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[Plain Ian]

5th Panzer Army - continued



So here is the rest of 5th Panzer Army on the 25th December. 



XXXIX Pz Korps HQ with 167th VGD under command has arrived but it is is back at Eisdorf and will take 1-2 days to arrive on the front.

LVIII Pz Korps HQ appears to be in reserve in the Cheneux region with no units currently under command.

LXVI Army Korps HQ is just south of Rarmont and commands 2 Panzer Divisions and 3 VG Divisions. Its  area of operation stretches from Samree in the south to the Stoumont area. As you can see its a sea of green fatigue levels for most of his units apart from three areas on the map.

At Samree the 9th SS has been involved in heavy fighting over the past day or so.
Similarly at Chession a small group of Pioneers has been causing me grief but have suffered. I think Cesar did not have any regular units to fill this gap so used Pioneers.
North of the river in the Stoumont area the 62nd VGD was brought forward 23rd/24th and has been involved in battles with the British 34th Tank Bde.

Apart from that this sectorin general has been pretty quiet which is why most of his units have low fatigue. US defenses in the area for the most part were the depleted 7th Armoured and the poor quaklity 43rd Wessex Division. At Manhay the 84th Division ( agood quality unit) battled the 9th SS until some support arrived from the 75th Division.

I will run through Cesars Divisions.



18th VGD
After the opening battles of the 16th I can see from the files that this Division was at Vielsalm on the night of the 19th. From there it must have progressed to the Bra area and became involved in the battles all along this front. The fighting at Bra was probably the fiercest area at one point.
In terms of losses the Division the Division has done well despite losing 700+ men its fighting battalions are still well over 70% strength.

62nd VGD
This Division was heavily involved in fighting at Franchochamps and Spa and Cesar had to withdraw it and rest it. It reappeared again in the Stoumont area to relieve a Panther unit (I/SS Pz Rgt 1 of KG Peiper) with 15 tanks was holding off 100+ tanks from 34th tank Bde. Since then it has suffered  further losses and its total losses in men is approaching 1,000. A few units are moderately fatigued (I/GR 164 and II/GR 183) but most of its manoeuvre units are still over 70% strength.

560th VGD
On the night of the 19th this unit had passed Salmchateau and had a Battalion in Baraque de Fraiture and an A/T unit just 2 hexes away from Odeigne. (I/AR 1560) Apart from the Fuhrer Begleit Bde to the south at Bastogne these units were the furthest west units in the Army Group. At this point the Division only had 4 Battalions as GR 1129 had still to arrive. (which it finally has done as you can see from the map that they have reached Salmchateau, both Battalions are full strength at 642 men each) The Division was involved in the fighting at Bra and Manhay but casualties have been lighter than its fellow VGD’s in this area.



116th Pz Div
This has been the main work  horse. Pushing the advance to Vielsalm then pushing in two prongs. One west to Liernieux, but the main one was looping north to Trois Ponts and then Basse Bodeaux. Both were focused on Rarmont. However the Division has suffered steady losses especially in armour. It still retains 26 Panthers and Cesar has the armour grouped on the main road north west of Rarmont and its infantry spread out to bolster the 3 VGD units in the area.



9th SS Pz Div
Arrived late to the party but that is mainly due to the fact that in this scenario the Panzer Grenadier units are treated as Foot units ie non motorised...so have had to walk all the way from the map edge? Cesar has said that this is wrong historically and I’ll accept his word about this as he has done a lot of research into this battle. However I am quite glad that 6 x 750 men C quality Battalions didn’t arrive any quicker to the battlefield or else he would have taken La Roche by now. Despite walking to the battlefield and some fierce fighting at Samree/Baraque the infantry are in reasonable condition in terms of strength although two Battalions at Samree clearly need to be relieved.

The 9th SS start the campaign with a reasonably well stocked Panzer Rgt and this has been maintained. I see that he has lost 30 tanks from his starting strength including 10 Panthers? I can only assume that he must have lost at least 1 a turn whilst in T mode moving up to the front as I haven’t killed 10 Panthers.

I guess Cesars defences look pretty good although I never really tested them nor planned any major attacks in this area. I did make attacks in the Samree area and at Chession but these were opportunistic or local. I did bring the 43rd Wessex Division to this sector with an idea to attack but I realised pretty quickly that this Division wasn’t going to ‘cut the mustard’ against the 116th. So its been a quiet sector for me and I was happy to maintain this. 

Looking at the map and with hindsight the Manhay area does look like an inviting avenue to attack from.

Comments are welcome.

I'll start posting 6th SS panzer army soon.