Download or read book Ardennes 1944 An Analysis Of The Operational Defense written by Major Francis M. Cain III and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 61 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines the nature of the defense at the operational level of war by analyzing the Battle of the Bulge in Dec. 1944 using the concepts of blitzkrieg and "web" defense. The monograph begins by discussing the influence of defensive theory on the operational concepts of blitzkrieg and "web" defense. The German concept of blitzkrieg incorporates Clausewitz’s theory of the offense by emphasizing surprise, speed, and concentration at the decisive point. The counter to the blitzkrieg offense is found in COL F.O. Miksche’s concept of "web" defense. The Battle of the Bulge provides an excellent example of a "web" defense pitted against a blitzkrieg offense. The German blitzkrieg in the Ardennes in 1944 failed for many reasons: 1) Army Group B did not concentrate its strength against the most vulnerable section of the Allied line; 2) The rugged Ardennes terrain could be easily defended against attacks by mechanized forces; 3) Key American commanders (Eisenhower, Gerow, and Middleton) quickly recognized the value of holding several key road junctions (St. Vith, Malmedy, Bastogne, Marche, and Rochefort) which dominated movement through the Ardennes; 4) The Allies held the shoulders of the German penetration; 5) The Allies quickly concentrated armored and motorized units to blunt the German penetration; and 6) Army Group B lacked operational reserves and adequate logistic support. The analysis of the Ardennes shows that the defense is indeed the stronger form of war and that a "web" defense can be employed effectively against a blitzkrieg offense...The Allies effectively used a "web" defense to counter these threats. If NATO is to defeat a Soviet attack without resorting to the use of nuclear weapons, it must adopt a viable operational defensive concept. "Web" defense is such a concept.
Download or read book The Ardennes written by Hugh Marshall Cole and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 772 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Ardennes 1944 An Analysis of the Operational Defense written by Francis M Cain (III.) and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines the nature of the defense at the operational level of war by analyzing the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 using the concepts of blitzkrieg and web defense. The monograph begins by discussing the influence of defensive theory on the operational concepts of blitzkrieg and web defense. The German concept of blitzkrieg incorporates Clausewitz's theory of the offense by emphasizing suprise, speed, and concentration at the decisive point. The counter to the blitzkrieg offense is found in COL F.O. Miksche's concept of web defense. This concept incorporates Clausewitz's theory of the defense by emphasizing the advantages of terrain, time, and counterattack. The Battle of the Bulge provides an excellent example of a web defense pitted against a blitzkrieg offense. The Ardennes provides an excellent example of many important German operational concepts which are very similar to Soviet offensive concepts. The use of COL Otto Skorzeny's 150th Panzer Brigade is very similar to the anticipated Soviet employment of Spetsnaz units into NATO's rear area. German panzer divisions were employed in a role similar to Soviet Operational Maneuver Groups (OMG). The Allies effectively used a web defense to counter these threats. If NATO is to defeat a Soviet attack without resorting to the use fo nuclear weapons, it must adopt a viable operational defensive concept. Web defense is such a concept.
Download or read book Busting the Bocage written by Michael Dale Doubler and published by Fort Leavenworth, Kan. : U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. This book was released on 1988 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Ardennes 1944 written by Antony Beevor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The prizewinning historian and bestselling author of D-Day, Stalingrad, and The Battle of Arnhem reconstructs the Battle of the Bulge in this riveting new account On December 16, 1944, Hitler launched his ‘last gamble’ in the snow-covered forests and gorges of the Ardennes in Belgium, believing he could split the Allies by driving all the way to Antwerp and forcing the Canadians and the British out of the war. Although his generals were doubtful of success, younger officers and NCOs were desperate to believe that their homes and families could be saved from the vengeful Red Army approaching from the east. Many were exultant at the prospect of striking back. The allies, taken by surprise, found themselves fighting two panzer armies. Belgian civilians abandoned their homes, justifiably afraid of German revenge. Panic spread even to Paris. While some American soldiers, overwhelmed by the German onslaught, fled or surrendered, others held on heroically, creating breakwaters which slowed the German advance. The harsh winter conditions and the savagery of the battle became comparable to the Eastern Front. In fact the Ardennes became the Western Front’s counterpart to Stalingrad. There was terrible ferocity on both sides, driven by desperation and revenge, in which the normal rules of combat were breached. The Ardennes—involving more than a million men—would prove to be the battle which finally broke the back of the Wehrmacht. In this deeply researched work, with striking insights into the major players on both sides, Antony Beevor gives us the definitive account of the Ardennes offensive which was to become the greatest battle of World War II.
Download or read book The 101st Airborne Division s Defense Of Bastogne Illustrated Edition written by Colonel Ralph M. Mitchell and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: [Includes 53 photos/illustrations and 11 maps] The defense of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II is one of the supreme achievements of American arms. Bastogne is deservedly identified with the finest characteristics of the American soldier, and the name Bastogne symbolizes a heroic battle. Bastogne has long held the attention of students of war, yet the battle offers new insights for soldiers with modern concerns. Colonel Ralph M. Mitchell’s study, The 101st Airborne Division’s Defense of Bastogne, reveals how a light infantry division, complemented by key attachments, stopped an armor-heavy German corps. Using original documents and reports, Colonel Mitchell traces the fight at Bastogne with emphasis on the organization, movement and, employment of the 101st Airborne Division. Although a variety of factors influenced the outcome at Bastogne, the flexibility of the 101st to reconfigure for sustained operations and to defeat strong opposition forces even when surrounded shows how properly augmented light infantry can fight and win.
Download or read book The Ardennes 1944 1945 written by Christer Bergström and published by Casemate / Vaktel Forlag. This book was released on 2014-12-19 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive, photo-filled account of the six-week-long Battle of the Bulge, when panzers slipped through the forest and took the Allies by surprise. In December 1944, just as World War II appeared to be winding down, Hitler shocked the world with a powerful German counteroffensive that cracked the center of the American front. The attack came through the Ardennes, the hilly and forested area in eastern Belgium and Luxembourg that the Allies had considered a “quiet” sector. Instead, for the second time in the war, the Germans used it as a stealthy avenue of approach for their panzers. Much of US First Army was overrun, and thousands of prisoners were taken as the Germans forged a fifty-mile “bulge” into the Allied front. But in one small town, Bastogne, American paratroopers, together with remnants of tank units, offered dogged resistance. Meanwhile, the rest of Eisenhower’s “broad front” strategy came to a halt as Patton, from the south, and Hodges, from the north, converged on the enemy incursion. Yet it would take an epic, six-week-long winter battle, the bloodiest in the history of the US Army, before the Germans were finally pushed back. Christer Bergström has interviewed veterans, gone through huge amounts of archive material, and performed on-the-spot research in the area. The result is a large amount of previously unpublished material and new findings, including reevaluations of tank and personnel casualties and the most accurate picture yet of what really transpired from the perspectives of both sides. With nearly four hundred photos, numerous maps, and thirty-two superb color profiles of combat vehicles and aircraft, it provides perhaps the most comprehensive look at the battle yet published.
Download or read book Air Force Combat Units of World War II written by Maurer Maurer and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1961 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Other End of the Spear written by John J. Mcgrath and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2011-09-16 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks at several troop categories based on primary function and analyzes the ratio between these categories to develop a general historical ratio. This ratio is called the Tooth-to-Tail Ratio. McGrath's study finds that this ratio, among types of deployed US forces, has steadily declined since World War II, just as the nature of warfare itself has changed. At the same time, the percentage of deployed forces devoted to logistics functions and to base and life support functions have increased, especially with the advent of the large-scale of use of civilian contractors. This work provides a unique analysis of the size and composition of military forces as found in historical patterns. Extensively illustrated with charts, diagrams, and tables. (Originally published by the Combat Studies Institute Press)
Download or read book Ardennes Alsace written by Roger Cirillo and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Implacable Foes written by Waldo Heinrichs and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-01 with total page 744 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On May 8, 1945, Victory in Europe Day-shortened to "V.E. Day"-brought with it the demise of Nazi Germany. But for the Allies, the war was only half-won. Exhausted but exuberant American soldiers, ready to return home, were sent to join the fighting in the Pacific, which by the spring and summer of 1945 had turned into a gruelling campaign of bloody attrition against an enemy determined to fight to the last man. Germany had surrendered unconditionally. The Japanese would clearly make the conditions of victory extraordinarily high. In the United States, Americans clamored for their troops to come home and for a return to a peacetime economy. Politics intruded upon military policy while a new and untested president struggled to strategize among a military command that was often mired in rivalry. The task of defeating the Japanese seemed nearly unsurmountable, even while plans to invade the home islands were being drawn. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall warned of the toll that "the agony of enduring battle" would likely take. General Douglas MacArthur clashed with Marshall and Admiral Nimitz over the most effective way to defeat the increasingly resilient Japanese combatants. In the midst of this division, the Army began a program of partial demobilization of troops in Europe, which depleted units at a time when they most needed experienced soldiers. In this context of military emergency, the fearsome projections of the human cost of invading the Japanese homeland, and weakening social and political will, victory was salvaged by means of a horrific new weapon. As one Army staff officer admitted, "The capitulation of Hirohito saved our necks." In Implacable Foes, award-winning historians Waldo Heinrichs (a veteran of both theatres of war in World War II) and Marc Gallicchio bring to life the final year of World War Two in the Pacific right up to the dropping of the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, evoking not only Japanese policies of desperate defense, but the sometimes rancorous debates on the home front. They deliver a gripping and provocative narrative that challenges the decision-making of U.S. leaders and delineates the consequences of prioritizing the European front. The result is a masterly work of military history that evaluates the nearly insurmountable trials associated with waging global war and the sacrifices necessary to succeed.
Download or read book Toward Combined Arms Warfare written by Jonathan Mallory House and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1985 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Deep Maneuver written by Jack D Kern Editor and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-10-12 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 5, Deep Maneuver: Historical Case Studies of Maneuver in Large-Scale Combat Operations, presents eleven case studies from World War II through Operation Iraqi Freedom focusing on deep maneuver in terms of time, space and purpose. Deep operations require boldness and audacity, and yet carry an element of risk of overextension - especially in light of the independent factors of geography and weather that are ever-present. As a result, the case studies address not only successes, but also failure and shortfalls that result when conducting deep operations. The final two chapters address these considerations for future Deep Maneuver.
Download or read book Corps Commanders of the Bulge written by Harold R. Winton and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2016-07-10 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If the Battle of the Bulge was Germany's last gasp, it was also America's proving ground-the largest single action fought by the U.S. Army in World War II. Taking a new approach to an old story, Harold Winton widens our field of vision by showing how victory in this legendary campaign was built upon the remarkable resurrection of our truncated interwar army, an overhaul that produced the effective commanders crucial to GI success in beating back the Ardennes counteroffensive launched by Hitler's forces. Winton's is the first study of the Bulge to examine leadership at the largely neglected level of corps command. Focusing on the decisions and actions of six Army corps commanders—Leonard Gerow, Troy Middleton, Matthew Ridgway, John Millikin, Manton Eddy, and J. Lawton Collins—he recreates their role in this epic struggle through a mosaic of narratives that take the commanders from the pre-war training grounds of America to the crucible of war in the icy-cold killing fields of Belgium and Luxembourg. Winton introduces the story of each phase of the Bulge with a theater-level overview of the major decisions and events that shaped the corps battles and, for the first time, fully integrates the crucial role of airpower into our understanding of how events unfolded on the ground. Unlike most accounts of the Ardennes that chronicle only the periods of German and American initiative, Winton's study describes an intervening middle phase in which the initiative was fiercely contested by both sides and the outcome uncertain. His inclusion of the principal American and German commanders adds yet another valuable layer to this rich tapestry of narrative and analysis. Ultimately, Winton argues that the flexibility of the corps structure and the competence of the men who commanded the six American corps that fought in the Bulge contributed significantly to the ultimate victory. Chronicling the human drama of commanding large numbers of soldiers in battle, he has produced an artful blend of combat narrative, collective biography, and institutional history that contributes significantly to the broader understanding of World War II as a whole. With the recent modularization of the U.S. Army division, which makes this command echelon a re-creation of the corps of World War II, Corps Commanders of the Bulge also has distinct relevance to current issues of Army transformation.
Download or read book Defense of the Rhine 1944 45 written by Steven J. Zaloga and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-05-20 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rhine River represented the last natural defensive barrier for the Third Reich in the autumn of 1944. Although Hitler had been reluctant to allow the construction of tactical defence lines in France, the final defense of the Reich was another matter. As a result, construction of a Rhine defence line began in September 1944. Steven J. Zaloga examines the multiple phases of construction undertaken to strengthen the Westwall (Siegfried Line), to fortify many of the border villages, and finally to prepare for the demolition of the Rhine bridges. Using detailed maps, colour artwork, and expert analysis, this book takes a detailed look at Germany's last line of defence.
Download or read book Bolt Action Campaign Battle of the Bulge written by Warlord Games and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-02-23 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ardennes, 1944. Driven back by the Allies since D-Day, Germany launches a surprise offensive on the Western Front. This assault against the unprepared Allied lines is the opening move in one of the largest battles of World War II. This new Campaign Book for Bolt Action allows players to take command of both armies in this desperate battle, fighting it as they believe it should have been fought. New, linked scenarios, rules, troop types and Theatre Selectors provide plenty of options for novice and veteran players alike.
Download or read book Battle of the Bulge 1944 1 written by Steven J. Zaloga and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of the Bulge was the largest and most costly battle fought by the US Army in World War II. The Ardennes fighting was Hitler's last gamble on the Western Front, crippling the Wehrmacht for the remainder of the war. In the first of two volumes on the Ardennes campaign Steven Zaloga details the fighting in the northern sector around St Vith and the Elsenborn Ridge. The Sixth Panzer Army, containing the bulk of German Panzer strength, was expected to achieve the breakthrough here. It was the failure around St Vith that forced the Germans to look south towards Bastogne.
