Ouvrage Laudrefang, Maginot Line fortification in Laudrefang, Moselle, France

Ouvrage Laudrefang is a petit ouvrage of the Maginot Line in the Fortified Sector of Faulquemont, built on cote 393. It has five combat blocks: Blocks 1, 2, 4 and 5 are linked by galleries up to 30 metres deep, while Block 3, the southernmost, is not connected. The galleries hold barracks, ammunition magazines, a power plant with two SGCM GVU 33 diesel generators, a kitchen, latrines and a first-aid post.

Approved for construction in August 1931 and built by Générale des Travaux Publics for 24 million francs, Laudrefang was planned as a gros ouvrage of fourteen blocks but was scaled back to a petit ouvrage. On 21 June 1940 its 81mm mortars fired about 5,000 rounds to cover Einseling and Teting, and the German barrage of 3,000 to 3,500 shells failed to perforate the concrete. It surrendered on 25 June 1940.

The ouvrage is named after the commune of Laudrefang and carries the designation A 37 on the Maginot Line. Since the 1970s the site has been maintained by the association ASPOLT, which looks after Block 3 inside and out. The rusted cupola visible on the surface is one of the armoured cloches that equipped the combat blocks.

The ouvrage stands on the 393-metre contour of the commune of Laudrefang, in the Moselle department, between the Quatre-Vents Sud and Bois-de-Laudrefang Nord interval casemates. It has been abandoned by the army since the 1970s: the lower galleries are partly flooded, the power plant is full of mud and the rest has been vandalised. The association ASPOLT maintains the ouvrage, notably Block 3, inside and out.

Block 3, the southernmost block, was never connected to the rest of the ouvrage; a second phase meant to link it and add a separate entrance was never built. Its retractable twin machine gun turret was later used by the Germans to test shaped-charge munitions.