Bulge Battle and the Eastern Front - Small Unit Defensive Actions

I've noticed that many American and German memoirs often talk about incredible small unit defensive victories.

They both involve small groups of soldiers/material repelling and largely annihilating a larger attacking infantry force. Horrific losses are inflicted on the enemy while the defenders are comparably unharmed. These stories often talk about over a hundred to hundreds of dead surrounding their defensive positions.

I find these stories rather specious and they always sound unbelievable.

IE. recent one: In Bidermann's In Deadly Combat, he talks about how his small defending force leaves 160 Soviet assault infantrymen slain around their positions. The Germans lose 2 dead, 3 wounded. The American bulge memoirs often tell similar tales about massive German dead. We've all heard of the I & R platoon, and there are incidents at Elsenborn Ridge/St. Vith, Bastogne, etc.

Are they real? How often do flukes like these occur?

 

Personally I´d think alot depends on the fire power you have as well as the back up with artillery or mortars. Also if you have the attacking enemy in cross fire they are pretty much in deep s****.

Also it is a well known fact the waffen-SS suffered horrible losses due to overeager attacking strategy, which was seen by the Heer Generals as stupidity and poor judgement of situation during early WW2.

 

As for the Eastern Front, I'd say Stalingrad deserves a mention, since the Red Army fought a magnificent deffensive battle within the city without much armour and air support versus more numerous and stronger forces. There were many incidents in which Soviet squads or platoons pinned down two German battalions... or one of the greatest moments of the battle, in September, when, in the course of one day, Chuikov repelled the attack of three German Army corps in three different locations using a single Siberian division (of almost 10,000 men) and three dozen T-34s. I can dig into it if you want... it's very interesting.

 

Pavlov's House comes to mind here as well. It is said that the hand full of men were responsible for killing more Germans then the Allies while liberating Paris. German casualties exceeded 2,000.

 

as does the last weeks in Ost Preussia for the Heer of which the accounts of too many have been lost. no-one gave any quarter, it was one of brutal harshness, the Soviets taking out retribution and hurrying or trying to close the last gasp of the Reich and into it while the Germans defended this part of the frontier with all they had, dwindling Kompanies facing battalions, a few Panzerfausts/Panzerschrecks against dozens of T-34's and JS II's

 

Battle for Henderson Field - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"In a firefight on the night of October 24–25, 1942, lasting about three hours, 1/7 sustained 70 casualties; the Japanese force suffered over 1,400 killed in action, and the battalion held the airfield"

This is pacific, I know, but this is another unbelievable defensive action.

 

Small unit actions between opposing forces were rarely equally well-fought. Modern weapons are so deadly that a few minutes of vulnerability exploited would allow a tiny group of defenders to visit utter destruction on the attacker. People found it incredible that German panzer companies were engulfed by cross fire from hidden US tanks and TDs. But the same thing happens when the Americans walked into ambushes. From what I have read of the Ardennes fighting, there was almost never anything in-between.

Case in point, as someone else had brought up, is Stalingrad. One squad of Russians armed with nothing heavier than Maxims held up a whole division in the grain silos. Let me see if I get the time to find a reference for that tonight. =)

Btw, I remember, perhaps from John Keegan's The Face of Battle, that it takes magnificent troops to make a bloodbath. Where lesser men would break and run, good troops continued to fight. Many infantry officers talk about how too often the best men became casualties.

 

Double post

 

There is lot of stories of SINGLE person doing some amazing things, so I think it would be even more possible with # of people.

I had a link with top 10 amazing soliders, but I lost it. However I was able to find this guy.

Simo Häyhä - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia