Hey Firn,

from Firn
The standpoint form the German opponent seems that a part of it's dispersed armored and mechanized forces operated in a very unfriendly tank country with a lot of blown bridges with increasing limited supplies in fuel and spares under an umbrella of enemy air supremacy interrupted by bad (good) weather against fresh light infantry supported by far superior artillery firepower and a good amount of AT support holding an urban patch called Stavelot in which the heavy tanks barely could move. So while the mission was to striker further west it had to be changed to secure the supply line, part of miscalculation which touched pretty much every aspect of the METT-TC. Then again the person in charge was chosen by a person in charge equally known for it's military wisdom for it's political reliability...

So while in general it doesn't show the superiority of light infantry in such a setting as much as it shows the influence of factors like leadership, troop quality, terrain, the goal of the mission and the overall supporting ressources of both sides.
Esp. "leadership, troop quality" - Stavelot was the second time 1 SS Pz had run into 1/117. The first was at St.-Bart near Mortain in Aug 1944. There, the Panzers and their Grenadiers were also stacked up, but it was a close call. See here and here.

As to "overall supporting resources", those were also present at Stavelot - perhaps more good circumstance (luck) than exact operational planning. 1/117 (organically, 3 rifle coys, a heavy weapons coy - MGs & 81mm mortars, an HHC with a pioneer platoon and an AT platoon) had an attached AT Coy (towed) since Aug 1944 (with them at Mortain). That coy had been pulled back to its Bn (along with its other coys) for refitting and retraining with M-10 SPs. It just got back with 1/117 in time for the Stavelot infiltration.

In addition, 1/117 had attached combat engineers (also with them at Mortain), who eventually managed to blow the Stavelot bridge. Further close support were the 117th's regimental mortars and arty. They happened to be plunked down in close proximity to Stavelot - good logistics or luck.

Thus, the US force at Stavelot was de facto a "combined arms task force" - even though not formally designated as such. I've never claimed, BTW, that infantry alone is superior to armor:

my BLUF (from my post above - with now added bolding)
The bottom line is that an infantry unit (with some AT and arty support) in an urban environment can clean the clock of an heavy armor unit (with attached mech. inf.) if the latter units are not employed properly.
The Germans did not co-ordinate their panzers and grenadiers. There were good reasons for that (as you've pointed to in the SS 501 articles). Of course, even if they had and eventually wiped out 1/117 and its attached units, that would have taken too long. The Germans were FUBAR because of the "M" and last "T" in METT-T (again as you pointed out).

Regards

Mike