Re: Terrain Challenge #60 (Score: 1) by Heimdude on Wed May 02, 2012 12:55 am
A bit more:
Suddenly, with the commitment of the 21st Panzer and 25th Panzer Grenadier Divisions in the north, the entire American defensive effort appeared to be in grave danger. Nevertheless, for a time the Americans were able to hang on. In the center of the Lauterbourg salient, the heterogeneous collection of American units occupying old Maginot Line fortifications put up an energetic defense against somewhat listless German armor. Lack of proper reconnaissance as well as 79th Division minefields and artillery stalled the German tanks as did the weather, icy terrain, and the unexpected presence of Task Force Linden (42d Division) units. Meanwhile the remainder of Brooks' corps tried to hold the flanks at Gambsheim and in the Vosges, keeping the salient from caving in. Disturbed by the lack of progress on the 7th, Blaskowitz personally visited the Lauterbourg front tofind out what was holding up his panzer units, threatening to courtmartial all of the principal armor commanders for their lack of aggressiveness. Finally, on 9 January, Decker's armor pierced the VI Corps center, driving it back to the Haguenau forest and forcing Brooks to commit his final reserve, the 14th Armored Division, near the towns of Hatten and Rittershoffen. Here American tanks met German armor in towns, fields, and roads, and the bitter fighting continued. The VI Corps was battling for its life on three sides.
The battleground now began to resemble a general melee. Between 10 and 20 January General Smith's 14th Armored Division, which assumed operational control of assorted infantry units of the 242d and 315th Infantry above the Haguenau forest and was supported by most of its own artillery plus that of the 79th Division, fought a sustained action with Decker's panzers. The German commanders, in turn, reinforced the attacking troops on the night of 13-14 January with the 20th Parachute Regiment (7th Parachute Division), and on the 16th with the 104th Infantry Regiment (47th Volksgrenadier Division), thereby steadily raising the stakes of the contest. But along the entire front of the VI Corps, division and regimental commanders gradually lost control over the battle, and the struggle devolved into a fierce tactical conflict between opposing battalions, companies, platoons, and smaller combat units.
The heaviest fighting was concentrated in the two small Alsatian towns of Rittershoffen and Hatten, both just north of the Haguenau forest and a mile or so apart.(6) Chance and circumstance had led the Germans to seize the eastern sections of both towns and the Americans to occupy the western parts, making the fields and roads in between a no-man's land of artillery, antitank, and small-arms fire. Efforts by each party to cut the resupply routes of the other by armored sweeps continually failed in the face of strong tank, antitank, and artillery fire from both sides. The battle thus boiled down to a desperate infantry fight within the towns, with dismounted panzer grenadiers and armored infantrymen fighting side by side with the more lowly foot infantry.(7) Almost every structure was hotly contested, and at the end of every day each side totaled up the number of houses and buildings it controlled in an attempt to measure the progress of the battle. Often in the smoke, haze, and darkness, friendly troops found themselves firing at one another, and few ventured into the narrow but open streets, preferring to advance or withdraw through the blown-out interior walls of the gutted homes and businesses. Both sides employed armor inside the town, but the half-blind tank crews had to be protected by a moving perimeter of infantrymen and could only play a limited supporting role. In Hatten, even with strong infantry and artillery support, no German or American tanker dared push his vehicle around "the bend"- a slight turn in the town's marginally wider main street that was covered by several antitank weapons from both sides.
By 15 January, as the German commitment of infantry in the two towns escalated, the Americans found themselves increasingly on the defensive; resupply and the evacuation of casualties became major operations, as did the continual reorganization of their shrinking perimeters to consolidate the territory they were able to hold. As elsewhere the cold weather kept bodies from deteriorating, and the troops reached a consensus among themselves that no one would be evacuated for shock, since everyone who was left fell into that dubious category. Nevertheless, the American armored division and the attached infantry managed to hang on, completely stalling the Germans' main effort, but in the process they lost perhaps one-third of their combat strength in men and equipment.
An equally desperate fight took place in the Vosges between Mouterhouse and Baerenthal involving the 45th Division's 157th regiment and additional units of the 6th SS Mountain Division. Although the struggle lasted seven days, from 14 to 21 January, it began in earnest on the 15th when one of the 157th Infantry's battalions managed to penetrate the German defensive positions and the other battalions were unable to follow. During the next two days the German defenders, after unsuccessfully trying to push the battalion back, managed to surround it and cut it off from its sister units. This isolated force, made up of five companies (L, I, C, K, and G), hung on for three days while various elements of the 45th and 103d Divisions and the 36th Engineers tried unsuccessfully to break through the German blockade, continually hampered by sleet and blinding snowstorms as well as by severe shortages of artillery ammunition and other supplies. With food running low and their own small-arms and mortar ammunition growing short, the remaining soldiers of the 157th's trapped force formed a small defensive perimeter, placing the wounded in foxholes so that they could be cared for by those who were still fighting. On the 20th, the end was near. With only about 125 able-bodied soldiers left, the trapped infantrymen tried to infiltrate out. News of the Malmedy Massacre in the Ardennes had spread throughout the Seventh Army, and few wished to surrender to the SS troops. But in the end only two enlisted men reached Allied lines. Shortly thereafter the remainder of the regiment was withdrawn from the front for rest and refitting; the SS mountain unit was equally battered, however, and had to be taken out of the line several days later.
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