US 12th Army Group Intel

[GoodGuy]

While ppl are waiting for BftB to be polished, I'd like to post 2 interesting situation maps,
the originals can be viewed on the webpage of the Library of Congress.

12th Army Group situation map 1944, 16th of December, 1200 hrs,
declassified in 1979 (I think):

You can see that 12th Army Group didn't see the German units - which had been redeployed for the operation
in the Ardennes - on their "radars".

While this is a copy of the original situation map, I added some colors to mark 12th Army Group's sub sectors/units:

The blue sector:

• 1st Army's left flank formed by the US 7th Corps and US 5th Corps
  (Monschau area).

The green sector:

• 1st Army's right flank formed by 8th Corps, with only 4 Divisions guarding this large sector,
  where one or another division had to cover front sectors of up to 20-30 miles.

8th Corps' left flank was weak, namely the 106th Infantry division - this unit had to dance with the German push towards
St. Vith.

As you can see there was a lot of guesswork involved, as quite a few vital units (SS Pz Divisions etc.) are drawn with a question mark. This is very interesting, as the Germans deployed "ghost" HQs and skeleton units North West of Köln (Cologne) in broad daylight, to disguise the real position of their 6th Panzer Army (i marked the assumed positions with a light blue magnifier and circle).
US recon planes reported these locations, and it seems that these intel reports made it to the situation map on or right before the 16th of December.

US intel then thought that the bulk of the vital units, which were to engage under 6th Panzer Army's command (like 9th SS PzDiv, 1st SS Pz Div, 2nd SS Pz Div, 12th Pz Div), was still North East of Monschau - near Euskirchen - (GREEN magnifier), or even North West of Cologne (BLUE circle), in order to stem a possible US offensive in the Aachen sector.

By then, prior to 16th of December, most of 6th Panzer Army's units had already redeployed to the railway hub at Schleiden and even to another one further South West (Light Blue arrow).

The orange pin I added marks the location of LXVII Korps' field HQ, which had been established on 15th of December.
Most of its units had been deployed at the railway hub at Neuerburg and Prüm, the latter really close to the spearheading units of the US 106th Inf Div, which were occupying a small strip of the westwall. (see 2nd map, Prüm is right above the 26th Volksgrenadierdivision, the build-up pretty much happened in front of US 106th's toes).

While the two units drawn with a question mark (2nd Panzer Division, 560th Inf Division) reflect halfway correct assumptions, some of the Volksgrenadier-divisions (except for the 62nd VG Div and the 18th VG Div) and the FührerBegleitBrigade are nowhere to be seen on this map. The Panzer Lehr Division was assumed to be on R+R near the Saar area (RED magnifier - bottom right), and the 9th Panzer Division was assumed to have joined 10th SS way North of the Aachen sector (north of the light BLUE circle).

Indeed, the US troops must have been surprised, as they did not get to know about the fact that 3 German Armies were deployed in front of their toes - ready to start a thrust with a width of appr. 100 km. [:D]

[GoodGuy]

This next image is a copy of the situation map 24 hours later.

12th Army Group situation map 1944, 17th of December, 1200 hrs:

You can see that US intel still wasn't aware of the scope of the German offensive.

I added a light blue circle on this map, in order to mark that US intel correctly identified 12th SS Pz Div and 1st SS Pz Division, but the other core elements of the 6th Panzer Army still don't show up anywhere near the actual deployment areas.
Understandable, as they had been deployed by train at night and orders were given by despatch riders (motorbikes) - the recipients had to sign a receipt. Orders were usually given by encrypted radio messages, using the Enigma variants, but this time Bletchley Park could not delve into the few messages that could be narrowed down to the Rhein/Eifel area.

Also, all German units were ordered to remove insignias and unit designations prior to the launch of the offensive, motorized or armored units had to use paint to cover unit designations, in order to disguise their origin and the scope of the operation. So, it was pretty hard for the US units on the ground to gather more information about the composition or aim/purpose, even after the offensive started. On top of that, the bad weather (fog) delayed recon flights.

The colored sections (blue/green) mark the territory held on 16th of December, where I'm not sure whether the situation map from 16th of Dec (1200 hrs) really reflects the actual situation, as the German offensive was already underway, for more than 6 hours in some sectors.

The black front line indicates that the US 106th Inf Div had been pushed back towards St.Vith.
The dark blue lines I added mark defensive or delaying actions performed by the 106th Inf Div. Its commanders had a hard time to coordinate and were rather inactive, which led to the encirclement and captivity later on.
The black front line also shows that the tiny bulge at Monschau (right next to the top left of the light blue circle) had been adjusted, the US 2nd Inf Div pulled back behind the westwall.