German mega defense

[Destroyer500]

What if the Third Reich decided to play defense and put many of its resources in building an amazing defense system along all of its pre ww2 borders (Austria and Chechoslovakia will still be annexed-conquered in this version) ? What if they build giant moats,walls behind them,trenches behind them,bunkers,multiple flak towers and huge guns behind them along with some sort of underground train system for any possible ressuply needed ? In this scenario i would also imagine that heavy tanks or super heavy tanks wouldnt be that bad since there wont be much of movement going on.There could also be usage of rockets like the V2,or some AA versions of them in a defensive arrangemnt and with more advancements make them even more effective against the plane menace.Since the British had their really good air defence system,with all the really well trained crew and its radars,why not envision in this case a German version of that and why not throw it into the mix.What if also in this scenario chemical weapons-gas was used along with the defenses ? I have done a small amount of research on chemical weapons from ww1-ww2 and most dont really consider them that strong in an open or moving battlefield and thats why i propose them on this defensive what if scenario.
Now before anyone starts talking about doctrine and that the German-Prussian way of thinking was different i will just say i know that.Lets say in this version the generals thought differently.Its a what if so change whats needed for all this to happen.
I want to know how would such a defence fair against the technologies of the era,if in a 4-5 year period it was possible to be built,if a Germany of this version could survive an invading Soviet Union and-or even Britain for a long time without the defenses failing or the system collapsing.I would like to know if they could make this defence partially nuke proof(i guess if they nuked a part of the defences,if they get the plane close enough to do that with all that supposed AA,that area would be uncrossable,or am i wrong ?).I would also like to know if this could be done while also having a mobile doctrine were they could attack and conquer and if things go bad go back to their shell.To conclude,i want sollutions to my "problem" not just a single "This wont work",i want you to stretch with me this whole argument as much as you can and explore possible ways and to what extend it would work.In the end this is a what if and mostly serves the purpose of being a brain teaser-puzzle and a learning experience.

[Richard Anderson]

You mean a Maginot Line?

[Destroyer500]

You mean a Maginot Line?

Youre everywhere arent you ? I guess my post bore you too much

[ThatZenoGuy]

In WW2, Defences, while useful, could not be relied upon. Think of them more as force multipliers rather than forces of themselves.

It doesn't matter how much concrete your defences use, or how many machineguns are hidden inside of them.

The bombers will come, the artillery will smash, and eventually we get to nukes.

[Richard Anderson]

You mean a Maginot Line?

Youre everywhere arent you ? I guess my post bore you too much

Oh no, they're very entertaining.

[Destroyer500]

In WW2, Defences, while useful, could not be relied upon. Think of them more as force multipliers rather than forces of themselves.

It doesn't matter how much concrete your defences use, or how many machineguns are hidden inside of them.

The bombers will come, the artillery will smash, and eventually we get to nukes.

Artilery can at least to some deegree be managed with counter artilery and if we mix missiles and very big naval guns then we outrange the enemy artillery.They propably wont even get in range to fire.Remember how the American ships at DDay after a certain point got so close to the shore and fired their guns so as to prevent any kind of German relief of reaching the coast ? Imagine that but on land.Even some sort of railway Gustav guns of the conventional type or some sort of missile Gustav like the Langer Gustav

Capture.PNG

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav could do the trick (you can find the langer Gustav being mentioned on the bottom of the wiki page,if someone can find pictures of drawings or something like that for the gun please send them to me).
The US nuked Japan while being uncontested in the skies and with Japans aircraft not even being able to reach the maximum altitude the B29 could fly.Jets though can go higher than the B29 and Germany surely would have some by the time the US would have a nuke.Even without jets an amazing air defence system would,coupled with missile AA,do the job.

[Destroyer500]

You mean a Maginot Line?

Youre everywhere arent you ? I guess my post bore you too much

Oh no, they're very entertaining.

I wish youre not lying ,either way welcome aboard.Do you have anything to add other than the "You mean a Maginot Line" ? Because what i propose is not at all close to the size and defensive capabilities of the Maginot line

[Cult Icon]

Well, the Germans did have the Siegfried line/Westwall that did help their defensive efforts as otherwise their heavily degraded army with only a few hundred tanks operational would have had more difficulties than it did.

The fortifications of the Westwall were pretty deficient though and of course if every part of the line looked like Fortress Metz the Western front would have been stronger. In particular the artillery encased in the fortifications was a force multiplier. Besides inadequate fortifications and a degraded army their chief issue was the shortage/inferiority of tanks, aircraft, and artillery forces which really limited their counterattack capabilities to short/small local actions, a cornerstone of their defense.

Just having a super fortified area isn't enough.

[Destroyer500]

Well, the Germans did have the Siegfried line/Westwall that did help their defensive efforts as otherwise their heavily degraded army with only a few hundred tanks operational would have had more difficulties than it did.

The fortifications of the Westwall were pretty deficient though and of course if every part of the line looked like Fortress Metz the Western front would have been stronger. In particular the artillery encased in the fortifications was a force multiplier. Besides inadequate fortifications and a degraded army their chief issue was the shortage/inferiority of tanks, aircraft, and artillery forces which really limited their counterattack capabilities to short/small local actions, a cornerstone of their defense.

Just having a super fortified area isn't enough.

I recently,while doing research on German bunkers,stumbled upon the west and east wall.The defenses you mentioned are in no way country wide or-and as strong or as complex as the ones i mentioned in my what if.What do you mean by "the inferiority of tanks" ? The shortage i can understand but inferiority i cannot.

[Cult Icon]

Examine the battle of Metz, this is one area where the defenses were stronger. The Germans defended the area with degraded forces combined with experienced leadership. The Artillery casemates provided good suppressive fire against various avenues of advance and the fortifications were time consuming/difficult to assault. However the US 3rd Army was eventually able to defeat them with Operation Madison after being stalled for a long time. Over the longer term without parity in forces the Germans could not repell the 3rd Army and their opponent managed to develop a more effective offensive operation than before.

I meant "inferiority of tank forces", the Germans were outnumbered 10-15 to 1 or worse in terms of armor/ depending on the time period in the fall of 1944. Also they had a sharp inferiority in air/artillery, when they tried to counterattack and retake positions they frequently got bracketed by firepower which was a limiting factor. Basically as I said before both the fixed defense and the counterattack reserves would have be dramatically improved for a permanent strategic defense.

Ultimately it is very expensive to create a line like you say, the resources would have to come from somewhere.

[Takao]

Basically...What If WWII was a WWI "do over".

[T. A. Gardner]

It just needs taking care of with a better, bigger bomb...



If a Tallboy won't do it, then you use a Grand Slam, or even the bigger T-12 Cloudmaker...



Large-scale fixed fortifications of the sort like the Maginot Line or German's smaller Ost Wall, were anachronisms by 1940 and obsolete by 1944.

As for a SAM, Germany wasn't likely to get one of those that really worked right before about 1950. While an earlier one might be possible, it would be a very limited system of dubious value against anything other than a high flying, slow moving, steady course aircraft. The tube technology isn't up to it, fire control computers simply don't exist yet that can handle the necessary data and guidance, and supersonic missile technologies need to be developed from scratch. As it was, Germany got about as far as the US did on a SAM by 1945 and neither country had anything approaching a working system at that time. The Germans--in nothing short of desperation--did try the only alternative to an electronic guided SAM with the Bachem Ba 349 Natter. That was for all intents, a SAM with a pilot in it for guidance.

Then you toss in standoff weapons like glide bombs and the like, and those fixed fortifications become nothing more than expensive targets that are even harder to defend...

[Destroyer500]

Basically...What If WWII was a WWI "do over".

Well somewhat yes

It just needs taking care of with a better, bigger bomb...



If a Tallboy won't do it, then you use a Grand Slam, or even the bigger T-12 Cloudmaker...



Large-scale fixed fortifications of the sort like the Maginot Line or German's smaller Ost Wall, were anachronisms by 1940 and obsolete by 1944.

As for a SAM, Germany wasn't likely to get one of those that really worked right before about 1950. While an earlier one might be possible, it would be a very limited system of dubious value against anything other than a high flying, slow moving, steady course aircraft. The tube technology isn't up to it, fire control computers simply don't exist yet that can handle the necessary data and guidance, and supersonic missile technologies need to be developed from scratch. As it was, Germany got about as far as the US did on a SAM by 1945 and neither country had anything approaching a working system at that time. The Germans--in nothing short of desperation--did try the only alternative to an electronic guided SAM with the Bachem Ba 349 Natter. That was for all intents, a SAM with a pilot in it for guidance.

Then you toss in standoff weapons like glide bombs and the like, and those fixed fortifications become nothing more than expensive targets that are even harder to defend...

A really advanced SAM system,for the time,is out of the question.They could push development but i understand that time is required no matter what.A low quality SAM could be built and be more effective than just flak,at least for big planes.When it comes to ground attack aircraft a really strong airforce and plenty of short-medium range AAs could minimize the damage.Bombs are gonna be dropped no matter what but if the enemy takes too many cassualties doing so then such a war could not be sustained for long.
When it comes to nukes only high altitude bombers could carry them and i dont think they would send such a high value weapon to an uncontested and heavily defended sky.
I had a thought of giving bunkers a "hat",by this i mean adding so much reinforced concrete on top of them that they look like a tycoons hat.The point where the hat starts is where the artilery gun is located.Wouldnt that be sufficient to stop most bombs apart from the very heavy ones ? I believe that where theres a will theres a way and creative solutions can be found for any problem or task.
I have a queston for you and anyone else interested,how much do you think this mega defence of mine cost ?

Some random thoughts bellow

Im gonna take it a step further and say that even energy directed weapons sound good for AA defence,at least for short ranges.Now i know that thoughts about this kind of weapons started appearing much latter on but were talking about ww2 Germany were every crazy thing is possible.What i remember from Soviet testing of EDW reports was that they required too much energy and i dont know if they could have it back then without having a dam in every river.For a 60-70s mega defense doesnt sound bad.

[Destroyer500]

Examine the battle of Metz, this is one area where the defenses were stronger. The Germans defended the area with degraded forces combined with experienced leadership. The Artillery casemates provided good suppressive fire against various avenues of advance and the fortifications were time consuming/difficult to assault. However the US 3rd Army was eventually able to defeat them with Operation Madison after being stalled for a long time. Over the longer term without parity in forces the Germans could not repell the 3rd Army and their opponent managed to develop a more effective offensive operation than before.

I meant "inferiority of tank forces", the Germans were outnumbered 10-15 to 1 or worse in terms of armor/ depending on the time period in the fall of 1944. Also they had a sharp inferiority in air/artillery, when they tried to counterattack and retake positions they frequently got bracketed by firepower which was a limiting factor. Basically as I said before both the fixed defense and the counterattack reserves would have be dramatically improved for a permanent strategic defense.

Ultimately it is very expensive to create a line like you say, the resources would have to come from somewhere.

From a quick search i did i learned that they flanked the defenses from the east and then started to make some progress.Before that the Germans managed to stall the Americans for somewhat 2 and a half months even though the Americans had superiority in every field.Things like this make me think that a defence my kind of size and type could hold

[T. A. Gardner]

Examine the battle of Metz, this is one area where the defenses were stronger. The Germans defended the area with degraded forces combined with experienced leadership. The Artillery casemates provided good suppressive fire against various avenues of advance and the fortifications were time consuming/difficult to assault. However the US 3rd Army was eventually able to defeat them with Operation Madison after being stalled for a long time. Over the longer term without parity in forces the Germans could not repell the 3rd Army and their opponent managed to develop a more effective offensive operation than before.

I meant "inferiority of tank forces", the Germans were outnumbered 10-15 to 1 or worse in terms of armor/ depending on the time period in the fall of 1944. Also they had a sharp inferiority in air/artillery, when they tried to counterattack and retake positions they frequently got bracketed by firepower which was a limiting factor. Basically as I said before both the fixed defense and the counterattack reserves would have be dramatically improved for a permanent strategic defense.

Ultimately it is very expensive to create a line like you say, the resources would have to come from somewhere.

From a quick search i did i learned that they flanked the defenses from the east and then started to make some progress.Before that the Germans managed to stall the Americans for somewhat 2 and a half months even though the Americans had superiority in every field.Things like this make me think that a defence my kind of size and type could hold

What happened at Metz in 1944 was the US initially ran into the fortified zone around the city and just tried to take the forts on the fly. That failed miserably. So, the units involved were pulled back, and then underwent training to take those forts (assisted by having the plans that were kept in Paris as to their layout and design). This took a bit more than a month.
The Germans helped things by pulling the better units in the Metz area out and replacing them with mediocre ones.

The US then came back for a second try and systematically reduced each occupied fort without heavy losses.