     At 5:00 PM on December 18th, Colonel George Descheneaux's 422nd Infantry Regiment was marching into an assembly area three miles east of Schonberg. Having stayed put on the previous day, the trapped regiment was now trying to break out to the west. That morning, Descheneaux had received his first clear order: "It is imperative that Schonberg be taken." At last, Descheneaux knew what had to be done.
     But it was slow going. Three infantry battalions and a smattering of support units, amounting to some 4,000 men, were under Descheneaux's command. Between them they had 150 machine guns, 100 bazookas, 45 mortars, and perhaps 20 artillery pieces, all of which had to be brought along. The artillery pieces were too heavy to move, so they were destroyed and abandoned. But the rest of the stuff, and all the ammunition, food, radios, and other gear had to be carried. There were some trucks and jeeps to carry the heaviest equipment, but much of it had to be carried by the men slogging down the narrow and icy mountain trails. A GI's pack weighed 60 to 90 pounds. Much of the journey was cross-country, through thick forests of pine with snow several feet deep. All day long the men struggled through the snow. They'd go up one ridge and down the other side. The route was steep, rocky, and slippery. Some collapsed from the exertion; some discarded packs, overcoats, helmets, even rifles; and some just marched on. By nightfall, they had moved a distance of two miles.
     The exhausted men fell asleep almost immediately. Descheneaux wanted to take advantage of the cover of night to make his break, but the men couldn't summon the strength. The German military logs for that night noted with astonishment that, "In the pocket, absolute quiet reigned."
/Movement & Terrain
     The terrain of the Ardennes is inimical to military movement. Although the area is elevated, it is not strictly speaking a mountain range; the highest points in the area are less than 2,500 feet above sea level. Think of it instead as a hilly area broken by numerous steep ravines and canyons. It is not fully forested, either; there are large tracts of dense forest interspersed with large open areas.
     The broken terrain greatly limits the road net. There were few paved roads in the area in 1944; most were narrow dirt roads winding along canyon bottoms. The map in this game shows only the main roads; there were a great many secondary roads, little more than jeep trails, that permitted movement almost anywhere. The problem was that movement along such roads was slow.
     However, the slowest going of all arose when a unit was forced to abandon even the jeep trails and move cross-country. That's when things really slowed down. The nature of the road net made such circumstances common during the Battle of the Bulge. All too often a winding road wound off in the wrong direction, into the enemy lines, in which case a marching unit would attempt to go cross-country to another road. The narrow roads could easily be interdicted by a small blocking force, in which case the advancing unit would be forced to work its way around the roadblock -- a time-consuming proposition./