Wednesday War Stories ~ The Battle of Arracourt: 19–22 September 1944

Aaron Danis, 17 September 2025

The Battle of Arracourt was one of the largest tank battles involving U.S. and German forces on the Western Front in WWII, ending in a solid U.S. victory. It pitted the XII Corps of Lieutenant General George Patton’s Third Army, spearheaded by the vaunted 4^th Armored Division and supported by elements of the 6^th Armored and the 35^th and 80^th Infantry Divisions, against elements of the 5^th Panzer Army, most notably the newly-minted 111^th and 113^th Panzer Brigades, and the 3rd and 15^th Panzer Grenadier Divisions.

The 4^th Armored, led by uber-aggressive Major General John “Tiger Jack” Wood, fought a series of battles as part of XII Corps efforts to encircle and capture the city of Nancy, on the traditional invasion route into Germany. All of this was packaged into the Lorraine Campaign, where Patton tried to keep his 3^rd Army moving forward despite nearly all logistics being siphoned off to support Operation Market Garden in the British sector in Holland that kicked off on 17 September. Patton chafed at the fact that Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery was getting the lion’s share of fuel and ammo for his combined airborne-ground operation to jump the Rhine River, when in August Patton knew that the German forces in front of him were disorganized and unable to stop his forces if he only had the logistics. Unfortunately, he would be frustrated in his force’s efforts, and the campaign would drag on for 3 months.

Patton used the classic “rock soup” approach to scrape up the supplies for a modest effort to take Nancy and cross the Moselle River before the German response solidified (which it was already doing). First Army Commander General Omar Bradley gave him the go ahead to attack, and after some difficulties, the 4^th Armored Division’s two primary Combat Commands were able to force their way across the Moselle and drive into the largely unprotected German rear areas (Figure 1 below).

click maps to enlarge

Figure 1: The XII Corps campaign to capture Nancy. The 4th Armored, supported by the 80^th Infantry Division, crossed the Moselle River in the north with Combat Command A (CCA) and in the south with CCB with the assistance of the 35^th Infantry Division. ¹

Within days, the two Combat Commands linked up, splitting the German defenses and cutting off the city of Nancy which was then assaulted directly by the 35^th Infantry Division (Figure 2).

Figure 2: The 35^th Infantry Division captured Nancy, while the 4^th Armored prepared for follow-on offensive operations that were canceled because more forces were not forthcoming. The 4^th Armored was ordered to consolidate near Arracourt.²

A German counterattack was brewing on 19 September, spearheaded by two new Panzer Brigades which were still receiving Panther tanks from the factory (each brigade had a battalion of 45 Panzerkampfwagen Mark IVs and 45 Mark V Panthers). The Panthers still had mechanical issues, the brigades were manned by inexperienced troops who had not trained together, and command and control was not ideal (resulting in piecemeal attacks). During the German counterattacks (Figure 3 below), early morning fog neutralized the Germans’ longer range main guns, and ubiquitous US artillery and aircraft from the XIX Tactical Air Command harassed German formations and destroyed armored vehicles.

Task Force Abrams was well-led by one of the best tactical tank commanders in the US Army, Lieutenant Colonel Creighton Abrams, who would go on to be the US Army Chief of Staff during the Vietnam War. The 4^th Armored tankers knew how to leverage their advantages against German tanks. In one incident:

The superior mobility of the American tanks and self-propelled tank destroyers gave the defenders a decided advantage. When the Panthers turned away, after the abortive attack at [the town of] Lezey, Captain Lamison took four tanks from C Company and raced the enemy some three thousand yards to a commanding ridge west of Bezange-la-Petite. Arriving on the position about three minutes before eight Panthers appeared, Lamison’s tanks got set and knocked out four of the German tanks before they could return the fire; then they withdrew over the crest of the ridge, moved south a short distance, reappeared, and finished off the remaining Panthers. ³

Figure 3: General Hasso von Manteuffel’s 5th Panzer Army counterattacked aggressively, but its forces were inexperienced and constantly harassed by US artillery and airpower.⁴ He took command only 8 days prior to launching the counterattack.

Figure 4: At the tip of the spear, CCA was able to parry the German advance.⁵ It was supported by additional artillery and M-18 Hellcats of the 704^th Tank Destroyer Battalion.

The tank battles would continue until the end of the month, but the damage had been done to the two new German panzer brigades. The tank battle fought from 19 through 22 September had cost CCA 14 M-4 Sherman medium tanks and 7 M-5 light tanks totally destroyed, and 25 killed and 88 wounded. The German losses couldn’t be accurately determined (for the entire campaign, the 4th Armored Division claimed 281 German tanks destroyed, 3,000 Germans killed, and 3,000 taken prisoner), but two panzer brigades had been crippled as cohesive combat units and the Fifth Panzer Army had not ended the penetration of German lines or retaken Nancy.⁶

Figure 5: Lt. Col. Creighton Abrams (crouching), 1944.⁷

Figure 6: Lt. Col. Abrams (right), early 1945, pointing at his then tank Thunderbolt VI. ⁸

Want to game it out?

Although this battle was taught in U.S. Army schoolhouses post-WWII, it has only recently been popularized as a wargame. I became aware of this battle in 1979 when I received S&T 73 in the mail with the tactical (platoon-level) game Panzer Battles. One of the three scenarios was a portion of the Arracourt battle. Unfortunately, the game system was not great.

The first game dedicated to the battle was published in 2001 by Paul Rohrbaugh for Microgame Design Group, then later Rohrbaugh’s High Flying Dice Games. It is out of print now but available on the secondary market. From 2017-2022, 3 games on the battle were published, all at the tactical/grand tactical level (platoon up to battalion).

The most recent by MMP is part of the popular Battalion Combat System (BCS), with 6 scenarios. It is a small footprint game for the BCS series, and reportedly a good game to learn the system. If you want something different, Revolution Games’ entry is an area movement game with 2 scenarios.

	Panzer Battles: Tactical Armored Warfare in World War II (1979) (SPI) One scenario but probably the earliest published on this battle.  Platoon-level.
	Arracourt (2022) (MMP) All the elements of the BCS system, in just one map. Company/battalion-level.
	Lucky Forward: Patton’s Third Army in Lorraine (2020) (Decision Games) A large (5-map) GOSS-series game that looks at the Lorraine Campaign at the platoon/company level.  Arracourt is one of the smaller scenarios.
	Patton’s Vanguard: The Battle of Arracourt, 1944 (2017) (Revolution Games) Company-level.
	Patton’s Finest – The Battle of Arracourt (2001) (High Flying Dice Games, but out of print) A small-footprint game playable in 90 minutes.  Company-level.
	Arracourt ’44: 12 WWII Armored Clashed Based on the Battle of Lorraine (2011) This is an add-on scenario book for Final Combat miniatures rules

Books/Articles/Film (Free downloads)

• Hugh M. Cole, United States Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations, The Lorraine Campaign, CMH Pub 7–6–1, Center Of Military History, United States Army, Washington, D. C., 1950 & 1993.
• Dr. Christopher Gabel, The Lorraine Campaign: An Overview, September – December 1944, Combat Studies Institute, February 1985.
• Dr. Christopher Gabel, The 4th Armored Division in the Encirclement of Nancy, Combat Studies Institute, April 1986.
  Note: this is a shorter monograph extracted from the longer study above
• The Nancy Bridgehead, prepared by commanders and staff of Combat Command A, 4th Armored Division, 1944, 27 pages.
  Note: This publication was prepared for use in the instruction of armored forces. It is based primarily on recollections of personnel who took part in this operation.
• US Army University Press Films: France ’44: The Encirclement at Nancy, Published February 19, 2020.
• US Army Combat Studies Institute, The Encirclement of Nancy Virtual Staff Ride.
  Note: You can only access the staff ride portion if you have a CAC (if you have to ask what it is, then you don’t have it), but you can download the study materials and great slide sets.

Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons.
Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web.
You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events.
Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.

1. The Nancy Bridgehead, prepared by commanders and staff of Combat Command A, 4th Armored Division, 1944, p. 13.
2. The Nancy Bridgehead, p. 17.
3. Hugh M. Cole, United States Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations, The Lorraine Campaign, p. 225.
4. Dr. Christopher Gabel, The Lorraine Campaign: An Overview, September – December 1944, p. 18.
5. Cole, The Lorraine Campaign, p. 227.
6. Cole, The Lorraine Campaign, p. 233.
7. Photo Credit: Unknown Author / US Army / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain, found here.
8. Photo found here