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Hi

I tried to post this a few days ago but it does not seem to have worked - my apologies if it is somewhere I have not noticed.

I am pleased to see that KP will include at least one TAO2 scenario but could I suggest adding couple of Bulge scenarios that I have not seen on any computer wargame yet. First the "small solution" that the generals tried to persuade Hitler was a better option. This involved an attack North of Aachen to link with a thrust from the normal Bulge attack area. The scenario would have to include areas on the map to the North of Aachen and possibly some more British units. The VP locations should be geared to the revised objectives and Patton would take longer to have an impact. This could be quite a challenging scenario for the Allies.

My second suggestion would be to review some of the comments by German generals such as Blumentritt as to what resources would have been required to give the offensive a real chance to reach Antwerp and build a scenario including these. These could be provided for the scenario by taking more real German Divisions from the Eastern Front and Italy. This is actually what Gen Hodges G2 (Intel Officer) reported was happening when he told Hodges and Montgomery on 26th Dec that there were up to another 20 German Divisions, in addition to the 20+ already identified, poised to join the offensive. This helps explain why Hodges and Montgomery delayed the launch of their counter-offensive in the North until they saw whether these Divisions were to be committed. This again would make a very challenging scenario for the Allied player.

Mike

The game has an editor - including a map editor.

If more units are removed from the eastern front it will collapse faster - and the war might end before christmas.

Hi Mike

Strange you should mention this but those were the two very scenarios I am toying with at present. I have fond memories of both from one of Sid Meier's earliest games: Crusade in Europe. Whether I actually see either to fruition is another thing ;( Right now I am more inclined to go with the 'small soloution' so I will keep looking into it.

On the Blumentritt comments, I would tend to go along with Joe's opinion and that is any weakening of the Eastern Front would simply have caused that front to collapse faster. Having said that, it has always occurred to me that the resources alotted to the adjoining offensive "Nordwind" could better have been used to support the Bulge?

I guess we will never know except via these boardgames (god bless them).

Brubaker

Hi
It is of course correct to say that stripping more divisions from Italy and the East merely hastens the collapses there but let's face it the war was not winnable anyway so there was no sensible strategy other than surrender. The Blumentritt proposal is an interesting "what if" to see whether Allied air power could offset a more numerous attack by effective German ground forces.

Blumentritt proposed a spearhead of 4 x Panzer(Pz) plus 2 x Motorized Infantry (MI). Mainly thrusting through St Vith
A Northern Group of 1 x Pz and 2 x MI
A Southern Group of 4 x Pz or 4 x MI
Defensive Northern cover 7 x Infantry
Defensive Southern Cover 12 x Infantry

Reserves 2 x Pz, 1 x MI, 6 - 12 Infantry

It is interesting that Hodges Intelligence Officer (Col Dickson) was actually reporting that such a force (up to 50 Divisions strong) had been assembled! In practice the German had around 30 available but used some for Nordwind.

I do not agree that Nordwind was necessarily a bad idea - the Allies coped with it because Ultra gave them warning of it.

Returning to the "small solution" is there practical limit on map sizes for KP? Obviously including the attack North of Aachen would require a larger map.

mike

Interesting idea, I also thought if somebody would create such "what if"-scenarios for TAO/KP.
As for the small solution, I always thought Model´s plan was to drive north and northwest out the Malmedy area towards Maastricht to encircle Aachen mainly from the south. Thus this plan could still have been an option after the Germans realised that the big offensive would not be successful. The option was forbidden by Hitler of course.
If that what I´ve read in a book about Model is true, most of the battlefield would already be on the existing map - and the participating units would not change too much, too.

Hmm, Wallenstein first, I believe the small soloution involved two prongs both from north and south, with Leige and Maastricht as the meeting point, trapping the US first Army. I would be delighted to hear from anyone who has some factual info on this.

Overall, it seems like it was a plan that may have worked! The Allied forces around Aachen were veteran to be sure but also had been fighting for sometime. They were equipped for a fight but perhaps not in the mood for it? I great 'what-if' scenario I think. I don't think Hitler actually forbade it as such, but more decided to go ahead with another 1 of the 5 possible choices, that is, his :rolleyes: How unusual

MIke I didn't actually say Nordwind was a bad idea (maybe you didn't mean me?). In actual fact, had the bulge played out a little differently then Nordwind would have been a beautiful counterpunch to accompnay the first. When I said about wondering about the resource use, what I meant was not the units themselves so much but more the logistical support. I have often wondered if the extra logistics would have made any difference if husbanded and fed into the battle.

A frustrating part of the whole Bulge operation is (to me) the way the 12th SS was held up at Elseborn and then Malmedy, in the end becoming a non-event (impact wise). The first thing we tend to do in these simulations is move the HJ further south and avoid the Elseborn defensive position. I wonder if that was not really feasible in the context of the battle and if it is something that we wargamers do unrealistically? I would think that the HJ supporting the 1st SS might just have reached Leige?

Brubaker

Hi Brubaker

I am not sure that extra Logistics would have much helped the Axis in the Bulge - their problem was lack of road space not lorries and supplies. Even before the weather cleared, the Allies were bombing the rail heads etc (even St Vith after it fell) using navigation aids. If you look at the photos of St Vith taken from the air you can see why the Germans had to divert their supplies round it - there is a sea of craters. Personally I think there was a good argument for not defending Bastogne to the extent of being surrounded in it. If it fell supplies could have been interdicted through it by bombing (Patton's initial proposal was not to hold out there but he was vetoed by Bradley). That strategy would have enable Patton to attack the shoulder of the Bulge further to the East which was actually poorly defended. This in my view was one of the big "lost opportunities" and occurred on the Southern as opposed to the Northern flank so it tends not to be written about much as Patton has come to be perceived as the real winner of the whole battle.

Capturing Liege was never one of the initial German targets although Eisenhower still thought it had been in his first writings after the war. Hitler, correctly in my view, ordered the Panzers to avoid city fighting as he had very bad experience of this in Russia - the Stalingrad offensive (Case Blau) was initially delayed by the Panzers getting bogged down in Voronezh. All the German variants had the attack passing South of Liege - Hodges piled up a lot of Divisions to protect Liege which was probably sensible but actually unnecessary.

I am not sure about diverting 12thSS - a lot of Allied Divisions were involved in defending Elsenborn and these could have caused problems on the German flanks if they had not been attacked so heavily.

mike

BrubakerII, the information I have is taken from a book biography about Model written by guy called Walter Görlitz. The small solution is described as Model´s favored plan with basically the same attacking forces. Hitler wanted the large scale offensive instead and forbade any other variants, especially because Model was known to be rather stubborn....at least on the battlefields. However I must add that the Ardennes offensive and its variants are not covered in detail...

I agree, I think that a scenario for Model's small solution might be an interesting one- maybe no strategic victory, but certainly a large operational one. I also spent a lot of time on Google trying to find something of the battle history of the 12th SS in the Ardennes. Not much, although I did find out that many of the members were fresh from the Hitler Jugend in the fall of 1944 when the division went through refit. Apparently they beat themselves up against the 1st INF arty and anti-tank guns for the first four days, lost 44 tanks and assorted stuff and got pulled back. I think another interesting sceanario might be Peiper's march. What if he had continued north from LaGleize? There was supposedly a large fuel dump up that way.

Originally posted by BrubakerII
<snip> A frustrating part of the whole Bulge operation is (to me) the way the 12th SS was held up at Elseborn and then Malmedy, in the end becoming a non-event (impact wise). The first thing we tend to do in these simulations is move the HJ further south and avoid the Elseborn defensive position. I wonder if that was not really feasible in the context of the battle and if it is something that we wargamers do unrealistically? I would think that the HJ supporting the 1st SS might just have reached Leige?

Brubaker

Interesting point. I have read Michael Reynolds Men of Steel I SS Panzer Corps, The Ardennes and Eastern Front 1944-45 in which he quotes Herman Priess, Comader of I SS Pz Corps as stating,

"transfer our attack sector farther to the south because the territory in that region was more open and because more and better road were available."

So your point about transferring HJ to the south is not unrealistic the Corps commander wanted to do this but was straight-jacketed by higher HQ.

Also, personally I do not think any of the games covering the Battle of the Bulge model the supply situation real well. For example the 2nd US Infantry Division was in the process of attacking towards the Roer Dams when the Ardennes Offensive began and it was being supplied by just one road ( a dirt road at that) which ran parrallel to the positions held by the 99th Infantry Division. In A Time for Trumpets, The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge, the author, Charles B. MacDonald states,

" in capturing Bulligen, Kampfgruppe Peiper had seeminlgy trapped the bulk of the 2nd and 99th Infantry Divisions. Most of the men, most of the artillery pieces and most of the supporting tanks were located somewhere along or near the road leading northeast from Bullingen through the twin villages of Krinkelt-Rocherath and the forest near the road junction of Wahlerscheid."

Granted for the TAO2 and for the update included with Korsun Pocket the map scale (unless it has changed from TAO2) precludes this. However, not to plug another company even HPS Bulge '44 does not have a realistic enough supply model to make such a scenario happen. The thing to keep in mind is that two regiments of the 2nd Inf had been heavily engaged assualting pillboxes on 12 December, and although I do not have any references to back this statement up, it is not a leap of faith to presume these units were low on supply.

Hi Nickel
You can read a fair amount about the actions of 12th SS in the interview conducted with Dietrich's Chief of Staff, Kramer, after the war. This is included in the book "Hitler's Ardennes Offensive" edited by Danny Parker. Kramer gives 12th SS losses in Panzers as around 30 plus 30 other armoured vehicles.

In considering "what ifs" you could also examine the forces that the Generals were actually given versus what they were originally promised e.g. 7th Army was supposed to have 6 infantry Divisions and one Panzer formation at the outset. They did get reinforcements subsequently but actually started with only 4 infantry Divisions with no Panzer formation and mainly horse drawn artillery rather than assault guns. They still managed to hold up Patton so that his forecast of relieving Bastogne in 4 days stretched out to 7, what might they have done with the planned resources?

mike

On the topic of the (comparitive) experince of the 12th SS, I seem to remember reading in another title that the 12th SS were the first to experience the proximity fused artillery of the Americans and were shattered accordingly This might have been mentioned in M Reynolds book about Peiper but I am not sure. At any rate, if teh HJ had indeed been able to follow closely behind the LAHSS I am sure it would have produced a different (minor) outcome. I say that because then Peiper might have had the full support of the other LAHSS units instead of 'capturing' towns and then leaving them unattended (ala Stavelot/Trois Ponts) which had such unfortunate (for him) repercussions.

Overall it is ironic the the German Panzer Commanders who in Russia had such massive victories due to the space they had to manoevre in, had such devastating force at their command and really nowhere to deploy it.

I too think the small soloution is an excellent battle to simulate because lets face it even if the Gemrans came close to surrounding the million odd Allied men deployed around Aachen it would have thrown the Allied High Command into a panic never seen before. A million men. Think about it.

Brubaker

I think there were somewhat less than 1m Allied troops around Aachen - probably about half that number. Since the Germans were attacking with just about 250k it would have been a moot point as to who was actually being surrounded!

The Germans had not really got a plan as to how they would have forced the Allies potentially pocketed at Aachen to surrender. It took the Russians a long time to reduce the 250k Axis in Stalingrad.

In fact the German force surrounding Bastogne was less than the numbers inside after most of Panzer Lehr moved on towards the Meuse. The cutting off could probably have been avoided if Patton's army had kept 4th Armoured in the position it had obtained on the Arlon Bastogne road by 19th Dec - in the event they pulled it back several miles, including withdrawing some units out of Bastogne, and then had to fight their way through again.

By the way does KP have facilities for supply by air to pocketed troops?

mike

Originally posted by mcaryf
I think there were somewhat less than 1m Allied troops around Aachen - probably about half that number. Since the Germans were attacking with just about 250k it would have been a moot point as to who was actually being surrounded!

:p I suppose a million was a little overzealous :rolleyes: Taking into account bits and pieces of armies other than the 1st US, and including a whole pile of rear echelon troops, a 1/2 mill sounds closer to the truth.

Some other points that would have made the battle interesting are (in my opinion), that the pocket would have been within constant range of a LOT of German artillery and also that the Luftwaffe actually had numbers of aircraft available for the battle that they had not had for quite some time. This would have made airsupply difficult I think.

Which brings me to your question Mike - does KP have the facility for air-resupply? Why yes it does! In fact the editor allows for five different levels/types of supply 'head', and each of those types can be modified to be (for instance) not affected by enemy troops, dissapear when captured, supply the enemy when captured, cease supply when enemy in [x] range and then continue after, etc. Overall a choice for virtually any modifictaion you could want.

As to the way it is set up in the shipped version of Korsun, I think it is set to provide air supply on a dwindling capacity, with capture or enemy ZOC casuing it to cease altogether.

Brubaker