Ouvrage Kobenbusch
Encyclopedia
Ouvrage Kobenbusch is a gros ouvrage of the Maginot Line
Maginot Line
The Maginot Line , named after the French Minister of War André Maginot, was a line of concrete fortifications, tank obstacles, artillery casemates, machine gun posts, and other defences, which France constructed along its borders with Germany and Italy, in light of its experience in World War I,...

, located in the Fortified Sector of Thionville
Fortified Sector of Thionville
The Fortified Sector of Thionville was the French military organization that in 1940 controlled the section of the Maginot Line immediately to the north of Thionville. The sector describes an arc of about , about halfway between the French border with Luxembourg and Thionville. The Thionville...

 in the Cattenom
Cattenom
Cattenom is a commune in the Moselle department in Lorraine in north-eastern France.It lies about 8 kilometres north of Thionville.-Nuclear power station:...

 forest. It possesses seven combat blocks and two entrance blocks, one for ammunition and the other for men. It is located between petit ouvrage Bois-Karre and petit ouvrage Oberheid
Ouvrage Oberheid
Ouvrage Oberheid, also called Ouvrage Oberheide, forms a portion of the Fortified Sector of Thionville of the Maginot Line in northeast France...

, and was named for the surrounding Kobenbusch forest. The position saw little action during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Its deep passages have been flooded by the construction of a cooling water lake for a nearby nuclear power plant, but its surface features are being developed with an interpretive path through the surrounding forest.

Design and construction

The Kobenbusch position forms the point of the Cattenom salient, where the east-west defensive line turns to the south. The site was surveyed by CORF (Commission d'Organisation des Régions Fortifiées), the Maginot Line's design and construction agency, in 1930. Work by the contractor Verdun-Fortifications began in 1931, and the position became operational in 1935, at a cost of 65 million francs. Kobenbusch was served by a 60cm-gauge narrow-gauge railway, which enters at the munitions entrance and runs all the way out through the galleries to the combat blocks. On the surface, the railway connects to supply points to the rear and to other ouvrages.

Description

Kobenbusch is a relatively compact gros ouvrage, with a short main gallery leading in from the munitions and personnel entrances past to underground barracks to the combat blocks. Unusually for a gros ouvrage, it possesses no "M1" main ammunition magazine.
  • Ammunition entrance: Shaft entry, two automatic rifle cloches (GFM)
    GFM cloche
    The GFM cloche was one of the most common defensive armaments on the Maginot Line. A cloche was a fixed and non-retractable firing position made of a thick iron casting which shielded its occupant...

    , 3 FM embrasures and a machine gun/47mm anti-tank gun
    AC 47 anti-tank gun
    The AC 47 was a French anti-tank gun of 47mm caliber. It was principally used in the ouvrages and casemates of the Maginot Line in the late 1930s; another version was created for naval use....

     (JM/AC47) embrasure.
  • Personnel entrance: Shaft entry, one GFM cloche and one JM/AC47 embrasure.
  • Block 1: one machine gun turret and GFM cloche.
  • Block 2: one machine gun embrasure (JM), a JM/AC47 embrasure and two GFM cloches.
  • Block 3: one observation cloche (VDP)
    VDP cloche
    The VDP cloche was an element of the Maginot Line fortifications. A cloche was a fixed and non-retractable firing position made of a thick iron casting which shielded its occupant. By comparison, turrets could be rotated and sometimes lowered so that only the top shell was exposed. VDP cloches...

     and a GFM cloche.
  • Block 4: one machine-gun turret, a machine gun cloche (JM)
    JM cloche
    The JM cloche is an element of the Maginot Line. It is a non-retractable non-rotating cupola of steel alloy like GFM cloches, but are armed with twin heavy machine guns, as opposed to the lighter automatic rifles associated with the GFM. There are 179 JM cloches on the Maginot Line.JM is an acronym...

     and a GM cloche.
  • Block 5: one 75mm turret and a GFm cloche.
  • Block 6: one 50mm mortar turret and a GFM cloche.
  • Block 7: three 75mm gun embrasures, two GFM cloches and a grenade launcher cloche (LG)
    LG cloche
    The LG cloche was a defensive element common to many Maginot Line ouvrages. The fixed cupola was deeply embedded into the concrete on top of a combat block, with only the top surface visible. The opening permitted the ejection of grenades from the interior of the cloche, providing a means of...

    .

.

Casemates and shelters

The Abri du Bois-de-Cattenom is nearby to the west, and may be visited. There are no other casemates, observation points or shelters associated with Kobenbusch, although the petit ouvrage Oberheid is close at hand on the east.

Manning

The manning of the ouvrage in 1940 comprised 513 men and 14 officers of the 169th Fortress Infantry Regiment and the 151st Position Artillery Regiment. The units were under the umbrella of the 42nd Fortress Corps of the 3rd Army, Army Group 2. The commandant de l'ouvrage in 1940 was Commandant Charnal. The Casernement de Cattenom provided peacetime above-ground barracks and support services to Kobenbusch and other ouvrages in the area.

History

See Fortified Sector of Thionville
Fortified Sector of Thionville
The Fortified Sector of Thionville was the French military organization that in 1940 controlled the section of the Maginot Line immediately to the north of Thionville. The sector describes an arc of about , about halfway between the French border with Luxembourg and Thionville. The Thionville...

 for a broader discussion of the events of 1940 in the Thionville sector of the Maginot Line.

Kobenbusch did not see significant action in the Battle of France
Battle of France
In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...

 in 1940, nor in the Lorraine Campaign
Lorraine Campaign
Lorraine Campaign is a term used by U.S. Army historians to describe operations of the U.S. Third Army in Lorraine during World War II from September 1 through December 18, 1944. Official U.S. Army campaign names for this period and location are Northern France and Rhineland. The term was...

 of 1944. Kobenbusch provided suppressing fire against German infiltrators on the surface of Oberheid. About the same time, a party of Germans infiltrated the area of Kobenbusch Block 5. The Germans largely bypassed the area, advancing along the valley of the Meuse and Saar rivers, threatening the rear of the Thionville sector. An order to fortress troops by sector commander Colonel Jean-Patrice O'Sullivan to prepare for withdrawal on 17 June was reversed by O'Sullivan. The garrison therefore remained in place. Following negotiations, the positions on the left bank of the Moselle finally surrendered to the Germans on 30 June, 1940.

Present status

While the entry and combat blocks remain visible, the underground galleries, barracks, ammunition magazine and utility areas, which lie at an average depth of 30 metres (98.4 ft) below the surface, have been flooded by the cooling water lake of the nearby Cattenom Nuclear Power Plant
Cattenom Nuclear Power Plant
The Cattenom Nuclear Power Station is a nuclear power plant located in Lorraine in the Cattenom commune, France on the Moselle River between Thionville and Trier...

. The site is maintained by the Association Ligne Maginot du Secteur Fortifié du Bois de Cattenom, which manages Bois Karre, the Abri du Bois de Cattenom, Ouvrage Sentzich
Ouvrage Sentzich
Ouvrage Sentzich is part of the Fortified Sector of Thionville of the Maginot Line.The petit ouvrage for infantry is located to the south of gros ouvrage Galgenberg, on the edge of the main road to Luxembourg near the village of Sentzich. Gros ouvrage Métrich is to the east. As a small work it was...

 and Ouvrage Galgenberg
Ouvrage Galgenberg
Ouvrage Galgenberg forms a portion of the Fortified Sector of Thionville of the Maginot Line. It is situated in the Cattenom Forest, near the gros ouvrage Kobenbusch and petit ouvrage Oberheid. The ouvrage was tasked with controlling the Moselle valley and as such was called the "Guardian of the...

. A pedestrian path through the surface installation is under development, and the Abri du Bois de Cattenom may be visited at times.

See also

  • List of all works on Maginot Line
  • Siegfried Line
    Siegfried Line
    The original Siegfried line was a line of defensive forts and tank defences built by Germany as a section of the Hindenburg Line 1916–1917 in northern France during World War I...

  • Atlantic Wall
    Atlantic Wall
    The Atlantic Wall was an extensive system of coastal fortifications built by Nazi Germany between 1942 and 1944 along the western coast of Europe as a defense against an anticipated Allied invasion of the mainland continent from Great Britain.-History:On March 23, 1942 Führer Directive Number 40...

  • Czechoslovak border fortifications
    Czechoslovak border fortifications
    The Czechoslovak government built a system of border fortifications from 1935 to 1938 as a defensive countermeasure against the rising threat of Nazi Germany that later materialized in the German offensive plan called Fall Grün...


External links

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