Editing Counterattack (section)

=== Battle of St. Vith ===

The '''Battle of St. Vith''' was part of the [[Battle of the Bulge]], which began on 16 December 1944, and represented the right [[Flanking maneuver|flank]] in the advance of the German center, [[5th Panzer Army|5th ''Panzer-Armee'']] (Armored Army), toward the ultimate objective of [[Antwerp]]. Given the task of countering the German advance, US General [[Bruce C. Clarke]] decided that a [[mobile defense]] was the best solution. Knowing that the German army was aiming for an objective far behind the battle line, he decided that they could afford to lose a few kilometers a day - the idea being that a slowing down of the advance was as good as stopping them outright, since the Germans were limited by time.{{fact|date=April 2021}}

The mobile defense he used at St. Vith involved the use of [[M36 tank destroyer]]s acting as a base of fire to resist the oncoming German armored thrust, slowing them down enough to then counter-attack them with a force of [[M4 Sherman]] tanks. Artillery and Infantry were involved in this process as a combined arms force. The key was not to engage the Germans in a pitched battle, but to slow their advance enough to ruin their offensive timetable. The counter-attacks ensured that the German forces could not break through the slowly retreating forces. Clarke's success was one of the first times armor had been used in a mobile defense.{{fact|date=April 2021}}