Wen | against the north
01 Germans: do not love the defensive line to hold, love armored assault
When it comes to the defense line in World War II, the easiest thing that comes to mind is the "Maginot Line", which was designed by the former French Defense Minister Maginot and named after him. This line of defense was established along the Franco-German border and extended to the French-Belgian border, but was not extended further due to the refusal of the Belgian government. It is precisely because of this that many historians believe that it is the Belgians' underestimation of Germany's revenge ambitions and capabilities that has led to the transformation of its own border into a weak point for the German army to break through the French "Maginot Line".
But then again, after Nazi Germany forced France to surrender in the summer of 1940, the Maginot Line quickly changed from an enemy position that had plagued Germany to a valuable military resource at its disposal. The complex structural design of the interior of the defensive line, the hoarding of weapons, ammunition and other supplies, etc., strengthened Nazi Germany's defense strength. Will this cause certain difficulties for the future counteroffensive of the Anglo-American allies? What if the Allies, after launching the Normandy landings, encountered the Germans using the Maginot Line to delay their offensive when they attacked the German homeland?
In fact, in the autumn of 1943, the top brass of Nazi Germany began to use the resources of the "Maginot Line", but instead of strengthening the fortifications here, they removed the steel inside the Maginot Line and transferred it to the English Channel to consolidate the beach defense system there, the so-called "Atlantic Barrier". For the Germans, it was the most important and fundamental thing to prevent the Allies from landing on the French mainland. In this way, the Maginot Line was weakened.
(Maginot Line)
Of course, the Germans did this with a deeper consideration, that is, they did not take the "passive defense" strategy behind the "Maginot Line" as important.
Before the invasion of France, the Germans had realized that it was better to engage in roundabout encirclement and bypass the enemy's defensive line instead of concentrating their forces to the other side's defensive line. However, unlike the German army in World War I, the German army in World War II did not only attack such a method of warfare, but also injected a new element, that is, in coordination with the air force and artillery, the use of armored groups to break through. This is also the essence of the so-called "Blitzkrieg" (also translated as "blitzkrieg"). For example, the "yellow plan" of Germany's invasion of France and Belgium at the beginning of World War II adopted such a strategy. Even by the summer of 1944, Germany had suffered heavy losses in the fierce Soviet-German war, but still did not superstitiously believe in the role of the defensive line, but continued to use mobile forces such as armored troops to cooperate with or support the war situation.
02Why did the German armored assault fail?
The "Atlantic Wall" is a case in point. The Germans demolished the fortifications of the Maginot Line to strengthen it, but according to the relevant documents of Marshal Rommel, who presided over the defense of the Western Front, both Rommel himself and Hitler, who was hiding behind the scenes and manipulating the overall situation, placed their hopes on the ten armored and panzergrenadier divisions on the Western Front. Most of them were placed on a key pass not far from the forward positions of the "Atlantic Barrier", ready to advance at a time when the war situation was unfavorable to their side and block the Allies ashore.
Still, the Germans miscalculated. For, first, Hitler did not put these panzer divisions into battle in time on the day of the fiercest Allied offensive, but continued to sleep, and it was too late for the Allies to establish a solid beachhead; secondly, the use of panzers was only one aspect, in addition to the cooperation of air force and ground artillery.
However, in order to ensure the success of the Normandy landing, the Allies used air force and naval guns when the landing forces attacked bravely, causing great damage to the communication line between the German reserve and the first-line defense forces. Even Rommel himself was knocked over by the Allied air raids and planted in a ditch. Although such air raids caused the same trouble for the later Allied offensive deep into the French hinterland, it failed the assault tactics of the armored forces that the Germans relied on. Now even the armored assault could not play a role, and the Germans would not use the Maginot Line that france had built to block them.
(Allied Landings in Normandy)
03 Ardennes Offensive: The Germans' "Blitzkrieg"
However, the Germans did not easily comply, and as the war moved from the northwest coastal region of France to the inland, the Allied supply lines were suddenly lengthened and it was difficult to quickly supply the front-line troops. As a result, the Germans were able to take advantage of the weakening of the Allied offensive to adjust their strategic subordinates, and from late 1944 to early 1945, under Hitler's mandatory orders, the Germans on the Western Front mobilized 250,000 troops, including two Panzer Armouries, to launch a lightning surprise attack on the Allies in the Ardennes. Their aim was to penetrate deep into the Allied rear and destroy the Dutch port of Antwerp, which undertook the allied bulk of the transport of supplies, in order to slow the Allied maritime process.
This strategy of the German army almost copied the same operation mode of the 1940 raid on France. Obviously, the top brass of Nazi Germany hoped to alleviate the pressure on its own front by means of offensive and defensive methods, and even as political capital for peace talks with Western allies. However, although the German raid caused a lot of confusion to the Allied camp at the beginning of the battle, with the timely arrival of American reinforcements, the two sides fought a stalemate.
(A German unit in the Ardennes counterattack)
As the war dragged on, the Germans did not have air superiority and the shortage of vehicle fuel were exposed, and under the desperate defense of the Allies, the Germans had to recognize the reality, reluctantly withdraw from the battle, and use the remaining troops to plug the gap in the defensive line torn open by the Westward Advancing Soviet Army. At the Battle of the Ardennes, the Allied armored forces were said to have been twice as large as the Germans, but their losses could be quickly replenished. But for Germany, whichse military production capacity is nearing exhaustion, the offensive is nothing more than a suicide gamble.
After the loss of most of the armored troops and the air force, there was no military capital to carry out mobile offensives, and the Germans also devoted their energies to their own "Siegfried Line" in order to enable the newly replenished recruits to support the "Third Reich". In the mid-to-late 1930s, this line of defense had been built by Germany as a confrontation with the French "Maginot Line", and basically did not play a role. But now, the Germans were defeated and sick, and they could only imitate the French to engage in the so-called "trench warfare" in a vain attempt to stop the Allies.
However, in less than a month, this line of defense was broken forward by American troops. Some people may attribute this to the fact that the German army is not good at passive defense, but in the final analysis, I am afraid that it is still lack of morale and lack of equipment.
In conclusion, the Germans did not use the Maginot Line that the French had spent a decade to build to block the Allies who landed in Normandy, but focused mainly on how to mobilize armored troops to attack the enemy. Behind these phenomena is the withdrawal of the old trench warfare of the First World War. Because of the upgrading of weapons technology after the end of World War I, higher requirements were put forward for strategy and tactics.
The Germans had mastered the secret and were able to easily succeed in invading France in 1940. However, the new tactics based on armored assault also required the cooperation of other branches of the armed forces (such as the Air Force), which nazi Germany after 1944 could not afford. As a result, the Germans were soon overtaken and crushed by the Americans, who were more proficient in new tactics and more capable of adapting to them.
When the first atomic bomb was successfully tested, the armored troops that had been favored by the Germans once attacked and appeared to be old-fashioned.
bibliography:
Arnold Toynbee, ed., The Complete History of the Second World War, Shanghai People's Publishing House
(de) Erwin Rommel, Rommel's Wartime Papers, Democracy and Construction Press
John Gigan, History of World War II, Peking University Press
Winston Churchill, Memoirs of the Second World War, Southern Press