It was the first battle and spearhead of the German attack, inflicting heavy American casualties, and causing disorder on the frontlines.

With the US and Britain in the West, and the Soviets in the east, Hitler made plans to launch a last ditch blitzkrieg offensive through the Ardennes, a very forested part of Eastern Belgium.

From the start, High Command was not optimistic, as it embodied Hitler's desperate and delusional state near the end of the war.

This would allow the 12th SS Panzer Division to advance westward towards a group of villages named Trois-Ponts, connect to Belgian Route Nationale N-23, and cross the river Meuse.

[3]: 70 During the Battle of the Bulge, some of the best German units,[4] including the 3rd Fallschirmjaeger Division and 6th Panzer Army planned to assault northwest over the Losheim-Losheimergraben road and along the railroad tracks through the Losheim Gap towards the village of Büllingen, but were held up by the broken railroad overpasses which they destroyed in their prior retreat.

This plan was thwarted by the mostly inexperienced U.S. troops, who severely limited the German's advance, halting them at the Battle of Elsenborn Ridge.

In the south of the main German front, the 5th Panzer Army was given the task of capturing St. Vith and the vital road and rail network.

He was further held up when his tanks struck two of their own minefields, slowing progress while the engineers cleared the fields ahead of mines.

Disgusted, Peiper demanded that Oberst Helmut von Hoffman, commander of the 9th Parachute Regiment, give him a battalion of paratroops to accompany his tanks.

At 04:30 on December 17, more than 16 hours behind schedule, the 1st SS Panzer Division rolled out of Lanzerath with a battalion of paratroopers preceding them and headed east for Bucholz Station.

At Bucholz Station, the 3rd Battalion of the U.S. 394th Infantry Regiment was surprised and quickly captured, except for a headquarters company radio operator.

Driving west-northwest, the Germans entered Honsfeld, where they encountered one of the 99th Division's rest centers, clogged with confused American troops.

[7] He then advanced towards Büllingen, keeping to the plan to move west, apparently unaware he had nearly taken the town and unknowingly bypassing an opportunity to flank and trap the entire 2nd and 99th Division.

However, in more than ten days of intense battle, they were unable to dislodge the Americans from Elsenborn Ridge, where elements of the V Corps of the First U.S. Army prevented the German forces from reaching the road network to their west.