Given the unfavourable terrain, the difficult roads, and the general condition of the available vehicles, it will take at least four days. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info By that time, the enemy may bring in sufficiently strong forces to successfully hold the Maas River.

Therefore, the commander of Army Group B, Manstein, advocated limiting the offensive to cutting off the salient of the enemy's wedge into the German Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) line and plugging the gap opened by the enemy in the western wall.

The most, they felt, they could do was to drive the Allies back from the Ruhr back to the Maas, and perhaps take the next day. Rommel replied:

"I agree in principle with this kind of military action that you suggest, after all, you are the commander of the front line, and all tactics should be formulated according to the actual situation."

In the course of further discussions, it became increasingly clear that the Allied forces were still very strong in combat effectiveness, despite a careful understanding of the Allied Forces' knowledge of the condition, weapons, equipment, and training of the existing forces.

After the discussion on 4 November, Rommel informed the ministries in writing, and the commanders of the units on the Western Front came to the same conclusion on their own.

It would be better for the two Panzer armies not to cross the Maas River for the time being. After a successful breakthrough, they should be turned to the north and northwest so that the left flank of the 5th Panzer Army was covered by the Maas River.

However, according to the commanders of the forces on the Western Front, even this much more modest modification could only be expected to succeed if the Luftwaffe could provide at least partial temporary air superiority at a decisive moment after the bad weather on which the initial breakthrough had been covered had passed.

Because the strength of the Allied forces has changed from 300,000 to 600,000, and the German army's strength for annihilating the Ardennes area is almost 600,000, not to mention that the German army also has to take care of a huge encirclement, the forces are even more dispersed, fortunately, the Allied supply lines have been cut off, and their ammunition is getting less and less.

Moder and Manstein did not doubt that the offensive army group would in fact succeed in breaking through the Allied lines, but they stressed that it was extremely important that the two friendly armies (the Fifteenth Army in the north and the Seventh Army in the south) should have enough forces to pin down the enemy forces in front of them.

If the enemy were able to withdraw strong forces from unthreatened areas to deal with the flanks of the German vanguard assault force, the latter's assault power would inevitably be gradually weakened, because as the flanks lengthened, the vanguard would have to draw more and more troops to protect them.

The inevitable result is that, after a few days, the forces concentrated in the vanguard will become too weak to achieve their objectives.

The two commanders then proposed that, in support of the main attack, the Fifteenth Army should attack from the area of Sittard-Gelenkirchen, so that the two armies could complete the encirclement near Tongres, northwest of Liège. If successful, this operation would encircle the British and American forces between Sittard and Monsau.

If the situation develops in favor of the attacking army group, then the offensive on Nancy, which was planned by the Operational Directorate of the German Western Front Command, could still be carried out after the rapid redeployment of the troops.

A detailed discussion ensued, as the implementation of the plan required the transfer of the main offensive from the 6th SS Panzer Army to the 5th Panzer Army, and consequently the redeployment of troops, although there was still time to consider this issue. Anyway, it was the Allies who were surrounded, and the Germans could choose the time to attack calmly.

In a conversation with Rommel, Field Marshal Moder and the commander of the 5th Panzer Army stressed that, in their opinion, the implementation of Rommel's plan was indispensable for the rapid capture of Bastoni.

They believed that in the first two or three days after the attack was launched, the enemy's counterattack from the north against the two Panzer armies east of the Maas River would not be very strong, at least at first, and that the Fifteenth Army would be able to contain the enemy forces in the area.

They believed that behind the enemy's first line divisions there was no considerable reserve to immediately engage in battle, and therefore they thought that the Fifth Panzer Army, after breaking through to the Maas, might encounter only a few weak enemy forces, and on the other hand, they believed that the enemy to the south would soon react strongly.

This meant that by that time, the Seventh Army should have provided effective protection for the flanks of the German units advancing westward after a successful breakthrough, which by this time had been greatly extended.

This would have to prevent the enemy from effectively using its reserves to attack the southern flank of the vanguard assault force, but the Seventh Army appeared to have insufficient forces for this task, just as its equipment and mobility seemed to be insufficient. By the way, the commander of the 7th Army fully agreed with these views.

All the participating units have been carefully calculated by the Operations Bureau of the German Western Front Command and will definitely be transferred in time, and all arrangements have been fully agreed by Rommel.

Field Marshal Modell, Guderian and Manstein, and General Westfahr, Chief of Staff of the Western Front Command, had a final discussion, and Field Marshal Modell presented his views with open and unwavering conviction.

He based these views on his in-depth knowledge of the weaknesses of the existing German army, on what the Germans could do in the second year of the war, and on the refinement of Rommel's strategic plan and the necessary modifications.

After this operational detail was reported to Rommel, Rommel approved it without hesitation, as the commander of the first line, Rommel has always been extremely trusted, and now he only needs to grasp the overall situation, and occasionally use God's eyes to see the movements of the Allied forces is also one of Rommel's jobs.

On 11 and 12 December, Rommel summoned the commanders of the units to be involved in the offensive (down to the level of division commanders) to the General Headquarters of the Western Front, and most of the generals present at the meeting were doubly confident in the speech of the German command on the Western Front, because the battle plan was already very complete.

The absence of an adviser independent of the three services of the German armed forces, whose personal influence was on a par with that of the commander of the three services by virtue of his relationship with Rommel, proved once again to be a very disadvantageous factor, especially during these crucial weeks.

Through the discussion of the military directors of the Western Front, the result was an analysis of the entire enemy situation, which was an indispensable condition for the completion of the task by being able to grasp the entire military situation for victory.

The outer positions in the Ardennes had been cleared before, because Eisenhower's trapped beasts were still fighting, and the Germans did not completely complete the encirclement of the Ardennes, and now everything was ready, and the first to appear were the German elite paratroopers.

In the late autumn of 1941, the war approached the German mainland, and the American, British, and American forces swept through most of Western Europe and invaded the German border, but Rommel's tactics of luring the enemy into the depths caused the Anglo-American forces to suffer heavy losses in Belgium and the Netherlands, followed by the Anglo-American forces in the Ardennes. (To be continued.) )