The Competition & Teaser Thread

[ComradeP]

I don't dispute the effectiveness of mines as such, I do feel that fewer, better defended, positions in depth would've been both more effective and more economical for a side which wouldn't have enough manpower to man lines effectively, like the Germans.

The Atlantic Wall, the Westwall/Siegfried line, various positions in the east: all positions that lost a significant part of their value as soon as they were decisively breached. The men to hold them were not there, and the resources they absorbed meant other positions could not be fortified. The Panther/Wotan line mostly existed on paper, partially because most resources went to the Atlantic Wall. The Atlantic Wall was decisively breached over a lengthy front in a matter of days. The Maginot Line simply flanked.

In Tunisia and Italy, mines and bunkers had a point and defensive positions were very difficult to take, but elsewhere?

Even taking Kursk as an example: the Soviets spent months building the positions that II SS Panzer Korps chewed through. The operation failed partially due to the extensive fortifications, but they didn't actually stop the Germans. They didn't buy all that much time either. Zitadelle was just as unlikely to succeed in terms of developing into the encirclement the Germans hoped for with more economical defensive works probably.

The late war Soviet offensives often had to go through well prepared positions, but there was nothing behind them and the Soviets knew it. Extensive mapping of German defensive positions before the Vistula-Oder offensive significantly decreased both the defensive benefits of the Vistula and the German positions, and the same goes for most offensives. The only static position that held was Kurland, but there was a large German force there.

Static defensive lines have their merits, but if you just fortify that one line, the enemy can just gather sufficient forces to breach it and you give up the initiative. Several unit histories of the Normandy campaign that I've read clearly specify that the units had more problems with getting through the inland defenses than anything on the beach. People often talk about Omaha, but it was an exceptional situation where Allied preparation failed to inflict the necessary damage. Considering the enormous investment in the Atlantic Wall, I wouldn't say the investment was economical based on how little the beach defenses accomplished during Overlord and Dragoon.