Battle of the Bulge: What took them so long?

Slipdigit is right, if you go to the new member section many memebers will be able to meet you.

I Also think that the Battle of Alsace proved to be more difficult than expected and further crosspoints for the Rhine had to be found.

 

my grandfather had told me a few times about equipment not working because of the cold. snow and ice covering weapons, and the snow itself was hard to get through. they were also low on ammo, and even if everything did work, just too damn cold to fight

 

In fact, the weather in both phases was quite different. The weather on December 16 was cool with fog and mist but not much snow on the ground. This can be seen in photos of the German advance during the early days of the battle. By the time the Allies had assembled enough units to launch an effective counter-offensive, heavy snowfalls had set in and made the Ardennes truly a winter battle. So the Allies had to slog through deeper snow and quite a bit colder temperatures than the initial German offensive did.

As well, what took time for the counter-offensive was assembling the units needed to do it. The Allies had too few divisions in NW Europe in December (one of the consequences of the logistics crisis of the previous fall) which is why there was so little available in the way of a strategic reserve. Divisions were rushed over from England to strengthen the order of battle and independent infantry regiments and engineer groups were committed to build a semblance of a continuous line. Getting enough power assembled to effectively attack simply took time, especially as it involved the transfer of quieter sectors of the front to other units (like the U.S. Seventh Army) that were were already heavily committed on their existing frontage.

Cheers

BW

 

Well, it took some time for Hitler to gather the troops as well. He started planning in September already so that makes three+ months....

If I recall correctly it was Keitel whose job was to get the gasoline for the troops and as a matter of fact he did quite well if you consider the poor German supply situation. perhaps the biggest thing he did during the war other than saying "yes" to Hitler all the time...

 

Ah yes, Lakeitel as some of the other German generals called him . . .

 

Has the original question been answered yet?

 

Yes, that's one of the things I have learned since. And this meteorological slip doesn't reflect well on Hastings as a historian of war. I found him a perceptive writer in conveying the experience of warfare, but his tactical knowledge seems to be limited, somehow. The German phase of the attack was made over light snow and cold mud; the really miserable weather hit Belgium well after the 22th. Minus 30 degrees Celsius was extremely cold even by Russian standards.

One thing the Germans didn't need to deal with was trying to hold a none-existent line. It looks like that the Germans had their front well covered by the time the Americans fought the counteroffensive; they could match the Americans division for division.

What, by the way, do we think about the high trench foot and frost bite rate in the US Army? Is it a matter of winter warfare skills? Or the quality of their winter boots? I have read that the early war German boots were very badly designed for resisting the Russian elements, but also that Patton thought the German boots were much better than America's.

 

The Germans often remarked about how good the Soviet boots and quilted winter jackets/pants were when they were in front of Moscow..

 

Something on this....and ww2 medical care...

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-general/9802-blood-transfusion-antibiotics-etc-ww2.html

 

I remember from Blunt's memoir how he fell asleep during the Battle of the Bulge in a foxhole and his feet froze into solid blocks of ice in the snow. His comrades found him irresponsive and and had to use their bayonets to dig him out of his hole. He was rushed to a field hospital, where he had to beg the doctors not to amputate his frostbitten and grengenous limbs. He somehow managed to get released from the field hospital and fought the duration of the war with a limp. He was enraged by the insinuation that US troops suffered frostbite and trenchfoot because of poor field discipline.

He described that during the Battle of the Ardennes he learned to wear long johns over his issued pants, overshoes over his boots (extra large, looted off a dead American to accomodate his greatly swollen feet), field jacket, coat, looted white blanket, and two layers of gloves, American linen and German leather.

 

Ironic, as the Americans made some 1.5 million pairs of them.

 

I've seen photographs of US troops in the Ardennes like that.

 

i think another factor in this, is the attack on the Ardennes was made to look like a defensive maneuver by Germany. the Allies were caught off guard and not well prepared for the counter offensive, though Patten did anticipate it could happen and was prepared for launching his counter attack, which was vital to the success of the 3rd Army in the Ardennes.

 

I think a widely recognized and vallid criticism of Patton was that he made his attack over too wide a front with three divisions with a frontage of some 80 miles. In retrospect, Eisenhower's caution that he'd prefer to wait for a couple more days if Patton could strike with six divisions was prophetic. The 80th and 26th Divisions found the Fuhrer Grenadier Brigade and 79 Volksgrenadier Division barring their advance, and the 4th Armored which was understrength to begin with was pitted against the 5th Parachute and 26 Volksgrenadier Divisions as well as a StuG Brigade. The reinforcements--the 6th and 11th Armored Divisions--were committed piecemeal and the result was a slugging match against well prepared German positions.

This is not counting, of course, the latter decision to start the counteroffensive at the tip rather than the base of the German salient because such an substantial concentration of armor and infantry had already gathered between Celles and Bastogne, it would be a difficult task to disengage from active combat and move them to the East, potentially risking contretempts over the poor roadnet of the Ardennes. This decision unfortunately also meant the Allies would attack the Germans where they were the strongest, the salient containing such formations as the 1st, 2d and 9th SS Pazer Divisions as well as the 9th Pz and 15 Pz Gren Divisions. And I am sure I am leaving out some more units. It is note worthy, at least to me, that some of the German units that were tying up the American advance was fighting under conditions of incredible hardship--no food, no artillery, and at times no armor or even antitank guns.

Still, against all that there was the American achievement of completing an offensive fought with the main enemy concentration at minus 27 degrees Celsius with no benefit of build up over rough terrain, with no superiority in numbers over the enemy like that in the East.

 

the terrain during the battle of the bulge was very testing for both armies involved

 

Completely true. A big part of defending allied lines even consisted of bluff by the Americans, as the Germans overrated the capacities and supplies of the US units, therefor acting more cautiously. If they should've known what was really going on back there...! I think Battle of the Bulge was a close call, nonetheless. Luckily some air support got through there in the nick of time.

 

You should read "Alamo at the Ardennes"; very good book on the opening phases of the Ardennes offensive. I dont think it was so much experience as it was exhaustion. Alot of the guys on the "ghost front" had just been pulled out of 2 months or more worth of fighting in the Huertgen forest. It wasn't that they were inexperienced, they were just dog-assed tired is all.

 

Im just finishing up Alamo in the Ardennes by John McManus right now. What an awesome book !, "the untold story of the American soldiers who made the defense of Bastogne possible"

out

Dan