Word: breakthroughs
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...first impact of the German offensive in the Ardennes had been stunning. Much more so was the size of the breakthrough, the continuing torrent of Nazi power poured through the gaps, the speed of the German spearheads...
Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt's skillful breakthrough had had the first great element of success: surprise. He had struck the thinnest sector of the American line. He had cleverly begun with light attacks, concealing his intentions, playing upon the Americans' underestimation of his strength...
Opportunity. The Luftwaffe's show of strength early in the offensive had not been great enough to help Rundstedt fully achieve the first object of any decisive breakthrough: to fan out behind an enemy's lines, to destroy or seize his supplies, to keep him from moving his reserves into defensive battle, to send him into confused retreat...
Those were the timesaving, small-scale battles that held the breakthrough from becoming a Blitzkrieg in the 1940 sense. Some of them might have a proud place in the annals of World War II-historians might say that here or there Rundstedt's drive had been fatally slowed...
...bitter confusion of the German breakthrough the Army clamped down a censorship thicker than the pea-soup fog that shrouded the great German counterattack. Communiqués were as much as 48 hours behind the event. When they came they were meager and vague. Correspondents blew...