Battle of Arracourt

Background

By mid-September 1944 the great pursuit across France was running out of fuel. Patton's Third Army had reached the Moselle and XII Corps held a bridgehead at Dieulouard, north of Nancy, but its supplies were being diverted and Eisenhower would shortly halt Third Army's offensive.

The German answer was a counterstroke by the Fifth Panzer Army under Hasso von Manteuffel, whose aim was to retake Lunéville and eliminate the XII Corps bridgehead; Cole shows that by the end the larger hope had become a drive to the Moselle. Manteuffel was given two Panzer corps headquarters, the 11th Panzer Division (short of tanks after the retreat) and, most importantly, the 111th and 113th Panzer Brigades, new formations equipped with Panther tanks. On 21 September Hermann Balck took over Army Group G from Johannes Blaskowitz and kept up the pressure.

The obvious obstacle was the US 4th Armored Division, in the Arracourt area, east of Nancy, in rolling country broken by woods, ridges and the Marne–Rhine Canal. Its Combat Command A (CCA), under Colonel Bruce Clarke, held a salient round Arracourt. Autumn fog and rain were setting in, and on 18 September the weather limited US air attacks. Cole describes the German attacks as piecemeal, made north and south of the Marne–Rhine Canal and repeatedly beaten off, rather than a single concentrated blow.

The armies

The Germans had the heavier tanks. Wikipedia counts 262 tanks and assault guns assembled for the counterattack, and the Panther's frontal armour and long-range gun outclassed the Sherman's. But the two new panzer brigades were green. Their crews had about two weeks' training and, according to the Wikipedia account of the battle, could not read maps well. The brigades were committed piecemeal, a few companies at a time, rather than as a single weight. The 11th Panzer Division arrived late with around 16 tanks, and the 111th Panzer Brigade was reduced to a handful of tanks by 22 September.

CCA of the 4th Armored Division was a balanced all-arms team: Lieutenant-Colonel Creighton Abrams's 37th Tank Battalion, the 53rd Armored Infantry Battalion, M7 Priest self-propelled howitzers of the 66th and 94th Armored Field Artillery Battalions, the 704th Tank Destroyer Battalion and the 25th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron. The US tanks traversed their turrets faster. What mattered more, on the evidence of the fighting, was the combination of arms: tanks, artillery and, once the weather cleared on 21 September, the P-47s of the 405th Fighter Group working with XIX Tactical Air Command.

The battle

Prelude (18 September). The 111th Panzer Brigade struck Lunéville, south of the main battlefield, in fog and took part of the town before US cavalry and the 4th Armored's other formations pushed it back. This falls outside CDB90's engagement, which opens the next morning.

19 September: the first clash (CDB90's ARRACOURT starts at 07:30). Around 08:00, in thick fog, about 42 Panthers of the 113th Panzer Brigade came forward against CCA's outposts to the east and south of Arracourt, at Lezey, Bezange-la-Petite and Réchicourt. In the fog the Shermans were able to flank the Panthers. A tank-destroyer platoon of the 704th lost three of its four guns but destroyed seven or eight tanks, and Major Hunter's team knocked out nine Panthers for three of its own. CCA claimed 43 German tanks. Krüger himself counted about fifty of his tanks damaged or destroyed that day, many to artillery.

20 September. CCA swept north of Arracourt through Ley, Ommeray and Moncourt. At Hill 241 C Company lost five or six tanks, and a duel between Abrams's force and a German group cost both sides about eleven or twelve tanks. Panthers threatened CCA's headquarters before being driven back. On this day Major Charles Carpenter flew a bazooka-armed Piper L-4 against German tanks, an incident Wikipedia includes.

21–22 September. The weather cleared and the P-47s began sustained attacks. On 22 September the 111th Panzer Brigade attacked near Juvelize after a late start. The 25th Cavalry lost seven light tanks, but the 704th destroyed three German tanks and fourteen were destroyed at Les Trois Croix. The brigade commander, von Schellendorf, was mortally wounded and the brigade was left with seven tanks and 80 men. CDB90's engagement ends at 16:40 that day.

24–29 September: the fighting goes on. At Château-Salins on 24 September CCB beat off the 559th Volksgrenadier Division and the 106th Panzer Brigade; Cole counts about 300 German dead and eleven wrecked tanks, against 120 CCB casualties. The 11th Panzer Division reached Vic-sur-Seille on 25–26 September. Third Army was ordered to suspend offensive operations on 25 September and CCA pulled back about five miles. A final task force of about 25 tanks attacked towards Hill 318, Bures and Xanrey on 27–29 September; American tanks killed about 135 grenadiers at Xanrey, and on 28 September XIX TAC flew 107 fighter-bomber sorties. On 29 September air-ground teams broke the German tanks in fog and Balck called off the attack, since the drive to the Moselle was out of the question.

Aftermath

The Fifth Panzer Army had no reserves left. Two panzer brigades were wrecked as fighting formations, and Balck's request for three more divisions went unanswered. Cole says the 4th Armored Division estimated 285 German tanks or armoured vehicles destroyed or damaged between the Moselle and the end of September, at relatively small cost; Wikipedia, using Zaloga, gives 200 German tanks and assault guns lost, 86 destroyed and 114 damaged. The Americans lost 25 medium tanks and 7 tank destroyers from CCA over the whole battle, plus others elsewhere.

Arracourt is often called the largest US tank battle in the West before the Ardennes, and it is held up as an example of how crew quality and tactics can outweigh technical merit. Cole's own footnote qualifies it: Krüger counted fifty of his tanks lost or damaged on 19 September, mostly to artillery. Wikipedia notes that Germans believed they had halted Patton, when the halt actually came from Eisenhower's fuel decision, and that Russell Weigley argued the battle changed American expectations of a quick end to the war.

A tank memorial stands at Arracourt. The fighting was one episode in the larger Lorraine campaign, which went on into December.

Wargaming it

Arracourt is a natural platoon-level game, with one stand representing a tank or gun and a board of perhaps 2 by 1.5 metres at about 1:285 or 1:72, covering Bezange-la-Petite to Arracourt. Its interest is that the Germans must attack with the better tanks but worse crews. Give the Panther player long-range fire, an uncertain scenario start and a rule for green crews, such as rolling to see whether each company deploys together.

Fog is the pivotal rule. On 19 September visibility cut the Panthers' range advantage and let the American tanks close and flank; later days saw the weather clear and the P-47s take over. Make visibility a scenario variable, with air support available only from the cleared days (21 September) onwards, and a card for the Cub with its bazooka if you want colour.

The US player has artillery and tank destroyers to coordinate, and the choice is whether to hold a line or use CCA's mobility. The campaign's what-ifs are simple: Panthers arriving as a single mass rather than piecemeal, or the extra divisions Balck asked for. The CDB90 figures (7,500 Germans against 4,800 Americans; 126 against 122 tanks) give a rough parity, which does suit a balanced two-player game.

Maps and pictures