Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front, 1941-1942: Schwerpunkt

The bulk of Heeresgruppe Nord had settled into siege lines around Leningrad by late September and von Leeb fully expected that the garrison would quickly succumb to starvation. Yet it did not. Zhukov had flown in to reinvigorate fighting spirit among the city’s defenders before leaving on 6 October, and the Red Army and Navy were quick to organize a tenuous supply line with barges across Lake Ladoga. The Soviet Volkhov Front still controlled the east side of the lake and used railheads at Volkhov and Tikhvin as staging bases for this logistic operation. Von Leeb realized that Soviet resupply operations across Lake Ladoga could prolong the siege and he decided to take a desperate risk to terminate this activity. Although Höpner’s Panzergruppe 4 had already transferred to Heeresgruppe Mitte for Operation Typhoon, Schmidt’s XXXIX Armeekorps (mot.) was still available near Chudovo with the 8 and 12.Panzer-Divisionen and 18 and 20.Infanterie-Divisionen (mot.). Yet Schmidt’s corps was in poor condition, with its vehicles worn out and troop strength inadequate for a major offensive. Furthermore, Heeresgruppe Nord’s priority for supplies was reduced to a low level after the siege began and Schmidt would have to attack with a bare minimum of fuel and ammunition. Even worse, the weather situation was deteriorating daily.

On the morning of 16 October, Schmidt attacked General-leytenant Nikolai K. Klykov’s 52nd Army, which held a 60km stretch of the Volkhov river front with the 267th and 288th Rifle Divisions, both newly-raised reserve units. German pioneers built a pontoon bridge over the Volkhov at Grusino, enabling the eighty tanks of the 12.Panzer-Division to cross the river and engage the 288th Rifle Division. Snow, mixed with rain, deprived the offensive of Luftwaffe close air support and the 30cm of snow on the ground reduced all ground movement to a snail’s pace. Consequently, it took Schmidt’s troops four days to break through a defense that consisted of a thin line of second-rate infantry. The Soviet 52nd Army had no reserves to counter this breakthrough and the 12.Panzer-Division was able to march directly upon Tikhvin. However, the terrain was abysmal, consisting mostly of a roadless wilderness of dense forests and frozen marshlands. The 12.Panzer-Division ground forward at a meager 5km per day against negligible Soviet resistance. The 8.Panzer-Division joined the offensive on 17 October, with a supporting attack on the right flank of the 12.Panzer-Division, with two kampfgruppen; Panzer-Regiment 10 still fielded two panzer battalions with a total of ninety-one tanks.¹⁴⁰ All told, the Germans committed about 170 tanks to the Tikhvin operation.

Meanwhile, the Stavka recognized that the loss of Tikhvin could lead to the loss of Leningrad and allocated General-leytenant Vsevolod F. Yakovlev’s 4th Army from the RVGK to defend the city. To counter the German armour, it was decided to reroute General-major Aleksei F. Popov’s 60th Tank Division – currently in the process of moving by rail from the Far East to Moscow – toward Tikhvin instead. Popov’s division, which began unloading at Tikhvin on 29 October, had 6,000 personnel and 179 light tanks (including thirteen BT-7, 164 T-26 and two T-37). Several other rifle units were dispatched to bolster the 4th Army at Tikhvin, including one of the first Guards Rifle Divisions and two independent tank battalions with seventy-eight light tanks. The Stavka provided Yakovlev with over 250 tanks, which made 4th Army one of the largest concentrations of Soviet armour in November 1941.

Yet rather than committing his armour as a concentrated force against Schmidt’s slow-moving spearhead, Yakovlev – who was an infantryman – fell back on the Red Army’s traditional method of employing tanks. He decided to split up Popov’s 60th Tank Division to provide direct support to his infantry units; the entire 191st Tank Regiment was subordinated to the 4th Guards Rifle Division and another tank battalion left to protect his headquarters in Tikhvin. On top of this poor decision, Yakovlev decided to try and mount a hasty counteroffensive on 3 November before all his reinforcements had arrived. He formed an assault group with the residual 60th Tank Division, the 4th Guard Rifle Division, the 27th Cavalry Division and two other rifle divisions to attempt an overly-complicated two-pronged counter-offensive against Schmidt’s panzers as they crossed the Pchyovzha River near Budogoschch. Not only did Yakovlev’s plan require the armour of the 60th Tank Division to move nearly 100km along forest tracks to reach the assembly area, but tactically, the ground chosen was also very poor. Popov’s tankers were expected to attack through a narrow defile surrounded by a vast marshland area – with little room for maneuver.