Correction to my post yesterday.John Hilly wrote: There was 900. Panzer Lehr Brigade in Heeresgruppe Mitte during Operation Typhoon in 1941.
It was 900. Lehr Motorized Brigade.
J-P
Correction to my post yesterday.John Hilly wrote: There was 900. Panzer Lehr Brigade in Heeresgruppe Mitte during Operation Typhoon in 1941.
Hi JustinYT, welcome to the forum. I haven't studied this subject in depth yet but I did visit Mt Ormel not so long ago and I'm obviously aware of the ferocious battle that took place there. What I'm not clear on is if the German fight to keep the gap open was an organised one from a higher command or just more piecemeal with scattered units just fighting their own way out. Is the account of the 12th's participation from Hubert Meyer's book or is there corroborating evidence that the 12th did this in an organised way from another source ? I'm sure I've seen claims from other units that they helped keep the gap open so I'd like to understand if these claims are valid or not. I know you mention the 1st and the 9th but were there no Heer units doing this also? Does anyone else have a book recommendation on the subject ? An 'unbiased' one preferably so I can discount those that puff up their own Divisions importance.JustinYT wrote:New here but was browsing through the posts an read this one, so thought I'd make this my first post. the SS were a big part of keeping the Falaise Pocket open so that the rest of the retreating German Army could escape. Groups like the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, 9th SS Panzer Division "Hohenstaufen", and the 1st SS Panzer Division were among the SS units that were critical in keeping the gap in the pocket open. Even though it was more of a fighting retreat you'd have to consider what they were able to do a victory since none of the units were any where near full strength, and the fact that they were in constant fighting while being hit with constant artillery as the 12th was and allied planes hitting them all the time. The 12th after slipping out of the gap attempted to counter attack from outside the pocket but had to retreat due to the American 3rd Army attacking them from behind. So what the SS units did by keeping the gap open would be a victory because if they would of been trapped and destroyed/captured the Ardennes Offensive would not of been possible.
He did not come close to getting Antwerp at all. 12th SS was stopped dead in its tracks, Peiper did not manage to reach the Meuse. If (and that's allready a big "if") they had ever managed to reach the Meuse and actually cross it, his remaining Panzers would have to cross another 130km to Antwerp through open plains with no protection against allied fighterbombers and those who managed to survive that would have to capture a complete town with harbor before "getting" Antwerp.JustinYT wrote:Hi Sid, I think escaping the Falaise gap so that they could later launch the Ardennes offensive does help, dont forget just how close Peiper came to getting Antwerp which was the stated goal for the offensive.
Antwerpen and Stoumont are separated by 170 km, for a Panther tank on straight open roads without opposition and enough fuel (!!!) a four to five hour ride, but with the narrow twisty Ardennes roads from Stoumont to the Meuse more like seven to eight hours. Of these 170 km some 130 km would have led Peiper through open terrain north of the Meuse which would have been a field day for the allied airforce like it was in Normandy. Whatever would have managed to survive and would have managed to reach Antwerp would have been far to weak to actually take the town and its port. Now, you can ignore all those factors and claim that it would have been a 2 hour walk in the park but you're only fooling yourself.JustinYT wrote:well Peiper got to somewhere outside of Stoumont which is about a 2 hours from Antwerp, during the winter maybe 3 or 4, the Ardennes offensive wasnt about destroying the Americans or Allies as much as it was about retaking the Antwerp port and cutting off the only deep harbor available that allowed the Allies to continue their push on Germany. If you look at what the plan was, to cut the Allies in two, retake Antwerp harbor an put the Allies in a worse position since their supply lines an mostly their ability to bring up more troops was not where it needed to be. So yeah they got pretty close to where they needed to be.
Not to mention probably at the limit of the Panther's very finicky and fragile final drives.Harro wrote: Antwerpen and Stoumont are separated by 170 km, for a Panther tank on straight open roads without opposition and enough fuel (!!!) a four to five hour ride
Well, Falaise was a complete disaster for Nazi Germany, and essentially signified the Wehrmacht's almost-complete evacuation from occupied France. Fifty-thousand casualties is nothing to dismiss, and the losses in material and armored vehicles were devastating. On the plus side, a lot of German senior commanders were able to slip away to fight another day.I think escaping the Falaise gap so that they could later launch the Ardennes offensive does help
We have a thread on a performance comparison between the Fifth Panzer Army and the SS Sixth Panzer Army called "Performance of Heer and Waffen-SS in the Bulge" and located at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 0&t=194015...dont forget just how close Peiper came to getting Antwerp which was the stated goal for the offensive.
Agree with you that there are some pretty wide disparities in the 12th SS manpower strength post Normandy. The lowest figures (e.g. 650 men) are probably for combat troops and exclude service and support troops. The number also probably increased as scattered Hitlerjugend troops managed to regroup. At any rate, by the first week of Sept when the unit was in Germany it was pretty clear the division had lost over 9,000 men in the campaign.I've seen different accounts of the 12th's losses in Normandy from only having a few hundred men to it having about 12,000 men according to Kurt Meyes report on casualties, it did though loose almost or all it's tanks and artillery, so the 12th was not destroyed but more it was hurt far worse in the Ardennes offensive and was never able to recover after.