There's a hexagonal pill box fairly close to where I live, within ten miles anyway. It's stands elevated in a field near a crossroads. I remember going to a farm with my father and seeing the pillbox the way there. My father, who had fought in WW2, said they were all death traps. The German soldier wouldn't go anywhere near it, they'd call up a tank or artillery or a plane to destroy it. Being left in one was a death sentence...
That is correct, by 1941 the static defence mentality had changed when Sir General Ironside lost command as Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces. Pillboxes were death traps and also very unfavored by troops.
Probably not. Those pillboxs identified as a possible hindrance to an advance would have been neutralised before any advance took place. The others would have been bypassed and left for follow-up troops to deal with. In the late 70's I worked with a chap who's father had been defending part of the South Coast against an expected invasion. He said his father told him they had three tanks, two of which weren't mobile, to defend his stretch of coastline. No artillery or anti tank guns. All they had were talkes from Montgomery.
@@xne1592 Most Type 28 and 28a pillboxes on the GHQ and Corps line in Sussex never received their anti-tank 6 pounder or 2 pounder guns, and those that did were removed late 1940 to be placed on the coastal crust defences. Things were very stretched and artillery and anti-tank guns very thin on the ground, so even when a pillbox had hindered the advance of Axis panzers there was less chance the Allies had to actually neutralise it.
But.... The germans had similar with the Atlantic wall and the Allies showed that a determined and tenacious attacker can overcome most static defences.
If he thinks that concrete is thick - he hasn't seen the Widerstandsnests in the Atlantic Wall. And in Normandy, the Allies had naval gunfire and aerial bombardment, not just hand grenades. Nor has he any clue of what blast does, in a confined space.
Problem was, most of the people manning the German defences in Normandy were ex Russian Prisoners, who had demonstrated they had no commitment to die for their country, and particularly not for Germany, the remainder were third grade units and infirm troops, at least until the reserve units arrived, by which time it was too late. The British troops in Southern England had nowhere to go and were not likely to give up easily, being a particularly bloody minded race with nothing to lose.
The Atlantic wall wasn't 70 miles in depth though was it, It was merely a curtain drawn along the coast manned by mostly Polish and Russians who had no stomach for a fight.
@@BlazetheHusky Go and look at the skill with which some of those German defences were put together. As an ex-infantryman, the thought of having to attack them scares me. Remote flamethrowers on the entry points? Covered by machine guns in buried cast steel turrets, covered in stone, 1,000 yds behind? Mortars behind 3m of concrete? Enfilade firing, emplaced artillery? I live on the GHQ line, where there are still plenty of remaining infantry & anti-tank emplacements - it was abandoned pretty rapidly by the more modern thinking generals who knew fixed lines were a lousy way to conduct a defense. And it wasn't 70 miles depth of fixed defences - they were arranged in separate defence 'lines' that were individually not very deep.
Not sure if it's been mentioned yet SOOOOOOO here's another interesting information. You'll notice the entry passages all turn to the right. Most ppl are right handed. Attempting to shoulder a rifle, use it effectively AND breech the pill box in a clockwise direction is notably more difficult. This defensive aid originated in the age of storming castles (see; Monty Python/Holy Grail) and continues still today
But... You CAN fire a rifle or SMG from either hand - and, until the British Army was issued the SA80, it was normal to fight like that. (The SA80 can only be fired from the right shoulder/hip or the breech ejects into your face/body). And the first thing you'd do before entry is toss a grenade or two, or a satchel charge.
Sadly, just wishful thinking mate. I served as a regular in the British army for 28 years. These home made death traps would have been simple to punch clean through with 88mm flak from far far away. Concushion from the blast incapacitates any defenders instantly. Again…Laughably ineffective once you lay smoke, you can walk up and drop in your grenades or like yanks use a flame thrower. These pill boxes were propagandas sake at best. A death trap for the men inside. At this stage the British army had nothing left to deploy having left all their equipment on the beaches at Dunkirk…. These pill boxes were simply a diversion to raise people’s spirits. Had the Germans held back by those far more extensive and better equipped French bunkers? Nope. Sorry to burst your enthusiasm. As soon as any box announced its location its was toast. A minor annoyance at best.
How many flak guns versus how many pill boxes? The Germans would have had to have fought with whatever they could bring ashore in the two days it would have taken for the Royal Navy to have sailed down from Scapa Flow, then they would be cut off facing many many stop lines of these pill boxes. If you were in a pill box you could always see one to the right and one to the left which could all give covering fire to each other. The stop lines also create bottlenecks with kill zones the enemy would have to squeeze through. After the war a group of British and German generals including Adolph Galland wargamed a German invasion of Britain, and discovered that the Germans would have been defeated. The Germans were right not to have attempted an invasion and this defence in depth would have been part of what made them make that decision.
Although for a short period there was a shortage, the UK purchased and received a lot of weapons from the USA - M1917s, M1918 BARs, Lewis guns, etc. and by September 1940 the Home Guard was quite well supplied with those plus some old Arisakas and P14 rifles from stores left over from WW1. The issue would have been logistics, though - there was no way to supply Home Guard units in the field as there was a shortage of trucks and those were to be reserved for the mobile units of regular army mostly (although many regular divisions were at the beach areas too) that were to act as the counter attacking force. So a Home Guard rifleman might get 60 rounds but would be unlikely to get any more than that during Sealion. But you are right in terms of artillery attack. The more likely threat, I would have thought, would have been Stug IIIs. AT traps wouldn't have kept them all away, and they were low and tough and specficially designed for attacking such targets. 88s were only really required for the really thick concrete of the Maginot line forts.
@@MajorTomm-mt8vg You only have to look at photos of the German assault on the Maginot line in 1940. The way that the 88mm. dealt with reinforced concrete and 30cm. thick steel observation cupolas is frightening. 😲
What a great video Kris, You guys have such rich history over there, I love these video's, thanks for posting, all the best from NZ, we are here and always will be. But the world has changed so much and it makes you think!
The likelyhood is that the pill boxes themselves were not impregnable. As you mentioned, in WW1 the Germans used them because the area they were fighting in was too muddy for trenches. But in the same fashion they were mutually supporting units with interlocking fields of fire. The British army and its allies developed the means to assault and take them anyway, so it is not impossible. So the German army would have that knowledge also.
@@Bodkin_Ye_Pointy they were intended to slow an advance with a minimum of defending troops (ditto Maginot for that matter), not be impregnable. A slower advance is vulnerable to counterattack. Preserving your own forces means more for the counterattack
HMS Nelson & Rodney were on standby for last ditch defence on Churchills orders. They would have given an invasion attempt absolute hell if they tried to cross the channel (16” main armament)
People tend to overlook the Navy when they talk about Operation Sea Lion. British capital ships would of course have come under heavy attack from the Luftwaffe but they would have had some protection from the RAF, and those big guns would have probably decimated German amphibious forces before they got anywhere near the beaches. Some of the British ships would have been sunk but the damage they would have inflicted on the Germans would probably have ended any invasion there and then
Yes, the battleships would have been there, but you don't actually need battleships to stop an invasion fleet of barges. Smaller ships would do just fine. And there would have been dozens of cruisers, and hundreds of destroyers and frigates, all bearing down on the invasion fleet firing everything they had. There was even a plan to pump petrol into the Channel and set it alight if needs be. Chemical weapons would have been used too if it came to it. There's no way a German invasion fleet was getting across the Channel.
You wouldnt have 5 lmg in one pillbox the positions are there to move 1 gun around there also would have been trenches around the pillboxes as support positions but yeah as others have said there death traps to anything more than rifle calibre I would think you would only allocate half a section to a pillbox keep the rest of the platoon dispersed
The British defences were not just a line at the coast. There were stop lines at intervals as one went inland. There were also bottlenecks through which an enemy would have to squeeze which were kill zones. There is an old pill box visible from the railway line between Windsor and Waterloo, That's a long way inland. If there was one pill box there was always a line of them.
The only reason the Germans went round it was because the line ended at the Belgium border, no borders on the English coast what ever the Jerry's did would be covered, even a beach on the east Yorkshire coast has lines of defence, 100yds further inland there's more pillboxes.
Pillboxes were part of a broader line of static defences, usually with mutual enfilading fire arcs and anti-tank obstacles, wire and mines. The coastal crust of defences were interlinked with artillery based inland and also supporting garrisons, whereas the stop-line defences behind the coastal crust were quite different. The stop-lines utilised natural topographical features and also mechanically dug anti-tank ditches to create a defensive line, which would cause disruption and delay for enemy armour needing to cross; this would enable mobile reserves to move to the location to engage. Sir General Edmund Ironsides initial static defence plan utilising pillboxes was rather unpopular by late 1940 due to the amount of resources used, and when the War Department replaced Ironside by Brooke, pillboxes became largely obsolete by January 1941. Type 22 pillboxes would have provided very limited protection with rifle grenades, anti-tank weapons and artillery easily able to kill the inhabitants. Type 24 shell-proof would have been slightly better, but having seen the damage a PIAT does to a type 24, these would also have been death traps. Troops during 1940 preferred trench systems as this enabled great field of fire and awareness; this was adapted during 1941 with pillboxes largely being left empty. Some were used at road blocks at nodal points until later in the war, as were those on airfields with AA capability, but for the large they were a huge waste of resources. Furthermore the Luftwaffe had very accurate plans of the stop-lines as the lack of camouflage during construction gave the positions away even before they were finished. Interesting to note that the Luftwaffe aerial photos are more accurate than most of the primary source information in national archives when it comes to locations of pillboxes.
The basic fact was, the Germans did not have the wherewithal to get across the Channel. They had no amphibious operations knowledge which means they could not anticipate the problems that would impact them. By the time the allies hit Normandy they had 6 or 7 major beach landings under their belt. In addition, the Germans would have to make choices after the first wave, troops or logistics. Everything they fought with had to come from France. Try sailing the Channel with submarines on the prowl. Normally it would be too shallow. But if you can hit a troop transport that takes out a 1000 men you would take the risk. So Sea Lion was never on.
They had no landing craft, no ships for beach bombardment, no way to transport armour until they took a deep water port, the RN home fleet and RAF would have destroyed them before they even reached the beaches.
The Brits and jarmans war gamed this after the war when we were all mates and found the place was essentially impregnable. Simply too easy to defend and too hard to bring the necessary logistics to attack...turns out. you need a fifth column...
I have long been convinced that operation Sealion was never a realistic proposition for the Germans... They had no experience of large scale sea landings, no suitable landing craft for infantry let alone armour, the Royal Navy would have decimated any invasion fleet before it got near the coast and even if they had managed to get ashore they would not have been able to provide sufficient support to secure a beach head for more than a few days. All the things that made the allied landings successful took years of planning and development, cunning inventivness and innovation that simply did not exist 4 years earlier. At best it might have been like our own disaster at Dieppe two years later.
My brother is a civil engineer. I remember him talking about needing to demolish one of these, for a road I think. They couldn't break it up- had to crane it out whole!
Saw one being demolished in the 80's, drove past every day to work, 1st week they only managed to round off the edges, weeks 2 to 4 using a hydraulic hammer on a excavator got the job done, massive amount of steel in them.
I believe the Germans went around the magino line and dealt with it later. As with the pill boxes on the Normandy coast 1944 they were defeated in a day even with mine fields etc. Pillbox great idea but a concrete coffin as you become a large target, rather be running about than sitting in a target especially when you run out of ammo.
A few months back my Oz nephew was over here, the wife and I took him on a walking day all round the Dover ww2 and napoleon forts defenses Also the Ramsgate ww2 air raid tunnels that are open to the public now - I used to play in the tunnels In the 1960.
Having surveyed British pillboxes of many types and varieties, the standard and quality of construction varied hugely around the country. Some were excellent, others wouldn't have lasted more that half an hour or so of steady assault, such was the appaling build. But as there wasn't any central control over the construction, most was left to local interpretation and depended on availability of materials and labour with very few builders having had any experience in poured reinforced concrete. But it did lead toma vrry interesting variety for us historians to study - ! 😅
I can't believe I didn't know about these. How fascinating!! Good God what those men went through. I can't even imagine running towards pill box's while being shot at!!
Dont forget about the auxiliary , zero station bunkers . Manned by mainly locals and troops that knew the area well , and were trained in uncoventional warfare, they werw know as scallywags . Good video again chap
Great video thank you, I am from south west London and would venture out to the surrey hills when I was growing up. The Surrey hills was covered in Pill boxes and Dragons teeth tank traps and would of been near impossible to overcome. The closest to where I lived was just outside Chessington at Maldon Rushett and they extended out to the surrey hills and then swang all the way around to South of London and on to the south coast. It would of been the end of the war in my opinion if the Germans had gone ahead with Operation Sea Lion. It would of broke the Germans attempting it and I doubt they would of recovered. Again thanks for the great video
Very interesting. Thanks mate. Has to be said though, the krauts had sturdy pill boxs to, and they were charged down(not before they caused carnage on the allies) the krauts did not attempt a landing due to our great navy and air force. Had they destroyed either, they may have atrempted an invasion .
Most Pillboxes are pretty poorly built, often not sited particularly well or mutually supporting like the ones you cite. They certainly were not armed with 4-5 machine guns in each one. More likely a rifle section would be manning 2-3 pillboxes, who were probably all new recruits. A 1940's Stug would find them an easy target and if the RAF did lose the Battle of Britain a Stuka would easily take them out.
There were bulletproof and shell proof variants. The designs (they varied significantly) called for 46cm thick for bulletproof, 107cm thick for shellproof (DFW3/24). In comparison, the standards on the Atlantic Wall called for minimum 2m thick and in many cases, 3m thick, with layers of steel rebar.
Im in North Staffordshire, the closest sea is 80 miles away, and there are still pillboxes in and around the area, so I think they were ready to fight till the end.
The BEF had basically disarmed Great Britain, Dunkirk saved the manpower but everything else had been abandoned rifles, machine guns, tanks and trucks etc. The majority of troops relied on were the home guard that trained with whatever they could. At this stage 1940 there were no Americans and the Lend Lease had not begun properly. The battle would have been fought at sea after the invasion, the Germans would faced the Navy(that ruled the sea) and airforce that would have had home advantage along with radar. So along with harassing the Germans on land their resupply would have been difficult and air cover ineffective as their aircraft were operating at the end of their range.
Sea Lion would not have taken, and indeed did not take, place without air superiority. The War in the Pacific showed how out of date most warships were when compared to airpower. The RN, despite its size and ability would have been destroyed from the air. That's why it spent most of the war at Scarpa Flow. It would have been on the Army to defend Britain, and they would have done admirably...maybe.
@@I_Don_t_want_a_handle At that stage of the war, landing a bomb on a moving ship was no easy feat. The Luftwaffe was not particularly experienced with anti-ship operations and there are plenty of examples of Luftwaffe bombers during the evacuation of Dunkirk missing RN ships time after time. The Luftwaffe had air superiority over Dunkirk but still could not prevent a successful evacuation. Sure the Luftwaffe defending the invasion lanes would have learnt fast and undoubtedly the RN would have taken losses, but I would argue that by the time losses started to mount, the invasion lanes would have already been like a turkey shoot for RN destroyers and cruisers etc. Remember, the German army was absolutely not set up for, nor experienced in, large scale sea born operations. They had an insufficient number of transport vessels and there were no landing craft of any kind to the point that flat bottomed canal boats were to be converted for the task and towed across the channel by tugs. Imagine a flat hulled canal boat trying to cross the channel at a mere couple of knots speed, with the notoriously unpredictable channel conditions. And then the RN show up. Now I don't doubt that German invasion forces would have made it ashore, possibly in large numbers, and established a beachhead. But keeping that force supplied once the main RN counter force made it into the channel. Doubtful! German high command knew Sea Lion was a no go, with or without air superiority. The Battle of Britain and operation Sea Lion were a bluff to try and get Britain to sue for peace. And the Brits well and truly called that bluff baby.
@I_Don_t_want_a_handle sea lion was only conceivable with air superiority, which Germany never managed losing the Battle of Britain. But had it, the Royal Navy would still have wiped out the Nazi Naval units, the Royal Navy was orders of magnitude stronger than the Kriegsmarine. The Royal Navy had anti air defences, The Luftwaffe on the other hand lacked specialist anti naval set ups, and would have been tied up with the Airforce.
In all likelihood the RN would have wiped out most of the nazi invasion barges before the pillboxes were really needed. You missed out that pillboxes were also surrounded by trench networks, not in isolation as we see them today.
Very well explained, Kris. Overlapping fields of fire are pretty good dissuaders - expecially when the bad guy is trying to run up a steep hill! - carrying all his kit - and maybe wearing a gas-mask.
I think you forgot the initial risk of invasion into Yorkshire and East Anglia when Germany took Denmark and Norway. Those areas were defended first and until France fell did the South Coast become vunerable. Pillboxes were only built and used for about 18months before being made redundant when the thinking and defending tactics changed (away from static defences and GHQ lines) and their vunerability to high velocity ordanance was exposed. They also were surrounded by trench systems and other earthwork defences which have long gone. Its a hugely complicated subject that changed on a regular basis as the threats and technology moved on. Its not a video game senario of attack and defend.
@@Addictedtobleeps Have a look into the Julius Caesar plan to defend Britain from Oct 1939. Its a fascinating but little known subject. The south coast and operation sealion was late to the party.
If they'd got past the pillboxes in the south, they weren't getting past the defences in the north where it's hilly as hell and the roads are very narrow.
I think thr RN would also have to have been neutralised to enable the landing, you would then have coastal batteries taken out from off-shore for some considerable range, you can thrn establish a proper beachhead, land your artillery and then methodically take out these pillboxes combined with airattack. ? Always great to see another video Kris. Good stuff.👍🏼
There was a problem finding enough men to man the pill boxes, so they would have been manned by the Home Guard and told to fight to the death. So, you would have had men who were veterans of perhaps three campaigns fighting militia. That's why the pill boxes were needed.
2:07 28,000 in the SE? No, 28,000 throughout the country, mostly in the form of stop lines, and that's 28,000 structures, not necessarily pill boxes. They may have been "used for observation" but that's because there wasn't any other use for them at the time, as the invasion didn't happen. the stop lines were generally only one pillbox deep although they may have included a river or canal plus some barbed wire. tests done in 1941 by the Americans showed that these pillboxes were only effective against small arms fire and a 20mm gun such as that carried by a German armoured car could penetrate them. The pill boxes were built to a variety of designs by a variety of builders (mostly civilian contractors) and the building quality varied widely, with some being built with the embrasures facing the wrong way. Building these structures finally pulled Britain out of the Great Depression.
The pill boxes were very flimsy to anything bar small arms fire. What did the German armies do with the Maginot line ? They went round it. A safe corridor would have been created by aerial and naval bombardment to allow the rapid armoured units inland. The ' cavalry ' would then deal with the pill boxes.
Most Pill boxes are inland and pointing in towards an airfield, which were German tactical targets in WW2. Your Dover Key was an observational Pill box. Pill boxes were also not in isolation. You will find the remains of a trench system around the pill box. 3d pill box you missed the gun mounts on the top. Your final mistake is that taking pill boxes of many different types is Exactly what the Allies did in Normandy. A lot of them far more more sturdy than the British pill box being built of armoured steel. Although the plans were standard the building materials were not. Most later ones were reinforced concrete but earlier ones were built by builders who just had dimensions so were often built of house bricks with maybe a concrete render. They often had soil on and around them to improve protection. The Germans were also adept at dealing with fortifications as demonstrated by Fort Eben Emael, which the Germans destroyed with the use of shaped charges.
The pillboxes were mostly built as components of fixed, delaying stop lines, at the direction of General Ironside (whose experience was from WW1). They were not all completed when saner, more modern minds prevailed in the summer of 1940 and moved strategy to the concept of more mobile defences (although defences under construction were completed) with fixed nodal points (anti-tank islands), area flooding, railway lines and anti-tank obstacles/road blocks, all designed to channel an attacker into killing areas.
They were there to slow the enemy down that's all which is a good thing. Look at the Atlantic wall or maginot line for example both major defencive lines but with the right tools or tactics they were overcome.
@@Addictedtobleeps Spread all around the periphery of the UK. The point is - in 1940s Belgium, Holland or France, strongpoints didn't hold up the German advance. Nor, in 1944, did the Atlantic Wall, nor then the Seigfried line. Similarly the Ost Wall didn't stop the Soviet advance.
kris, don't forget the grand shaft in dover which was booby trapped :0) the grand shaft went into the cliff's so was an easy way to get from sea level to the top of the cliffs :0)
Sea Lion stood ZERO chance of succeeding. Germany didn’t have ANY of the things that made D-Day a success. Every single simulation of Sea Lion proves that it would have failed dismally.
small problem the Germans didn’t do frontal assaults all the time they used paratroopers, moved around fixed positions just like us Brits and assaulted from behind or just bypass fortifications. I’m still not sure how sea lion would have gone down but it would have been a close run thing with so many variables to factor in. But I did like the video 👍🏻
The British coastal defences were much weaker than those in Normandy and quite thin, even on the SE coast. You also have to take into account that the Germans knew how to do combined arms warfare, so you have to think of what happened on the Meuse - the men in the pillboxes were mostly OK but cowered in their pillbox under intense air attack, allowing the German troops to get close enough for the pill boxes (an extension of the Maginot line) to cause the men to surrender or be killed.
Very interesting. Had Sealion gone ahead it would have been a disaster. I think everyone knows that would have been the case. I’d argue that even without the Navy interdiction in the channel all the uk would have needed to do was sabotage docks and leave nothing in the south east because the Wehrmacht saw Sealion as an elaborate river crossing. Their logistics would have failed massively and only light resistance would have screwed them. The really interesting thing would have been what happened next? Large amount of the German army is captured in southern England with all their kit. All our kit is still in France. What happens next? Peace negations? What terms? Who has the best leverage? Fascinating.
dont forget we had fuel pipes set in place to set the sea on fire also ,not impossible to land here but not easy either.and then theres the weather .....
4 guys in a pillbox, and even if they all have LMGs / Brens there are going to be issues, Ammo, barrel changes, the noise would be deafening with all four guys letting rip. Remembering that supplies where limited, some maybe pulling out the Vickers. Not forgetting the German Para would have possibly jumped in the night before along with a barrage of artillery, the Germans where shelling Dover, from Calais. A well-aimed Panzerfaust could have taken out a Pillbox. Running from pillbox to pillbox with Ammo resupply, under fire… more a deterrent and OP than defense, to force the German to go around, as they did in France, landing in Sufflok and Norfflk, allowing time to be picked off on the sea crossing and in the countryside, before they could land any armour. but great to hear your Point of view.
@@MartinCollier-w5v True, but plenty of time between 1943 and D-day, sure you have US forces here also by then, the biggest contribution of the UK defenses was… the Eastern front, we are always quick to forget about that. Sure my grandfathers where both RN during War, for us we always focus on the war in the west. I am sure had it not been for the start of the cold war, the things we are only just learning now would have been more common knowledge.
I remember watching a documentary where Hitler cut off invaded Great Britain at the start after he took France but they only reason they couldn't was because they didn't have enough boats for the to be transported
My Grandfather might have been able to... not that he would have wanted to, he made a mess out of the Germans ones from D Day Germany (and a bit more) - Sherman Firefly 79th Armoured Div. Known as Crocodiles I think. Flame grilled is always better than fried eh?
I am surprised the Pillboxes did not have Panzer hatches which protect the person inside far better. If you concentrated fire on the opening you would eventually hit the occupant or his weapon. They could have been improved with Panzer hatches. Still a great video. When you consider the raid at RAF St Lawrence that the one person who actually repelled the Germans was actually an ex WW1 Marksman who was a Coastguard in WW2 and probably the person who effected a kill or hit, not the regular army who defended..It takes one person with skill or nerve to offend or defend.
Although the Germans had no appropriate craft to land a large force in England or Scotland, I have long thought that Ireland would have been a soft target for the Germans to take and amass a large force over time pending striking at the west of England. Just a thought.
As I understand it the Reich had never, in their entire history, carried out a seaborne invasion. That and thirty-odd RN warships parked in the North Sea and ready to fight to the death would have meant there were precious few left to trouble the pillboxes.
I have always thought that these Pill Boxes were a bad place to be, all the ones I have seen and visited were out in the open to command a better field of view and bearing in mind the occupants would need to withdraw at some point and probably under fire finding cover to do so would be next to impossible. These Pill Boxes were insignificant in comparison to say The Maginot Line fortifications and although for the most part the Germans went around and over The Maginot Line the couple of places they did attack them they succeeded with engineers and artillery so the effectiveness of the Pill Boxes in Britain by comparison is debateable.
hey ya kris a great documentary. there are loads of pill boxes where i live in and around ipswich. it does beg the question though. do you think they should be used for the homeless as you already have the structure there. just a thought
So in your what if scenario Battle of Britain was lost a sealion was a go, so they would of just para dropped behind the defences making them obsolete and forcing a surrender
Without a port the invading force wouldn’t have been able to land armour or any other heavy equipment. Germany didn’t have landing vehicles. Just how they would resupply with the Royal Navy in the channel. The RAF would still be supplied with new aircraft. A successful sealion was never going to work.
At the same time the Wehrmacht would have to manage the 12000 horses they were planning to bring ashore with them. While since 1938 the British Army had been fully mechanised.
Being mechanised is only useful when most of the vehicles had not been abandoned in France at Dunkirk. By 1940 the British forces were seriously lacking armour - hence having to resort to the Lend Lease program in 1941
come and visit Metaxas line pillboxes and other defenses in northern Greece where battles took place with Germans and finally they surrender .you will be amazed
How many of them were actually manned, or could be quickly manned? Did they have enough machine guns for them? Ammo? Were they manned on week-end by Dad's army?
The battle of Britain was a aerial battle, so if the German did win and manage to land. Those pillboxes would have been destroyed by junker close support bomber planes; making it easier for German column to sweep into the mainland.
This chap seems top have forgotten that the Battle of Britain being lost would still have left the Royal Navy intact. I doubt the Germans would have gotten past the fleet, even if it was a costly fight.
Interesting video I enjoyed it👍and something I thought about as they weren’t tested. They would have called in air support to destroy these seeing the Germans would have air superiority. What could have a bunker like these infantry pillbox have to counter say a tiger tank? Not a lot and a tiger could shoot their 88 rounds from a mile away, more than likely through the slit. More tanks to defend? Britain’s didn’t have any at the time, when sea lion would have taken place the British army had hardly any tanks or fighting vehicles of worth after the retreat from Dunkirk. While the German tanks and equipment at the time were much better in numbers and quality.
No mention of all the equipment lost abandoned or destroyed in france plus we had a empire to defend great airforce but depleated in tanks guns and manpower plus howmany pill boxes were buit after 1940.
At that time we had the troops but very little heavy equipment like tanks, anti armour, heavy machines guns, etc due to all the equipment left behind at Dunkirk. They had old Lee Enfields and Ross Rifles?? Anyway the Germans didn't have the naval forces at that time or amphibious landing experience so the they would have a hard time crossing against the Navy and Air Force. The tactic wasn't to stop them but grind them to a halt through a series a preplanned defense line with Bunkers, if the Germans did break through secretly trained men in guerilla tactics supplied with secret arms cache's all over the area would attack Germans. It never happened besides those Bunkers would have been spotted and taken out very quickly just like the Bunkers at Normandy!
This is interesting but judging by other German 'Blitzkrieg' attacks they would only have invaded with Air Superiority (which the Battle of Britain denied to them) when they would have used Stuka Dive Bombers to take out these Pill Boxes from the air.
Could the Nazis have Invaded Britain? ua-cam.com/video/L9ynoHDnBWM/v-deo.html
There's a hexagonal pill box fairly close to where I live, within ten miles anyway. It's stands elevated in a field near a crossroads.
I remember going to a farm with my father and seeing the pillbox the way there. My father, who had fought in WW2, said they were all death traps. The German soldier wouldn't go anywhere near it, they'd call up a tank or artillery or a plane to destroy it. Being left in one was a death sentence...
That is correct, by 1941 the static defence mentality had changed when Sir General Ironside lost command as Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces. Pillboxes were death traps and also very unfavored by troops.
Then an empty pillbox will still hinder and slow the Germans as they wait for the bunker to be taken out. Just in case.
Probably not. Those pillboxs identified as a possible hindrance to an advance would have been neutralised before any advance took place.
The others would have been bypassed and left for follow-up troops to deal with.
In the late 70's I worked with a chap who's father had been defending part of the South Coast against an expected invasion. He said his father told him they had three tanks, two of which weren't mobile, to defend his stretch of coastline. No artillery or anti tank guns. All they had were talkes from Montgomery.
@@xne1592 Most Type 28 and 28a pillboxes on the GHQ and Corps line in Sussex never received their anti-tank 6 pounder or 2 pounder guns, and those that did were removed late 1940 to be placed on the coastal crust defences. Things were very stretched and artillery and anti-tank guns very thin on the ground, so even when a pillbox had hindered the advance of Axis panzers there was less chance the Allies had to actually neutralise it.
That would be the middle of 1940 when General Alan Brooke took over with a more aggressive mindset.@@TheSussexpillbox
But.... The germans had similar with the Atlantic wall and the Allies showed that a determined and tenacious attacker can overcome most static defences.
Exactly what I thought too...
If he thinks that concrete is thick - he hasn't seen the Widerstandsnests in the Atlantic Wall. And in Normandy, the Allies had naval gunfire and aerial bombardment, not just hand grenades. Nor has he any clue of what blast does, in a confined space.
Problem was, most of the people manning the German defences in Normandy were ex Russian Prisoners, who had demonstrated they had no commitment to die for their country, and particularly not for Germany, the remainder were third grade units and infirm troops, at least until the reserve units arrived, by which time it was too late. The British troops in Southern England had nowhere to go and were not likely to give up easily, being a particularly bloody minded race with nothing to lose.
The Atlantic wall wasn't 70 miles in depth though was it, It was merely a curtain drawn along the coast manned by mostly Polish and Russians who had no stomach for a fight.
@@BlazetheHusky Go and look at the skill with which some of those German defences were put together. As an ex-infantryman, the thought of having to attack them scares me. Remote flamethrowers on the entry points? Covered by machine guns in buried cast steel turrets, covered in stone, 1,000 yds behind? Mortars behind 3m of concrete? Enfilade firing, emplaced artillery?
I live on the GHQ line, where there are still plenty of remaining infantry & anti-tank emplacements - it was abandoned pretty rapidly by the more modern thinking generals who knew fixed lines were a lousy way to conduct a defense. And it wasn't 70 miles depth of fixed defences - they were arranged in separate defence 'lines' that were individually not very deep.
Super interesting Chris👍 So much I could say about this... Next Detectival; me, you, and beer❤
Not sure if it's been mentioned yet SOOOOOOO here's another interesting information.
You'll notice the entry passages all turn to the right.
Most ppl are right handed.
Attempting to shoulder a rifle, use it effectively AND breech the pill box in a clockwise direction is notably more difficult.
This defensive aid originated in the age of storming castles (see; Monty Python/Holy Grail) and continues still today
That’s awesome!
Like castles , the stairs designed to aid a right handed swordsman retreating up the stairs
@@patthewoodboy or advancing down the said stairs
You are correct in that
But... You CAN fire a rifle or SMG from either hand - and, until the British Army was issued the SA80, it was normal to fight like that. (The SA80 can only be fired from the right shoulder/hip or the breech ejects into your face/body). And the first thing you'd do before entry is toss a grenade or two, or a satchel charge.
Sadly, just wishful thinking mate. I served as a regular in the British army for 28 years. These home made death traps would have been simple to punch clean through with 88mm flak from far far away. Concushion from the blast incapacitates any defenders instantly. Again…Laughably ineffective once you lay smoke, you can walk up and drop in your grenades or like yanks use a flame thrower. These pill boxes were propagandas sake at best. A death trap for the men inside. At this stage the British army had nothing left to deploy having left all their equipment on the beaches at Dunkirk…. These pill boxes were simply a diversion to raise people’s spirits. Had the Germans held back by those far more extensive and better equipped French bunkers? Nope. Sorry to burst your enthusiasm. As soon as any box announced its location its was toast. A minor annoyance at best.
How many flak guns versus how many pill boxes? The Germans would have had to have fought with whatever they could bring ashore in the two days it would have taken for the Royal Navy to have sailed down from Scapa Flow, then they would be cut off facing many many stop lines of these pill boxes. If you were in a pill box you could always see one to the right and one to the left which could all give covering fire to each other. The stop lines also create bottlenecks with kill zones the enemy would have to squeeze through. After the war a group of British and German generals including Adolph Galland wargamed a German invasion of Britain, and discovered that the Germans would have been defeated. The Germans were right not to have attempted an invasion and this defence in depth would have been part of what made them make that decision.
Not quite true. There was still an immense number of rifles and ammunition.
Yes and a means of delaying the enemy advance with rearguard troops. Expected to be killed or captured.
Although for a short period there was a shortage, the UK purchased and received a lot of weapons from the USA - M1917s, M1918 BARs, Lewis guns, etc. and by September 1940 the Home Guard was quite well supplied with those plus some old Arisakas and P14 rifles from stores left over from WW1. The issue would have been logistics, though - there was no way to supply Home Guard units in the field as there was a shortage of trucks and those were to be reserved for the mobile units of regular army mostly (although many regular divisions were at the beach areas too) that were to act as the counter attacking force. So a Home Guard rifleman might get 60 rounds but would be unlikely to get any more than that during Sealion.
But you are right in terms of artillery attack. The more likely threat, I would have thought, would have been Stug IIIs. AT traps wouldn't have kept them all away, and they were low and tough and specficially designed for attacking such targets. 88s were only really required for the really thick concrete of the Maginot line forts.
@@MajorTomm-mt8vg You only have to look at photos of the German assault on the Maginot line in 1940. The way that the 88mm. dealt with reinforced concrete and 30cm. thick steel observation cupolas is frightening. 😲
What a great video Kris, You guys have such rich history over there, I love these video's, thanks for posting, all the best from NZ, we are here and always will be. But the world has changed so much and it makes you think!
The likelyhood is that the pill boxes themselves were not impregnable. As you mentioned, in WW1 the Germans used them because the area they were fighting in was too muddy for trenches. But in the same fashion they were mutually supporting units with interlocking fields of fire. The British army and its allies developed the means to assault and take them anyway, so it is not impossible. So the German army would have that knowledge also.
@@Bodkin_Ye_Pointy they were intended to slow an advance with a minimum of defending troops (ditto Maginot for that matter), not be impregnable. A slower advance is vulnerable to counterattack. Preserving your own forces means more for the counterattack
Surely the RNLi would bring the Germans safely to shore then they would be bussed to a nice hotel.
I see what you did there!
I sat in one of those pillbox and poked a stick out and imagined, no, I can't say😅
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
😂😂😂
@@Addictedtobleeps can you explain to me please as I think I'm missing something? Are you pro RNLI? Thanks.
@@Addictedtobleeps flammenwerfer ,it werfs flammens 😊
My dads farm in South Wales had pill boxes near ROF glascoed
HMS Nelson & Rodney were on standby for last ditch defence on Churchills orders. They would have given an invasion attempt absolute hell if they tried to cross the channel (16” main armament)
People tend to overlook the Navy when they talk about Operation Sea Lion. British capital ships would of course have come under heavy attack from the Luftwaffe but they would have had some protection from the RAF, and those big guns would have probably decimated German amphibious forces before they got anywhere near the beaches. Some of the British ships would have been sunk but the damage they would have inflicted on the Germans would probably have ended any invasion there and then
Warspite would have probably sailed in for a fight too.
The Jutland veteran was in every major theatre and fought in many battles.
Yes, the battleships would have been there, but you don't actually need battleships to stop an invasion fleet of barges. Smaller ships would do just fine. And there would have been dozens of cruisers, and hundreds of destroyers and frigates, all bearing down on the invasion fleet firing everything they had. There was even a plan to pump petrol into the Channel and set it alight if needs be. Chemical weapons would have been used too if it came to it. There's no way a German invasion fleet was getting across the Channel.
You wouldnt have 5 lmg in one pillbox the positions are there to move 1 gun around there also would have been trenches around the pillboxes as support positions but yeah as others have said there death traps to anything more than rifle calibre I would think you would only allocate half a section to a pillbox keep the rest of the platoon dispersed
he hasn't got a clue
The marginot line proved why static defences are obsolete, easy to go round
Too open to direct fire, they did attack and the forts did last 24 hours facing medium artillery.
The British defences were not just a line at the coast. There were stop lines at intervals as one went inland. There were also bottlenecks through which an enemy would have to squeeze which were kill zones. There is an old pill box visible from the railway line between Windsor and Waterloo, That's a long way inland. If there was one pill box there was always a line of them.
The only reason the Germans went round it was because the line ended at the Belgium border, no borders on the English coast what ever the Jerry's did would be covered, even a beach on the east Yorkshire coast has lines of defence, 100yds further inland there's more pillboxes.
@@samsampson7407 Like in 1870 in 1940 they went through Sedan. It was fortified in 1940, just not used to potential
Except in the UK 'going round' would mean a swim in the North Sea or the Bristol Channel.
Absolutely loved this video Kris
Better than any documentary on the history channel. Well done me 'ol chum.
Pillboxes were part of a broader line of static defences, usually with mutual enfilading fire arcs and anti-tank obstacles, wire and mines. The coastal crust of defences were interlinked with artillery based inland and also supporting garrisons, whereas the stop-line defences behind the coastal crust were quite different. The stop-lines utilised natural topographical features and also mechanically dug anti-tank ditches to create a defensive line, which would cause disruption and delay for enemy armour needing to cross; this would enable mobile reserves to move to the location to engage.
Sir General Edmund Ironsides initial static defence plan utilising pillboxes was rather unpopular by late 1940 due to the amount of resources used, and when the War Department replaced Ironside by Brooke, pillboxes became largely obsolete by January 1941. Type 22 pillboxes would have provided very limited protection with rifle grenades, anti-tank weapons and artillery easily able to kill the inhabitants. Type 24 shell-proof would have been slightly better, but having seen the damage a PIAT does to a type 24, these would also have been death traps. Troops during 1940 preferred trench systems as this enabled great field of fire and awareness; this was adapted during 1941 with pillboxes largely being left empty. Some were used at road blocks at nodal points until later in the war, as were those on airfields with AA capability, but for the large they were a huge waste of resources.
Furthermore the Luftwaffe had very accurate plans of the stop-lines as the lack of camouflage during construction gave the positions away even before they were finished. Interesting to note that the Luftwaffe aerial photos are more accurate than most of the primary source information in national archives when it comes to locations of pillboxes.
I’m afraid the actual reality is that there is no way Sealion could have got a toe hold, let alone be resupplied.
The basic fact was, the Germans did not have the wherewithal to get across the Channel. They had no amphibious operations knowledge which means they could not anticipate the problems that would impact them. By the time the allies hit Normandy they had 6 or 7 major beach landings under their belt. In addition, the Germans would have to make choices after the first wave, troops or logistics. Everything they fought with had to come from France. Try sailing the Channel with submarines on the prowl. Normally it would be too shallow. But if you can hit a troop transport that takes out a 1000 men you would take the risk. So Sea Lion was never on.
They had no landing craft, no ships for beach bombardment, no way to transport armour until they took a deep water port, the RN home fleet and RAF would have destroyed them before they even reached the beaches.
You can cross the channel in a dinghy.
@Tuck-Shop not with a Panzer IV you can't.
@@Bob10009 you introduced that stipulation
@Tuck-Shop because this conversation is about operation sea lion, not your dumb views on immigration.
The Brits and jarmans war gamed this after the war when we were all mates and found the place was essentially impregnable. Simply too easy to defend and too hard to bring the necessary logistics to attack...turns out. you need a fifth column...
ISWYDT
Called them black shirts, there would have been nazi sympathisers around as in all the invaded countries
Because in Europe once the problem is over we cease contempts. Let the dead men lie.
I have long been convinced that operation Sealion was never a realistic proposition for the Germans... They had no experience of large scale sea landings, no suitable landing craft for infantry let alone armour, the Royal Navy would have decimated any invasion fleet before it got near the coast and even if they had managed to get ashore they would not have been able to provide sufficient support to secure a beach head for more than a few days. All the things that made the allied landings successful took years of planning and development, cunning inventivness and innovation that simply did not exist 4 years earlier. At best it might have been like our own disaster at Dieppe two years later.
Had to laughgt when you said you loved German beer and flashed a piccy of Pilsner Urquell - which is actually Czech like all good pilsners are! :)
Great film Kris. Also, absolutely love the coat! :)
@@karl3692 Cheers Karl! 👍🏻
My brother is a civil engineer. I remember him talking about needing to demolish one of these, for a road I think. They couldn't break it up- had to crane it out whole!
Saw one being demolished in the 80's, drove past every day to work, 1st week they only managed to round off the edges, weeks 2 to 4 using a hydraulic hammer on a excavator got the job done, massive amount of steel in them.
Similar to my experience of seeing one being dismantled. Many in the comment section here say they’re weak and easily penetrable. I just don’t agree.
Each pill box would have also been surrounded by barbed wire, sand bags and mines
And trenches of rifles and LMGs - and mobile forces.
I believe the Germans went around the magino line and dealt with it later. As with the pill boxes on the Normandy coast 1944 they were defeated in a day even with mine fields etc. Pillbox great idea but a concrete coffin as you become a large target, rather be running about than sitting in a target especially when you run out of ammo.
@@chrisabraham8793 They wouldn't have gone around a whole country
So how did they get in and out for food, water or to have a wash??
@@allaboutkalergi5012 runner and communication trenches or routes
Hi kris fascinating video and love the coat by the way 😄
Splendid transmission old chap! Love seeing that type 23! Thanks awfully
Glad you enjoyed it
A few months back my Oz nephew was over here, the wife and I took him on a walking day all round the Dover ww2 and napoleon forts defenses Also the Ramsgate ww2 air raid tunnels that are open to the public now - I used to play in the tunnels In the 1960.
Having surveyed British pillboxes of many types and varieties, the standard and quality of construction varied hugely around the country. Some were excellent, others wouldn't have lasted more that half an hour or so of steady assault, such was the appaling build.
But as there wasn't any central control over the construction, most was left to local interpretation and depended on availability of materials and labour with very few builders having had any experience in poured reinforced concrete.
But it did lead toma vrry interesting variety for us historians to study - ! 😅
Lets gooo, another vid!
I can't believe I didn't know about these. How fascinating!! Good God what those men went through. I can't even imagine running towards pill box's while being shot at!!
Dont forget about the auxiliary , zero station bunkers . Manned by mainly locals and troops that knew the area well , and were trained in uncoventional warfare, they werw know as scallywags . Good video again chap
Nice video. We have a good pill box near by that’s dug in and has a blast wall. I didn’t realise there were so many.
Great video thank you, I am from south west London and would venture out to the surrey hills when I was growing up. The Surrey hills was covered in Pill boxes and Dragons teeth tank traps and would of been near impossible to overcome. The closest to where I lived was just outside Chessington at Maldon Rushett and they extended out to the surrey hills and then swang all the way around to South of London and on to the south coast. It would of been the end of the war in my opinion if the Germans had gone ahead with Operation Sea Lion. It would of broke the Germans attempting it and I doubt they would of recovered. Again thanks for the great video
Us to play in these as a kid. Lots around the beach just north of Liverpool.
Very interesting. Thanks mate. Has to be said though, the krauts had sturdy pill boxs to, and they were charged down(not before they caused carnage on the allies) the krauts did not attempt a landing due to our great navy and air force. Had they destroyed either, they may have atrempted an invasion .
Most Pillboxes are pretty poorly built, often not sited particularly well or mutually supporting like the ones you cite. They certainly were not armed with 4-5 machine guns in each one. More likely a rifle section would be manning 2-3 pillboxes, who were probably all new recruits. A 1940's Stug would find them an easy target and if the RAF did lose the Battle of Britain a Stuka would easily take them out.
That concrete looks like it could be pretty easily punched through by a 20mm Flak gun.
There were bulletproof and shell proof variants. The designs (they varied significantly) called for 46cm thick for bulletproof, 107cm thick for shellproof (DFW3/24).
In comparison, the standards on the Atlantic Wall called for minimum 2m thick and in many cases, 3m thick, with layers of steel rebar.
Don't forget the various Auxiallary units..Great alternative perspective. Good video
If Auxiliary units are in play then we have been overrun.
Im in North Staffordshire, the closest sea is 80 miles away, and there are still pillboxes in and around the area, so I think they were ready to fight till the end.
The BEF had basically disarmed Great Britain, Dunkirk saved the manpower but everything else had been abandoned rifles, machine guns, tanks and trucks etc. The majority of troops relied on were the home guard that trained with whatever they could. At this stage 1940 there were no Americans and the Lend Lease had not begun properly. The battle would have been fought at sea after the invasion, the Germans would faced the Navy(that ruled the sea) and airforce that would have had home advantage along with radar. So along with harassing the Germans on land their resupply would have been difficult and air cover ineffective as their aircraft were operating at the end of their range.
Sea Lion would not have taken, and indeed did not take, place without air superiority. The War in the Pacific showed how out of date most warships were when compared to airpower. The RN, despite its size and ability would have been destroyed from the air. That's why it spent most of the war at Scarpa Flow.
It would have been on the Army to defend Britain, and they would have done admirably...maybe.
@@I_Don_t_want_a_handle At that stage of the war, landing a bomb on a moving ship was no easy feat. The Luftwaffe was not particularly experienced with anti-ship operations and there are plenty of examples of Luftwaffe bombers during the evacuation of Dunkirk missing RN ships time after time. The Luftwaffe had air superiority over Dunkirk but still could not prevent a successful evacuation.
Sure the Luftwaffe defending the invasion lanes would have learnt fast and undoubtedly the RN would have taken losses, but I would argue that by the time losses started to mount, the invasion lanes would have already been like a turkey shoot for RN destroyers and cruisers etc.
Remember, the German army was absolutely not set up for, nor experienced in, large scale sea born operations. They had an insufficient number of transport vessels and there were no landing craft of any kind to the point that flat bottomed canal boats were to be converted for the task and towed across the channel by tugs. Imagine a flat hulled canal boat trying to cross the channel at a mere couple of knots speed, with the notoriously unpredictable channel conditions. And then the RN show up.
Now I don't doubt that German invasion forces would have made it ashore, possibly in large numbers, and established a beachhead. But keeping that force supplied once the main RN counter force made it into the channel. Doubtful!
German high command knew Sea Lion was a no go, with or without air superiority. The Battle of Britain and operation Sea Lion were a bluff to try and get Britain to sue for peace. And the Brits well and truly called that bluff baby.
@I_Don_t_want_a_handle sea lion was only conceivable with air superiority, which Germany never managed losing the Battle of Britain. But had it, the Royal Navy would still have wiped out the Nazi Naval units, the Royal Navy was orders of magnitude stronger than the Kriegsmarine.
The Royal Navy had anti air defences, The Luftwaffe on the other hand lacked specialist anti naval set ups, and would have been tied up with the Airforce.
Very interesting video Kriss, many thanks.
Flame Throwers did the trick for the allies in Normandy as well as Satchel Bombs.
In all likelihood the RN would have wiped out most of the nazi invasion barges before the pillboxes were really needed. You missed out that pillboxes were also surrounded by trench networks, not in isolation as we see them today.
If Starmer was in charge we’d have surrendered and been paying the Jerries an inconvenience fee for having invaded us.
Very well explained, Kris. Overlapping fields of fire are pretty good dissuaders - expecially when the bad guy is trying to run up a steep hill! - carrying all his kit - and maybe wearing a gas-mask.
The Germans did away with their respirator (Gas Mask) in WWII as they knew the British would not use gas.
I think you forgot the initial risk of invasion into Yorkshire and East Anglia when Germany took Denmark and Norway. Those areas were defended first and until France fell did the South Coast become vunerable. Pillboxes were only built and used for about 18months before being made redundant when the thinking and defending tactics changed (away from static defences and GHQ lines) and their vunerability to high velocity ordanance was exposed. They also were surrounded by trench systems and other earthwork defences which have long gone. Its a hugely complicated subject that changed on a regular basis as the threats and technology moved on.
Its not a video game senario of attack and defend.
Yes. I did mention it was in the time of Operation Sea lion and the planned attack of the south. Maybe I should have made myself more clear.
@@Addictedtobleeps Have a look into the Julius Caesar plan to defend Britain from Oct 1939. Its a fascinating but little known subject. The south coast and operation sealion was late to the party.
When walking with my grandfather who was an infantry officer in WW2 would remark on these structures as being death traps for the men inside.
Good video Kris, You also had Churchill's secret army...the Auxiliary units which were secret stay behind groups. Contact me if you are interested.
Fascinating unit, The platoons were set up to run independently from one another sort of like an insurgency.
If they'd got past the pillboxes in the south, they weren't getting past the defences in the north where it's hilly as hell and the roads are very narrow.
Great video, thanks Kris, gave me a much better understanding of them 😊
I think thr RN would also have to have been neutralised to enable the landing, you would then have coastal batteries taken out from off-shore for some considerable range, you can thrn establish a proper beachhead, land your artillery and then methodically take out these pillboxes combined with airattack. ?
Always great to see another video Kris. Good stuff.👍🏼
There was a problem finding enough men to man the pill boxes, so they would have been manned by the Home Guard and told to fight to the death. So, you would have had men who were veterans of perhaps three campaigns fighting militia. That's why the pill boxes were needed.
2:07 28,000 in the SE? No, 28,000 throughout the country, mostly in the form of stop lines, and that's 28,000 structures, not necessarily pill boxes. They may have been "used for observation" but that's because there wasn't any other use for them at the time, as the invasion didn't happen. the stop lines were generally only one pillbox deep although they may have included a river or canal plus some barbed wire. tests done in 1941 by the Americans showed that these pillboxes were only effective against small arms fire and a 20mm gun such as that carried by a German armoured car could penetrate them. The pill boxes were built to a variety of designs by a variety of builders (mostly civilian contractors) and the building quality varied widely, with some being built with the embrasures facing the wrong way. Building these structures finally pulled Britain out of the Great Depression.
The pill boxes were very flimsy to anything bar small arms fire.
What did the German armies do with the Maginot line ? They went round it. A safe corridor would have been created by aerial and naval bombardment to allow the rapid armoured units inland. The ' cavalry ' would then deal with the pill boxes.
We have them in Suffolk along the river stour
You mentioned liking German beer... and showed a Czech beer! 😆
interesting video thank you we been invaded now and they not using bombs or bullets
Great video my friend 💜
There are some on Barmston Beach East Yorkshire. You can imagine the hail of bullets coming from them and no chance of getting past.
Then the floodgates are opened, inviting any old loser and his mate.
You should come and take a look around plymouth there were over 14 forts and many many additional batteries a lot of the forts still stand
Typically, forts are Napoleonic. Built to stop an attack from France, but rarely used in WW2 other than for storage, and sometimes barracks 👍🏻
Most Pill boxes are inland and pointing in towards an airfield, which were German tactical targets in WW2.
Your Dover Key was an observational Pill box.
Pill boxes were also not in isolation. You will find the remains of a trench system around the pill box.
3d pill box you missed the gun mounts on the top.
Your final mistake is that taking pill boxes of many different types is Exactly what the Allies did in Normandy. A lot of them far more more sturdy than the British pill box being built of armoured steel. Although the plans were standard the building materials were not. Most later ones were reinforced concrete but earlier ones were built by builders who just had dimensions so were often built of house bricks with maybe a concrete render. They often had soil on and around them to improve protection.
The Germans were also adept at dealing with fortifications as demonstrated by Fort Eben Emael, which the Germans destroyed with the use of shaped charges.
The pillboxes were mostly built as components of fixed, delaying stop lines, at the direction of General Ironside (whose experience was from WW1). They were not all completed when saner, more modern minds prevailed in the summer of 1940 and moved strategy to the concept of more mobile defences (although defences under construction were completed) with fixed nodal points (anti-tank islands), area flooding, railway lines and anti-tank obstacles/road blocks, all designed to channel an attacker into killing areas.
They put sand bags around the pillbox. To strengthen them.
They were there to slow the enemy down that's all which is a good thing. Look at the Atlantic wall or maginot line for example both major defencive lines but with the right tools or tactics they were overcome.
We did have double the amount of pillboxes than the Atlantic wall, though…
@@Addictedtobleeps Spread all around the periphery of the UK. The point is - in 1940s Belgium, Holland or France, strongpoints didn't hold up the German advance.
Nor, in 1944, did the Atlantic Wall, nor then the Seigfried line. Similarly the Ost Wall didn't stop the Soviet advance.
kris, don't forget the grand shaft in dover which was booby trapped :0) the grand shaft went into the cliff's so was an easy way to get from sea level to the top of the cliffs :0)
We have a lot of them here in Tamworth near the rivers
The pill boxes survive but the connecting trenches, barbed wire and minefields are long gone. Together they would have made a formidable defence.
Sea Lion stood ZERO chance of succeeding. Germany didn’t have ANY of the things that made D-Day a success. Every single simulation of Sea Lion proves that it would have failed dismally.
small problem the Germans didn’t do frontal assaults all the time they used paratroopers, moved around fixed positions just like us Brits and assaulted from behind or just bypass fortifications.
I’m still not sure how sea lion would have gone down but it would have been a close run thing with so many variables to factor in. But I did like the video 👍🏻
I doubt if there would be 5 lmg’s in there. Possibly not even one. Just home guard with whatever they had. We didn’t have much equipment
The British coastal defences were much weaker than those in Normandy and quite thin, even on the SE coast. You also have to take into account that the Germans knew how to do combined arms warfare, so you have to think of what happened on the Meuse - the men in the pillboxes were mostly OK but cowered in their pillbox under intense air attack, allowing the German troops to get close enough for the pill boxes (an extension of the Maginot line) to cause the men to surrender or be killed.
Very interesting.
Had Sealion gone ahead it would have been a disaster. I think everyone knows that would have been the case. I’d argue that even without the Navy interdiction in the channel all the uk would have needed to do was sabotage docks and leave nothing in the south east because the Wehrmacht saw Sealion as an elaborate river crossing. Their logistics would have failed massively and only light resistance would have screwed them. The really interesting thing would have been what happened next? Large amount of the German army is captured in southern England with all their kit. All our kit is still in France. What happens next? Peace negations? What terms? Who has the best leverage? Fascinating.
dont forget we had fuel pipes set in place to set the sea on fire also ,not impossible to land here but not easy either.and then theres the weather .....
4 guys in a pillbox, and even if they all have LMGs / Brens there are going to be issues, Ammo, barrel changes, the noise would be deafening with all four guys letting rip. Remembering that supplies where limited, some maybe pulling out the Vickers. Not forgetting the German Para would have possibly jumped in the night before along with a barrage of artillery, the Germans where shelling Dover, from Calais. A well-aimed Panzerfaust could have taken out a Pillbox. Running from pillbox to pillbox with Ammo resupply, under fire… more a deterrent and OP than defense, to force the German to go around, as they did in France, landing in Sufflok and Norfflk, allowing time to be picked off on the sea crossing and in the countryside, before they could land any armour. but great to hear your Point of view.
No panzerfaust in1940
@@MartinCollier-w5v True, but plenty of time between 1943 and D-day, sure you have US forces here also by then, the biggest contribution of the UK defenses was… the Eastern front, we are always quick to forget about that. Sure my grandfathers where both RN during War, for us we always focus on the war in the west. I am sure had it not been for the start of the cold war, the things we are only just learning now would have been more common knowledge.
@@paulbatterbury704 No US forces in Britain until 1942 at the earliest. Sealion was planned for Sept 1940.
I remember watching a documentary where Hitler cut off invaded Great Britain at the start after he took France but they only reason they couldn't was because they didn't have enough boats for the to be transported
My Grandfather might have been able to... not that he would have wanted to, he made a mess out of the Germans ones from D Day Germany (and a bit more) - Sherman Firefly 79th Armoured Div. Known as Crocodiles I think. Flame grilled is always better than fried eh?
I am surprised the Pillboxes did not have Panzer hatches which protect the person inside far better. If you concentrated fire on the opening you would eventually hit the occupant or his weapon. They could have been improved with Panzer hatches. Still a great video. When you consider the raid at RAF St Lawrence that the one person who actually repelled the Germans was actually an ex WW1 Marksman who was a Coastguard in WW2 and probably the person who effected a kill or hit, not the regular army who defended..It takes one person with skill or nerve to offend or defend.
Although the Germans had no appropriate craft to land a large force in England or Scotland, I have long thought that Ireland would have been a soft target for the Germans to take and amass a large force over time pending striking at the west of England.
Just a thought.
As I understand it the Reich had never, in their entire history, carried out a seaborne invasion. That and thirty-odd RN warships parked in the North Sea and ready to fight to the death would have meant there were precious few left to trouble the pillboxes.
I have always thought that these Pill Boxes were a bad place to be, all the ones I have seen and visited were out in the open to command a better field of view and bearing in mind the occupants would need to withdraw at some point and probably under fire finding cover to do so would be next to impossible.
These Pill Boxes were insignificant in comparison to say The Maginot Line fortifications and although for the most part the Germans went around and over The Maginot Line the couple of places they did attack them they succeeded with engineers and artillery so the effectiveness of the Pill Boxes in Britain by comparison is debateable.
brick vs machine guns... theres a ww2 training video... infantry weapons and their effect...... very interesting.
We have one in Stambourne Unfortunately a few stoners painted the inside
Check out the huge cannon in my neck of the woods: "Batterie Vara"...
hey ya kris a great documentary. there are loads of pill boxes where i live in and around ipswich. it does beg the question though. do you think they should be used for the homeless as you already have the structure there. just a thought
They are often damp - and always cold. Some are even below the water table, having been built along water obstacles (rivers and canals).
We got different kind of enemy and their surname is commonly in known as Khant
So in your what if scenario Battle of Britain was lost a sealion was a go, so they would of just para dropped behind the defences making them obsolete and forcing a surrender
Without a port the invading force wouldn’t have been able to land armour or any other heavy equipment. Germany didn’t have landing vehicles.
Just how they would resupply with the Royal Navy in the channel.
The RAF would still be supplied with new aircraft.
A successful sealion was never going to work.
At the same time the Wehrmacht would have to manage the 12000 horses they were planning to bring ashore with them. While since 1938 the British Army had been fully mechanised.
Being mechanised is only useful when most of the vehicles had not been abandoned in France at Dunkirk. By 1940 the British forces were seriously lacking armour - hence having to resort to the Lend Lease program in 1941
come and visit Metaxas line pillboxes and other defenses in northern Greece where battles took place with Germans and finally they surrender .you will be amazed
How many of them were actually manned, or could be quickly manned? Did they have enough machine guns for them? Ammo? Were they manned on week-end by Dad's army?
The germans had no problems with similar in other countries.
They had plenty of equipment that the infantry used to take out such places.
The battle of Britain was a aerial battle, so if the German did win and manage to land. Those pillboxes would have been destroyed by junker close support bomber planes; making it easier for German column to sweep into the mainland.
The home defence had hidden lairs to fight a gorilla warfare
This chap seems top have forgotten that the Battle of Britain being lost would still have left the Royal Navy intact. I doubt the Germans would have gotten past the fleet, even if it was a costly fight.
I'd survive the British pillbox. Being British and all that.
It’s a good point.
Interesting video I enjoyed it👍and something I thought about as they weren’t tested. They would have called in air support to destroy these seeing the Germans would have air superiority. What could have a bunker like these infantry pillbox have to counter say a tiger tank? Not a lot and a tiger could shoot their 88 rounds from a mile away, more than likely through the slit. More tanks to defend? Britain’s didn’t have any at the time, when sea lion would have taken place the British army had hardly any tanks or fighting vehicles of worth after the retreat from Dunkirk. While the German tanks and equipment at the time were much better in numbers and quality.
No Tiger tanks in 1940...
Without the RAF air superiority, the Luftwaffe Ju87 Stukas would put pay to these bunkers.
But we didn’t have the Bren guns to arm them mate in 1940
No mention of all the equipment lost abandoned or destroyed in france plus we had a empire to defend great airforce but depleated in tanks guns and manpower plus howmany pill boxes were buit after 1940.
At that time we had the troops but very little heavy equipment like tanks, anti armour, heavy machines guns, etc due to all the equipment left behind at Dunkirk.
They had old Lee Enfields and Ross Rifles?? Anyway the Germans didn't have the naval forces at that time or amphibious landing experience so the they would have a hard time crossing against the Navy and Air Force.
The tactic wasn't to stop them but grind them to a halt through a series a preplanned defense line with Bunkers, if the Germans did break through secretly trained men in guerilla tactics supplied with secret arms cache's all over the area would attack Germans.
It never happened besides those Bunkers would have been spotted and taken out very quickly just like the Bunkers at Normandy!
This is interesting but judging by other German 'Blitzkrieg' attacks they would only have invaded with Air Superiority (which the Battle of Britain denied to them) when they would have used Stuka Dive Bombers to take out these Pill Boxes from the air.
Why would the folige not be there, it's hundreds of years old and your standing on top of that pill box 😮