Great stuff Marcel!
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing.
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One would think that indeed, but I don't have prove about that. I'm pretty sure they did not use it against other forts in Belgium, although We know they had this weapon available in that time. So I highly doubt they actually used it a year before. The germans were very reluctant to use it openly. Remember it was new and top secret. Even their own soldiers were not allowed to know. It also required specialised troops. The group for Eben Emael had been training for 7 months in solitude.Brest-Litovsk, Warsaw and several other locations in Poland are surrounded by forts. Oscarborg fortress protected Oslo (and sank KM Hipper). Norway had some other fortress complexes too.
Germany would have employed Pioneer against all these forts. I have not seen after action reports so I don't know exactly how the attacks were conducted. But it stands to reason pioneer would have employed hollow charges if they were available.
okay, well many sources claim and I still believe that this assault on Eben Emael was the first operational use of hollow charges for the Germans, but I'm open to anyone who knows about earlier use of this weapon. Ther of course isn't anything so insecure as an unproven " thruth" of courseKM Blucher was sunk by Oscarborg Fortress not KM Hipper. Both were Hipper class heavy cruisers.
Yup, true and that's why on german photo's of the assault you'll see german soldiers on dingys rowing to the fort, to suggest the fort was taken by a conventional assault. Also if you find any german news about the assault from that time, you'll notice that nowhere they mentioned gliders, charges or pioneers. And lastly, the crew of Eben Emael was kept in solitude for some time after the attack, so they could not reveal how the assault was done.It should have been obvious to experts that a small group of men in a glider couldnt possibly carry enough HE to crack the fortress conventionally.
Yup, true and that's why on german photo's of the assault you'll see german sodiers on dingys rowing to the fort, to suggest the fort was taken by a conventional assault. Also if you find any german news about the assault from that time, you'll notice that nowhere they mentioned gliders, charges or pioneers. And lastly, the crew of Eben Emael was kept in solitude for some time after the attack, so they could not reveal how the assault was done.
That was the general opinion back then. The task of the fortress was to defend or destroy all the crossings over the river Maas, the Willemskanaal and the Albert kanaal. In the Netherlands, all bridges were destroyed in time which already slowed down the Germans by 24 hours. If the fortress would have been active, crossing the Maas and the canels would have been very difficult indeed and we can only speculate how long this would have stopped the Germans. On the other hand, this was just the sideshow, a smokescreen. The real German push was through the Ardennes, not through the North of Belgium. It's hard to speculate what would have happened to that plan in this case.Thanks Marcel I didnt know about that. I wonder what would have been the result if the assault failed because of bad weather or bad navigation, would the fortress have stopped or slowed the German advance.
That was the general opinion back then. The task of the fortress was to defend or destroy all the crossings over the river Maas, the Willemskanaal and the Albert kanaal. In the Netherlands, all bridges were destroyed in time which already slowed down the Germans by 24 hours. If the fortress would have been active, crossing the Maas and the canels would have been very difficult indeed and we can only speculate how long this would have stopped the Germans. On the other hand, this was just the sideshow, a smokescreen. The real German push was through the Ardennes, not through the North of Belgium. It's hard to speculate what would have happened to that plan in this case.
Yes, that's a possibillity, too. One should not neglect the impact on the moral this action had. And it goes both ways as you show. Don't know, can be anybody's guess and maybe an interesting 'whatif' topic.Thinking about it if the fortress had held the Germans, it might have encouraged the BEF to try and stand in Belgium rather than retreat in relatively good order back into France and on to the Channel ports. As the BEF was pretty much doomed from the start that could have big consequences for Britain.
Brest-Litovsk, Warsaw and several other locations in Poland are surrounded by forts. Oscarborg fortress protected Oslo (and sank KM Hipper). Norway had some other fortress complexes too.
Germany would have employed Pioneer against all these forts. I have not seen after action reports so I don't know exactly how the attacks were conducted. But it stands to reason pioneer would have employed hollow charges if they were available.
At Oscarborg the 3 big 11" guns were in open position and had only minimal shields, so a couple of Bf 110s could have silenced them