An Anglo-Canadian Battle of the Bulge: better or worse than the US troops?

[Von Schadewald]

If it had been the lot of the Anglo-Canadian divisions to draw the Ardennes front in December 1944, how would they have faired compared to the Americans?

The Anglos have less close in automatic fire power than the Americans (with their M3s, Thompsons, Garands, bazookas, M1919s, BARs, rifle-launched grenades, and Ma Deuces). Their 25pdrs have better fire control but a lower rate of fire than the US 90mm.

But they have better hot rations than the US troops, essential for morale in the coldest winter in Europe for a century.

Would Montgomery's superior Phantom recce unit have detected the German build up, to which the complacent Americans were oblivious.

Would Monty hold up any better to a surprise assault: panic in the lines, Firefly gearboxes breaking down, a panic rout or a retreat in order, or "we live or die amongst these Belgian pines: not one inch back!"?

Do the British manage to hold out at Bastogne like the Americans? Does the 6th Airborne get dropped on Bastogne?

Do the Germans manage to at least reach the Meuse if faced by Anglo-Canucks?

[Carl Schwamberger]

Not really the core questions. Or perhaps question. The battle was deeply shaped by the relative surprise within the US 1st Army. The G2 failed to anticipate or warn of the German threat. Im not the expert here, but over some five decades have run across many remarks about the division and corps G2 sections collecting and providing info about some sort of impending attack. There also have been criticisms of the 1st Army G2 officer or staff section being over reliant on ULTRA sourced information. Peresco in his account of OSS operations 1944-45 describes a OSS liasion team arriving at the G2 & being told they were not needed, & encouraged to depart. Then for what its worth there is the story about Patton, or the 3rd Army G2 anticipating the German offensive.

Bottom line is any other army, British, US, French, Canadian, is more likely to have a week or more warning of the attack and prepare a defense. The First Army was deployed in the offense on its left wing and the German attack came mostly on the right which had a relatively thin screen.

So, that's your first major difference. The right wing reinforced and reserves repositioned. On the game board that is a fast way to stuff the entire German offensive. The 'Bulge' games are not the last word on this. But backstopping the 106th, 28th infantry division with another infantry division and a armored division slows things way down for the grey and black game pieces. My best guess is the Brits see the oncoming attack, brace for it, and it fails with losses similar to OTL.

[Sheldrake]

The setting of the Battle of the Bulge occurs because of the force imbalance between the Germans and the Western Allies.

In Winter 1944-45 the allies are on the strategic offensive. Although they have massive superiority in the phyiscal component of fighting power, this is in the form of firepower and logistic resources. The Western Allies do not have more than rough parioty in troop[ numbers. In order to attack they need to concentrate to achieve local superiority. In ordere to create a main effort in e.g. the Reichswald, the Huertgen forest or the Saar land So the line needs to be thinned out somewhere else. The Ardennes is not a bad place. Any incursion can be sealed off and allied firepower can kill Germans if the Germans were dumb enough to poke a hole in this strategically unimportant terrain.

German tactical surprise did not alter this crude truth.

Would the results have been different if it had been a British secondary theatre? Say manned by rebuilding formations and assorted allied brigade groups - the Belgians, Czechs, Dutch and Poles? One parallel is from March 1918 on the Western Friont whenn the allies expected the Germans to launch an offensive after winning the Eastern Front and before the US could get involved. The BEF was weaker than in 1917 and deliberately weakened the rightmost Fifth army in ordee to be strong around Ieper and Arras. There was a big bulge. Lots of British troops were captured, but the Germans were held.

[Kingfish]

Their 25pdrs have better fire control but a lower rate of fire than the US 90mm.

Just curious, why this comparison?

To my knowledge the US 90mm was not used in an indirect role, and the 25 pdr certainly did not engage aircraft.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Referring back to the element of surprise, & effects of preparation. One of the bits of trivia is the 106th Inf Div had in its training back in the US been handed a 'retrograde' or fighting withdraw problem for its final field exercise. The division, regiment, and battalion command staffs rehearsed this multiple times in map and sand table exercises and did some small unit and the division size field exercises in this maneuver. This was precisely the manuver it needed to execute when the Germans attacked 16th December. Unfortunately that did not happen.

1. The 106th was ordered to occupy the positions of the 1st Inf Div "man for man and gun for gun. This started the division in the last attack positions the 1st Div had occupied two weeks earlier when that section of the Schnee Eifle was captured. This left the battalions of the 106th in a awkward position for receiving an attack. A experienced command might have done some adjustments, but Allan & his staff were not that far along.

2. The initial 12-15 hours of confusion, or failure to recognize the situation by 1st Army command left the 106th with the old orders to defend in place, and no fresh orders or guidance that recognized the true situation. That started the series of events that led to a third of the division being cut off and captured.

Again one has to consider a more alert army commander would have allowed the 106th to conduct a fighting withdrawal starting on the 16th. The maneuver it had last rehearsed a few months earlier. The adjacent 28th Inf Div on the commanders initiative did execute that maneuver and managed to get all three regiments away safely. The same problem existed for he 14th Cavalry Group covering the Losheim Gap. The standing orders from 1st Army left the 14th Cav in place until nearly destroyed. I have a strong feeling Patton, Dempsey, Simpson, Crear, or Patch would have all handled this better.

[Princess Perfume]

WI: there was no Battle of the Bulge?

OBWI: God/Fate/Whatever gives AH a fatal heart attack or stroke just as the sun is rising in Berlin on 5 June 1944?

[T. A. Gardner]

Let's assume that the British are deployed roughly equally to what the US had in the Ardennes at the time of the assault and that they get about equal intelligence warning of that assault. That would make it an 'apples to apples' comparison.

So, at the North end of the front would be 3 or 4 Infantry divisions with a cavalry reece regiment holding the front. At the southern end of Eisenborn ridge would be a territorial division that hasn't seen much combat (replaces the 99th ID).
Next, would be another cavalry reece regiment holding the front that 14th Cavalry Group had.
Below that is a territorial infantry division that is either brand new or has just had a heavy influx of replacements. It's been in position for a week at most.
Next up is a British infantry division that again has had a lot of replacements recently. It is spread over a very wide front.
There are three armoured divisions behind this front in reserve with the southern most one also holding some of the front itself.

The usual corps and army level units are available across the front that would normally be present with these units.

I suspect--surmise, think-- what would happen here is the two middle British infantry divisions would crumble under the assault just as the two American divisions did. This is particularly true of the one that replaces the 28th division and is spread very thin. Once that happens the Germans pour through just as they did historically.
The two armored divisions backing the front go forward to support the crumbling front but do so slowly and cautiously. Like the two US armored divisions they keep running into advancing German panzers and in the confused fighting, are ordered to pull back and 'tidy up things.' The two, now badly beaten up infantry divisions just crumble. They are ordered to withdraw, and fresh units are ordered forward.
The problem is the British chain of command is plodding compared to the US one so these new divisions begin to move after several days of staff planning and such. Some smaller units are sent sooner, but they're nowhere near enough.
Bastogne likely--very likely--falls and there is no encirclement. St. Vith falls.

Monty decides to hold at the Meuse and sends his units there rather than forward into the fight. The engaged units are ordered to withdraw to the Meuse line and where possible are taken out of the line to reorganize and refit for reemployment.

The end result is Germany now has a large pocket and their forces are stopped at the Meuse. They begin to dig in for defense while the British start planning a counter offensive with the Americans. The German offensive fails.

The only difference I see is this time, the counter offensive takes place in January or February instead of immediately and the whole war is drug out into late summer, early fall 1945.

[Michael Kenny]

The problem is the British chain of command is plodding compared to the US one so these new divisions begin to move after several days of staff planning and such.

Can you tell us what Hodge's soldiers were doing whilst Monty was engaged in 'several days of planning' in December 1944?

[T. A. Gardner]

The problem is the British chain of command is plodding compared to the US one so these new divisions begin to move after several days of staff planning and such.

Can you tell us what Hodge's soldiers were doing whilst Monty was engaged in 'several days of planning' in December 1944?

My point was that the British don't improvise on the fly an offensive. You can't point to one such major action in the whole war. That's why I think the British wouldn't try and fight an improvised defense and would instead choose to pull back to a defensible line (the Meuse) where they have established a 'proper' defense.
Once the Germans were stopped, and they would be both by their own inertia and by British defenses, the British would start planning an offensive and building up for it.

[Michael Kenny]

My point was that the British don't improvise on the fly an offensive.

After GOODWOOD Monty had to 'improvise' an offensive(SPRING) to keep the Germans busy whilst Bradley belatedly started COBRA. The original plan was for COBRA to start whilst GOODWOOD was in play but Bradley had to postpone his part of the original offensive

[Carl Schwamberger]

WI: there was no Battle of the Bulge?

OBWI: God/Fate/Whatever gives AH a fatal heart attack or stroke just as the sun is rising in Berlin on 5 June 1944?

Ah, a digression.

On the game board this means two things. A. the forces are used for counter attacks against the intended Allied offensives in January. B. The forces are sent east to oppose the Soviet Army. I suspect A. is a wash, the historical outcome in 1945 is similar to OTL. B. on the game board means the Allied Armies are across the Rhine 4-8 weeks earlier that OTL, and can be in Berlin in April, or even March with luck.

[Princess Perfume]

3rd and last digression: Hans Baur gets to fly the six Goebbels children out of Berlin like he begged to.

[T. A. Gardner]

My point was that the British don't improvise on the fly an offensive.

After GOODWOOD Monty had to 'improvise' an offensive(SPRING) to keep the Germans busy whilst Bradley belatedly started COBRA. The original plan was for COBRA to start whilst GOODWOOD was in play but Bradley had to postpone his part of the original offensive

Oh, come on. Goodwood was about as set piece and planned as Alamein. It was the type of battle Monty was good at.

[T. A. Gardner]

Their 25pdrs have better fire control but a lower rate of fire than the US 90mm.

Just curious, why this comparison?

To my knowledge the US 90mm was not used in an indirect role, and the 25 pdr certainly did not engage aircraft.

Some US 90mm were used as artillery in the Ardennes based on their location and where the Germans were. They weren't used on any sort of a sustained basis, but rather on their immediate availability.

Something the US started doing about the time of the Ardennes offensive was using the SCR 584 sets that 90mm batteries had for fire control to track and plot the location of German artillery then either call in air strikes or counterbattery them with devastating accuracy. That radar could track the shells in flight and the operators could plot them back to the firing location with pinpoint accuracy.

One thing the US artillery could do that British couldn't (at least I don't recall that they did this) was the Time-on-Target barrage where numerous batteries were given firing plots for a target and then they would calculate the arrival time of their first salvo so that every shell from every firing battery arrived on the target within a few seconds of each other.

[Michael Kenny]

Oh, come on. Goodwood was about as set piece and planned as Alamein. It was the type of battle Monty was good at.

I might have gone better if Bradley had got to his start-line on time and initiated COBRA when the Germans were busy in the east.
However the point was that Monty had to QUICKLY plan and start another 'offensive' (SPRING) so that he could support his Ally-again!