     December 17th was a day of confusion for Colonel George Descheneaux of the 422nd Infantry Regiment. On the previous day his regiment had suffered minor shelling, and there had been a few probing attacks on his front. At 9:00 AM on the 17th, he was informed that Germans had captured Schonberg, a town four miles to his rear, sitting astride the only escape route. The situation had changed dramatically. He was trapped.
     The night before, Descheneaux's boss, General Jones, had telephoned his boss, General Middleton. Middleton didn't want to retreat from the Schnee Eifel but didn't want to risk losing the two exposed regiments there. He told Jones to do whatever he saw fit, but reminded him that the 7th Armored Division was on its way to help. Jones didn't know what to do. On the morning of the 17th, he ordered his two trapped regiments to "withdraw from present positions if they become untenable." That final qualifier only injected more uncertainty into the situation. The 422nd's positions were perfectly tenable, except for the fact that they were surrounded, and everybody knew they were surrounded. What did the order mean?
     Compounding the problem was the behavior of Colonel Mark Devine's 14th Cavalry Group stationed on Descheneaux's left flank. Cavalry doesn't have the staying power for a stand-up fight against heavy odds. Cavalry is supposed to move around, to hit and move on, and never get pinned down. When heavy German attacks came crashing down on them, the 14th Cavalry retreated, leaving Descheneaux's regiment in the lurch. Devine retreated several times without notifying General Jones; nobody realized just how bad the situation was until the trap slammed shut.
     Descheneaux didn't know what to do on the 17th. So he did nothing.
/Confusion
     The battlefield is a place of supreme confusion. To appreciate just how serious the chaos can be, just follow this simple recipe:
     Start with several thousand 18-to-22 year old soldiers -- not exactly the coolest heads in the population. Put them under the control of a group of officers whose average combat experience is measured in months. Send them all out to live in the woods, where even the most basic needs like sanitation are difficult to meet.
     Now start shooting at them. First, lob a few thousand artillery shells at them. This will almost certainly cut their telephone lines so that they won't be able to communicate with each other. They'll try to use radios, of course, but sometimes the radios will work and sometimes they won't. They'll also use runners to carry messages, but runners are slow, sometimes they're delayed, and sometimes they're killed, wounded, or captured along the way.
     That artillery bombardment will also kill and wound a few. Not many, but your goal isn't to kill everybody -- that would take too long. If only one guy's entrails end up hanging from a branch, that can seriously affect the judgement of maybe a hundred guys who witness it.
     Now that you've got them rattled, launch some probing attacks. Nothing serious, mind you, just enough to let them know that you're out there and you'll be coming to get them soon. Send one halftrack out and the enemy commander will hear that it was three Tiger tanks. Keep moving your men around. If one platoon takes pot shots from five different locations, the enemy will think it's five platoons.
     Is it any wonder that militay units caught in such circumstances become paralyzed?/