The Hohenstaufen led the northern pincer, pushing through Recht to attempt to seize Vielsalm. SS-Sturmbannführer Eberhard Telkamp led the Hohenstaufen's panzer regiment into action on 21 December, and it soon ran into a strong 7th Armored Division Combat Command, with almost 80 Shermans and tank destroyers.

The battle came to a climax on Christmas Eve, when Telkamp ordered an all-out effort to break through to Vielsalm. Just as his panzer regiment was forming up to attack, USAAF P-47 fighter-bombers swooped down in waves and massacred his column. Now the Hohenstaufen's northern pincer was well and truly blocked.

The Das Reich Division

Das Reich had been ordered south of St Vith, but its column was halted when the division's tankers were unable to get past road congestion and deliver the vital fuel to the vehicles. The commander of the reconnaissance battalion of Das Reich, SS-Sturmbannführer Ernst-August Krag, was allocated the bulk of his division's scarce fuel on 21 December for the vital task of infiltrating behind the St Vith salient to close the American escape route. The prize was to be the entrapment of 20,000 American troops. Krag's reconnaissance troopers were reinforced with a company of Panzerjöger IVs and a battalion of Wespe 105mm self-propelled guns.

Krag managed to slip through the American lines, and by the evening of 23 December he was in the village of Salmchâteau, only 3km (1.8 miles) from Vielsalm. Tanks of the 7th Armored Division were still holding the northern escape route open through that town, but Krag's appearance effectively blocked the southern route out of St Vith.

The attack on Manhay

Denied his prize at St Vith, Bittrich was now determined to push Das Reich forward to exploit a gap in the American defences at Manhay, which offered a route westwards to the Meuse. SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Weidinger's Der Führer Panzergrenadier Regiment at last received fuel on 22 December and was launched forward with a company of Panzer IVs and StuG IIIs in the lead. It ran into a battalion-sized force of 82nd Airborne paratroopers, artillery batteries and a platoon of Sherman tanks during the early hours of 23 December at the key Barque de Fraiture crossroads.

When the initial attack was repulsed by the Americans, Weidinger pulled back and brought up his artillery battery to soften up the defenders who were fighting in the woods around the crossroads. With Panzer IVs and StuG IIIs leading the way, the Waffen-SS then closed in on the Americans. They were soon almost surrounded, then the German tanks started to pick off the Shermans and 105mm howitzers from long range. The three surviving American tanks pulled out through the last escape route, leaving the 100 paratroopers on their own amid 34 destroyed tanks and vehicles. They were soon being rounded up by the Waffen-SS men.

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