An American unit managed to defeat a German one far superior in number

The epic combat of armored vehicles that started the Battle of Arracourt in 1944

During World War II there were heavy tank battles. One of them was the Battle of Arracourt, in France, in September 1944.

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This battle pitted the US Army's 4th Armored Division against the German 5th Panzer Army, made up of two divisions and two tank brigades. The German forces were superior in number to the Americans, but in a war, brute force is not enough to win a battle. The American division had better information and its tactics were superior to those of its enemies, achieving victory despite being outnumbered. The greater availability of air support also counted in their favor.

Of course, it was not an easy victory: both sides suffered numerous losses. On the American side they added more than fifty tanks and tank destroyers. The Germans lost more than 200 tanks and self-propelled guns out of the 262 they had at the start of the battle. This was one of the largest tank battles on the Western Front in World War II, second only to the Battle of of the Ardennes that began three months later in that region of Belgium and Luxembourg.

The channel Yarnhub has just posted an excellent computer recreation of one of the epic fighting that kicked off the Battle of Arracourt, which pitted a platoon of four American M-18 Hellcat tank destroyers, commanded by Lieutenant Ed Leiper, against a superior force of German Panzer IV tanks, on 19 September 1944:

You can see below some screenshots of the video, as a preview. Once again, Yarnhub is to be congratulated for the excellent quality of the content it publishes.

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