A Lesson for Lehr

Among German reinforcements torn from the British front to oppose the American bridgehead over the Vire River was the redoubtable Panzer-Lehr Division. While preparing their own attack, the American 9th Division picked up radio signals from Lehr, but dismissed them a ruse to cover a German withdrawal. But …

1944-07-11

AP035

Among German reinforcements torn from the British front to oppose the American bridgehead over the Vire River was the redoubtable Panzer-Lehr Division. While preparing their own attack, the American 9th Division picked up radio signals from Lehr, but dismissed them a ruse to cover a German withdrawal. But Fritz Bayerlein was not bluffing. Pre-empting the Americans, Panzer-Lehr struck at dawn on 11 July, with its two Panzergrenadier regiments leasing a two-pronged assault. But the prongs were too far apart to offer mutual assistance. As American force gathered around Abteilung 1 of Panzergrenadier-Regiment 901, Hauptmann Philipps found his unit slowed, stopped, and then forced to bring forward its heavy guns in an effort to escape encirclement.

St. Jean-de-Daye, France

The Battle of Saint-Lô is one of the three conflicts in the Battle of the Hedgerows, which took place between July 7–19, 1944, just before Operation Cobra. Saint-Lô had fallen to Germany in 1940, and, after the Invasion of Normandy, the Americans targeted the city, as it served as a strategic crossroads. American bombardments caused heavy damage and a high number of casualties, which resulted in the martyr city being called "The Capital of Ruins", popularized in a report by Samuel Beckett.

German

American

Scenario Type = Standard