Schmidt: do you know that Hitler and his generals perfectly knew that the real menace came from the East and that they needed to achieve some victory... However, even Hitler knew that such a victory was impossible in the East because "the Red Army is too strong now"* That is why they looked for the weakest sector of the 'unexperienced' Americans...

And the Germans were not producing high ammounts of weaponry by late 1944... the Allied bombardement had damaged very severely all the factories at the Ruhr...

And I think you are too OVER rating Waffen SS troops. They weren't fully armed and they were a miserable force compared to the German Army. The Waffen SS was only 25% of the Wehrmacht and 80% of its units were shameful. Divisions with the size of a regiment... Even the excellent divisions were not fully strenghtened. They would have received equipment as they did in September-November 1944 and would have worked very nicely without the Ardennes offensive. But even fully equipped they were not rival for the Western Allies and MUCH LESS for the mighty Red Army of 1944.

*Kershaw, Ian, "Hitler 1936-1945", 2001.

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun