Pariel wrote:Slightly off-topic, I guess.
Were they actually used during the war?
Enlarged picture [War over Holland - May 1940: the Dutch struggle]
The nature of German warfare (schwerpunkte) dictates that not all of them were used, ofcourse.
So only the places the Germans thought best suited for an assault were used, once the line was broken the rest was essentially useless. Just like any rigid fortified line of defence, anyways without an offensive mobile force behind it, wich the Dutch army lacked.
Sadly while the dutch lines of defence (from the beginning 1930ies )were build, they were not deamed military terrain, small country eh, so this meant that tourists and locals alike could walk around when the soldiers were of from digging their trenches and were back at baracks. This also meant that German officers had scoped the terrain they wanted to attack with great precission, plotting the positions...
The new waterline, the traditional mainline of defence (17th century) where Afterdune is talking about, was attacked in 2 places, at the Grebbeberg and slightly to the north of that at Schepenzeel where the German assault was fenced of with relative ease.
This attack was carried out because their innitial attack at the Grebbeberg took longer than the Germans anticipated, although it held out for only 3 days in the end. Here the inudations hadn't taken place and the army wasn't allowed to clear the field of fire untill the Germans had actually invaded Holland. They managed to fall back to another old defencive line that hadn't been fortified.
The Germans had been held up at forward river lines Wakain was talking about for around a day or less by, light, thin stretched forces that lacked any artillery or air support. This line had been a compromise because of the lack of forces to occupied it, and was basically a guard to prevent a strategic coupe de gras like the one that happened in Denmark. Occupants were ordered to fall back if they could, wich proved difficult due to the lack of communications, dutch forces on many occasion relied on the civilian phone grid.
I'm not sure if your question is implying that there wasn't much fighting going on in Holland or not, but all in all in 5 days fighting 2200 died and over 8000 were wounded.
More info in English if you'd like can be found here:
Welcome [War over Holland - May 1940: the Dutch struggle]
Wakain might want to check it aswel.