So the Germans break through the Ardennes...

MacCaulay

Banned
...then what? I've had this rattling around in my head for awhile and then it got brought up in another thread.

Apparently Hitler really wanted to drive on Antwerp and take it to basically try and knock the Allied supply situation for a loop. Good plan, but to me it seems sort of like my initial plan in 2002 to marry Leelee Sobieski: awesome in idea, not so doable in execution.

After reading more into the 1944-45 stages of the war, I realized that even had the Wehrmacht and SS broken through the American lines and turned towards Antwerp, they would've had to face First Canadian Army which was rebuilt after the Battle of the Scheldt and most likely the best force Canada would ever field (even more capable in comparison to it's enemies than the Canadian Corps of WWI).

So...suppose the Germans break through in the Ardennes, with...I don't know...Kampfgruppe Peiper and 12th SS Panzer Division. Just what can they do then? Sure, they've broken through the lines. For the sake of historical reasoning, let's say they manage to make a speed run through Elsenborn Ridge and troops are kept their to keep the road open.

With roughly two weak divisions on the road to Antwerp, it just doesn't seem to me like the Germans can accomplish much except line the Canadians up for one final rematch with the 12th SS and Peiper, which it seems they were fated to fight from Normandy almost until the end of the war.
 
Much like Market-Garden, I think it Wacht am Rhein was one of those plans that sounds real good as a war winner, as in look how far we can go behind their lines, but in actuality there was no real follow up to if the plan succeeds. I highly doubt that after everything the WAllies went through to get there, that the Germans retaking Antwerp would cause the WAllies to sue for peace.

Leelee Sobieski?
 
Mac, you had the hots for Joan of Arc? Wow, the things you learn every day...

Anyway, on the matter of the Germans in the Adrennes- does the weather clear up on schedule?
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Perhaps she was the reason the Germans were heading for Antwerp? :p

:D I like that one. :D

Mac, you had the hots for Joan of Arc? Wow, the things you learn every day...

From Joan of Arc until about 2008 she wasn't Leelee Sobieski. I just called her "My Leelee" and all my friends knew who I was referring to.

Anyway, on the matter of the Germans in the Adrennes- does the weather clear up on schedule?

We'll say No. That would probably give the Germans a little bit of time.
 
From Joan of Arc until about 2008 she wasn't Leelee Sobieski. I just called her "My Leelee" and all my friends knew who I was referring to.
I suppose I'll comfort my terrified mind by considering the fact you spent at least some of those years far, far away from the woman.


We'll say No. That would probably give the Germans a little bit of time.
Oh, well, that does mess things up a bit. How long are we talking here? Is Hap Arnold going to be chewing the furnature in frustration over, say, a week?

I guess it depends on how much of the Allies supplies the Germans are able to get their hands on. They didn't have much gas to start with, and running headlong for Antwerp isn't going to help on that score.

Also, where the hell am I while this is going down?
 

MacCaulay

Banned
How wide of a front/space was First Canadian Army occupying?

If I'm not mistaken, they were trying to reposition themselves at that time for a move into Germany itself, so they were kind of north/south as opposed to east/west. I could be brainfarting here, though. I'm reading a book about the II Canadian Corps in Normandy right now and the book about the Battle of the Scheldt (which is what immediately preceeded this) is literally out of my reach on the top shelf of my bookshelf.

I can't get it without moving furniture and waking up everyone in the house. :rolleyes:

Oh, well, that does mess things up a bit. How long are we talking here? Is Hap Arnold going to be chewing the furnature in frustration over, say, a week?

Let's give 'em two days of your standard "overcast and dreary, school is let out 2 hours early" kind of weather.

I guess it depends on how much of the Allies supplies the Germans are able to get their hands on. They didn't have much gas to start with, and running headlong for Antwerp isn't going to help on that score.

I don't know how to get into details all at once, so let's just suppose there's enough for the panzers to have two full tanks of gas and the troops will have to ride on them or be on foot.

Also, where the hell am I while this is going down?

Dealing with cutting off the German thrust, I'd assume? Also...there's always those weird PODs that involve Patton getting killed: you know, "Patton's killed in a car wreck earlier", "Patton's killed by a Luftwaffe attack", etc.

Why doesn't anyone ever just go with "Patton finally pops that blood vessel in his brain that we all knew was ready to blow"? It's not like someone's actually going to stand up and say "That's totally illogical! He was a completely calm individual who was never close to a heart attack or anything in his life!"
 
Let's give 'em two days of your standard "overcast and dreary, school is let out 2 hours early" kind of weather.
Okay, two days. I think the Canadians can hold two days. Hell, I'm sure they can. They weren't exactly slouches, and the Germans don't really have any major depth to this offensive.
I don't know how to get into details all at once, so let's just suppose there's enough for the panzers to have two full tanks of gas and the troops will have to ride on them or be on foot.
I two tanks enough to fight for a significant period? I'm not all that up on Nazi tank fuel efficency, but tanks, as a rule, are guzzlers, doubly so when running around and trying to kill people.

But assuming two full tanks is enough, I still don't see them breaking the Canadians, who aren't in the same condition as the forces the Germans have been running over for the first part of this offensive.

And even if they do, so what? They get to Antwerp, cool. The weather is still going to clear up, and the Luftwaffen is in no shape to stop 8th AAF from coming back with blood in its eye.

Dealing with cutting off the German thrust, I'd assume? Also...there's always those weird PODs that involve Patton getting killed: you know, "Patton's killed in a car wreck earlier", "Patton's killed by a Luftwaffe attack", etc.

Why doesn't anyone ever just go with "Patton finally pops that blood vessel in his brain that we all knew was ready to blow"? It's not like someone's actually going to stand up and say "That's totally illogical! He was a completely calm individual who was never close to a heart attack or anything in his life!"
Because offing people by heart-attack or brain embolism is so inelegant. It smacks of lazy, 'could happen to anyone' writing, fairly or unfairly. I can kill anybody with a heart attack, but only a few people can get strafed by Adolf Galland.
 
So aside from the Luftwaffe pulling a Rommel on Patton...:D

I would imagine that if anybody could knife their way through the First Canadian Army, it would be Peiper. Two Kampfgruppen shouldn't require that big of an area to break through the Canadians. I wouldn't want to be on the recieving end of Panther tanks, veteran SS infantry and self-propelled artillery, all in the middle of winter after having been just recently brought back up to strength.

There better be a damn good reason to retake Antwerp.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Okay, two days. I think the Canadians can hold two days. Hell, I'm sure they can. They weren't exactly slouches, and the Germans don't really have any major depth to this offensive.


...

And even if they do, so what? They get to Antwerp, cool. The weather is still going to clear up, and the Luftwaffen is in no shape to stop 8th AAF from coming back with blood in its eye.

I'm wondering if there's going to be enough Germans left for the air forces to even brag about.

It kind of occurred to me just what the units and commanders are here: Kampfgruppe Peiper and 12th SS Panzer Division were under the overall command of Sepp Dietrich, for all intents and purposes one of the best tankers in the SS.

So what we're positing here is that they break through and drive towards Antwerp with at least a fair gas supply along the way.

Waiting for them is First Canadian Army, and Harry Crerar who has just returned from sick leave. But his II Canadian Corps commander is Guy Simonds, who defeated 12th SS Panzer Division when it was still a part of I SS Panzer Corps in Normandy. This is the man who went toe-to-toe and tank-to-tank with Dietrich from the Juno Beach to Falaise, but then he was fresh and still learning. Now, Simonds has been through the toughest fighting of the Northwest European Campaign (digging the Germans out of the Scheldt Estuary north of Antwerp), and the Canadian Army is the sharpest it'll ever be.


Behind the Germans is Patton and Third Army, ready to slam the door shut and close them off as soon as the weather clears or (knowing Patton) possibly before.

It's kind of weird: in Normandy, the 12th SS managed to pull of the coup of escaping with a fair amount of it's men from the Falaise Pocket. But this time seems like it would be different: they'd have Simonds to their front and Patton to their back and nowhere left to run. It's like II Canadian Corps would get the chance to finish what it hadn't been able to at Falaise.



...oh...why am I already writing a story!!! This one smacks of awesome!!!
 
Wasn't Skorzeny also nominally in charge of a Kampfgruppe during Wacht am Rhein? Imagine Skorzeny and Peiper under Dietrich's command, going toe-to-toe with Patton and Simonds. This has epic levels of awesome written all over it.:D
 
Well, I would imagine that if they did somehow manage to fight their way all the way to Antwerp, it would have cost them so much as to be a phyrric victory.

Possible POD: WI McAuliffe gets hit by a stray arty shell or something at the opening of the seige of bastogne, and thus someone is put in charge who is more willing to surrender once the door gets shut on the city. Who would have taken command had McAuliffe been incapacitated or killed? Abrams or Roberts?
 
Even if they had managed to break through at the Ardennes they'd have had to cross the Meuse at either Liege or Namur - both of which were occupied by XXX Corps, which Monty had been moving into place along the river since he first heard about the start of the German offensive. There isn't a snowball's chance in hell of Hitler capturing Antwerp. Monty may have been an egocentric prig, but he was a good general and certainly no Gamelin. :rolleyes:
 
Even if the Germans had managed to get through to Antwerp they had removed resources from other fronts in order build up for the offensive. If anything a more successful Battle of the Bulge could speed up the collapse in the east. On a personal note any surrender at Bastogne could well butterfly me out of existence.
 
Even if they had managed to break through at the Ardennes they'd have had to cross the Meuse at either Liege or Namur - both of which were occupied by XXX Corps, which Monty had been moving into place along the river since he first heard about the start of the German offensive. There isn't a snowball's chance in hell of Hitler capturing Antwerp. Monty may have been an egocentric prig, but he was a good general and certainly no Gamelin. :rolleyes:

Montgomery in front and on the flank of the SS, Patton to their rear - the egos alone will be enough to surround the SS. :)

Seriously though, how many Allied divisions and lesser formations will be surrounding Pieper and the 12th SS? Not to mention the Canadians will have a bone to pick with the 12th SS. (Unlike some of today's Canadians, they won't have hero worship for the 12th SS. They'll be out for revenge.) In real life, Pieper's men abandoned their vehicles and retreated on foot after being surrounded.

With Antwerp being a port, there will also be the Allied navies to contend with.
 

Deleted member 1487

Yeah the breakthrough idea was hare-brained. They should have performed an encirclement battle to chop off and destroy an army...or just sent it all East to fight the Soviets, where they would have done Germany the most good. Better to have the West occupy Germany than the Soviets.
 
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