Maginot Line. Really waste of money?

[Pirx]

This days we can say that Maginote line was most unsuccesful military construction. Bilions of franks wasted in concrete instead for modernisation for army.
But was it really stupid idea?
What i know French army wasnt obsolete or archaic in 1940. French commanders knew that Germans could invade through Belgium. Has Maginote line secured frontline between Switzerland and Luxemburg? Area of invasion was limited to Franco - Belgium border, and there allies failed.
So what You think about this fortifications?

[phylo_roadking]

Pirx, just by chance I've been reading through Hugh Sebag-Montefiore's Dunkirk in the last few days. In a panic, the Maginot Line was to be extended rom it's previous North-western end, right out to the sea, and although SOME work had been done, it was by NO means complete....

BUT

If you read chapter 7, 8 and 9...especially cahpter 8...it's clear that the Germans DID encounter some quite considerable - if a thin line of them - French fortifications at Sedan and overlooking the Meuse...and they turned out not to be very effective at all! Concentrated tank fire blasted away casemates in turrets, small raids took others - while others were simply just abandoned by their defenders, who either surrendered or took to their heels.

So if concentrated tank fire, the very thing they were designed to defend against, could destroy them...

What WOULD have helped save the Maginot Line's reputation however would have been a "full" line's ability to protect itself, with overlapping fields of fire, small anti-personnel MG turrets covering approaches to large batteries etc. BUT it's equally clear from Dunkirk that in the event the turrets fired on the Germans only in a very piecemeal fashion - the ones with wobbly-morale'd gunners simply didn't fire at all - and holes in any overlapping fields of fire were caused by some simply not firing, or being destroyed.

I don't think they were "full" Maginot turrets, they weren't connected underground to the whole fort system etc., but they were casemated 75mm guns...and proved relatively vulnerable.