(5/6) tanks! battle of the bulge
Middleton, headquartered in Bastogne, was awakened by a guard and could hear the guns from there. There was also a mismatch between the quality of their armored and SS formations, which fought well, and that of their regular infantry units, which consisted largely of poorly trained and poorly motivated replacements. For their part, the German forces were hampered by a lack of adequate preparatory reconnaissance. The 106th was later described as being "newly arrived and unpracticed", while the 28th had recently suffered heavy casualties in fighting to clear enemy forces from the Hürtgen Forest. 106th Division, located in the most exposed positions along the corps line, and the 28th Division took the brunt of the attack. By late afternoon the Germans had 14 divisions operating in the Ardennes, but the number would swell to an estimated 25 divisions with 600 tanks and 1,000 aircraft. The German goal was to separate the American forces from the British and Canadian forces, and take the important port city of Antwerp. on Saturday, 16 December, the Germans achieved almost total surprise in breaking through Allied lines, beginning what is commonly called the Battle of the Bulge. Ĭlervaux was the first tank battle of the Ardennes offensive and ended in total disaster for the Americans, who permanently lost nearly 60 tanks while the Germans lost only four. The battle has been referred to as the Luxembourg " Alamo". German forces encircled numerically inferior American forces, primarily from the 110th Regiment and the 109th Field Artillery Battalion, and quickly forced them to surrender. The Battle of Clervaux or the Battle for Clervaux (in English sources, Clervaux is occasionally called by the German name Clerf) was an opening engagement of the Battle of the Bulge that took place in the town of Clervaux in northern Luxembourg.