Talk:Battle of the Bulge

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Because of their length, the previous discussions on this page have been archived. If further archiving is needed, see Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.

Previous discussions:

• Archive for 2002 – 2005

Wikisource Links

These links need to be updated. They have apparently been moved. I would have done it my self but I don't know how. :( --Brian 22:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The BOB-NN links to Wikisource have been corrected to the new format. —Krellis 23:13, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Canadians

I know of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion and the Canadian Forestry Corps at the battle of the Ardennes, why is Canada not listed with Britain and the USA? Wouldn't seem fair... if you can recognize the British at Vimy Ridge with 1 brigade out of 11, you can recognize Canada at the battle of the Ardennes. We don't want to have a double standard at wikipedia do we?

Casualties

==Source for the Wereth 11?==The assertion regarding the Wereth 11 needs a source. It sounds made up.AaronCBurke 18:43, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I am "messing" with the US Army casualty figures. The figures I am providing are from an official US Army source, and are consistent with those reported in other official US Army sources including the Army's Official Report on Casualties in WWII.

Don't trust internet sources. They are often wrong.

Best Regards, Philippsbour

Do you think any historian would agree on that number?

1310 Hours 28 March, 2006

Professional military historians work from primary sources as much as possible. In the case of casualty figures, the primary sources are official sources. After all, who counted the dead, wounded, missing, and captured? The U.S. Army. Yes, there are no absolute, hard casualty figures for any battle, but the best we have are those recorded by the U.S. Army, and even they vary somewhat. But they vary only by a relatively small amount, not by tens of thousands, as you would suggest. So the answer to your question is that any professional military historian who has half a brain will have to accept these figures. How else can they arrive at a number? Magic?

Best Regards, Philippsbourg

How long has these numbers been around, since what, a week after the battle? And also you must not think so high about military historians because many would dismiss that number.

I've got 8,500 killed, 46,000 wounded and 21,000 missing/captured in the book sitting in my lap right now. GraemeLeggett 20:25, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

1330 Hours, 28 March, 2006

One of the common problems, other than my own in adding the numbers incorrectly, is the tendency for the total casualties for both the Ardennes-Alsace campaigns to be added together. Sometimes this is compounded by using figures for the entire theater, rather than the individual campaigns themselves. Yet another is the confusion of double counting casualty figures for units that passed from one command to another. And yet another is the double counting of MIAs who were also POWs, who were also WIA or KIA. All of these things serve to complicate the task of getting to the "more correct" numbers.

I prefer to stick with the official figures for a variety of reasons, including the fact that this reflects the US Army's ability to tally its casualties very quickly using Morning Reports.

Doubling the number of the official numbers without some serious research on which to base them seems to be a poor way to write history.

I forgot to add that the "Medical Service in the ETO" history that I cited was published in 1992.

Best Regards, Philippsbourg

Is the german casulties "official figures"? I ave read 3 books today that says 81,000 casulties for the allies in the battle of the bulge — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.234.112.74 (talk • contribs)

Please name the books and provide page numbers so that others may verify your research. Everything I see says the lower numbers are correct.--Habap 15:02, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

The numbers in the battlebox are pulled from Parker's book listed in the bibliography. I can find the page if anyone is that curious, but basically pull any legitimate history of the battle and you get figures of oh 70-120 K on either side. Revisionst history certainly has a place, but not in a mainstream article. To contend that the casualty figures are roughly half of accepted figures would deserve its own article and also to be at all consistent would need to encompass standard casualty counting methods throughout the war. Tangerinebunny 02:42, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Look, this is BS. Official American U.S. Army sources points out about 81,000, and so has almost every legitimant historical source. Keep your historical revisionism out of articles. We present facts, not reviosinism at Wikipedia.

I have checked several books now and nothing comes close to your number that there were 30,000 US casulties, absolutley nothing. The lowest number i found was about 75,000. I find it very very hard to belive that it would be just 30,000 US casulties when everything ellse says that its not so. To present this at Wikipedia would lower their credablility.

In numerical terms, it is the largest land battle the U.S. Army has fought to date.... really??? larger than the Battle of Gettysburg? i dont think this is correct.

I'm not claiming to be an expert on this, but I was reading the Battle of the Bulge article on Encarta 2006 and this was written: “Managing to avoid being cut off by an Allied pincer movement, the Germans withdrew to their own lines in January, but heavy losses, including some 220,000 casualties, contributed to their final collapse in the following spring.” I'm just curious why their casualty number is so much higher than the one here.

That the Germans would have lost nearly 50% of their force seems far fetched...

I have posted a link to the official casualty figures to every war the US has been involved in other than the current series of wars. The link is to the US Army Center for Military History, and any figures taken from that source - whgich is on the Internet - are the Gospel figures. -- SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 12:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Herbstnebel

An anonymous editor has added statements about the operation being called Herbstnebel. The most recent being: Some sources indicate that shortly before the fighting began the OKW named it "Herbstnebel" (Autumn Fog).. Now I'm not saying you are necessarily wrong, but we have found several sources saying that Herbstnebel was the name of one of the initial plans from the planning stage of this. Please make sure you've read Operation Herbstnebel, and then if you can tell us which sources it is that say this (and they are relatively reliable) then we can add the statement back. DJ Clayworth 20:32, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

More Montgormery

Does the stuff about the arguments between the generals really belong here? It's not about the Battle; wouldn't it be better on the pages of the generals concerned? DJ Clayworth 19:48, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Fair point, although it needs at least a mention. I wonder if there's scope to have an article - or several - about the differences between the Allied political and military leaders. Folks at 137 16:04, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

The short answer is that the article used to read (paraphrase) "Montgomery was slow and incompetent and claimed victory for the battle, and said the americans under his command were worthless!". Given that this is a) wrong and b) apparently commonly believed it's worth putting the correct version in here. 203.158.62.202 14:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Difficult communications between commanders ostensibly on the same side could have an effect on a conflict - an example might be drawn from the Charge of the Light Brigade. If it affected morale and/or a subsequent battle and arose from this battle then it might be worthy of inclusion. GraemeLeggett 15:04, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Casualty Figures

The casualty figures should be for the U.S. Army since British forces were only slightly involved. The actual casualty figures for the U.S. Army are much, much lower than were in the box. My source is: Cosmas and Cowdrey, Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations. Official U.S. Army History; Medical Dept.

—This unsigned comment was added by Philippsbourg (talk • contribs) .

Operation Nordwind

Edit 1430 Hours, 25 March 2006

The German offensive in the Ardennes was not the last major German offensive on the Western Front. That dubious honor belongs to Operation Nordwind. Operation Nordwind was not a subordinate operation of the German offensive in the Ardennes. I removed it from the list of subordinate operations. Nordwind was a completely independent operation.

For proof, please see the official US Army History of the Seventh US Army: Smith and Clarke, "Riviera To The Rhine." Dr. Clarke is the Chief Historian of the US Army.

Best Regards, —This unsigned comment was added by Philippsbourg (talk • contribs) .

Battle of the Ardennes

Edit: 1600 Hours, 25 March 2006

The official name assigned to the Battle of the Bulge by the U.S. Army is the Battle of the Ardennes. After the war it was coupled with the Battle of the Alsace, and official campaign credits are for the Battle of the Ardennes - Alsace, despite the fact they were separate and distinct battles fought over 100 km apart almost entirely by different American units.

Best Regards, —This unsigned comment was added by Philippsbourg (talk • contribs) .

Edit: 1735 Hours, 25 March 2006

The official U.S. Army dates for the campaign, Ardennes-Alsace is 16 December, 1944 - 25 January, 1945, not 28 January!

Best Regards, —This unsigned comment was added by Philippsbourg (talk • contribs) .

Red Ball Express

This article states: "The Red Ball Express stopped delivering supplies and started moving troops. Within a week, 250,000 troops had been sent." But Red Ball Express page says, that convoy action finished on 16 November 1944. Is there anyone to clarify that?

Technically, the term Red Ball Express only applies to a specific convoy operation shortly after D-Day, but many people (including veterans, even those who drove trucks on later routes and not on RBE) use the term to refer to ALL supply convoys in the ETO. Not sure if there should be clarification here or on the RBE page. --Habap 21:33, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

The sentence should be changed anyway. Obviously they did not 'stop delivering supplies' ; if they had, what were those 250,000 soldiers going to eat and shoot? DMorpheus 16:09, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Red Ball Express Response

The RBE was one of only many express operations of the Communications Zone Services of Supply, US Army. Technically the supply operations of the ETO were conducted by the Services of Supply operated variously under the direction of the Communications Zone (ComZ) and the Southern Line of Communications (SOLOC).

US Army supply operations increased during the Battle of the Bulge, they did not decrease.

Best Regards, —This unsigned comment was added by Philippsbourg (talk • contribs) .

The "many express operations" you refer to were the result of the disruption of the European railroad system by the Strategic Bombing campaign. It was established out of despiration, and they were all identified by a graphic symbol in a specific color that was placed much as we place highway signs to this day. It was Patton who specifically played up the identity and progress of the "Red Ball Express", and he was the singular Consignee of the supplies - mostly POL products - that the trucks delivered. SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 20:47, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Tanks are not casualties??

If so erase all tanks planes ships and material casualties from all battleboxes in wikipedia.(addind the original info)

2005 Hours, 11 April, 2006

Again, tanks, planes, ships, and material are not repeat not casualties. The term "casualties" refers to human beings. Please consult a dictionary.

Philippsbourg

VI Corps Materialize from Nowhere

By 15 January, VI Corps was fighting for its very life on three sides in the Alsace. Immediately prior to this sentence, and immediately following, the text returns to a description of "U.S. Seventh Army". VI Corps is not otherwise introduced in this major section. MaxEnt 15:47, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistent Allied Casualties

Casualty estimates from the battle vary widely. The official US account lists 80,987 American casualties, while estimates range from 70,000 to 104,000.

In the pink overview sidebar it says 41,200 Allied casualties with a reference to a different source. MaxEnt 16:01, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

This is a joke, right?

"the offensive also allowed the Allies to severely deplete the cream of the German army"

All mucked up

Our vandalism reverts and the ongoing argument about casualties have allowed errors to creep into the article. I just fixed the battle box stating that it took place in Devon. Could folks please review the entire article for similar errors. We also need to fix the casualty numbers per the discussion above. --Habap 19:53, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Edits

I've made some fairly substantial edits to the article tonight. Not trying to step on anyone's toes, but some SS hero worship has creeped in, as well as repetitive sentences and a fairly conversational tone. I've injected some economy in the wording - some concepts were spelled out in long run on sentences when really, a wikilink to an article will suffice to inform the reader. I also wonder if the Patton-Montgomery bunfight really needs three paragraphs here - it seems to me to be almost completely irrelevant to the battle, as interesting as it is to an examination of high command in the Second World War. Kudos to the original editors for giving this article a good start. What is needed now are significant numbers of citations for this article, to give it credibility.Michael Dorosh 04:47, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Response Speed

The Allies' slow response to the penetration set their own offensive timetable back by months.

Is it really true that their response time was slow? Danny S. Parker frequently said it was a "timely Allied reaction". The Wiki itself says, "before the first day was finished, Eisenhower...had ordered vast reinforcements to the area", this was quite contrary to Hitler's belief that it would take 2 or 3 days for an Allied response to commence (and somewhat contradictory to the top quote). Just because it was quicker than Hitler expected I'd want to call it a timely response.

I'll leave it to someone else to change it as I don't know much about this kind of stuff.

Schnozzinkobenstein 19:40, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Two claims in this statement seem almost ludicrously false . . .

First, by what possible standard could the Allied response be considered "slow?" While I don't have the exact figures to hand, consider that the allied forces on the western front were terribly understrength for the front they were covering, they were operating in horrible winter weather, and were overcommitted to winter offensives due to unrealistic estimates of their attacking power relative to their opposition. In spite of this, the 7th and 10th Armored divisions and the 82nd and 101st infantry divisions were in action or committed to the battlefield within forty-eight hours of the opening of the offensive. By the fourth day of the battle, the British 30th Corps was in a blocking position west of the Meuse, effectively negating any potential German strategy victory. Meanwhile, the two most powerful allied armies on the western front, the American 1st and 3rd, had been pulled out of frontline positions and were already containing and counterattacking the flanks of the German offensive. Could any other army in the history of warfare, even the elite German Panzer Armies of 1941-1943, have managed such a manuever under those conditions?

Second, was it not physically impossible for the offensive to have set the the allied offensive timetable back by "months?" The final allied assault into Germany began on February 8, 1945, well before the end of winter and only seven weeks after the beginning of the German counteroffensive. From that day to the German surrender on May 8, 1945, only three months passed. How much faster could the allies have possibly advanced against an army of the quality they faced and under such difficult conditions of weather and terrain?

The consensus among the authors of the many books and articles I've read on this topic over the last thirty years is that Watch on the Rhine shortened the war in Europe by many weeks, rather than lengthening it.

Spelling

Which spelling convention should be used in this article? At the moment it is a mixture of both, which looks odd to me. --Guinnog 00:08, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

As nobody has replied for a few days to this, does anybody mind if I standardise on Commonwealth English? Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English doesn't clarify which convention we use in an article like this, and it really isn't important to me either. British English is easier for me, although I suppose I could standardise(-ize) it the other way if that were the feeling here. I do think though that having both varieties in the same article looks funny. --Guinnog 15:23, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. Went for Brit Eng as that was easier. Made a few other copyedits as well. See what you think. --Guinnog 21:20, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be American English, since there were more Americans fighting and many more American casualties? According to the article, the Americans had 80,987 casualties while the British had 1,400. --Awiseman 13:37, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Arguably, yes. Although the Germans had the most casualties of all. I think this is one of these cases where the spelling can simply be decided by a consensus of editors. I waited more than a week before doing my edits to see if there were any opinions about which standard of spelling the article should adopt. If there are strong feelings (ie a consensus) that US English should be used, I can copyedit it again I suppose. But what looked awful (to me at least) was having bits of both in the same article. The relevant policy is at [1]. --Guinnog 13:44, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

True, it should definitely be standardized, whatever it is. I'm not dead-set on American English, it just seems logical to me. --Awiseman 17:39, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

german divisions

Is it intentional that the only two German divisions mentionned in the article are SS (1st and 12th)? I probably have the material to add either all forces involved (probably just those relevant to the sections) or add a few more samples to remove the idea that all german troops were SS (or that the SS were some kind of elite).--Caranorn 20:55, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm posting the official report on Wikisource, which should provide correct information to flesh this article out.SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 02:40, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

WIKISOURCE MATERIAL on the Battle of The Bulge

I've started adding the original US Army report on this battle to Wikisource. The first six chapters plus the images therein have already been added, and more will be added in time. I've added a link in the Wikipedia article.

SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 22:16, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

December 15, 1944 Map

I replaced the two small scale maps of the Bulge area with one of much larger scale that pinpoints the local terraign. It is much easier to read, and comes from the official battle report. SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 06:39, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd prefer the two original ones, if you find them too small you could resize them to 400 or 600 pixel. And if you wish to retain the map you chose at least reduce it to a resolution that's equal or smaller to the actual map file, this looks really awfull.--Caranorn 15:03, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

The primary problem with the original maps is the fact that they are both too small to read properly. They make cute pictures as is, but they are not good for following the story line of the article, and they don't have the level of detail found on the official map. -- SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 00:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the one you linked into the article is easier to read (all three are in my opinion bad scans). Concerning the data, the two old maps seem to have about the same ammount of detail (more in some areas like elevations and forest cover). But this is largely an issue of resolution. Either set would be good if they were easily readable. Unfortunatelly none provide their exact source (which book, if in ETO as I assume, what volume...). But I guess now that the one you added is displayed at the correct scale it will do the job. Though I find the divisional/corps sector boundaries in useful and if only to show how stretched the US front line was before the offensive (the battleworn 28th and the green 106th with frontages similar to those of german armies).--Caranorn 12:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

"...In numerical terms, the Battle of the Ardennes was the largest land battle in the history of the U.S. Army."

I think that this sentence fragment neds to be changed. If you check the battles that the US engaged in during World War I, you will find that they were larger than any of the battles of World War Two by virtue of the number of troops participating therein. -- SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 02:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

International Casualty Listings

I think that there should be some consideration made to the French and Belgians who fought and died in the Battle of the Bulge. As long as the British are being honored for their contibutions then why shouldn't the French and Belgians be too?

I'm not aware of any French troops involved (their major formations fought in Alsace-Lorraine). For the Belgians, by all means, if you have verifiable numbers include them. As a note; several British divisions fought in the campaign, a large part of it was also under British command. So obviously they have to be listed.--Caranorn 12:38, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, no French troops were involved in this battle. Moreover, I have never heard about casualties within the Belgian troops that could have played a (minor) role in this battle. There were however Belgian civilian casualties mainly due to German war crimes among others in Bande and the Stavelot area or because they were taken under the fire of one or other camp. One can also quote the 200 civilians that were killed during three air bombings made by the US Air Force on Malmedy the 23, 24 and 25 December 1944 while the city was in hand of the US troops. Finally, as it still happens today in many war zones after the conflict is over, many civilians were killed in the Ardennes after the end of the battle due to accidents with unexploded shells or grenades or mines that weren't removed.--Lebob-BE 18:01, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

"Even Ultra (...) revealed nothing about the up-coming buildup and offensive": contradiction with article on Ultra

There is a contradiction between what is stated in this article:

"Even Ultra (the allies reading of secret German radio messages) revealed nothing about the up-coming buildup and offensive."

and what is found in the article on Ultra:

"Likewise, Ultra traffic suggested an attack in the Ardennes in 1944, but the Battle of the Bulge was a surprise to the Allies because the information was disregarded."

Eric Le Bigot 08:44, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Introduction?67.166.114.187 11:40, 24 December 2006 (UTC)B 12/24/06

This article could really use an introductory paragraph. You know, something like "The Battle of the Bulge was a major battle in World War II in which the Allied Forces....etc."