Battle of the Bulge tour

I know my military history but I'd never really appreciated the scale and importance of the Battle of the Bulge. This has now been corrected by a week's holiday in Bastogne.

The Bulge rivals the battle for Normandy in terms of its scale, duration, area, numbers of men and vehicles, intensity of fighting - and, nowadays, the number of excellent museums. I'm not going to attempt an exhaustive list of these, or even a full account of the umpteen places we visited. You'll find ample tour guidance elsewhere. Here I'll just scratch the surface with a few highlights.

No trip to Belgium is complete without a beer.

Fortunately in Bastogne they brew "Patton" and "Airborne".

We started at the Elsenborn Ridge memorial, above the villages of Krinkelt and Rocherath. This is where US forces held off the Volksgrenadiers of 6th Panzer Army, preventing the Germans from expanding the northern edge of the Bulge.

From the ridge, we then followed Kampfgruppe Peiper on the obligatory pilgrimage to La Gleize. The December 44 museum there is truly excellent.

For dedicated trackheads and rivet-counters, Bastogne Barracks is a must. This is a Belgian Bovington, with dozens and dozens of interesting vehicles and weapons. E.g., I liked the German 105mm gun that was subsequently used by the Nigerian army in the Biafran War. But it seems fitting to represent the Barracks with this AEC armoured car used by Brigade Piron, the Free Belgian formation that helped to liberate Belgium and the Netherlands.

Having done the northern flank, then we invaded Luxembourg. The National Military Museum in Diekirch is again excellent. Like most of the museums we went to, it has some really well done dioramas like this one.

There's a ton of stuff in its vehicle hall, including these guys in their Hanomag.

One of the most bizarre exhibits is this shell from the V-3 multi-charge long-range gun.

Typical expensive overly elaborate and impractical Nazi ingenuity.

Diekirch also has a fabulous collection of weapons and ammunition. This is just part of it.

See how many exotic firearms you can spot in just this one photo.

After that we were pretty much Bulged out. We did go to the 101st Airborne Museum in Bastogne, again excellent, but no photos. And decided to save the ones at Manhay and La-Roche-en-Ardenne for next time.

Instead, for variety, we visited the Fort de Leveau on the way home. This model shows it when it was first built in the 1880s. It was part of the complex of fortifications around Maubeuge, which in turn was part of the whole system of frontier defences constructed by France after being defeated in the Franco-Prussian War. It was battered but not destroyed during the two-week Siege of Maubeuge in 1914 (possibly worthy of wargaming). It also saw some action in 1940 and again in 1944.

Here's how it looks now. It's very well preserved and houses a really good museum with masses of exhibits. That was an hour well spent (and it really deserves more).

This was a terrific holiday and, of course, it stimulated the wargamer brain. I've dabbled in Bulge games a couple of times: Colin's KG Peiper game back in 2015, then a company-sized skirmish in 2020. But now I have a hankering to do some multi-division scenarios as a campaign ... maybe even base up troops on proper snowy bases ... so many projects, so little time!