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Old 01-08-2011, 07:21 AM
dragoon500ly dragoon500ly is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by James Langham View Post
Bear in mind the Brigade was committed to fight as "normal" armour after the failure of Operation Greif. How it would have fared if used as plans is open to conjecture.

My belief is that used correctly they may well have achieved at least a partial success. If you are in a US position and stragglers are coming through you will not take the time to check the next batch of clearly US marked vehicles. Even if you do and they look odd are they just a variation on a vehicle you haven't seen before? Even if you have doubts you will be unlikely to fire until they are MUCH closer than normal.
But the rub is that PzBde150 was never committed as intended

Operation Grief, for all of the writing up in post-war histories and the Hollywood treatment of it the few movies on the Bulge, was a failure. While it did cause disruption in the American rear, most of this was caused by GIs ignoring the proper passwords and making up thier own tests to "verify" other GIs. This was the only true success of Grief. They didn't manage to blow any key bridges, they were unable to misdirect the flow of reinforcements, most of the jeep teams were either killed or captured and later shot, only a handful ever made it back to German lines. For the number of personal it lost vs. the successes it gained, Grief was an utter failure.
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