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Old 01-09-2011, 07:17 AM
dragoon500ly dragoon500ly is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Abbott Shaull View Post
The only trouble is that most of the time ammo for these batteries was/were an issue after the battle started. There were times when they were down to two or three round per tube....
Bastogne was a corps headquarters location so they had several supply dumps to draw from, the initial fighting as the perimeter developed saw the use of a lot of artillery to blunt German attacks. After these inital attacks were stopped the decision was made to ration the artillery rounds as relief was uncertain. While supplies certainly ran short, whenever there was a major attack, there was still plenty of artillery to stop it.

When the aerial resupply drops started, about the only artillery ammunition that was dropped was 75mm pack howitzer, the heavy guns had barely adequate supplies to last until the breakthrough.
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