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

By the third day of the Soviet offensive, the two German panzer divisions had battered the 38th Army into a combat-ineffective state and defeated the poorly-handled 22nd Tank Corps. Overhead, Luftwaffe fighters gained air superiority and deprived the Soviet shock groups of close air support. Nevertheless, the 28th Army continued to slowly advance toward Kharkov with four rifle divisions and two tank brigades, even though its flanks were increasingly exposed. In the south, the 6th Army continued to push back the 62.Infanterie-Division, but was surprised when it bumped into the 113.Infanterie-Division and Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 244 deployed further back. A close-quarter armoured action in the town of Efremovka on 14 May resulted in nine StuG IIIs lost against twelve Matilda II tanks knocked out.²⁴ The German VIII Armeekorps gradually fell back under intense pressure, but the Soviet 6th Army conducted a relatively unimaginative set-piece battle and failed to use its armour to adequately pursue retreating German units. The only clean breakthrough was made on the left flank of the 6th Army – which Timoshenko regarded as a secondary sector – where the 6th Cavalry Corps was ordered to advance toward Krasnograd. Despite the fact that he had the 269 tanks of the 21st and 23 rd Tank Corps ready for the exploitation mission, Timoshenko wanted to keep them in reserve until 6th Army had achieved a clean breakthrough on the direct route to Kharkov. Timoshenko’s rigid adherence to the original plan, rather than taking advantage of changed circumstances, stood in stark contrast to the flexible, opportunistic style of most senior German commanders. It was not until 16 May that Timoshenko finally decided to commit the 21st and 23rd Tank Corps to battle, by which point the repeated counterattacks of the 3 and 23.Panzer-Divisionen had completely halted the northern assault armies. Both Soviet assault groups had suffered significant losses and were running low on ammunition, without having really broken the German defences.

In the north, the 3 and 23.Panzer-Division mounted an attack on 17 May to relieve the encircled Kampfgruppe Grüner in Ternovaya. The 28th Army committed its last reserve, the 6th Guards Tank Brigade, to stop the German relief effort. A major tank battle involving about 100 tanks on each side occurred southwest of Ternovaya. The Germans lost thirteen tanks in the actions, including some of the new Pz.IIIJs, but they brought up a battery of 8.8cm flak guns which inflicted heavy losses on the Soviet tanks. Afterwards, Kampfgruppe Schmidt-Ott from 3.Panzer-Division and Kampfgruppe Soltmann from 23.Panzer-Division pushed on and relieved Grüner’s encircled command. By this point in the battle, Luftwaffe air superiority was making life very difficult for Soviet tank units and the Soviet offensive in the north was reduced to uncoordinated local actions. On 20 May, the two German panzer divisions mounted another counterattack which smashed in the front of the 28th Army and brought the northern phase of Timoshenko’s offensive to an abrupt end.

As the battle developed, von Bock had merely traded space for time in sectors where the AOK 6 infantry was hard-pressed, while repositioning part of von Kleist’s 1.Panzerarmee – Mackensen’s III Armeekorps (mot.) and the XXXXIV Armeekorps (mot.) on the southern side of the Barvenkovo salient to execute Fridericus. Undetected by Soviet intelligence, von Kleist’s forces moved into position opposite General-major Fedor M. Kharitonov’s 9th Army, which had six rifle divisions, two tank brigades and two anti-tank regiments deployed along an extended front. Unlike the German offensives of 1941, only three of the eleven divisions von Kleist deployed for the offensive were motorized and he was obliged to attack with just a single panzer division on each attack axis. At 0500 hours on 17 May, von Kleist attacked, first with a large artillery preparation, then Stuka attacks, then two schwerpunkten, one led by 14.Panzer-Division and the other by 16.Panzer-Division. Despite the presence of two anti-tank regiments, Kharitonov’s front-line rifle divisions were unable to stop the on-rushing German armour, were decimated and then encircled in the opening hours of von Kleist’s attack. When Kharitonov’s command post was bombed by the Luftwaffe, his communications were disrupted and he lost all command over his forces. Two understrength Soviet tank brigades tried to stop von Kleist from achieving a breakthrough, but at the decisive point near Barvenkovo – the schwerpunkt – the Red armour was outnumbered 5–1 and easily defeated. On the first day, von Kleist’s panzers caused the collapse of 9th Army at a cost of just eight tanks.²⁵ The back door of the Barvenkovo salient was now open, with German armour pouring in.