Battle of ardennes.

German campaigns and battles 1919-1945.

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TimoWr
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Post by TimoWr »

Helmut Von Moltke wrote:
the logistical means to bring fuel from all over the country to the Ardennes. If they had they would have done it during the preperations of the offensive.
well, they could sacrifice more fuel from the Italian front and Ostfront for this operation, and use very single truck in the crumbling Reich to deliver fuel to the Ardennes, at the period when the Luftwaffe would be in a death struggle, even if only for a few days, with the Allied air force.
Are you seriously suggesting to leave the German army in the east and in Italy immobile and without logistics, as sitting ducks for the Red Army and the allied forces in Italy, and on top of that to sacrifice the complete Luftwaffe in a suicide mission? Such nonsense I cannot reply to.
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Post by Helmut Von Moltke »

Are you seriously suggesting to leave the German army in the east and in Italy immobile and without logistics, as sitting ducks for the Red Army and the allied forces in Italy,
well, maybe 25 per cent of the fuel in Italy and Ostfront, would allow limited mobility for the forces there, for example counterattacks, and the fuel percentage directed to the Ardennes would be enough to get to Antwerp. And anyways, the Wehrmacht in Italy were not that mobile than on other fronts, considering long, WWI like slog matches like the Gustav line and Monte Cassino were fought.
and on top of that to sacrifice the complete Luftwaffe in a suicide mission?
For example, just like the British in the Battle of Britain who used their planes wisely, the Luftwaffe could reserve and use it's squadrons conservitavely, attacking the Allies planes when for example they are in small formations, with everything they got, and slowly eat away the Allies air force.
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Post by TimoWr »

25 percent of the fuel in the east??? Limited mobility for the troops in the east? You have no clue what that would mean, do you? Sorry Helmut, I refuse to take part in your pissing contests. In the end you'll come out with another "okay, you win this time" just like you told me, Christoph and others in past discussions.
Helmut Von Moltke

Post by Helmut Von Moltke »

25 percent of the fuel in the east??? Limited mobility for the troops in the east?
well, maybe that is too much, maybe only Italy, and a smaller percentage from the Ostfront, perhaps 5 per cent. Anywhere, just enough fuel to reach Antwerp.
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Alex Coles
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Post by Alex Coles »

Well, if you strip fuel from one area, that makes troops in it immobile, and with limited fuel in the east Germany would suffer greatly, because the Eastern front was a more flowing war, with retreats, attacks, and counterattacks. Even if the Germans had more fuel in the Ardennes, they would still be slowed down. Bad weather was their advantage, and disadvantage, and when skies cleared they could be pounded. Just think of the Panzer-Lehr in Normandy, or the LSSAH division going from Calais. They had enough fuel to get to their destinations, but were still pounded to the ground, so either way the Germans would lose.
Alex

(Also known as 17 SS)
Helmut Von Moltke

Post by Helmut Von Moltke »

and with limited fuel in the east Germany would suffer greatly, because the Eastern front was a more flowing war, with retreats, attacks, and counterattacks.
well, I was talking about a small percentage of fuel that wouldn't hamper movements in the East. And at that time, the Russians didn't launch their offensive yet.
Even if the Germans had more fuel in the Ardennes, they would still be slowed down.
by what? If the 5. and 6. Panzerarmee were used in conjunction in a massive attack in the style of Blitzkrieg instead of scattering them in Kampfgruppes of diffrent strengths, some very strong, some weak, for example Kampfgruppe Peiper, Knitel, Sandig, etc, of the LAH during it's attack, then with that fuel very little could go wrong, especially if the skies had not cleared for the Allied aircraft yet.
They had enough fuel to get to their destinations,
but at that time they weren't attacking, and the Divisions in the Ardennes did not have to travel as far to the attacking place, and weren't under thread from Allied aircraft due to weather. The Allied air attacks caused a lot of manouvering into forests, etc, thus wasting fuel, but this is the Battle of the Bulge, 1944, not Normandy. Anyways, about the the sky pounding, I already mentioned that the Luftwaffe could hold off the Allies air forces with thier aircraft that were originally planned for the historically very costly attack, using the tactics that the Royal air force used agaisnt superior Luftwaffe forces in the Battle of Britain in 1940, thus protecting the Panzerarmees once they emerge from the Ardennes.
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Tom Houlihan
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Post by Tom Houlihan »

Any way you look at it, the Ardennes offensive of '44 was doomed to failure. Any success at all was based purely on luck, and being able to capture enemy supplies. That's no way to plan an offensive, and the commanders knew it. Any operation needs a bit of luck to succeed. Wacht am Rhein required it.
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Post by phylo_roadking »

This thread started out as a "what if" about IF the BoB was a Germn Victory, NOT about the nuts and bones of rewriting history and silly what-ifs about impractical logistics and engineering.

History IS history and you can't change it but you CAN wonder about the different OUTCOMES. But always keep it to OUTCOME not realities whenever there are people using this forum for real useful information not daydreams. Take those down to the General Discussion section or better still Soldatenheim where fiction eblongs

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tigre
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Re: Battle of ardennes.

Post by tigre »

Hello to all :D; Just taking advantage of this old thread, a complement................................................

The "Bulge" 1944.

Ever since September the whole of the Eiffel front had been remarkably quiet when, on 17 December, a rather curiously worded SHAEF communique reported a number of apparently secondary German attacks. The number of tanks, we were told, did not exceed a division in strength. It was only gradually that the full import and power of Model's attack was disclosed. The fact is, the German commander had succeeded, without arousing Allied suspicions, in concentrating twenty divisions on a front of almost exactly sixty miles by map (all distances are given by map in this article). That gives one division per three miles. If we assume that the Americans could oppose a force of six divisions, that gives them one division per ten miles.

Under the circumstances it is nofsurprising that Model got a good flying start, and by 22 December he reached the line of flood tide (see sketch) and had penetrated within four miles of the Meuse at Dinant. But for three splendid stands by American troops, he might have got much farther. In the first place the two flank bastions - Montjoie (Monschau) to Malmedy, and Echternach - stood firm, thus contracting the frontage of attack. In the second place, St. Vith, a big road junction, held out for several days, thus denying the enemy some important arteries and splitting up their attack. In the third place - and most important of all -- Bastogne refused to fall.

This also was an important road center in an area where good roads were at their fewest. The panzer advance swept round it, like an incoming tide sweeping round an outlying rock and coverting it into an island. Fortunately, the frontage on which they bypassed the town to the south was so narrow that there was little power in this part of the blow. But the situation was ugly in appearanceif not nerve-shattering.

The Commander of the 21st Army Group acted promptly, resolutely, and confidently as soon as he heard of the German breakthrough, and his action had an incalculable effect upon the morale of the Allied forces. General Patton (or General Bradley) seems to have acted promptly also. To switch from attacking in one sector to counterattacking or defending in another is a difficult operation of war-especially on the logistical side. Yet his presence on the southern side of the "bulge" made itself felt on about the seventh day of the battle, and on 27 December he achieved the signal success of relieving Bastogne, thus forming that peculiar Bastogne pocket.

By 22 December our troops had established themselves along the line of the Meuse between Namur and Dinant, and held all the bridges. From there they advanced a few miles east along the prominent ridge running from Dinant to Ciney. Just east of this town, USA troops were in contact with the panzer spearhead and, backed by our airborne troops on the ridge just behind them, they prevented any more forward movement. Simultaneously, about four miles to the southwest they succeeded in cutting off and then cutting up the panzers who had penetrated to Celles. High tide had come!

Looking at the sketch map at least six points can be noted from it:
1. The curiously symmetrical shape of the attack. A perpendicular from the center of the start line crosses the point of deepest penetration opposite Givet.
2. Both start line and perpendicular are almost exactly sixty miles in length. This gives the advance a speed of sixty miles in seven days, i.e., eight and a half miles per day not particularly fast, judging by previous panzer attacks in this war.
3. The advance was brought to a halt just short of that belt of fairly open country in which the famous battles of August 1914 were fought.
4. The direction of the axis of advance was at about an angle of seventy degrees to the direction of Antwerp-the reputed objective.
5. The importance of the Bastogne "island," and later "bastion," is clearly shown. It badly cramped the style of Model's attack.
6. The line attained was roughly parallel to the line of the River Meuse on all three sides.

Source: The Strategy of the Battle of the Ardennes. Military Review. June 1945.

Cheers. Raúl M 8).
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