The goal was Antwerp. Antwerp was vital for the western Allies supply lines. The Germans had destroyed the French rail system and ports, and trucking material in through the Normandy bottleneck was too slow and consumed too much fuel.
The German plans required them to capture the Allies fuel stores. Joachim Peiper’s Panzers came within sight of an American fuel depot at Stavelot in Belgium, guarded by a detachment of 10 Belgians from the reconstituted Belgian army. As Peiper watched the Belgians set fire to the fuel and ended Peiper’s hopes. He didn’t have enough fuel to return to his own lines, his armor was reduced to battle debris.
The worst part is that even taking Antwerp wouldn’t have made a difference in the long run.
WWII was lost by late 1942, after Midway, Stalingrad, El Alamein, and long after the Battle of Britain and the failure at Moscow. Axis lives expended afterwards were completely wasted; there was no conceivable way to win.