achei no Quora, sobre a segunda guerra e a linha Maginot
Autor: negoailso | Publicado: 2016-12-11T12:13:00-03:00

foi um subtópico daqui: qual a maior merda que você já ouviu em sala de aula?


"Maginot Line

He tried to explain the defeat of British and French armies in WW2 during Battle of France.

He first dropped out that British army was included in the affair and then he explained the affair as such:

"After WWI the French built a massive defensive line called Maginot Line so they'd get a head start for the next great war of the trenches.

The only problem was that they forgot to build it all the way and then Germans simply went past it"


1) While the Maginot Line didn't reach all the way north, it wasn't really an issue. The combined doctrine of France and UK was that of a shield and a sword. The Maginot Line was their shield, the northern sector was their sword arm. The southern section of front would be kept by garrison troops while the best forces would be concentrated to the North along with British army. This was a formidable force and according to von Tippelskirch etc. the northern sector actually had&nbsp;better&nbsp;defenses due to higher quality of troops combined with non-static field defenses that were ultimately superior to static concrete bunkers which proved to be far less effective than their planners hoped for:

Battle of Fort Eben-Emael

2) The French and British never forgot about the northern sector. It was their&nbsp;strongestsector.


What really happened:

The Germans didn't just "go around" Maginot Line. The Allies made a blunder of historical proportions: they abandoned their dug-in positions in northern France and set marching into Belgium and Netherlands "to stop the Germans as far to the east as possible".

While the Allied army was on the move they encountered three things:

#1 They encountered the tactical bombers of Luftwaffe that wreaked absolute havoc upon their marching columns of tightly packed troops. If the narrow roads caused massive confusion and chaos for Germans even without being bombed the effects were that much more severe for the Allies. In short the Allies woke up to the dawn of&nbsp;effective&nbsp;tactical air support and it's effects on moving forces.

#2 Their main doctrine was based on first making contact with the enemy and then forming a line of battle in order to execute large scale operations much in the way of WWI. Essentially, they wanted to find the enemy, take their time to gather everyone into positions and then after waiting for all the troops to form up properly they'd think of what to do with the enemy. The Germans on the other hand had switched to Blitzkrieg, the initial contact would often be part of the actual offensive. They didn't feel the need to first draw a line on the map and form everyone around it and advance as a line.

To further elaborate, the Allied doctrine was to enter the ring, shake hands, go back to your corner and talk to your coach, watch some videos of the other guy's past fights and then get back to the center, touch the other guy's clove and wait for the referee to shout "start!". German doctrine meant that you ran into the ring and then you ran into the opponent and immediately punched him in the face as hard as you could.

Essentially the Germans begin their battles by hitting hard and committing to the initial hit, hoping to punch through so they could push more forces through an opening in the enemy front while utilizing armor and highly mobile motorized and mechanized infantry.

#3 Allied had spread most of their tanks to infantry units to support the infantry. This made much of their armor as slow as the infantry units. Germans created specialized tank units that would fight as concentrated armored formations supported by mechanized infantry that were able to keep up with them.


So all in all, Allied forces were shocked and partially crippled by unforeseen aerial attacks that they did not know to anticipate or take into account in their planning. These aerial attacks took place while the majority of the Allied army was on the move, out of cover and packed tight on narrow roads.

And their already suffering formations were completely surprised by the rate at which battles developed and they were caught by surprise - they were still trying to move into formations and positions set for them by some grand plan while the enemy was already launching a full scale committed armored and mechanized assault upon them, penetrating their hastily prepared defenses that were made up of units that were in complete chaos with parts of units mixed into wrong units etc.

They really should have waited it out instead of set racing into Belgium and Netherlands.

But the Germans also never just walked around the Maginot Line. The whole episode in the north cost Germans 160,000 casualties and the Allies 360,000 casualties, reflecting the fact that Allies left heavily fortified positions and placed their best troops on a "platter" to the German tactical bombers and tanks.

Those numbers could have been reversed if the Germans were assaulting best forces of Allies executing a defense in depth strategy with all of their armor and troops in carefully planned and heavily fortified positions.

The Allies were overly confident because they could match and often surpass the German numbers in everything but aircraft. For instance they had 50% more (1,000) tanks and 89% more (6,596) artillery.
Even with these ideal conditions Germans ended up losing 795 tanks of their total of 2,445. I really implore anyone to consider those casualties if the Allied artillery and tanks were dug-in in positions prepared over months with overlaying fields of fire, pre-determined artillery firing solutions and sectors etc. with all the appropriate anti-tank defenses such as anti-tank ditches, minefields and so."