Strategy and Obstacles in the Battle of Arracourt

“Arracourt was the greatest tank battle of the war on the Allied Front.” This is how US Major General John S. Wood described the Battle of Arracourt, which took place in the last weeks of September 1944 in Northern France. The Allied Forces had landed in Normandy in June 1944, and by the summer had broken out of their beachhead. This started the great pursuit of the German forces across northern France towards the German border. By early fall of 1944, General George S. Patton’s Third Army had raced across France faster than anyone had envisioned and was in place to cross the Moselle River in the Lorraine area. Here his forces would face supply issues due to their speed of advance, increasing resistance from prepared German forces, and increasingly difficult weather. Patton’s first obstacle was the Moselle River and the fortress city of Metz. After crossing the Moselle with most of the Third Army by mid September, the US Third Army’s armored units were engaged in the largest tank battles of the Western Front at Arracourt. The next phase of the campaign was to reorganize and train. In early November, the Third Army attacked again and was able to capture Metz by late November, and reached the Sarre River and the West Wall. During the long Lorraine Campaign in late 1944, the US Third Army armored units were able to overcome stiff enemy resistance, superior quality vehicles, hard terrain, and difficult weather with the use of superior tactics, doctrine and leadership.

Strategic Overview

To understand the Lorraine Campaign of 1944, one must look back a few months to June 1944. Here on June 6, 1944 the western Allies conducted the opposed landings of Operation Overlord in Normandy. From that time till late July, the Allies were unable...

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...t as the Shermans. The main weaknesses of the German tanks used in the Lorraine campaign were their crews, who were mostly raw recruits versus the battle tested American tankers.

The German tank destroyers at the start of the Lorraine Campaign were the Sturmgeschütz III or Stug III (assault gun) and Jagdpanzer IV (tank hunter). The Sturmgeschütz III was also was an aging design, having been in service since 1940. It weighed 24 tons, carried a high velocity 75mm gun, and had 3 inches of armor. Next was the Jagdpanzer IV, a 26 ton tank destroyer designed after the German defeat at Stalingrad and based on the Panzer Mark IV chassis. It was relatively new, had a high velocity 75mm gun and 3 inches of armor. Both of these tank destroyers had a major disadvantage; they had no turret, which meant the whole tank destroyer had to be aimed at the target, using precious time.