During the great German counter offensive in the Ardennes Forest in December 1944, a single battle group achieved a clean breakthrough, and dashed headlong for the Meuse River. Its commander was a 29 year-old Colonel named Joachim Peiper.

The German battle plan for the Ardennes counter offensive called for three armies to smash their way through the thinly defended American front line, wheel northward, and drive on to capture the huge Allied supply port of Antwerp. 

Spearheading this massive assault was a large armored formation called, Kampfgruppe Peiper, or Battle Group Peiper. His unit was attached to the 1st S.S. Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. It just happened to be one of the most famous, infamous, and feared military formations of the Second World War.

Kampfgruppe Peiper was quite an impressive force of both men and material. It was comprised of the following weaponry. First, it contained 40 brand new, state of the art Panther Tanks, More than half of which were the specially upgraded “H” versions. These tanks were equipped with infrared night vision optics for both the commander and main gunner, as well as the driver. This was not only a first on any tank, but was not even duplicated on any other tank until the latter half of the 1950’s.

Secondly, Peiper’s Kampfgruppe contained 40 Tiger I’s, one of the most powerful and feared tanks ever built, 15 Jagdpanzer IV/70 Tank Destroyers, and 45 absolutely mammoth King Tiger, or Tiger II Tanks. At an astounding 68.9 tons, this was the single largest tank to ever see action during the whole of World War Two.

In addition to this, Peiper’s unit was augmented by plenty of secondary fire support as well. This included: 149 SdKfz 251/3 halftracks, twelve 20 mm anti-aircraft guns, 25 self-propelled 75 mm guns, twelve 105 mm Howitzers, six 150 mm Howitzers, 4 Russian made, 120 mm mortars, 21 Flakpanzer IV anti-aircraft trucks, 20 Whirlwind anti-aircraft Panzers, 40 amphibious cars [Schwimmwagens], and 50 motorcycles.

All told, Peiper’s kmapfgruppe stormed into battle with more than 800 vehicles of all sorts and types, and extended form end to end in a column for nearly 12 miles.