BC WAR
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1 of 19: TANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE

You crazy for this one, #TankTwitter

The Battle of the Bulge was among the largest tank battles in US history.

[If you are here seeking something other than straightforward analysis of a historical event, please look elsewhere]

 2 of 19:

After the war, a narrative developed that American tank units (7th, 9th, 10th Armored Divisions, in particular) overcame a German tank superiority in the Battle of the Battle.
[3 of 19] We'd like to put that idea to the test.

We've discussed Kampfgruppe Peiper outmaneuvering our tanks early on with the newest German tank, the 70-ton Tiger II.

The remaining German forces had the Tiger I and Panzers.
[4 of 19]

Lt. Colonel Robert Erlenbusch commanded company A, 31st Tank Battalion in St. Vith during the fighting. After the war, he wrote a paper for III Corps in which he stated that German Panther and Tiger tanks were far superior to the American Sherman and Stuart tanks.
[5 of 19]

American tanks had success in Ardennes only if they hit "lucky shots" according to Erlenbusch. Many historians still reference Erlenbusch's findings.
[6 of 19]

But, while the Tiger tank had a better gun (88m) and better armor than ours, our Sherman tanks may have actually had superior combat performance in the Ardennes for offensive operations.

Why do we say that? Well, 4 points here.

Ready? Let's get into 'em.
[7 of 19]

Point 1: the German Tiger I and II, the new tanks Peiper rolled out, were "maintenance dogs." They broke down all the time!
[8 of 19]

It didn't help that Germans put their newest, least experienced troops in their newest tanks & that the Tiger II was very difficult to recover, often taking 1 or 3 recovery vehicles to move each tan
[9 of 19]

Point 2: the Tigers were fuel hogs. ANY army would have had trouble keeping a tank force that size refueled with those gas guzzlers. Tiger II tanks consumed two gallons per mile!
[10 of 19]

Point 2: the Tigers were fuel hogs. ANY army would have had trouble keeping a tank force that size refueled with those gas guzzlers. Tiger II tanks consumed two gallons per mile!
[11 of 19]

Still Point 2: Look, there is a reason Nazi loser group Kampfgruppe Peiper withdrew on foot. They had no gas and their tanks were broken!
[12 of 19]

Point 3: the German tanks had a slow-turning power traverse turret (slow due to the heavy weight of the turret) while the lighter Shermans' power traverse turret moved easy and quickly.
[13 of 19]

Still Point 3: In a tank-on-tank fight, the lighter American tanks were just much faster. (Take a look at the 2014 movie "Fury" starring the super-handsome Brad Pitt & you'll see what we mean)
[14 of 19]

Point 4: We had better mobility (many will debate us here). Remember the Rick Atkinson line: "In battle, topography is fate." The Germans were trying to cross Class 20 bridges over bad/narrow Belgium roads with 70-ton tanks. Bridges collapsed, tanks flipped, got stuck
[15 of 19] Point 4 cont: Many German tankers preferred the lighter Mark V Panther medium tank as it was light enough to drive off-road while the heavier Tigers were restricted to roads and heavy bridges, making them easy targets for anti-tank teams and eventually Allied airpower.
[16 of 19]

Many historians are enamored with the Tiger and Panzer tank. But, we had better mobility & better reach (less fuel required).

Also, if you hit a Tiger tank on the side or even better in the rear, you could kill it.
[17 of 19]

Having a heavy tank is great, but if it doesn't work when your track brakes and you now have an expensive pillbox with poorly trained infantry inside.
[18 of 19]

So that's it. That's the story.

Part of this is a naked attempt to appeal to the rest of #TankTwitter and engender support for our history threads.

But mostly this is thoughtful analysis and research.
[END]

So, over to the self-crowned heavyweight champions of #TankTwitter, @PatDonahoeArmy, @Mother_of_Tanks, @TomHeartsTanks, and @TradocDCG [please tag all the others we don't know about]. What do you think about all this? What do you have for the people?

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Yesterday we announced the launch of The Doomsday Clock, an original 18th Airborne Corps podcast series telling the incredible story of the Corps' Cold War history.

Today we're going to tell you more about some of the guests who will appear on the program.

[1 of 10]


[2 of 10]

Of course, we'll have John Lewis Gaddis, the dean of Cold War historians about the start and end of American confrontation with the Soviets (Episode 16: April 27).


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We'll also have the great H.W. Brands to talk about the Korean War and the stare down between Truman and MacArthur (Episode 7: February 23).


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Podcast king Dan Carlin joins us for a deep, dark journey into the philosophy of the Soviet Union (Episode 9: March 9).


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You know Sir Max Hastings as the great historian, but long before that he was a war reporter. That's him on the right in Vietnam in 1968.

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1 of 23

DECEMBER 22, 1944: NUTS!

As a practical matter, the fight was over.


2 of 23:

When describing the 101st Airborne Division and the remnants of the 60th and 28th Divisions in Bastogne, many historians will tell you that the Americans were surrounded.


3 of 23:

That is accurate but it is insufficiently descriptive. "Surrounded" does not really come close to representing the odds stacked up against our Paratroopers by mid-day on Friday.


4 of 23:

A group of 18,000 Paratroopers, including approximately 2,000 untrained replacement troops who had never seen combat, were facing 45,000 fighters from the Fifth Panzer Army’s XLVII Panzer Corps with the newest Tiger tanks.


5 of 23:

The Paratroopers were led by an acting commander.

They were low on ammunition, and their medical detachment was destroyed earlier that morning.

The Tiger tanks severed the last open road south out of Bastogne, completing a full encirclement of our boys.
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1 of 16: WE ARE ALL JEWS HERE: THE STORY OF RODDIE EDMONDS

One of the most moving and relevant stories of the Battle of the Bulge, or any American Soldier in any war, is that of Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, a Knoxville, Tennessee native, who served with the 106th Infantry.


2 of 16:

Roddie was captured early on in the Battle of the Bulge, on December 19th, when Panzer forces plowed through his unit.

He, along with almost his entire regiment, was forced to surrender.


3 of 16:

The men were transported to the Stalag IX-A POW camp in Ziegenhain, Germany.

Roddie was the senior enlisted American Soldier at the site. As such, he was the conduit between all American Soldiers and their German captors.


4 of 16:

In late January, the camp’s commandant, Major Siegmann [pictured here], ordered Roddie, a Christian, to identify all Jewish Soldiers and order them to stand in formation by themselves the next day.

[Jewish Soldiers were a minority within American units]


5 of 16:

Throughout WWII, captured Jewish Soldiers were often tortured and then killed by their German captors.

In fact, Jewish Soldiers had been told to bury their dog tags before capture. The dog tag identified Jews with the letter “H” for Hebrew.
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[1 of 9]

Back to the Battle of the Bulge.

He's late.

Thursday, December 28, 1944, ~ 2:30 PM.

Delayed by fog and snowbanks, Eisenhower's command train pulls into a rail siding in the Belgian town of Hasselt three hours behind schedule.


[2 of 9]

Ike is there to meet with Monty.

Ike needs to get the bellicose Brit on board with this plan [we're calling it the "middle option" plan] we showed you yesterday.


[3 of 9]

Monty is good with the plan, but he believes it's too early to counterattack.

Monty makes his case: intel suggests another (final) impending German attack, so we should build up our defenses & wait rather than attack.


[4 of 9]

Monty recommends a strategy of patience. He wants more divisions, he wants to set conditions before a strike. Wait for the moment to present itself, then pour it on.

[if you get the point of this GIF, we appreciate you]


[5 of 9]

Ike counters: If we remain stagnant, we may lose our gains. If we lose momentum, we allow the Panzers to slink back over the West Wall and this war might go on for years.
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1 OF 15:

BATTLE OF THE BULGE DAY 3: DECEMBER 18, 1944

Battling Bastards of Bastogne

~2:15 AM, Major General Matthew Ridgway, unaware of the fighting in Ardennes, and sleeping in his HQ, is awakened by a call from Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges, commander of First Army.


2 of 15:

Hodges, calling from the town of Spa in Belgium, tells Ridgway that the Germans are smashing through the Ardennes & the XVIII Airborne Corps had been released from theater reserve and assigned to First Army to help push back the offensive.


3 of 15:

Until just recently, with the creation of the 18th Airborne Corps, there was no traditional "reserve" in the European Theater. Now, the 18th was the reserve.


4 of 15:

Ridgway sends the 101st and 82nd into the teeth of the ferocious German attack.

Here’s Jim Gavin, 82nd commander, who would push east to Werbomont, Belgium.

The 101st would drive into the wood chipper outside of Bastogne, Belgium.


5 of 15:

The 101st, in particular, was in no shape to go back into the fight.
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Khandela Raja Bahadur Singh, who became a rebel due to the anti-Hindu policies of Aurangzeb, and to destroy the temples of Shekhawati. Bahadur Singh to compete with such a large army, vacated Khandela for the purpose of conducting guerilla warfare and went Kot Sakrai /2

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if you are born in your glorious clan, then come, the army have come to destroy temple. /5
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