It turns out that tanks trying to drive over the unanchored ones had a good chance of getting themselves stuck just the same. Speaking of anchored hedgehogs, it isn't strictly necessary for the hedgehogs to be anchored to anything normally. On top of that, particularly the anchored variety of hedgehogs proved difficult to move quickly as even massive explosions didn't really do much of anything to them. When used on a beach like this, as previously alluded to, they also had the potential to pierce the hulls of ships approaching the shores if the tide was high at the time. So what purpose did they serve? Put simply, if a tank or other such vehicle tried to drive over one, the result was inevitably it becoming stuck on the thing, and even in some cases having the bottom of the tank pieced by the hedgehog. It's reported that the Czechs originally wanted to build a large wall between the two countries, but a cheaper solution was found in the form of these hedgehogs, which could be mass-produced by simply bolting together beams of steel. Originally designed to sit along the Czechoslovakia-Germany border as part of a massive fortification effort conducted in the 1930s, the hedgehogs never ended up serving their original purpose when the region was annexed by Germany in 1938. Following this were millions of mines lying just beneath the sands waiting for soldiers who managed to make it ashore.Īlong with all of this, there were also those metal cross thingies - or to give them their proper name, Czech hedgehogs.Īs the name suggests, the Czech hedgehog was invented in Czechoslovakia and was mostly designed to serve as a deterrent for tanks and other armoured vehicles, as well as in this particular case if the tide was right, approaching ships attempting to land on shore. In shallower water, the Nazis attached mines to sticks and buried large logs deep in the sand pointed outwards towards the ocean - the idea being boats would either be taken out by the mines or have their bows broken against the poles.Īfter this was a defensive emplacement known as the Belgian gate which were large heavy fences attached to steel rollers which could be positioned in the shallows. After this were expansive submarine nets and magnetic mines chained to the ocean floor to deter submarines and ships. The largest of these guns represented the first line of defence of the Atlantic Wall and the Germans spent countless hours practise shelling "designated killing zones" experts predicted Allied ships would most likely use to invade. Still, the guns, in combination with the several other layers of defences, were believed to make the coast of Europe "impregnable". Though they looked threatening, this "confusing mixture of sizes and calibres" proved to be an issue for the Nazis when they couldn't scrape together the ammunition to arm them all. As a result, everything from heavy machine guns to massive cannons cut from captured French warships were utilized in the construction of fortresses and bunkers. In the rush to create defences, gun batteries were haphazardly thrown together, consisting of basically whatever the Nazis could get their hands on. The wall has been described as a "three-tier system of fortifications" where the most valuable and vulnerable locations were the most heavily fortified while positions of lesser importance became known as "resistance points" that were more lightly defended but would still pose an imposing obstacle to any invasion force. German soldiers placing landing craft obstructions. Intended to ward off an Allied invasion, the Atlantic Wall consisted of endless batteries of guns, an estimated five million mines (of both the sea and land variety) and many thousands of soldiers who occupied heavily fortified bunkers and fortresses along its length. As it turns out, those crosses were merely a small part of an expansive network of sophisticated defences the Allies managed to somehow circumvent in mere hours.ĭubbed "the Atlantic Wall" and constructed under the direct orders of Adolf Hitler himself in his Directive 40, the formidable defences stretched and astounding 2000 miles of the European coast. One of the most iconic images of the invasion was that of a French beach covered in oppressive-looking metal crosses. Beginning on June 6, 1944, the invasion was the largest amphibious assault of all time and involved what basically amounted to the collective might of a large percentage of the nations in the industrialized world working in tandem to defeat the Nazi war machine. The Normandy Invasions represented one of the single largest military maneuvers in history. asks: What were all those metal things you see on the beaches in pictures of the Omaha landing?
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