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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ames.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ucbvax!ucdavis!lll-crg!seismo!hao!ames!al
From: al@ames.UUCP (Al Globus)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: HIGH TECH MAGINOT LINE: indeed?
Message-ID: <1300@ames.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Dec-85 19:23:52 EST
Article-I.D.: ames.1300
Posted: Mon Dec 30 19:23:52 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 1-Jan-86 04:29:18 EST
References: <8512020718.AA15110@s1-b.arpa> <682@mtuxn.UUCP>
Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 29

> 
> This is in response to a posting in net.space called 'HIGH TECH MAGINOT LINE'
> The author claimed that the 'Germans smashed right through the line'
> in a comparison of the Maginot line with SDI.  Whatever the value of
> defensive fortifications, the Germans did not, repeat NOT NOT NOT,
> smash trough the Maginot line.
> The reason the Gerrmans were able to outflank
> the line is that the French only built their defenses along the GERMAN
> border.  The Germans entered France through Belgium and Luxemburg.
> Hopefully, similar error will be avoided with SDI.

The line was not completed because the French ran out of money, something that
could easily happen to SDI.  They extended the line somewhat after the
war started and the Germans DID penetrate a portion of the extended line.

> It is a very interesting
> question as to what the outcome of the Spring campaign in the West in 1940
> would have been if the French had fortified all their borders.  Most
> people who have studied the situation consider the Maginot line to 
> have been impregnable frontal attack.
> 
> Incidentally, if you want examples of successful use of fortifications,
> look at WWI.  The French forts DID prevent the Germans from conquering 
> France.

Actually, in the final three German offensives of WWI new infantry tactics
allowed the Germans to penetrate the massive defenses developed during
three years of war.  They were stopped by exhaustion and, in part, by
the first American troops to arrive in France.