3 ms·

What happened with France?

• gojomo 14y ago
  I suspect it's a reference to 'the Maginot Line': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line
  • AlexFromBelgium 14y ago
    Oh yeah, sure, blame it on the Belgians!
    • pygy_ 14y ago
      Fellow Belgian here, our ancestors had been naive... Our main line of defense, the fort d'Ében-Émael, had been built by German workers. The German army had their plans, and knew the weak point of the fort: its vast, undefended roof (it was used as a football field by the soldiers). During a dark night, they landed with gliders on the roof, and manually set up shaped charges[1] to destroy the turrets, which were resistant to conventional bombs. Game over. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge , damages seen from the outside: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Eben-Emael03.JPG/250px-Eben-Emael03.JPG http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Ebe... -- Edited to reconcile my foggy memory with the historic truth...
      • gaius 14y ago
        I'd be willing to bet some young combat engineer said "but what about the roof?" and some old general replied "you'll never get a horse up there!".
        • pygy_ 14y ago
          It's worse than that. The roof should have been mined, but the soldiers petitioned the hierarchy to keep their sports field...
• scoot 14y ago
  They surrendered.
• Wicher 14y ago
  I was thinking of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funkspiel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funkspiel .