GERMAN FORTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 May 1940, Page 6

GERMAN FORTS

WEST WALL IS NO MYSTERY. NEW DEFENCE METHODS. Germany’s West Wall fortification system is stripped of mystery in the "Army Quarterly.” authoritative English military publication. An article in the latest issue, the first since the war began, indicates that if an attack should break through the wall familiar to news readers, there would be another and another ready behind, each about as effective as the first.

The article is by Captain G. C. Wynne. The West Wall, he says, is an outgrowth of the View defence principles developed by General Ludendorff. of the German Army, near the close of the last war. ,

That principle is like a football team in reverse, like putting two men only in the line, two others in defensive back position, and all the rest far back, out of the play. The Germans, Captain Wynne says, used a 1-1-4 formation, the 4 being the bulk of an army, back out of the battle, but waiting to counter-attack. Massed artillery fire and other modern attack weapons, including tanks, were the reason. These largely could destroy any ’ force concentrated in forward areas.

Ludendorff, therefore, placed scattered units, with machine-guns and concrete pill-boxes, in the front area, designed to hamper the attack. Behind that, with still only a comparatively small part of the defenders, was the battle zone, intended to disorganise the attack.

This. Captain Wynne says, is the principle of the West Wall. But where the German defence zones of the last war were only about five miles deep, the new wall is 30.

This distance is based on military estimates of how far a heavy, artil-lery-carrying tank can travel under battle conditions. After eight hours its fuel will be done, and 30 miles is the computed maximum. For some battle conditions the calculations for a tank’s penetration are only 10 miles. The front half, or more, of the Siegfried Line depth, says the article, will consist of a series of lines of resistance in which delaying actions will be fought to cover the main position from surprise and give the garrison time to occupy it. This would account for the first 15 miles of the West Wall. The main position, which comes next, will have forward and rearward battle zones, with strong points and machine-gun nests, a special antiaircraft zone, and lines of anti-tank guns with traps and minefields. “Behind the main position,” says the article, “will be, and according to German press reports during the September, 1939. crisis, there wore the mechanised and motorised counter-at-tack divisions and formations. “There can be no doubt that all the concrete defences are of a secondary importance. Neither can there be any doubt that the present Siegfried position is only a beginning, that is to say that it is Siegfried 1 position, and that, should any section of it be penetrated. a Siegfried 2 and then a Siegfried 3 position will be found organised behind it. and so on.

“The preparation of a new position on the German model is not a lengthy process of digging and concrete so much as the proper concealment and distribution in depth of defence force.”