Stützpunkt 164, between Cap Gris-Nez and Cran aux Ouefs, was the site of MKB Tilly of 5./MAA.244 with two M270 casemates armed with 150mm guns. The three large pillars near the casemate are the V143 base for a massive Mammut surveillance radar that supported the neighboring Batterie Todt and other heavy gun batteries in the area. (Author’s collection)
Rommel became convinced that new approaches were necessary. From a tactical standpoint, he rejected the current doctrine and argued that instead of defense in depth with the Panzer divisions kept in reserve away from the beaches, all available resources should be moved as close to the likely landing areas as possible. He believed that the Italian campaign had demonstrated that if the invasion could not be stopped immediately, it could not be stopped at all. He also questioned whether the Allies would actually strike at a port. A landing some distance from a port could lead to the eventual envelopment and capture of the port. In spite of Rommel’s considerable influence with Hitler, his views were not widely accepted by senior German commanders in France. The debate over the best approach to deploying the Panzer divisions continued right up to D-Day and was not settled to the satisfaction of either side in the debate.
From the perspective of the Atlantic Wall, Rommel’s leadership had several important consequences. Rommel invigorated efforts to defend the beaches between the major ports, especially along the Pas-de-Calais and Normandy. By early 1944, the Kriegsmarine had received the bulk of Organization Todt’s resources and the ports had been well fortified. More attention had to be directed to the army’s shoreline defenses. Besides enhancing the fortifications along the coast, Rommel suggested that more attention had to be paid to extending defenses out on the beaches. His own experiences in the desert campaign had convinced him of the value of mine warfare and obstacles. Rommel argued that by creating obstructions along the coast, amphibious landing craft would be prevented from reaching the shelter of the shoreline. In combination with enhanced beachfront fortifications, this would create a killing zone along the shoreline. Instead of landing near the protective seawalls so common on the Channel coast, the infantry would have to disembark hundreds of meters from shore, exposed to prolonged fire as they attempted to reach the sanctuary of the shoreline. In contrast to his arguments about defensive tactics, Rommel’s recommendations for improved coastal defense were welcomed by von Rundstedt and the other senior commanders who felt that the army had been too long neglected in the Atlantic Wall construction compared to the Kriegsmarine.
Rommel’s intervention came at an opportune time for the fortification program. The pace of construction of the Atlantic Wall had fallen off from its highpoint in April 1943 to its lowest point in January 1944 when less than half as much construction was completed. While some of this decline was seasonal, other factors were more important. On the night of May 16/17, 1943, the RAF had breached several of the Ruhr River dams, flooding a portion of Germany’s industrial heartland and knocking out hydroelectric power generators. Speer pledged to Hitler that the Organization Todt would clean up the mess as quickly as possible, and so resources were drained out of the Atlantic Wall program through much of the summer of 1943. Hitler’s new fancy in the autumn of 1943 was the forthcoming V-weapon program, and a major construction effort was begun by the Organization Todt in Normandy and the Pas-de-Calais to create launch sites for the missiles, further undermining the fortification effort. Finally, the pre-invasion Allied air campaign was aimed at crippling the French rail and road networks, and through the late winter and early spring of 1944, Organization Todt workers were diverted from fortification programs to assist in rebuilding the railroads.
This Rheinmetall 150mm SKC/28 in a coastal C/36 mount with non-standard gun-shield was one of four guns of MKB Landemer, 6./MAA 260, positioned in an M272 casemate, part of StP 230 in Castel-Vendon to the west of Cherbourg. (NARA)
To compensate for the shortages of Organization Todt construction workers, in 1944 the Wehrmacht began to assign some of the construction work to infantry divisions along the coast. Each of the infantry corps had a Festung Pioneer Stab (Fest.Pi.Stab: Fortification Engineer Staff) assigned to it. These were organized somewhat like a regiment with three attached battalions, but these were administrative units, not tactical formations, and their principal role was to plan and direct the construction of fortifications within their sector. In the late winter and spring of 1944, they were assigned additional troops, often Ost battalions of Soviet volunteers, to help carry out construction work. The primary work assigned to the infantry troops was to assist in creating the shoreline defenses. Since resources were very limited, most of this work involved either the transfer of obstacles from idle defensive works in occupied Europe, or the creation of improvised obstacles using local resources. Cointet obstacles, also called Belgian gates or C elements, were large steel-frame devices manufactured in the 1930s to block Belgian frontier roads. Czech hedgehogs (Tschechenigelen) were collected from Czech forts in the Sudetenland as were similar obstacles found elsewhere in occupied Europe. Similar obstructions were made from scrap metal and concrete including concrete tetrahedons. One of the simplest forms of anti-craft obstruction was an angled pole, often topped by a Teller mine. During his tour of the defenses in February 1944, Rommel was shown a local technique at Hardelot-Plage using fire hoses to quickly dig holes for these stakes, and this technique was widely disseminated through France. Some of this work was too hasty and ill conceived. When some officers decided to test the effectiveness of the stakes using a British landing craft captured at Dieppe, they were shocked to find that the craft simply plowed through the obstructions with little trouble. As a result, the more substantial Hemmbalk (beam obstruction) was designed resembling a large tripod.
The most effective anti-craft device was a Kriegsmarine mine called the KMA (küstenmine-A: coastal mine-A), which consisted of a concrete base containing a 75kg explosive charge surmounted by a steel tripod frame with the triggering device. Although cheap and effective, they became available too late to be laid along the entire coastline. They were first laid along the Channel coast from Boulogne south towards Le Havre since this sector was considered the most likely to be invaded, and this phase was completed in early June 1944. The next area to be mined was the Seine estuary around Le Havre, which was to begin on June 10, but this never took place due to the invasion. Because of shortages of the KMA mine, the army developed cheap expedients, the most common of which was the “nutcracker” (Nussknacker), which consisted of a French high-explosive artillery projectile planted in a concrete base with a steel rod serving as the activating lever. Nearly 10,000 of these were manufactured and deployed in 1944.