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The German tanks also had radios, most French tanks did not. 

Needed for unit coordination. 

We visited the Maginot Line a few years back.  It's not a "line" of course.  My wife was chagrined when our guide said the bonds were not paid off  until 1975.  They had a special tax on income to pay for it.  The "line" (ligne) was intended to prevent a German incursion directly into France using a minimum of manpower.  Fortifications are obviously a manpower multiplier.  And the French lost the best part of a generation in WW One and the Germans were out populating them with younger men.

French tanks were devised to have one man in the turret doing three jobs in effect which was inefficient.  One of the best early war tanks was French, they call tanks a "char", much as the German term is Panzer.  This is the Somua S35, you can see how small the turret is.  It had a decent gun and good armor for 1940.  The Germans relied heavily on their Panzer II light tank, and the Czech made tanks they "stole" from that country.



The Maginot Line is worth visiting if you're near Strasbourg.  Parts had a rail line running in it, hospitals, dining halls, barracks.  The forts were interconnected, mostly, so troops could be transferred to a point of attack as needed.  It's a hilly area and the artillery emplacements were generally on top of hills.

The original German plan was a replay of WW One, but a German plan with said plans was lost over Belgium, and Manstein proposed another plan which Hitler adopted to slice through the Ardennes south of the main French armies.

I'd like to see that someday.  

The main WWII tourism trips that I want to do are:

• Stalingrad (now Volgograd):  We Westerners (Americans, Britons, and French) tend to underappreciate the titanic struggle on the Eastern Front and Stalingrad is, as the chapter title in a book I once read termed it, "Where the Goose Stepping Stopped".  
• London/Imperial War Museum:  There is actually a lot I'd like to see in London including the HMS Victory which is from a much older war of course.  
• Pearl Harbor:  Of course I'd like to see the Arizona Memorial and the spot on the Missouri's deck where Japan signed the surrender but those are not the main attractions at Pearl Harbor for me.  There isn't much to see of the Arizona and I've already visited an Iowa Class Battleship (The New Jersey while on a trip to an Ohio State game at Rutgers, ran into @Roaddawg there).  For me the main attraction is the USS Bowfin and associated memorials.  The contribution of America's submarines to the defeat of Japan is underappreciated by most people but it was immense.  After the war most of the high ranking Japanese, when they were interviewed, stated that they were the single biggest factor in Japan's defeat.  Japan's merchant fleet was almost completely destroyed mostly by Gato Class and later Balao Class US Submarines such as the USS Bowfin.  Also at that location is a memorial to the thousands of US Submariners who are, as they say in the Submarine Service, "Still Out On Patrol."  

I've been to Normandy and the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.  Very sobering.

Our subs did choke the Japanese, in addition to sinking their largest carrier (which was not a very good carrier).  But ultimately our ground forces had to take ground, and did.  

The story of that really explains how bad things were for Japan and how strong the US Submarines were.  Shinano was barely out of view of the Japanese coast and yet  the Japanese were unable to protect it from the US Submarines.  

I'd like to visit Guadalcanal some day, but it's a tough one.  My Dad was based there for a while.

Wow, that is a great personal connection to have to such an important battle.  Guadalcanal is also a lot more interesting to me than later battles because it occurred at a time when the forces were closely matched such that it could have gone either way.  This is not to minimize the valor of the Marines who landed on later beaches such as Saipan, Iowa Jima, and Okinawa it is just to point out that if the men who landed on those islands had failed the US would simply have landed more men.  Guadalcanal was different.  Both the US and Japan had serious limitations to their ability to land and supply men on the island.  If those guys had failed, we'd have lost the island.  

I've been to every major Civil War battlefield except Shiloh.

Civil War history is another interest of mine but I have only been to a handful of Civil War Battlefields.  I've been to Gettysburg in part because it is not too far and in part because my Great-Great Grandfather's brother (my great-great-great Uncle) was killed there on July 3, 1863 and is buried in the Cemetery not too far from where Lincoln gave his famous speech (something he said that history would little note nor long remember, LoL).  

I've been to Andersonville but it was as a young child in the back seat and restless/annoyed that we weren't moving on toward Florida so I didn't really appreciate it.  

I also visited a site outside of Atlanta where my Great-Great Grandfather was wounded.  His is a fascinating story and he wrote a diary which my family published back in the 1980's.  Anyway, I was in Atlanta for Ohio State's appearance in the 2007 Final Four and after the Buckeyes won the semi-final on Saturday I had a couple days to kill so I wanted to go see where my ancestor was wounded.  

Funny story about that:
So I was dressed head-to-toe in tOSU gear because I was there for the Final Four.  I got to the battlefield and went to the Ranger to find out where my 2-great grandfather's unit had been.  The ranger was very helpful at first and asked what unit.  I told him, "79th OVI" (79th Ohio Volunteer Infantry) and he grumbled something then "Sherman, burned Atlanta to the ground" to which I responded, "It was 150 years ago!"  They aren't over it down there.  

Anyway, I found the spot and it was amazing.  You learn why they make soldiers out of YOUNG guys.  The Union forces were in a tree line while the Confederates were dug in atop a "mountain" with artillery.  Between the Union's tree line and the base of the mountain was a field probably 1/2 mile wide.  So the Union officers came up with an astoundingly simplistic plan and ordered their troops to:

• Run across the big open field with nothing to hide behind while the Confederates shoot at you from the safety of their lines.  
• Climb the enormous "mountain" while being shot at.  
• Toss the Confederates off the Mountain.  

Unsurprisingly this ingenious plan failed spectacularly.  Worse, it was all a complete waste of time because the next night the Confederates abandoned the position due to the Union Line elsewhere advancing to the point that they were in danger of been surrounded.  

My point about young guys as soldiers is that only an 18 to about 22 year old guy would hear those orders and think "Ok, I'm going to go kick their ass".  Anybody older than that would immediately realize the folly of it.  

I've reached an age where I get the idea that I was facing a choice...

Become interested in arcane military history, or take up golf. 

You can see which way I went. 

I've reached an age where I get the idea that I was facing a choice...

Become interested in arcane military history, or take up golf.

You can see which way I went.

Yes you destroy score cards with lead

I always found it odd that a coworker, who was born in Cuba, and whose birth name was Guillermo, went by "Bill". I had no clue how you got from one to the other. 

I had never known that Guillermo is the Spanish version of Guillaume, which is the French version of William. Hence Guillermo was called Bill.

Back in my graduate schools days, I studied a bunch of dead languages and I found it fascinating the evolution of sounds, letters, etc. and how names evolved between languages and how you could trace words between even seemingly unrelated or distantly related languages if you understood how the letters and sounds evolved.