Exactly. I always say that the waterline would be a formidable barrier in the age of machineguns, but before planes (ok, there were planes in WWI, but there is a big difference between WWI and WWII planes). Basicly I think the Dutch can actualy stop the Germans and create another front for them, weakening the German position even more. The only way Germany would be able to conquer the Netherlands would be to focus on the Netherlands in the beginning, knocking them out before the waterline is up and running, which means losing momentum for the attack on France, placing the Germans in a worse position than OTL. And this is besides the fact that no neutral Netherlands means that Germany loses a main commercial gateway to the rest of the world. Basicly attacking the Netherlands is a lose-lose situation for Germany.More troops to the Netherlands, less to send to other fronts.
I'm not so sure about this, the paratupers where not very successful and there wernt many tanks during the ww2 invasion, it was mostly infratry and artillery and the waterline did little to help. Not that this masters much as the plan just had the German army move thorue the south of the country to bypass Bergen forts.Exactly. I always say that the waterline would be a formidable barrier in the age of machineguns, but before planes (ok, there were planes in WWI, but there is a big difference between WWI and WWII planes). Basicly I think the Dutch can actualy stop the Germans and create another front for them, weakening the German position even more. The only way Germany would be able to conquer the Netherlands would be to focus on the Netherlands in the beginning, knocking them out before the waterline is up and running, which means losing momentum for the attack on France, placing the Germans in a worse position than OTL. And this is besides the fact that no neutral Netherlands means that Germany loses a main commercial gateway to the rest of the world. Basicly attacking the Netherlands is a lose-lose situation for Germany.