Hitler’s Ardennes offensive was launched at 0530 on 16 December 1944. An intense artillery bombardment landed on unprepared American positions, and the German Infantry and Volksgrenadiers struck.
The Attack
The attack ran into problems from the start. The Volksgrenadier divisions weren’t structured or trained for offensive operations, despite this being the key requirement for infantry in the first stages of the battle.
Their struggles, combined with American resistance, slowed the German progress in breaking through American defences, and led to delays in the Panzer forces being able to move forwards. Obstacles such as minefields and blown bridges also prevented the Germans from getting a fast start to the attack.
The Terrain and its Challenges
Hitler chose the Ardennes for the attack in large part because the geography would restrict the Allied response. However, this would also affect his own forces.
The terrain was not well-suited to vehicles; heavily forested hills largely restricted off-road movement, and there were only a limited number of routes available. This allowed the Americans to predict avenues of attack, but also in some cases led to German units intersecting, causing confusion and slowing their movements.
The German plan relied on speed to reach their objectives before Allied reinforcements could arrive, so any delay was problematic. In addition, Allies could hold crossroads and towns, forcing the Germans to find alternative routes – using up fuel they didn’t have.
What should be clear however, is the total lack of armoured support these units would have. There simply was not the spare capacity to equip the existing units to their full strength let alone form new ones.
Peiper and his Tigers
Perhaps the most famous armoured unit taking part in the Battle of the Bulge was the 501st Heavy SS Tank Battalion, with its formidable Tiger IIs. This was assigned to Kampfgruppe Peiper, an improvised unit formed from parts of several of 6th Panzer Army’s armoured formations. On paper, the units making up the Kampfgruppe should have had around 180 tanks of all types. In reality they had perhaps half this number, of which around 30 were Tigers.
Peiper’s forces had a reputation for brutality on the Eastern Front and they brought this approach west with them. Their aim was to intimidate the Americans and spread fear and panic, encouraging them to flee rather than fight. Units in Kampfgruppe Peiper committed several war crimes, including the Malmedy massacre of American prisoners on 17 December. However, as news of these acts began to spread the result was in fact a hardening of American resistance and determination – the opposite effect to that Pieper intended.
Peiper knew he did not have enough fuel to reach his objective – the River Meuse – so he would have to capture American supply areas. Due to the terrain, ‘suitable for bicycles, not Panzers,’ and the low number of vehicles in the unit, the Kampfgruppe could not move quickly or across country – limiting their ability to outmanoeuvre the Americans. This was further compounded by traffic jams, strong US resistance and by American engineers planting mines and destroying bridges in their path.
Moving in the Wrong Direction
As the battle progressed, the Germans began to overwhelm American positions and advance. However, they were increasingly forced in the wrong direction.
In order to reach Antwerp, they would need to move north-west, but strong US resistance on the Elsenborn Ridge in the north of the battlefield forced the 6th Panzer Army to try to outflank it by moving south then west. Likewise, the US defence of the vital road junctions at St Vith and Bastogne in the south bought time and forced much of 5th Panzer Army to go in the wrong direction as well.
These delays meant Kampfgruppe Peiper was not able to reach its objectives. The extent of their advance was the village of La Gleize, where on 24 December, out of fuel and facing increasing American resistance, Pieper was forced to abandon his remaining tanks and retreat.
In the centre, 5th Panzer Army came close to the Meuse, reaching Dinant, but only in an increasingly narrow corridor threatened from north and south by Allied forces, and in limited strength. Faced with British forces on the other side of the river, this advance too had been stopped by Christmas Eve.
Panzer Brigade 150
Panzer Brigade 150 was a German armoured unit tasked with a special mission. Their objective was to quickly reach and capture bridges over the Meuse ready for the rest of the force to use.
A far smaller formation than the name suggested, they wore American uniform and had some captured vehicles as well as five Panthers mocked up to look like US M10 tank destroyers and five StuGs with white stars painted on them.
The aim of using American equipment (or, more commonly, German equipment painted in American Olive Drab paint) was mainly to hopefully allow them to get past unsuspecting US units without being fired on, although they were also tasked with spreading false information and misdirecting Allied units if possible.
Delays due to traffic jams meant they were unable to race ahead of the rest of the German force as intended. By 17 December their attempts to reach the Meuse and capture the bridges had been abandoned and they were forced to fight as a regular unit. They launched an unsuccessful attack on Malmedy on 21 December, but had to withdraw, at the cost of their disguised Panthers.
The End of the Panzerwaffe
German tank losses in the Ardennes were high. Just under half of the Panzer IVs that took part in the battle had been lost by 15 January 1945, along with 40 percent of the Panthers, perhaps 320 tanks in all.
Not all of these had been lost in combat. By this stage, breakdowns due to poor quality control during manufacture were increasingly common, as were those resulting from inexperienced and undertrained crews making mistakes. This was compounded by a limited number of recovery vehicles and spare parts within the German system, and, as the battle progressed, the fact that broken down German vehicles were increasingly stuck on ground retaken by the Americans.
The Battle of the Bulge effectively destroyed the German panzer force in the west. On 5 February 1945, they had just 190 tanks, 533 assault guns and 87 Panzerjägers operational on the entire Western Front, facing perhaps ten times that number of US and British tanks. The German tank threat was not over, and in small unit combat their vehicles were still a significant force, but between then and the end of the war in May it would only diminish further.
