#16_07s: The Peiper is Paid_Alt *H2H Approved* - PzC 05 Bulge '44

West Wall, Dec 16th 1944: The 1st SSLAH Panzer Division was the strongest fighting unit in the Sixth Panzer Army. Undiluted by any large influx of untrained replacements, it had an available armored strength on Dec 16th of about a hundred tanks, equally divided between Mark IVs and Panthers, plus forty-two Tiger tanks belonging to the 501st SS Panzer Detachment. The road net in the Sixth Panzer Army would not permit the commitment of the 1st SS Panzer as a division, even if two of the five roads allocated the army were employed. The division was therefore divided into four columns or kampfgruppen: the first, commanded by Colonel Peiper, contained the bulk of the 1st Panzer Regiment and thus represented the armored spearhead of the division. The original route for Peiper's KG was Route D assigned by 6th SS Pz Korps. Peiper could not follow the route exactly as given for a variety of reasons. The actual route he took was Losheim, Lanzerath, Honsfeld, Bullingen, Moderscheid, Ligneuville, here the road divided. Peiper had a precisely defined mission: his KG was to seize the Meuse River crossings at Huy, making full use of the element of surprise and driving west without regard to any flank protection. Therefore, his path lay straight ahead, through Stavelot, Trois Ponts, Werbomont, Ouffet, Seny, Huy - a distance of some 50 miles. Only a few short miles to the north lay Malmedy and the road to Spa and Liege. Malmedy and the Meuse crossing sites in the vicinity of Liege, however, were in the zone assigned the 12th SS Panzer Division. Whatever timetable he was using, if indeed he had any precise timetable in mind, his KG was making good progress and the element of surprise, as shown by the lack of any formal resistance, was working to his advantage. This explains why Peiper stuck to this route. This scenario was designed for you to follow in Peiper's footsteps, although having much more information, and hindsight from 50 years ago, may give you an edge.[Size, medium] Editor's notes: *This scenario was altered to allow German and SS panzer and panzer grenadier division as well as corps and army level pioneers to breakdown into companies. This allows more flexibility but still restricts other lower quality axis divisions. *Some of the US 2nd and 99th Infantry Division's artillery was removed on the north edge of the map since they would have been supporting the rest of its division to the northeast. *The US 7th Armored Division arrives at its historical time and location on the north edge of the map. Historically it moved south along two routes. The eastern route went through Malmedy-Ligneuville-Recht and the western route went through Stavelot-Wanne-Vielsalm-Poteau. Two combat commands setup northwest of St Vith at Recht and Poteau and a third remained in reserve, defending the supply line through Vielsalm. It is in the allied player's best interest to move the 7th Armored Division to their historical locations rather than falling for the temptation of defending the Warche River crossings from Peiper or else the Axis player can easily take over 500 points from the St Vith area and will probably eventually get across the Warche anyway.*This scenario has been approved at H2H Productions*