People should have been relieved of their command over this fight.
Watch “When Trumpets Fade”. Thankfully America is no longer worth such sacrifice. Twisted irony.
They were fighting in a forest, and in West Germany, the skies in late November are overcast more often than not (I have lived there), so close air support might not have been all that effective.
The woods were very thick and it was almost impossible for any close air support to tell where American and German positions were.
Decades ago, I read at great length on the 1944-45 invasion of Europe.
After the failure of Operation Market Garden (surprise Airborne attack on Holland), Eisenhower's final strategy evolved into a plan to keep the German army stressed and engaged at as many points as possible.
Tragically, that meant an old fashioned infantry assault on the Hurtgen Forest.
There is a good laugh line in "Band of Brothers" as a squad does recon in May 1945 in the forest surrounding an undiscovered concentration camp. One of the soldiers says this forest reminds him of Hurtgen. Another soldier sarcastically answers, "Yeah, it does, except we aren't freezing to death and the trees aren't exploding."
Amen! They had the option of going around that forest in order to reach their objective, which I believe was a damn. The general ordered the troops to go through it. My Uncle was killed there on December 1st, 1944.