The director of command school, scott green is here tonight scott can you wave your arm . Thank you in uniform at the back of the room this lecture series which is about great military events, great commanders, and sometimes great controversies in the art of war has been ongoing since the beginning of my tenure almost 15 years ago. Its been our great series and the library. This is probably my last introduction because i have been drafted by the president someone can identify with that. To go to washington to save the republic, as you know need saving. As i always like to say the command school is the intellectual center of the army. It is self critical, self aware, it plays no favorites and it is the best place to learn from the experience and history of the battlefield. And with extraordinary teaching and technology to learn from todays battlefields and commanders. Its also a school for our allies and partners. And the future military leaders from around the world, a place where a future chief of staff from the Pakistani Army might rub shoulders with the future defend minister of india. Or commander from the Israeli Defense force might me to commander from an arab legion. A place where a future communication might and has indeed been incubated. Its also a place of packable scholarship, socratic learning, and as our regular audience members, i see many of you here tonight, no frequently expressing itself with a fine sense of humor. I want to thank our early sponsors and creators of this series, none of whom i think are here tonight, but i have to say this because it might be my one chance to say. It a series which will never die. Thank you. Tonight we have the return of one of our favorites, margaritas, mark has the distinction of the highest number of views in our our archive programs, with the exception the end of season popular cable tv show. As a single lecture, he has the highest number of views on our website, 91,000 views. 91,000 people has watched mark explain. Im going to guess the tonight select you will see a generate similar interest. I have my own tiny battle of the bulge story. My father turned 18 during the battle of the bulge. The sudden turn of the war, the desperate need for women and men and material, to shorten training periods, spoke my grandmother, his mother. So much that she forced my father to quit high school before graduation, and, join the navy. This desperate expedience might not have worked out so well as my father ended up on a ship in boston harbour destined for the invasion of japan when the bomb was dropped. He did not end up in the ardennes, though tonight we will. Professor grudges has received his ba from Norwich University in vermont, served 20 years with armored units in europe, the balkans, the middle east, commanded a tank company during desert storm. He has a bronze star with a valor. He received a ph. D. From Florida State with a dissertation on the duke of wellingtons cavalry. A previous lecture on napoleons 1805 campaign delivered here, is anthology is in the great commanders book, published by the combat studies institute afford 11 with and lectures given at the kansas city public library. And the epigraph that lecture, he quotes thomas hardy saying that war is rattling good history. And margaret is his hands it is that, and also lessons for our time. Mark. Good evening. Before i get started tonight, i want to do a little introduction of my own, i usually do napoleon in history, i very rarely. I want to recognize at least two members of the audience here up front. Mr. Kent tivo who is in the 99, the 106th Infantry Division excuse me. Its one of the key divisions that were going to talk about tonight. We also have Clarence Scholes who was in the five oh fifth parachute regiment jumped into holland. An 82nd airborne vision during the battle of the bulge. Do we have any more world war ii veterans are veterans from the battle of the bulge here . Can we give these men a round of applause please . applause if youre here four years ago when i gave the talk about the fall of france in 1940, i started off with a rhetorical question. Whats a napoleon a guy like myself doing in the 20th century. I talked a little bit about my time and armor units in germany. At that time, armor branch at ford knocks was really steeped in history. We went to the basic course, one of the things we did would go down to the museum after reading about the laurian campaign. They had a huge map that came off down the top of the ceiling from this one room. You had armor officers who had fought in the Fourth Armored Division talk about the and circling meant and discuss what they done with these young impressionable officers. When i arrived in my First Armored battalion in the october 1984. You report in as a brandnew Second Lieutenant. Theres not much more of unintimidated feeling them to walk into a tank battalion, at that time many of the Senior Officers were vietnam veterans. They had all been there together, for long periods of time. You walk in really knowing no one, and knowing how little you know about what the army is about. You go in and you go to the battalion and reports she he tells you what companies are going to be assigned to. And this particular battalion had a strong sense of the history of what it did. He also handed you two pieces of clock, one was the president ial union citation, the blue square there goes on the uniform. That was awarded to the battalion in 1944 for its actions on the german, belgian border. Then he hands you a belgian fold here, this is a courted rope that you hang on your sleeve. The battalion had gotten it because it had been awarded twice. Mentioned the orders of the day in the belgian army, first time liberation of belgium and then the second time for its fighting in the ardennes offensive. Here i was a brandnew lieutenant, did not have much knowledge by the army. I wound up getting pulled in into what soldiers had done for years before and my particular regiment. A friend of mine, decided to, and i decided to go and visit the ardennes during the 40th anniversary celebrations in 1994. We were a little disappointed, you drive through the ardennes, its beautiful winding countryside, theres very few markers of anything. You dont know that something monumental happened in these woods. We were there on the 15th and 16th of december. We expected, in boston in particular, there would be some sort of huge ceremony or Something Like that. And there was nothing. We did not know at the time that in boston, they called whats called knots weekend, its a huge weekend commemorating the veterans that is done the first weekend in december because of the weather and the christmas holidays. As you were driving out. Just to the south of luxembourg city, as we get there and this little town. Suddenly we come up on this little town theres cars parked everywhere alongside the streets. We get out of the car to see whats going on. Theres people walking to the center town, we get there, in the center town, we arrived just as theyre doing a ceremony. To mark the 40th anniversary of the liberation of this village by patents third army on the 16th of december. The first day of the battle of the bulge. What struck us was that as we stand there there was this gentleman. It is the belgian from luxembourg, hes wearing Second Lieutenant bars and a third Armored Division patch. Here my friend bob and i were both Second Lieutenants, standing there, and there is a civilian whos reenacting what people in our battalion did 40 years before. That really kind of hook me on the battle of the bulge and being interested in the ardennes offensive. As an armor officer, you read about the regiment, you read about the units that were in their. Ive been very fortunate mention Staff College send me back at least five times, with our officers, through the ardennes. The last time i was actually there was this last february. I was able to walk through the ardennes and look at the ground and study the actions of both americans and germans our officers. Theres a certain fascination if you know anything about the battle of the bulge you probably know about the german attack in the middle of winter. You probably know about the defense of boston by the 101st Airborne DivisionTroy Middleton, you dont have to be a genius to understand the importance of the two road intersections at song v. And boston whats interesting about it though is that we know very little about the other crossroads thats what were going to talk about the other crossroads. A general pans or troops who is going to be captured in 1945, his fifth army is going to fight against the americans and both boston and st. Bit. Its not his ego to make his one battle seen better than the other. His troops are fighting in both of them he does not understand all these new histories focusing on the battle of the bulge, its emphasizing bass tone. Hes not sure what is nothing about st. The. What went on there, you know very little. Were going to talk about that and the importance of it. And to just give you a little bit of the scale, to kind of pick your interest a little, and boston is besieged for a week, the 28th through 27th. There is 26 votes granted ear, that wont circle the 101st Airborne Division. The same time period, a little bit earlier, a week battle also, the seventh Armored Division, and the hundred 16 will fight nine different divisions from two different armies and its a much greater scale of what is going to go on so lets talk about how you got here. The American Army and the allied forces are doing a broad front offensive and the fall of 1944. They start to get near the german border and we start running out of steam. A number of things have happened, one is the logistics lines, we havent opened enough ports. Our logistics are coming all the way from enormity front, across france, and so logistics are being stretched to the utmost the weather. Starts to go bad we get to the german border. And the other part is what we call the miracle on the west where the germans called america on the west, during the advance cause, france. We destroy equipment and most of the soldiers will walk back, so they have trained soldiers educated officers, and when they start to produce tanks and equipment, theyre going to be able to refill their forces very quickly we expect that when the at weather improves, when logistics improves were going to go on the offensive again and it will be into different places really in the north for the 21st army group and the 19 first armies up towards the rural off the map to the north in the south with third army and seventh army in the center is not this impassable i hate using that term its very rugged known as the ardennes. If you go there today its beautiful countryside really a tourist haven hiking trails beautiful little towns. Im from the north to the south is going to be the 106th Infantry Division well talk a little bit more in some detail the 28th Infantry Division and the fourth under the Tree Division the area the ardennes. From their bloody fighting an october in the hurricaneforce. The other divisions, the ninth armored and 106th are new. The 106th are particular in the front and taken over from the second Infantry Division for days before the german offensive is going to start so there are just settling in the other division which is in fifth corps to the north is the 99th Infantry Division and that division has only been in line for approximately three weeks so you get a number of very an experienced divisions a lot of bloody divisions in this area and thats okay because we dont expect anything is going to happen we are looking at this through our own confirmation biased were going to do something to the germans were going to go back on the offensive after the losses and during the fall how could it possibly do anything. The only thing thats really going on is the second Infantry Division is doing a limited attack and to the river dams and thats going to start just before the the fighting here on the 16th of december. The german planning for this offensive begins in september in the early part of september the german losses have been so bad on the western front that they have 100 operational tanks. Put that in perspective when they attack on the 16th of december they have Something Like 1800 tanks that they are going to bring so they are terrible shape hitler is getting a briefing from yodel noodles talking about the retreat into hall and and to alls ice, and talks about the particularly weak area and the Ardennes Hitler says ive made a momentous decision. We will attack out of the ardennes with the objective then antwerp. When hitler seized on is this gap between the british 24 stormy group and the u. S. 12 army group he wants to use the ardennes and use very rapidly across the muse river seizing the bridge heads there as he did in 1940 and then move to antwerp. Its made up of ss troops and that will be the main effort. Its going to be the army that will come sweeping through here, take and then go to antwerp. Supporting the flank of that will be the fifth army. That is what we call shaping operation today. Its supposed to take the critical crossroads town no later than the second day and then in the south is the second army and infantry army. Out of the three armies, its the weakest, it only has 40 assault guns with the bulk of the tanks and saw guns at the north. That is mainly to protect the flank of the fifth fans are army. German pressure preparations, and has a defensive name, it seems like theyre going to be defending, not an attack. Where they position the troops looks like where you would position the troops where the u. S. And british offensives start counterattacks. This all goes into the inception plant the germans are trying to do. They mass 300,000 soldiers, 1800 tanks and assault guns, 1900 artillery pieces against this front you can see the numbers. 11 divisions in the north, those numbers are a little misleading because of the type of troops that are up in the six pounds or army. Facing them in the eighth core will be 83,000 soldiers,. Today we teach when you go on the offensive you need three to one odds to be successful. Germans where they decided was going to penetrate, they had eight to one odds and infantry, for one odds and Mechanized Forces and tanks and assault guns. They have amassed their forces to be able to do it theres two commanders of the armies here that were going to talk about tonight. One is the commander of army group b, he will be the operational level commander. General. Of the two armies, when you look at the u. S. Infantry division versus a german divisions, u. S. Division is a little bigger, but you have to look at german divisions this how good they are. The Older Division have about 14,000 soldiers some of the new divisions are going to stand up in the fall only have 80 that strength. Anywhere between eight and 10,000 soldiers. That confuses part of how we look at the order of battle from the germans. German pans are divisions, tank divisions, are supposed to have 160 tanks, while ours have 186 medium tanks. Then 77 light tanks for 263. Most german divisions have less than that. Some of the key divisions only have about 80 tanks. Those numbers are closer to what the actual strength of the s as division is. That is their elite. This is where they will put their main effort it will have divisions that have almost 19,000 soldiers compared. As i talked to tonight, this is the panthers, the tiger one, tiger to, and these are solid guns. We really only have two Armored Vehicles. They will play key parts. What is the sherman tank. Thanks are designed to kill people, not other tanks. Tanks are made to go after supply units and headquarters. To defeat enemy tanks we have a Tank Destroyer the tank gun on this is relatively low velocity its not good for fighting against german tanks where we have 76 millimeter Tank Destroyers to have the big gun and be passed on the battlefield and move around it has one thing attack does not have and that is good Armor Protection if you notice the Tank Destroyers. There is no top on the turret they are open top. That is so the crew can see out above it and get a good operational look and be able to move their vehicle effectively. We also look at the two divisions. The type of divisions we will have. The Infantry Division when we start to create an army, will have 89 divisions altogether. The hundred and six division is the last division that will be stood up in the summer of 1943. It has about a year of training stateside. Then the casualties from the Normandy Campaign and the drive across france start to hit the army and we have not calculated the number of infantry casualties. What both end up happening is that the first 3000 soldiers and lower level Non Commissioned Officers will be taken from the 106th division. Few weeks later another 3500 will be taken. Within a short period of time in the summer of 1944, theyre going to lose almost 7000 of their trained infantry. And get new replacements, but theyre not going to be given the time to really integrate them into the unit. They will be shipped overseas on october, have 19 days of training in england, they then began to transit over to france. They get on the ships. They have a storm of the channel. They spent four days unable to land, seasick on board, they get in france, there is no trucks waiting for them. They spend a day and a half waiting for trucks to show up. Then they get on open top trucks and spent two days crossing france and wet fall rainy weather. Th