Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Battle of the Bulge: Approaching St. Vith


German Forces Approach St. Vith.


Newly captured Schönburg is on the far right of the screen shot below.  I recommend clicking on the picture below to see the detail. A clump of volks-grenadier stragglers, artillery and transport, clog the narrow Schönburg streets.

A mix of engineers, volks-grenadiers and the Führerbegleitbrigade have entered the first line of woods after capturing Setz.  I thought the enemy would make a stand but, so far, no opposition.

In the top left, north west of St. Vith, Kampfgruppe Telkamp approaches.  This battle group was part of the 9th SS Division and was involved with the action around St. Vith.  If you look closely you can see the wreck of a scout car that was hiding in the woods. The scouts were from the 7th Armored Division who stood in the way of the 9th SS Panzer Division, preventing it from surrounded St. Vith from the north and north west.




Historically, the 9th SS struck further to the west, (off the map above), around Poteau. In this scenario I just have Kampfgruppe Telkamp and by playing past versions of this scenario I found that despite packing a punch, attacking the 7th Armored Division alone is extremely costly, therefore, I head directly for St. Vith to join up with their comrades approaching from the east.


Kampfgruppe Telkamp Links

There's not much information online on Kampfgruppe Telkamp.  In fact, when searching I found that an old "during action report" relatively high up in the search results (click more results to find 1st Chronicles post).  The report was from a very early version of this scenario and I'm glad to say, the Germans may take St. Vith this time.

Not much but a book available online on the 9th SS Panzer Division and an article on the 9th at Globeatwar.com. Both the book and article focus on the war history of the 9th SS and there is not a lot of detail on the Bulge.


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