The Atlantic Wall by Steven Zaloga

Author:Steven Zaloga
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Atlantic Wall (1): France
ISBN: 9781782007074
Publisher: Osprey Publishing

One of the most scenic gun positions on the Opal Coast is MKB Arnika (La Crèche II) of 4./MAA.240, which consisted of four H671 casemates for 105mm SKC/32 U-boat guns. Located along the edge of a cliff to the north of Boulogne, one of the four casemates has already succumbed to erosion and fallen into the sea below. (Author’s collection)

Strongpoint WN10, Les Dunes de Varreville

WN10 was a fairly typical infantry resistance nest containing a mixture of reinforced concrete bunkers and earthen entrenchments. This was one of three inter-related strongpoints manned by 4.Kompanie, Infanterie Regiment 919, 709.Infanterie Division, and located to the northwest of Utah Beach, covering an area 600m wide and 300m deep. This strongpoint was manned by a reinforced platoon of about 40 troops. It was designed to cover the beach in either direction through the use of enfilade gun casemates on either end, a 75mm H677 casemate on the northern end and a pair of Skoda 47mm 36(t) casemates on the southern end. Defenses of the position pointing seaward included a 50mm pedestal gun in a Vf600 gun pit, a French 47mm anti-tank gun in an entrenchment, and a pair of Renault FT tank turrets with 37mm guns on reinforced tobruks. The center of the position was honeycombed with trenches and there were eight machine-gun emplacements. Fire support for the forward positions came from a pair of 81mm mortars in tobruks toward the rear of the position and there was a single 50mm pedestal gun covering the rear of the site. There were numerous small bunkers serving both as ammunition and personnel shelters. Two of the ammunition shelters were reinforced concrete but only one of the larger personnel shelters was concrete; the rest were heavy log construction, buried for some added protection. There were several small observation posts that were linked to divisional artillery by means of field telephones. This strongpoint was subjected to heavy naval bombardment on D-Day. The surviving defenders offered little resistance and the position was overrun by the 3rd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, late on June 6, 1944. Most of the concrete structures of this strongpoint still exist. (Artwork by Chris Taylor)

Most of the other major Festung ports had a similar concentration of naval artillery, though often of less imposing size. A typical battery was MKB Vasouy, the 9.Batterie of Marine-Artillerie-Abteilung 266 (9./MAA.266) located along the south bank of the Seine River opposite Le Havre on the outskirts of Honfleur. The battery’s mission was to cover the mouth of the Seine River. Its basic armament consisted of four 150mm Tbts.K.L/45 guns, essentially a coastal version of the standard 150mm destroyer gun with an effective range of 18km and a rate of fire of 1.5 rounds per minute. These were enclosed in four M272 Geschützschartenstand (gun casemates) arranged in a line a few hundred meters from the river’s edge. This type of casemate was fairly typical of Kriegsmarine designs but not especially common in France, with only six along the Channel coast and 21 elsewhere including Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands.

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