On paper that makes perfect sense, but on paper the 9th Army had hefty reserves and reinforcements inbound. Yet it vaporized in 3-4 days under attack of two armored corps.
I don't mean to say that I think that the French position is infallible, but still, shorter frontage, more troops, more reserves, must mean that the French have a better chance of holding the line.
True, but when it looked like XLI Corps was stalled by the fortifications near Montherme the 8th PzDv was sent north & the 'break through' crossing of the corps was north the French sector of the Meuse River.
Ok then, but this still leaves a much reduced frontage to take advantage of in any case.
Perhaps, tho on the game board I've found sweeping maneuvers to Paris or the Channel less productive than first a closer encirclement of the armies at hand. ie: Swing north to Brussels and Antwerp with XLI and XIX corps better traps the French 1st Army, the BEF, and the Belgians.
Perhaps, but even in this case there would be fewer troops trapped in a less ambitious encirclement. It might still be enough to do in the French, but a more northern front and stronger front should mean the Battle of France lasts longer at least.
Google some pictures of the traffic jam in the Ardennes in 1940.
Frankly expanding the Wall would be a waste of money. Just ask yourself what the likely consequences would be of turning loose a couple companies of men with chainsaws.
Granted I am not a professional soldier, but I am not persuaded that either the length of the Maginot Line or the obsolete French doctrine and leadership was the point of failure here. I mean, yes, the line could have been longer, and yes, the French could have been better led. Those didn't help, but the initial advance in the Ardennes could have been stopped alarmingly easily even within those limitations.
I doubt that the chainsaws would have had much impact without being backed up with troops to defend them, there were Chasseurs ardennais defensive roadblocks that were quickly dealt with by German engineers when not covered by defensive fires. That being said, even small units could make a difference: Chasseurs ardennais units were able to inflict heavy delays on German forces moving through the region. But at the same time the French troops which were sent in didn't always perform very well, despite ostensibly being high quality, as can be attested by French spahi units' chaotic fight and the troubles of light cavalry divisions.
Its been a while since I read it, but the book "Seeds of Disaster" covers how the Maginot Line blew a huge hole in the French military budget that it suffered from even as late as 1940.
I have read Seeds of Disaster a while ago as well but would have to re-read it through again to look at the budget. However, other books I have read, especially French Foreign and Defense Policy 1919-1940 have markedly different views on the matter, and I haven't suggested increasing Maginot Line spending beyond the early years, simply accepting somewhat lighter fortifications on parts of it. I don't think that the Belgian defenses would be particularly expensive, since they can follow along the Meuse and be equivalent to the lighter defenses that the Rhine sectors were provided with, unlike the heavy fortifications of the Metz sector, since they are defending a river crossing anyway and are in front of forbidding geography. The Rhine defenses only took up some 18% of French fortifications spending, despite being a long individual section.
The line started construction in 1929 right before the Great Depression and was built until 1938, which meant that for the vast majority of time it was being built it gutted the ability to spend on the non-ML military items, which left the French air force crippled as of 1940.
The Great Depression did not start in France until several years after the American 1929 crash, so for the initial several years the French continued to enjoy their surplus. The line's funding and construction had been completed by 1936 as laid out by French Foreign and Defense Policy, 1918-1940. Fortress France: The Maginot Line and French Defenses in World War II notes that most of the principal forts were done by 1935: remaining construction was the new forts and secondary defensive fronts like the Alpine Line and the Mareth Line.
Remember by 1936 the French government was insolvent to the point that they couldn't even afford mobilize to fight in the Rheinland, a key reason why they didn't oppose Hitler then and why Hitler thought he could get away with it (German intelligence had informed him of France's finances).
The French had a lot of different reasons why they wouldn't fight in 1936, and the Maginot Line itself was only a relatively small portion of the French army's budget: its main financial impact is spending on investment, arms procurement, infrastructure, where it squeezed out mobile forces investment rather than pushing up spending as a whole.
1936 it should also be remember, is the year when, on September 7th, Leon Blum's Popular Front government voted 14 billion francs for a four-year army re-equipment plan, while the Maginot Line's cost as a whole generally is cited at around 5 billion francs. The French were not broke for long term military investment in that year.
The issue is more than just equipment, though you can't simply not spend until 1936 and then start...the French did try that with their military, which was largely hamstrung due to lack of funding through the Great Depression and into the late 1930s, and crucially left them with a too tiny force of pilots to even man the aircraft available. Having more fighters is pointless, especially of lesser performance, if they didn't even have enough trained pilots to use them...which was a key problem in 1940.
The Rise and Fall of the French Air Force notes that the French had a surplus of fighters to pilots in 1940, particularly once you take into account the large numbers of foreign Czech and Polish fighters who were sent to France... and who if they had planes at all, sometimes had to fly death traps like the Caudron C.714, when they weren't pushed out into penny packets in local defense units. We have discussed the problems with French pilot training before, and they are real, but they weren't in 1940 because the French didn't hit their production targets. Simple changes to the French air force structure in Fall 1939 could easily present a much better portrait for 1940, although of course this is simply speculation: it is entirely possible for them to make the same mistakes, but if we assume that the euphoria they felt in 1939 is reduced, then they might adopt a more sensible and less risky course with positive impact on both general air force quality and quantity come May 1940.
In bombers it was apparently even worse, so much so that the French were using rotating teams for their bombers to achieve a faster sortie rate, although this being the French Air Force they still had dismal sortie rates anyway....
BTW the Maginot Line was breached in several places IOTL, including in the Southern part of the line, which was weaker:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line#German_invasion_in_World_War_II
That was once the reinforcing divisions were withdrawn along the Rhine sector, it was pointed out in one of the several books on the Maginot Line (I suspect Fortress France: The Maginot Line and French Defenses in World War II, but it could also be The Maginot Line History and Guide) that if the French hadn't withdrawn their units then the Germans would probably have faced a nasty setback along that front. In the North several new lines which had been extended and were complementary to the core Maginot line did fall as well, but they were much weaker than the rest of the line and isolated, and attacked with overwhelming force. If we assume that the French keep their number of troops they assigned to the Maginot line historically roughly stable (again, perhaps I am too optimistic about the French, they heavily over-committed there OTL and could do so even more if they have lighter fortifications and a longer line), then breaching it should continue to be essentially impossible.