You have soldiers trudging around in the winter snow from here to there, sleeping in foxholes and they don't have any knapsacks with spare gear such as blankets, raincoats, ground sheet, extra socks and so on. It just doesn't happen that way. I also did not see one BAR - kind of odd!
shareAbner was a BAR gunner.
shareThat's plain dumb. If you would have watched the movie you would have heard the command for the men to drop their packs when they began the march into Bastogne. From what I know there was running around as you say cuz this was a fluid action. Lines were constantly changing. Airborne troops didn't carry many BARs. My gosh, where did you go to high school ?
shareThe squad was carrying musette bags (the field pack for WW II airborne troops) in the beginning when they first moved to Bastogne. I guess during the moving around during the battle they lost their packs. I've reads accounts of the battle where troops were ordered to drop their packs when going on the assault and never getting a chance to recover them. As far as raincoats some of the characters were wearing them for warmth.
shareWell, the Battle of the Bulge did kind of happen that way. They went in with low supplies, low ammo, hardly any winter gear....
Hitler! C'mon, I'll buy you a glass of lemonade.