large scale counter strikes were the armored, and motorized infantry, divsions posted further west. These constituted the formations trained for attacking and which were suitable for a large scale counter strike.

Historically this powerfull mechanized force of over a dozen divisions was misdeployed and scattered due to the French leaders misreading the German attack. Its corps and individual divsions were defeated piecemeal. Had the Germans been foolish enough to attack the fortified zone directly the French leaders probablly would have concentrated their mechanized corps correctly.

I would expect that if the Germans were making a determined attack on the line it would have proved not only breechable, but would have ultimately failed in purpose. I would list the reasons as:

The Germans had developed weapons capable of dealing with the fortifications. These include the 80cm railway gun, 54 and 60cm mortars (Karl), high velocity large caliber guns (eg., 8.8cm and 10.5cm AA guns among others). The former were capable of penetrating most of the defenses in a traditional sense of just hammering them with fire.
The AA guns could take on the defenses in a way the defenders had not foreseen. That is, the Maginot Line was designed to be a series of mutually supporting positions built primarily on reverse slopes and with little firepower that projected into regions forward of the defense line. Instead, artillery fire into the enemy lines was to be provided by conventional field artillery to the rear of the line.
This means it is possible for the Germans to bring such guns forward to positions were they could easily take out the cloches used for observation and fire control that were exposed blinding the defenses.
Another problem with the line is that it lacked any mines along its length. The defense positions forward relied on just wire and anti-tank obstacles for passive defense. Again, these could have been overcome easily by artillery fire alone.
Once the line is breeched the French would have still proved inflexible and unable to cope with a fluid and rapidly changing situation. Their doctrine of methodical battle was a massive failure of policy.

I still think the French could have held them. The French soldiers could fight. Almost every book I've read gives them credit for being good soldiers. It was the ridiculous last-second run to the north that wore them out.

Given an objective like holding the line, I think there would have been no problem, and in such a situation the French would have been able to resupply more rapidly than the Germans. Throw in a handful of British divisions, maybe some Poles, and it's even easier. Whatever problems the German artillery caused would have been dealt with somehow. Maybe instead of the RAF frantically trying to take out bridges over the Meuse it would have been sent against the advancing German heavy guns.

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Despite the presence of some German 20 & 28cm long range guns the French artillery had overall superiority to to German for this sort of attritional 'assualt' battle. The 80cm guns were not available until late 1941 and they were extremely vulnerable to air attack. While the Germans had some sucess in keeping their heavy artillery protected from the Soviet army in 1941-43 its likely the much more sophisticated French artillery would have been able to counter them.

The Biggest Gun - Gustav

A realtively static battle in the Fortress zone was the sort of fight the French air force had prepared for. The Luftwaffe had some important advantages in command & control, and liasion with ground units. But these are much less marked where the Germans fight by the traditional rules, that is a positional battle through the fortress zone. In that case the French air force would be better able to cope with the tasks of target planning, local air superiority, and execution of air strikes. Historically the Germans suffered appoximatly 1000 aircraft permanetly lost during May & June 1940. A battle fought as the French trained for is likely to place German aircraft losses at a much higher level. Particularly in the case of Me109 fighters.

All this of course assumes the Wehrmacht or Luftwaffe does not develop some combination that allows a rapid advance through the fortresses. Like they did through the Meuse River defense historically. If they can somehow create a wide corridor through the fortress zone in just a few days then the slow French Command & Control will be overwhelmed as it was historically. This still may not guarantee stratigic sucess, but the Germans would be 'through the Maginot Line'.

Agreed, it would be foolish and costly to frontal attack the Maginot line


The French could not afford it politically or financially. If they did have it then innovative Germans may have come up with a breeching plan on a larger scale of Eban Emal with greater numbers of Fallschirmjäger utilizing air support and panzers to exploit the breeches. Perhaps this would have given the French time to mass for a counter attack but I doubt little would have changed in the outcome.

Reality would dictate the French having to attack into Germany while the bulk of the Wehrmacht was in Poland.

I couldn't disagree with you more. The French lines of communication were sadly inadequate. The top eschelon of leadership were far from capable and that left the French soldier with a distinct disadvantage. The German's with their Autobahns and rail systems, not to mention their superior Luftwaffe that would allow free reign for air drops of men and supplies, would come as they pleased. Germany Artillery could and did have a devastating effect on the maginot line. It takes some time to build bridges, enough for French Armor, if used correctly en mass, to cause problems with the movement of supplies. So the RAF was correct in wanting to hit the bridges on the Meuse. Hitler was able to move men and machines at a far greater rate than his foes early in the war, so unless the Allies had attacked when Germans were engaged in Poland, all else would remain the same.

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About bombing the Meuse bridges? I didn't say it was a bad idea. I meant that in this what-if scenario that the RAF would have been free to do other things.

As far as all of Germany's other advantages: their transportation system ended at the border (and the autobahn wouldn't have been much help), their artillery was inferior to the French, and their airborne capabilities were not so great (see Crete). The French high command was not completely inept and actually did figure out a decent counterstrike plan, though too little too late. Against Italy the French did just fine.

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Not critical

Absolutely help in getting forces across Germany from Poland and poised for the assault into France, are you forgetting they're still in Germany before crossing the border. It allows for quick movement of units and supplies to those jump off points as well as logistics from factories to marshalling sectors. It was the reason Hitler built them in the first place.



How? By what criteria? Some examples please.

France was all done by the time of Merkur(In just over a month wasn't it), Airborne operations were very sucessfull in Norway, France, the Low Countries and Greece before Kreta.
Crete was difficult because of many things not previously encountered mainly about twice as many enemy combatants as the Germans counted on as well as a fierce partisan and Greek regular contingent, quickly did away with the 3 to 1 rule. The scope of the operation was too vast and was bound to result in casualties due to inadequate fire support prep. Yet Crete has nothing to do with the previous capable ability of the Fallschirmjäger in the French Campaign, Eban Emal proved that fixed fortifications could be neutralized by airborne.

That's academic and not supportive of your argument/commentary. Italy wasn't the country the French needed to worry about

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To carry forward from the Britain does not have a treaty with Poland thread that is now spinning off a bit towards discussion of the Maginot Line, I'll pick that up here.

The first issue that has to be dealt with is the Luftwaffe versus the French Air Force. Could the French in 1940 keep the Germans from attaining air superiority over the Maginot Line? I would say no, they couldn't. They lacked the equipment, tactics, and operational experiance to do so. Lack of a BEF AAF componet would only make things worse.
With the Germans having control of the air the French are really already hit. Their primary forward offensive artillery is not contained within the Maginot Line fortifications but rather is field artillery stationed with the interval troops. A near complete lack of AA guns is going to pretty much ensure that the Luftwaffe will silence the French guns in pretty short order. This would be a near perfect mission for Ju 87s.

As for the line itself, once the interval troops are pinned the Germans could readily and rather easily advance on the Line itself. The Line lacks antitank guns and relies very heavily on passive defenses to keep tanks from reaching the various fortifications. The French had no mines emplaced and were late comers to even developing this weapon. So, unlike the heavily mined Sigfreid Line the Maginot has little defense against tanks.
The lack of means to really stall a tank offensive, it is likely that the Germans could close on many of the defenses and simply shoot the various exposed cupolas and observation positions out leaving the defenders essentially blind.

Using assault engineers in gliders as at Eben Emael is also possible. Like the Belgian fort, the Maginot Line completely lacks antiaircraft defenses.

With the line breached, the Germans have the advantage in both tactics and air superiority to handle the interval troops. Without artillery the French using their slow and cumbersome doctrinal system would be at a severe disadvantage. I also suspect that there would be a bad blow to French morale if the Maginot Line went down in a matter of days. It would say that the fortifications were really pretty worthless and France's best defense was a poor one.

I doubt that it would prove even a truly difficult barrier to breech.

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Now I can't but I'll definatly come back to this. I'll just have to analyse in detail the structure of the Maginot line



Cheers...

Probaly best to come here TA, the other thread has been sidetracked a bit. I am assuming that we are going with your other thread topic here, of the British not being in the war?

I do agree with you TA, no fortress or line is impregnable, every one has its weaknesses and strengths, and having the Entire German Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht forces pushing on that one point, it will break.

With the Luftwaffe gaining air surpremacy they would easily do what the allies did in 1944 and stop the French from bring up reinforcements and supplies and effectively cut the Maginot Line from its reserves and support, now under those problems alone, mixed with the constant pushing from the German land forces both with tanks, infantry and artillery, It will break. I believe the Germans had something like 1300 hundred different types of planes operational at this time, now what if they deployed these forces over the Maginot line alone, that would stop the french in their tracks and again the line would break.

Also s you said TA the French were not ready for a fast moving war, so once they broke out through the Maginot line, the Germans would be free to 'roam' the French countryside.

I know this is an old post, but this is ridiculas. This is virtually saying, I don't know how, but they will do it, somehow I doubt that.

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If they (the Germans) thought it was worth taking it (the Maginot Line) in a frontal assault then why choose to avoid it?

Paul's reference to Fermont & Villy in post #2 underlines that (even though the defences could perhaps have been eventually overcome) the result would likely be a bloodbath.

Villy was attacked because it became isolated due to certain weaknesses in the defensive design in that area, it was one of the weaker fortifications overall. According to Pallud in 'Blitzkrieg in the west' the Germans still needed 3 batteries of 210mm Mortars, seven of 150mm howitzers, nine of 105mm Howitzers, three of 100mm howitzers and a battery of Flak 88s firing directly at the cupolas and embrasures. And it still took days to batter the defences down to a point where the ventilators couldn't cope and the men inside were asphyxiated... (it took 3 more days to move and bury the bodies).
Fermont was a major fortress, it and it's defenders endured an 88 bashing away at the same spot for half a day, and patched the damage by the next morning. It's response to a 'massive bombardment' for 2 hours on June the 21st was to fire back with all weapons as soon as the barrage cleared. The Germans had to request a white flag cease-fire to recover their many dead and wounded from around the Fortress. They didn't ever take it by force, because they couldn't.

We must give the OKW some credit, they knew the Maginot line was best bypassed and a most impressive line of defence. In many ways the Blitzkrieg was a close run thing, the added risk of taking those fixed fortifications could easily have thrown the whole thing off kilter.

Cheers,
Adam.

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