Instead of putting up stout resistance, they retreated in the face of the attack, letting the Germans penetrate. This way they suffered fewer losses and retained equipment, and they could then move to the sides of the salient and attack the under-defended flanks. In the end, the Germans advanced so deep into Allied territory that they had become very vulnerable. Ironically, their overly-successful assault exposed their weaknesses. And their offensive had also cost them 1million men - irreplaceable men.
Now, with the offensive grinding to a halt without having provided a victory, and America ready to play a full part with the Allies, the German morale began to weaken. On top of their seemingly endless supplies of men, the Americans could use their vast resources to build weapons, munitions, tanks, artillery, planes, which could be shipped across the Atlantic to aid the Allied counter-offensive. .
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The Allied powers had by now re-thought their battle plans. After battles such as Verdun and The Somme causing millions of deaths with little or no land changing hands, their new tactics consisted of using several strategies simultaneously, and in the right balance. Instead of sending thousands of men at virtually undamaged machine-guns and opposition trenches, the new Allied assaults were led by tanks, moving in waves of several dozen. They were followed closely by infantry, who took cover behind their armour and took advantage of the tanks crunching holes through the barbed wire. The Allies now had superiority in the air, with over 800 planes being used to spot enemy artillery. The Allied artillery - which was, by now, vastly more accurate - could pick them out, target them with Sound Rangers and destroy them as to stop them stopping the advance of the tanks. The artillery also provided a 'creeping barrage' of fire, between twenty and forty yards in front of the front wave of tanks, keeping the heads of the defending Germans down.
