the Maginot Line was a genius idea

Which didn't happen
Because it meant the invaders could do the same thing

And yet they lost. Horribly.

>>32061836
Yeah it was a great idea when blitzkrieg didn't exist.

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>>32061836
I'll just put this one up here.

>>32061957
Tell me anon. Did the Germans circumvent the Maginot line or go through it?

>>32061957
>Patton
>Mr. Looney pants who couldn't hold a hill defensively and instead /needed/ to attack every chance he could
>Having an authority to what makes a good defense

wew lad

>>32061836
It's not like the French had an original idea. Germans also fortified the fuck out of the same border.

>>32061992
That's an armored commander for you. Tanks aren't meant to sit still.

at Ouvrage Villy-La Ferté the heroic Maginot Line defenders, only 97 men and 3 officers of the 155th RIF, held up a division-size armored attack backed by massive artillery support for 3 days, inflicting some 1,700 casualties, and died to the last man

>>32061992
>giving up the initiative
Everyone, laugh at the retard.

>>32062119
>if you build fortifications, you can only have fortifications
Everyone, laugh at the retard.

>>32062119
If you didn't give up the initiative, why are you defending in the first place?

>>32062191
>not defending by attacking the enemy's rear echelon

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hey guys remember the time when the Allies were in full pursuit mode, and Patton was just supposed to hold the area around Metz, but instead he tried extended piecemeal attacks on the Metz fortified zone, diverting a lot of supplies and taking a lot of casualties, to no real purpose???

yep always attack tho, to "retain the initiative," George C. Scott movie was a documentary, kiddo

>>32062260
Are you fighting Arabs or something? What happened to the first and second echelon? Their flanking security units?

>>32062265
>P-47 divebombing
was this really a thing?

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>>32061836
It was meh idea on strategic level doesn't consider possilblty of flanking maneuver through neutral countries.
Also it was stupid execution. Forts had shit design too vulnerable to direct fire and lacked anti-tank punch. Overall idea of such fortifications was pretty outdated too.

ofc, fighters are usually good dive bombers as they have powerful engines and strong wings that can handle the strain of pullout

p-51 started as a dive bomber

>>32061969
They did ...both!

>>32062119
>being so obsessed with "le initiative" that you routinely outrun your own supply dumps and cripple your own chain of logistics

Ah, yes.

>>32062119
Always attacking is giving up initiative. You have smaller area of decisions than opponent that had choice between attack and defense.

>>32062313
Yeah, since the Jug was the only fighter fat enough to fly with ten 5" HVARs which kind of necessitate dive bombing.

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> being so obsessed with "le initiative" that you take your army beyond range of effective supply in order to launch a costly attack into a strategic cul-de-sac of little significance to the war's outcome

>>32062439
Shit happens.

>>32061836
What people seem to completely ignore is that a considerable amount of money on Maginot line was spent in the mid 30s.

Do you know what would have happened if France had instead bought a bunch of mid 30s level tanks and aircraft? They would have had even more completely obsolete vehicle lying around and no actual improvement on their numbers of modern tanks and planes, which by the late 30s were limited by serious problems in French industry (the fucking horrendous problems in French aircraft industry could by itself be blamed as a cause for defeat) not by funds.

>>32062343
>It was meh idea on strategic level doesn't consider possilblty of flanking maneuver through neutral countries.
Why the fuck do people repeat such meaningless History Channel level bullshit?

Of course it considered the possibility of flanking manuevers. That's why the French strategy was always based around winning in Belgium.

If you want to blame someone, blame the UTTERLY RETARDED Belgians, who redeclared neutrality in the 1930s and thus wrecked any possibility of coordinated defenses, even though 1914 had already shown Germany didn't care at all about respecting neutrality!

>>32062510
>What people seem to completely ignore is that a considerable amount of money on Maginot line was spent in the mid 30s.
It cost low single digits of the military budget. As in like 2.5%.
To save tens of thousands of men in manpower and cover hundreds of miles.

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>>32062534
>basing strategy on the whims of the neutral non-countries
Extend the wall to the North.
Though it doesn't matter line was paper tiger tier anyway.

>>32062650
>Extend the wall to the North.
You mean exactly what the French started doing?

WHY THE FUCK are completely ignorant people allowed to post?

>>32062343
>It was meh idea on strategic level doesn't consider possilblty of flanking maneuver through neutral countries.
The Maginot Line joined up with the Belgium border defenses and the French had a joint pact with Belgium to defend it together and the Belgians betrayed them.
>>32062534
This.

>>32062534
>blame the UTTERLY RETARDED Belgians
Yeah, imagine a country in the mid 1930s trying to appease Hitler...

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What's your favorite Maginot line meme?

Mine is "The Germans just drove through a forest, where there were no fortifications, because nobody knew that tanks could drive through forests"

>>32062666
>and the Belgians betrayed them
In 1936, after the French and Brits had showed themselves to be completely unwilling to counter Hitler at any stage.
>>32062650
Or you know, at least alter your strategic plan in light of changing political situations.

>>32061992
Spotted the retard.

>>32062728
Yes instead let's switch to neutrality! That sure worked in 1914!

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>>32061957
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhPahus7sZE
Patton got his ass served to him handily to him at Fort Driant.

>>32061836
Worked flawlessly against the Germans, right? Oh wait

>>32062714
>because nobody knew that tanks could drive through forests

Wasn't that pretty much the reason the push though the Ardennes was so effective in cutting off the northern Entente forces?

>>32061836
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannerheim_Line
The Finnish version of the Maginot held the Soviets back for a while. Although it was more of Soviet incompetence rather than it being a super heavy fortified line considering a lot of the line was just a trench in dirt for miles.

>>32066252

No, it was because the Germans massed all of their armor in the enemy's rear area and cut off everything north of France. There was nothing between them and Paris after that aside from a few random dudes.

Look at a map. Look at where the allied forces were deployed. Look at where the Germans went.

It has nothing to do with forests or the ability of tanks to drive through them. That there was a forest there is an irrelevant detail, the important part is where, geographically, they broke through.

>>32066060
>Patton got his ass served to him handily to him at Fort Driant.

Didn't help the Germans win the war though, did it?

That was just an unimportant battle they won after having already lost all of the important ones.

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>>32066344

Damn. Like a fucking revolving door.

So was the Allied assumption that the German main strike would come further to the north solely based on the assumption that they would repeat the Schlieffen Plan?

There are some French formations in the vicinity of the Ardennes, but it looks like they just sat there and didn't advance to meet the Germans like they did in the north.

>>32066442

It was a few things.

Firstly, the French and British had very little ability to reposition their forces to stop an armored advance. They didn't have enough trucks, rail, intelligence, armor, or men to make that happen. So where they were was, for the most part, where they were going to stay. The Allies had moved their forces to protect The Netherlands and Belgium (absolutely worthless strategically) rather than France and its harbors (if you lose these it's game over).

Secondly, They also had no real idea about what the Germans were planning to do, what their armored forces were capable of, etc. The Allies were led by unimaginative morons who thought they were fighting WW1 again, so they just kinda sat there and waited for the Germans to build trenches.

Third, they knew the Germans were in that area. The Allies were even trying to build fortifications there before the war started, once France realized the Belgians were unreliable shitbirds. But it was too little, too late.

In other words, Belgium fucked its Allies once again!

>>32061957
Patton was absolute shit on the defense, his only claim to fame is implementing motorized Combined arms on the allied offensive.

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>>32062063
La Ferté was only lost because the neighboring forts were told to not provide artillery support as a B1 tank force was sent to relieve it, As those tanks never made it the fort was on its own. It was also improperly designed and equipped compared to the rest of the line.

>>32062510
The French spent way more money on their Navy fleet which people forget even existed, That alone should tell you how much of an impact it had on the war.

>>32062650
Fun fact: The 88mm shot that made the chip on the left embrasure was the last and only shot to actually harm the (it killed them) occupants of the cloche on La Ferte.

>>32066344
>>32066442
The French High command also ordered the men of the line to abandon their fortifications and try to regroup with the main army, They actually thought the extra manpower from the slow, poorly trained, and now unequipped maginot army would turn the tide of the Belgian front.

This was done on the same day the Germans were planning to attack the line, Worse still is that the messenger carrying the order which was written in plain French was captured.
Pretty much all the men intended to help the main army were captured just a few miles away from their fortification.

>>32066608
Belgian Fort Eben Emael which was brilliantly attacked with gliders and shaped charges for the first time in history, Was lost because Belgian high command the men who were supposed to be manning the fort to clear out a work office. What was considered the strongest singular fort on earth at the time was lost over literal paperwork.

Pretty much all the French and Belgian forts in WW1 and 2 were lost due to high command throwing them away.

>>32066716
>as lost over literal paperwork.
And lack of balls among Belgians.

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>>32066767
Don't blame the fighting men, They managed to blow up many of the bridges they were trained to do so and even tried to sally out the front and bring the fight to the Germans many times.
Nether were all the gun positions of the fort were silent ether, Here's a picture of the guns in canal Nord (bright spot) attacking the Germans soldiers paddling through the canal.

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>>32066860
Germans on the top of the fort tried knocking out the canal position by lowing explosives on ropes to the guns embrasures but all attempts failed to damage them, The times where Germans could get direct access to doors and gun embrasures they found their explosives to be effective. Eben Emael wasn't designed with the idea that troops could get on the roof the way that they did in WW2, Had they given it a thought they probably would have placed ditches in front of the door and gun embrasures like the French did.

>>32061836
I swear this should be a sticky it comes up so often.

The Maginot Line was good. The issue was France failing to exploit it.

The plan was never to turtle behind the line and let Germans besiege it, it was to force the Germans into certain routes and allow the French time to mobilize i.e. the entire point of all modern fortifications.

The French failed because they relied on several factors that turned out to be false. The Belgians for one, but most importantly the German movement through the Ardenne Forest was far far faster than predicted.

Blitzkrieg wasn't magic, unthinkable or unstoppable. If the French plan had properly accounted for the possibility of moving through the Ardenne, its very possible we'd be talking about how amazing the the Maginot Line was instead.

>>32062029
>That's a Cavalry officer for you.
Fixed.

>>32068841
>If the French plan had properly accounted for the possibility of moving through the Ardenne, its very possible we'd be talking about how amazing the the Maginot Line was instead.

They knew it was possible, they simply didn't put enough men and machines there to stop what came through.

>>32061867
>>32061869
>>32061870
>>32061957
I think you should see below.

>>32068841
>The Maginot Line was good. The issue was France failing to exploit it.
Fucking this, and what >>32066716 pointed out too. Fortified positions have severe disadvantages but they excel in prolonged engagements if adequately supplied, even with outdated equipment a force dug in like a pack of deer ticks will be hard to oust. Stalingrad was a great example of that, so was Berlin, the flak towers had such incredible firepower that they denied the Soviets the land within sight of the tower. Attempts to force them out failed, so the Soviets just said fuck it and left them alone.

Had the Germans been able to muster an effective mobile force the towers would have been the perfect position to pursue and engage the Soviets, likewise the French should have used the Maginot Line in a similar fashion. They could have met the Germans in the field where it was appropriate and let the line take up the slack elsewhere by completely protecting the flanks.

Let idiots like Patton obsessed with offense handle the maneuvering element, while commanders who understand the importance of delaying, redirection, support, and supply handle the defensive elements. When it comes down to it maneuver warfare is only good if you can keep the initiative, have adequate supplies, and can proceed with the adequate force as necessary. Patton mostly understood this but he didn't take logistics seriously, by all accounts it seemed like he regarded it as an annoying hindrance, so of course he couldn't appreciate the fixed fortification. Had France demonstrated it's value by using the strengths of the fortification with the strengths of a mobile hunting force the Germans wouldn't have gotten very far. Nothing they had could compete with tank destroyers rushing out and ambushing them, then fleeing back to the Maginot Line's safety.

>>32066366
>Germany lost the war because some of their fortifications were actually succesful
>???

>>32068841
France had more than 4% of the population dead during WWI. That is what drove all of their thinking.

They could have been more aggressive with their navy. They could have attacked Germany when they were occupied in Poland, but that thought of 4% kept coming back to them, and they hoped that the Germans would be thinking of their casualties too.

>>32061836

Yes. The main failure of the French military was the political landscape which was heavily fractured and lent 0 will to the war effort, and the fact that the French were years behind in combined arms doctrine.

Also, what people forget is that Belgium refused to complete their leg of the Maginot Line which would've effectively ground the Germans to a halt.

Reminder: some forts on the Line didn't fall until well after France stopped fighting.

>>32061957
...Because always attacking had worked so well for the french in the past. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_the_offensive

>>32070032
The political leadership felt that they had gotten themselves stuck in WW1 by not seeking a truce in 1915 after the Marne and sending everyone home. So they thought they'ed surrender, give up Alsace-Lorraine and forgive the WW1 reparations, and that would be the end of it. In any previous war it would have been, but Nazis so...

>>32069267
Guess the french still suck then, couldn't even use their defences properly :^)

>>32070227
To be fair it was an entirely new way of warfare.

Itd be like playing tic tac toe and then pulling a gun on them, calling them shit at tic tac toe as you kill them

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>>32070227
>>32070279
All fort commanders vehemently opposed the order to leave their forts, They completely understood they leaving was an idiotic move.
The fort commanders argued they could possibly hold out for weeks if they stayed put and the army retreated up to the line with its equipment.
All the high command could think about was how the "500,000 fighting men" who maned these forts and garrisons could relieve the falling army.

As the men were also given the order to "destroy" their equipment before they abandoned their positions, Some fort commanders decided to interpret that as an order to expel all the ammunition at the German lines before leaving.
Many forts were also told to leave suicide squads in the forts to give the impression of occupation, There were so many volunteers at that they had to randomize who got to stay.

If the Germans had not captured the messenger with the clear details of the retreat they wouldn't have just overrun the forts, They would have followed their with their plan the siege the forts.
That probably would have given the fort troops enough time to... Accomplish nothing as they would still be completely on foot without equipment and training for such combat.

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>>32069267
>Let idiots like Patton obsessed with offense

I think Patton was so offensive loving because he was a pre-great war cavalry officer and their entire mission and doctrine was all movement and attack: in the cavalry being flatfooted == death

scouting, skirmishing, maneuvering horse artillery, rearguard actions, harrying retreating enemy etc.

>>32061836
Static defenses are only good for when you're trying to stop Mexicans from flooding your country

>>32061836
It actually was a great idea.
The French just had strategically retarded generals.

>>32066366
Catastrophic retardation

>>32062714
its even better when you know the ardennes had roads, and the french recon planes saw them

>>32062714
I'm not sure if this is a meme, but I've been lead to believe that in 1939 tanks were considered meme-tier and not a serious mobile threat they were

>>32070227
Largely no, as >>32070368 put it the fault lies mostly with the people in charge. On the ground the French gave as good as they got, sometimes a hell of a lot more, and distinguished themselves in battle. This story isn't really new, French history is full of some guy pissing away victories left and right, the difference is for centuries there were guys with their shit together to carry the fight. France in the early 20th century was full of idiots who achieved leadership positions, especially those who were so dead-set on fighting the last war that they threw away any chance of success.

>>32070546
I suppose the above could be applied to Patton too, he was good at what he did but the problem is guys like Patton need to be told no quite often. Attack and movement are irrelevant if your force starves itself, and frequently others had to cover Patton's ass because he was too busy charging ahead.

Plus there's that whole ego thing, the man wanted to build a legacy.

>>32074236
Absolutely false, ever nation serious about warfare had a large stockpile of tanks that they thought would be good enough. Germany though, Germany was fucking fascinated by the tank and that's likely where that assertion comes from in that it probably seemed like they were the only ones who took it seriously. They weren't, the French had better tanks in inventory because they had seen first-hand what a game changer it was. Same thing with the Czechs who, like the Germans, were obsessed with the technology. I think for them it was an inherently German/Czech invention, even if they didn't make it, because it utilizes their best talents and they dived right in. See, had Chamberlain told Hitler to fuck himself and forced him to invade Czechoslovakia they likely wouldn't have gotten very far: the Czech military had heavily fortified the border and had a fleet of tanks ready to pick up the slack.

What was misunderstood was the aircraft carrier, only Japan and the USA bet on it being useful.

>>32074689
The French may have understood that the tank was useful, but they didn't know how to use it.

Over half of their tanks were attached to infantry formations.

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>>32074236
>>32074714
Many saw tanks as mobile pill boxes that supported the infantry, and only had to move as fast as the infantry walked.

>>32074714
Well honestly they had a good idea because the Germans largely did the same thing. What was the key difference is the Germans, specifically Guderian, made the infantry/armor combination move much, much faster.

That was the key difference, when the panzergrenadiers demonstrated their worth everyone with the means to do so altered their tactical and strategic doctrine. What was critical, and where France truly failed, was the combined use of armor, infantry, and close air support. Germany may have had it's inadequacies here and there but for several years they were the undisputed champions of combined arms assaults. Unfortunately for them they seemed to forget what made them so successful, it wasn't technological prowess, and when the United States entered the war we did everything Germany did but did it bigger and brought our artillery mastery with us.

>>32074857
The sad thing is that France had its own equivalent (Chasseurs Portés and Dragons Portés) to the Schützen/Panzergrenadiers, they were trained as motorized/mechanised infantry and they had dedicated vehicles.

But, as for the armored divisions, too few of them and often badly used by the HQs

>>32075729
Yeah, it would have been interesting to see how things would have played out if the French high command didn't completely ruin everything.

Additionally the bumbling of their production capacity, that certainly didn't help matters either. French aircraft were already a sorry bunch, but they lacked sufficient production capability for the most effective and capable types.

>>32074689
>only Japan and the USA bet on it being useful.

the Royal Navy had quite a few carriers during the war but they didn't go fully carrier centric like IJN and USN

you'd think they would have seen the writing on the wall about air power after Bismarck

it may have been Rodney's 16 inch guns wot slew the beast but it was air photo-recon that photographed her putting to sea, flying boats that found her at the critical moment with Radar and strike aircraft from Ark Royal that crippled her

>>32066716

The French navy was irrelevent because as soon as the British panicked and started their retreat, the Royal Navy betrayed the French and bombed their fleet, on the basis of "the Germans might capture these ships and use them against us, so let's murder a bunch of our allies".

The British also invaded and occupied neutral Iceland for shits and giggles, invaded and occupied neutral Iran so they could steal their oil and have a supply line to the Soviets (and murdered their king in a concentration camp in South Africa, then didn't actually leave Iran until two years after the war ended because all that free oil was totally sweet), and attacked neutral Norway and mined their ports.

Germany is forever evil for invading neutral Belgium in order to take down France, but nobody even remembers how the Allies invaded and murdered thousands of people in multiple neutral countries. Hell, we even 'accidentally' bombed Switzerland repeatedly because they had the audacity to bank with both the Allies AND the Axis.

And Germany is evil forever because they invaded Poland (after the Poles murdered 58,000 ethnic Germans and started massing troops on the border), but Russia gets a free pass on invading Poland one week later.

>>32076284
>after the Poles murdered 58,000 ethnic Germans
Proofs?

>>32076284

>all this wrong

Oh my. Nazi pls go.

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>>32076284
What?

>>32074714
Well that IS the correct way to use tanks.
In combined arms. They just didn't have a totally mechanized force.

>>32076327
>>32076560
He might be referring to the Bromberg massacre. Which would be hilarious because that happened after the invasion and the 58,000 number is a case of propagandized inflation that stormfags love to mock with muh 6 gorillion.
>achtung, did you hear about how the evil poles killed 500 innocent ethnic germans? look how they just murdered 5000 pure aryans! never forget the 58,000 of our haplotype-sharing brothers mercilessly slaughtered by the untermensch!

>>32075988
>the Royal Navy had quite a few carriers during the war but they didn't go fully carrier centric like IJN and USN
Royal navy would've had more carriers than the IJN in 1941 if they didn't lose a bunch in the 2 years of attrition before Japan entered the war.

>>32066608
So, if the Allies knew that the Germans could advance through the Ardennes, why wouldn't they have position more forces to defend that approach?

>>32076537
Can't speak for all of it, but Britain did mine Norwegian ports and waters. They also were considering an invasion of Norway to cut off German steel imports from Norway & Sweden. Of course, in the end Germany invaded first.

>>32078327

British "Invasions" were quite different from German ones

>Sweden providing material to Germany
>mine Norwegian territorial waters to prevent iron transports to Germany
>prepares to occupy Norway to prevent German invasion of Norway
>too late
>liberate Norway, Allies are heroes

Iceland

>Iceland, we need help, ally with us, Germany will invade if you don't, anyway
>nah, we neutral senpai
>seriously, please, we need help and basing rights
>senpai, no
>"invade"
>only casualty was an invading soldier who killed himself on the boat
>Mayor of city being occupied confronts British soldiers
>"Iceland is neutral!"
>"So was Denmark"
>Iceland demands preferable trade deals and compensation to allow British soldiers to stay
>Britain quickly agrees

Iceland demanded things from an INVADING EMPIRE and the empire agreed. A little different from German occupations

Invasion of Iran

>Iran selling oil to Germany
>Iran stop
>no, senpai
>Germany putting pressure on Iran to join the Axis and open up another front in the ME and against the Soviets
>British oil supply directly threatened
>lend lease needs another route to deliver supplies
>1000 total dead Iranians, British offer compensation for damages
>US sends troops to Iran and promises to respect Iranian territory
>US extends lend-lease aid to Iran via grain imports, equipment, and trains the Iranian army
>war ends
>Allies pack up and leave within 6 months
>takes over a year for the US and UK to force the Soviets out

There are really no parallels between German and British invasions during the war.

>>32061836
Dien Bien Phu was a genius idea.... on paper. Like Mike Tyson said though "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth".

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>>32076284
>>32076537
>>32078657
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Mers-el-K%C3%A9bir

For the French fleet part

>>32078764
You left out the part where the French Admiral HATED the Brits, and was personally inclined towards joining the Axis on solely that basis.

>>32078764
You know the British gave a chance to join them right

>>32078672
I think that it was an excellent idea, but enacted at the wrong location. What they needed was a stronghold, but what they had was a forward air base that was surrounded by hills.

>>32061867
Yep they just went right around it.

>>32069267
But
Don't forget how any fortification can be blasted into dust by big enough dakka. Everyone thought the Belgian forts in WW1 would stop the German army, until they started shelling them with fuckhuge naval-caliber siege cannons that just blew them sky-high. And in WW2 they took Eben-Emael with fucking paratroopers. There's always a way into the fort.

>>32079385
Those Brialmont style forts used by the Belgians were made with a poor understanding of concrete and flawed designs.
The Belgians used non-reinforced mass concrete which combined with no prior experience working with concrete resulted in a weak structure.
The turrets mounted on the forts were directly exposed to enemy fire which also sat on top the ammunition magazines that fed them.

When you know this it's not hard to see why the Belgian forts catastrophic failed the way they did and why the french who modeled their forts after the Belgians quickly abandoned them.

What the French didn't understand at the time was the forts around Verdun like fort Douaumont were modernized before the war with reinforced concrete and layers of sand.
The French later found that those modernization programs had made the forts structurally impervious to even the most modern artillery.
With improvements to the design philosophy of Fort Jeanne d'Arc they developed the Maginot line.

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>>32079723

>>32062160
>Being defensive when you hold the advantage of numbers

>chaaaa guys, the maginot line is genius
>Who cares if it failed miserably
>We armchair generals would have beaten the germans

GUYS, it may SEEM genius on paper, but in practice it was a fucking disaster.

>>32079925
You should read the thread before posting.

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>>32078764

>be French Admiral
>large british task force sails up and says they plan to attack unless you stop the germans from capturing your fleet
>even though you were going to do this anyway you tell them to go fuck themselves for being rude desu
>fail to properly tell your superiors about the situation
>they attack and explode one of your battleships

>merde those god damn roast beefs it is all their fault

>>32078672
>>32079119
Dien Bien Phu came from the victory at Na San where a similar base held off against Giap's forces.

But Dien Bien Phu was farther from support than Na San, was bigger and as such needed more supplies and Giap had learned from his mistakes.

When you look at it, the only really competent leader France had in Indochina was De Lattre De Tassigny but it cost him his son and his health.

>>32069049
can't have everything everywhere desu.

>>32070668
or germans from fleeing your glorious socialist paradise

>>32078657
>thinks the Icelandic welcomed the brits

I read a fun report from the invasion of Reykjavik where the entire town stood on the dock and just stared angrily at the british. One icelander even took a rifle from a british soldier and then gave it back "you need to be careful with that"

>>32078657
>it's only bad when Krauts do it

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>>32080232
>the only really competent leader France had in Indochina was De Lattre De Tassigny but it cost him his son and his health.

Why has French military leadership been generally shit since the Napoleonic era?

Few exceptions aside, of course

>>32080487
krauts have a tendency to overdo it.

Hell if the germans had discontinued the soviet collective farming in Belarus and The Ukraine they would have had alot less trouble with partisans.

Instead they went with the mass murdering fuckhead routine and all those volunteers turned into partisans instead.

>>32080531
Ain't no party like an Ostfront party.

>>32079919
>Being defensive when you hold the advantage of numbers

I know, right? Somebody should have told the soviets outside of Moscow this. They probably would have done much better throwing themselves blindly at an advancing army instead of fortifying their position.

Probably...

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>>32061957

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>>32080531

>tfw close to 2 million Ukrainians volunteered to serve the Wehrmacht when the Germans rolled into town.
>tfw OKH begged Hitler to consider it.
>tfw Hitler installed the quite possibly the single greatest Slavic hater the Nazi Party ever produced as Reichkomissar

>>32080528
Because promotions have stopped being awarded on battlefield experience and successes but politics.

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>>32078901
Even when Vichy France sucked Germany's balls and was hold at gunpoint at the same time, they didn't give them the fleet.
"The admiral doesn't like us" is an incredibely poor casus belli, and certainly did much in creating collaborationists in France.

Anyways, I'm always amazed by the brits ability to present any battle as justified and victorious.

>>32081063
WW2 would have been so much better without Hitler

>>32081295
This
>Rommel is still alive and a national hero
>He and Patton both get their equipment and meet in glorious combat
>As the smoke clears, only Patton and Rommel are left standing
>Patton impales Rommel with a cavalry sabre, but Rommel drags himself forward on the sword and stabs Patton in the chest with his dagger
>Patton is found by Bradley mortally wounded beneath an elm tree
>In his last moments he tells Bradley that he has realized that Germany is not the true enemy, and Russia is a much greater threat.
>His dying wish is for Bradley to take his pistol and leave it at Waterloo
>Germany joins the allies and sweeps across Asia and the Middle East ending conflict and uniting the world.
>Later after the war, Bradley is walking the misty grounds of Waterloo in the early morning
>He sees a man draped in a red cape ride out of the mist on a white horse, but hears no hoofbeats
>He tosses the man Patton's revolver, the man catches it and fires it three times into the air
>The man stares at Bradley as the mist slowly thickens and he disappears.
>Thus ends a legend

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>>32081469

>>32081469

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXh5JprKqiU

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After their experience with fighting the Germans with their improvised machine gun crenels inside the confines of fort Douaumont the French designers decided to refine that idea in the Maginot line.
I believe all the ammunition entrances on the forts had a machine gun crenel built into the wall some distance behind the door, Effectively becoming a fort within a fortress should the attackers overcome the exterior defenses.

>>32083554
God damn, I need to visit the Maginot line someday.