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The reason the allies won this battle might include bravery, but the obvious reason is the dramatic increase of man and equipment. I don't think that one or the

The reason the allies won this battle might include bravery, but the obvious reason is the dramatic increase of man and equipment. I don't think that one or the other side was braver or smarter. I'm sure most axis, as well as allied soldiers thought they fight for the right thing. A brief timeline: 16 December: Allies: 228,741 men 483 tanks Axis: 406,342 men 557 tanks 24 December: Allies: c. 541,000 men 1,616 tanks Axis: c. 449,000 men 423 tanks 2 January: Allies: c. 705,000 men 2,409 tanks Axis: c. 401,000 men 287 tanks 16 January: Allies: 700,520 men 2,428 tanks Axis: 383,016 men 216 tanks [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bulge https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bulge Edit: Formatting

jandrese 5y ago
German high command knew it had to be over quickly to have any chance of success. They didn't have reinforcements to send, everything in the area was already committed. Once the US reinforcements arrived it was game over. The whole plan was kind of dubious IMHO. Even if it were successful and the Germans were able to capture Antwerp the soldiers would be surrounded and cut off from supplies. Using it to negotiate a better surrender sounds like wishful thinking.
- sofixa 5y ago
  > The whole plan was kind of dubious IMHO. Even if it were successful and the Germans were able to capture Antwerp the soldiers would be surrounded and cut off from supplies. Using it to negotiate a better surrender sounds like wishful thinking. By that point many knew the war was lost, only Hitler and few others were delusional. Even high level Nazis like Himmler and Göring knew all is lost (which is why Himmler tried negotiating a peace a few months later, and Göring proposed retreating to the Alps to make a last stand/bastion there).
  - Nomentatus 5y ago
    Indeed. But just continuing to fight at all was rather crazy... the idea being to wait and see if one side or other would offer a separate peace. So jabbing at each side (US/Britain/Canada/FreeFrench and the Soviets) hard was a desperate way to try to roll the dice, and incentivize that I suppose. There was no shortage dubious gambling on the German side after 1941.
ncmncm 5y ago
The Bulge thing was considered pretty big by the Americans and Brits, but it doesn't even count among the top ten significant battles of the war. All the big action happened on the Eastern front. A German army fully half as big as the entire force fielded on the Western front spent most of a year bottled up by the Soviets in a little peninsula of Latvia, called the "Courland Pocket".
sofixa 5y ago
And one of the biggest contributors - the complete aerial dominance of the US and UK airforces (the Luftwaffe was basically dead by that time). The initial German successes were under bad weather which grounded airplanes, but that cleared up later on.

jandrese 5y ago

German high command knew it had to be over quickly to have any chance of success. They didn't have reinforcements to send, everything in the area was already committed. Once the US reinforcements arrived it was game over. The whole plan was kind of dubious IMHO. Even if it were successful and the Germans were able to capture Antwerp the soldiers would be surrounded and cut off from supplies. Using it to negotiate a better surrender sounds like wishful thinking.

sofixa 5y ago
> The whole plan was kind of dubious IMHO. Even if it were successful and the Germans were able to capture Antwerp the soldiers would be surrounded and cut off from supplies. Using it to negotiate a better surrender sounds like wishful thinking. By that point many knew the war was lost, only Hitler and few others were delusional. Even high level Nazis like Himmler and Göring knew all is lost (which is why Himmler tried negotiating a peace a few months later, and Göring proposed retreating to the Alps to make a last stand/bastion there).
- Nomentatus 5y ago
  Indeed. But just continuing to fight at all was rather crazy... the idea being to wait and see if one side or other would offer a separate peace. So jabbing at each side (US/Britain/Canada/FreeFrench and the Soviets) hard was a desperate way to try to roll the dice, and incentivize that I suppose. There was no shortage dubious gambling on the German side after 1941.

ncmncm 5y ago

The Bulge thing was considered pretty big by the Americans and Brits, but it doesn't even count among the top ten significant battles of the war. All the big action happened on the Eastern front. A German army fully half as big as the entire force fielded on the Western front spent most of a year bottled up by the Soviets in a little peninsula of Latvia, called the "Courland Pocket".

sofixa 5y ago

And one of the biggest contributors - the complete aerial dominance of the US and UK airforces (the Luftwaffe was basically dead by that time). The initial German successes were under bad weather which grounded airplanes, but that cleared up later on.