[ransomnote]

I'd never seen anything like this photo and found the comments attached to this image on imgur (see link) interesting.

Some comments compare this fortification to a chocolate cake, note how loud it must have been to be inside the thing, and disagreement as to teh caliber of shell could do that damage.

Here's another pic for scale.

[2banana]

Great German steel...

[PLMerite]

Looks like maybe 75mm from a Sherman, but that’s an unsupported guess.

And, yeah, I bet it was LOUD inside. At least until the flamethrower guy got there.

[Paladin2]

Somebody was ringing the bell....

[mfish13]

Looks like 5 inch shells from a destroyer. I did not see this one, but saw another that was taller and not as wide in a private museum on the western exit from Omaha Beach. They said it was 5 inch shells from a destroyer.

[BenLurkin]

Looks like somebody was using it for target practice.

[dfwgator]

[real saxophonist]

My dad was a 22 year old LT (j.g.) in charge of an LCT on Utah Beach. He had an Army engineer company, with bulldozers and TNT. I have a picture of him and his crew posing with a captured German 88.

Don't have it here handy, it's in a storage unit back in Georgia.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

That was the first thing that occurred to me -- can you imagine how DEAFENINGLY LOUD it must have been when the shells hit that turret?

The second thing that strikes me is how fluid the steel was when it was hit. It must almost instantaneously melt when struck by the shells. The steel is very ductile, not brittle.

The third thing that strikes me is that this might have been a test article for the Allies examining the quality of German armor. Would such a fortification actually taken that many hits during battle? The Russians and the U.S. in particular were interested in learning about German armor and frequently tested captured armor.

See "On German Armour" for one interesting take on this.

[Kommodor]

I wonder how much of that was day of, and how much was target practice afterwards.

Either way, pity it didn’t take some 8 or 14 in. artillery. That would be spectacular.

[Leaning Right]

I assume all that pitting is due to Global Warming.

[brownsfan]

“Here’s another pic for scale.”

imgur? Shouldn’t there be a banana for scale?

[Justa]

Looks like a Finnish M40/M41 machine gun cupola.

Most of the holes appear to be 75mm impacts.

As for loud, not as loud as standard firing due to the machine gun muzzle being outside the pillbox.

[PUGACHEV]

Check out this, a 26" inch armor plate from a turret off of the Japanese battleship Yamato which was struck by a 16" armor piercing shell. It is on display in a park beside a hidden Naval Museum at the Navy Yard off of M Street S.E, in Washington D.C. If you can find it, the museum is a treasure box of lots of unusual things, including an analogue computer used by U.S. submarines to aim torpedoes in WWII.

[bunkerhill7]

Them`s look liken couple Brit Typhoon rocketeers don did it in.

[wardaddy]

Krupp was a national hero for a reason in Allemagne

[hinckley buzzard]

Probably whoever was inside was killed by spalling from the inside wall under the repeated impacts of the shells.

[DesertRhino]

Beautiful work by our boys. Hopefully those nazis were dead or bleeding from the ears and unable to harm many GIs until a flamethrower got there.

[wbill]

That thing must have rang like a bell every time it was hit. Talk about deafening.

Pass.

[Vendome]

Would not have wanted to be inside but, safer than being outside....for a time...

[dfwgator]

Good Timing! Today Indy Neidell posted a special video about The Maginot Line today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gBn5BipK2U