August 7th, 1944
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| Operation Luttich |
In early August of 1944 the German army in Normandy was facing a great dilemma. After weeks of stalemate, the Americans had finally broken through the western flank of the German line and they were rapidly advancing to the south and to the east. Like any sane military commander Field Marschall Von Kluge recognized the dangers of an encirclement and prepared to withdraw his forces to the east.
The word retreat was however not in Hitler's vocabulary and he immediately intervened. Von Kluge was to launch a counterattack against American forces in the west of Normandy, with the objective of retaking Avranches and cutting off the Americans in the south. This maneuver would be much like the one used in the First World War, during the battle of Liège (Lüttich is the city's German name) which took place exactly 30 years earlier.
Even though Von Kluge realized this attack was doomed to fail and that it would likely result in the encirclement and subsequent destruction of all German forces in Normandy he also knew it was futile to go against the Führers commands. So, on the 7th of August, Operation Lüttich began...
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Ground Forces 
Stationary Weapons 
