70 Years Ago Today, Battle Of The Bulge

[cmort666]

With regard to German "secret weapons". It was all too little, too late.

German weapons research can best be summarized by the banquet hall scene in "Naked Gun". It lacked only Albert Speer running around screaming, "Es ist ein Kuchbuch!"

The Germans went from ten companies all researching the same thing, to cut-offs in funding for projects which couldn't produce results to an arbitrary time line. Everybody and his brother in Germany was working on a proximity fuse. To my knowledge, they never fielded a SINGLE design.

The A4 (V2) was so inaccurate, that with a conventional warhead, it was nothing more than a waste of resources. A few years ago, there was a discussion in the usenet WWII group that fielding the V2 in the intended quantities would have consumed the ENTIRE output of alcohol (for fuel) in German. Of course the Germans had no real alternative to a conventional warhead, for well known reasons.

 

[BigBill]

His own people refused to develop new weapons they dragged there feet sorta speak.

 

[cmort666]

Too true in all accounts but,id still have employed them in the East if not to do much but keeping russians off my home soil for as ong as possible--while possibly allowing the Western allies to gain even more ground than they would have. A lesser of two (from the German point of view) evils--kinda thing.

In analyzing such questions, one must always distinguish the "German" point of view from Hitler's.

By this time, Hitler was a raving paranoiac. In his view, he hadn't let Germany down, but exactly the contrary.

In the end, he was going to act like a mass shooter, killing himself after killing as many others as he could. That was going to happen, regardless of what was rationally predictable on either front.

 

[cmort666]

His own people refused to develop new weapons they dragged there feet sorta speak.

There is reason to believe that there was passive resistance in the nuclear field.

Everything else? That was just gross incompetence and massive corruption. It's what happens when you put the equivalent of a crack gang in charge of the biggest economy in Western Europe.

Of course I don't doubt that Hitler could have found a way to lose the war WITH the bomb. He probably would have ordered them all used to dig fortifications in Norway...

 

[Coldshooter]

I just bought the book Alamo in the Ardennes Amazon.com: Alamo In The Ardennes: The Untold Story of the American Soldiers Who Made the Defense of Bastogne Possible (9780451225580): John C. McManus: Books@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51%2BlCTEeLKL.@@AMEPARAM@@51%2BlCTEeLKL which covers the actions of the troops in front of Bastone who were able to hold long enough to let the Airborne and other units dig in and hold the town. If I remember right one of the infantry regiments took 75% casulties.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

Hitler set completely unrealistic and unreachable goals for his forces, the objective was Antwerp-125 miles behind Allied lines. The ratio of attacking forces to defending was about 5:4 , for a truly sucessful offensive 3:1 is preferred, you can get by with 2:1. Logistics and transport, always the Germans' weak spot, broke down, Matthew Ridgway noted that in the depth of winter the Ardennes became a battle for the road junctions because even the tanks could not operate off them, and that battle is a good example of Moltke the Elder's observation that no plan of operations survives contact with the enemy.

 

[kaaskop49]

Sometimes Hell isn't hot. What a terrible responsibility that generation was forced to bear.

As my Mom, born 1914, often said: It wasn't bad enough to have a World War, we had to live through that lousy Depression for years before the war.

Kaaskop49
Shield #5103

 

[mg357]

My uncle Loran Rendleman, was a combat engineer and he fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

An during that bloody battle he heard a couple of medals

A bronze Star and A Silver Star

Pretty darn good for a 20 year old U.S. Army private first class from illinois

with a young wife and baby daughter back home waiting for his return from the war.

 

[cmort666]

My uncle Loran Rendleman, was a combat engineer and he fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

The battle was largely won by the engineers.

Virtually every time the panzers got to an important bridge at an unfordable river crossing, it blew up in their faces. They were desparately low on fuel to begin with, and they ended up wasting huge amounts in futile attempts to do end runs around the demolition teams.

Were it not for the engineers, the Germans might have been able to capture at least enough gas to drag the campaign out a little longer. Of course the ultimate result was never in serious doubt.

 

[PA Reb]

Great post "max" - Thank you sir and God Bless your dad!

My father-in-law was also there as a member of the 4th Armored Division, 25th Recon. Cavalry. He too never talked much about it except he did tell me once about the bitter cold. I've posted two pictures below - one is of the 25th Recon moving through a town and the other is of my father-in-law (on your left) and a buddy of his holding a war trophy. He told me this was taken during "warmer weather" just after the Bulge near Bastogne.

 

[Fuch]

never forget

blesses all those young and old men and women who liberate my country during those terrible years 40-45.
We are very proud to welcome at this point here in Belgium in the regions of Bastogne Houffalize, St. Vith, neufchateau, noville, ect many Americans came to remember those terrible and unforgettable moments to you all I want to say to name of all Belgians how much we love you. thank you thank you 1000 times.

 

[Abbynormal]

Fuch: Veterans and non Veterans alike would like to say: Thank you! And Merry Christmas.

 

[Beemerguy53]

I've been to Bastogne several times, and I've visited the American and German military cemeteries in Luxembourg. It's very moving to look at those graves and reflect upon the loss of all those young men.

The main square in Bastogne is named for General Anthony McCauliffe, and a bust of him is on display there, next to a Sherman tank that was knocked out during the battle. And in the Visitors Center in the square, they sell a card, written by one of their citizens, thanking the Americans who saved their town so long ago...

 

[williamlayton]

Desperation is a terrible thing to experience. Hitler had a bad case of it.
It turns your insides to Jelly and your brain to mush--worse than "hold my beer and watch this", it involves wishing and wishing has no alternative other than believing pipe dreams.
It hastened the death of Germany, and, that was good. A frontal assault is not the best place to be for anyone.
Only in the rear can you say that this is a good thing--now we have them in the open and can destroy them----or their guts and our blood.
War can never be understood except by experience, even by the generals.
Blessings

 

[Fuch]

Desperation is a terrible thing to experience. Hitler had a bad case of it.
It turns your insides to Jelly and your brain to mush--worse than "hold my beer and watch this", it involves wishing and wishing has no alternative other than believing pipe dreams.
It hastened the death of Germany, and, that was good. A frontal assault is not the best place to be for anyone.
Only in the rear can you say that this is a good thing--now we have them in the open and can destroy them----or their guts and our blood.
War can never be understood except by experience, even by the generals.
Blessings

yes I grant you the war is a terrible scourge and this is not the war that must be
glorify but to honor the victims that "she made.
Hitler would never have come to power in Germany if he managed it is because of the time European democracies have lacked courage and practiced against the actions of the Nazis demons ostrich policy
they ignored the terrible threat to the freedom of nations.

 

[steveno]

you can trace Hitler's rise to power in the way the allies chose to punish Germany after world war one. there was something like 440 clauses in the Versaille treaty and over 400 of them was to penalize Germany. no country was going to survive that and that gave Hitler his platform. after that it was only a matter of time for world war two to happen

 

[cmort666]

Hitler would never have come to power in Germany if he managed it is because of the time European democracies have lacked courage and practiced against the actions of the Nazis demons ostrich policy
they ignored the terrible threat to the freedom of nations.

Had Britain and France backed the Czechs to the hilt during the Sudeten Crisis, things would have been very different.

The Czechs were in strong defensive positions, and had BETTER tanks than the Germans... which the Germans subsequently used to invade Poland, Belgium and France.

I doubt the Germans would have been willing to FIGHT for the Sudetenland.

Britain and France were willing to give away a big chunk of somebody ELSE'S country for "peace in our time", but they paid the price when those Czech machineguns, tanks and airplanes that COULD have been used against the Germans were instead used BY the Germans.

 

[cmort666]

you can trace Hitler's rise to power in the way the allies chose to punish Germany after world war one. there was something like 440 clauses in the Versaille treaty and over 400 of them was to penalize Germany. no country was going to survive that and that gave Hitler his platform. after that it was only a matter of time for world war two to happen

The Versailles treaty was the worst of all possible worlds.

It was just harsh enough to make the Germans resentful, but not harsh enough to prevent them from acting on that resentment.

When the Germans entered the Rheinland, they should have been stomped flat. When they weren't, they knew the sky was the limit.

 

[jmace57]

My father was there too (a BAR man in the 76th infantry division). In his later life (he passed away 3 months ago), every time he would walk outside when it was cold, he would say "this reminds me of the Winter of '44...I've never been so cold". He said the communications guys would string their wires through the fingers of the frozen bodies to keep the wires out of the snow. He got the Bronze Star and was wounded in Jena, Germany.

 

[Fuch]

My father was there too (a BAR man in the 76th infantry division). In his later life (he passed away 3 months ago), every time he would walk outside when it was cold, he would say "this reminds me of the Winter of '44...I've never been so cold". He said the communications guys would string their wires through the fingers of the frozen bodies to keep the wires out of the snow. He got the Bronze Star and was wounded in Jena, Germany.

honor and respect for your father