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

As August began, von Kleist massed his three Panzerkorps into a massive wedge, with a total of about 350 tanks, and pushed due south to Armavir. Advancing across the arid steppe of the Caucasus, von Kleist’s panzers encountered temperatures up to 40° C (104°F), which made water just as important for resupply as fuel. After advancing 100km, the 13.Panzer-Division captured Armavir on 3 August, while 3.Panzer-Division captured Stavropol on 5 August, which forced Malinovsky’s forces to continue their retreat toward Grozny. By 7 August, von Kleist’s armour was finally within range of its first objective – the oilfields at Maikop – and he directed the 13.Panzer-Division, SS-Wiking and 16.Infanterie-Division (mot.) to converge on the city. Although Soviet anti-tank guns put up a stiff resistance at the Laba River on 8 August and knocked out some of SS-Wiking’s tanks, the 12th Army had no tanks left and could not stop the III Panzerkorps. Assisted by Brandenburg infiltrators dressed in Red Army uniforms, the 13.Panzer-Division fought its way into Maikop on 9 August and occupied the oil fields by the next day. The retreating Soviets had thoroughly sabotaged the pumping equipment and set the fields alight, meaning it would be up to a year before more than a trickle of crude oil might be available to the Wehrmacht – but Maikop would be abandoned in January 1943. Nevertheless, the occupation of Maikop did deprive the Red Army of 6.8 per cent of its crude oil supplies for the duration of the war – a not inconsiderable accomplishment.

By 10 August, von Kleist had Malinovsky’s forces on the run, with XXXX Panzerkorps pushing southeast down the main rail line to Grozny and Baku, while III and LVII Panzerkorps mopped up around Maikop. By this point, Malinovsky’s only armoured unit was Major Vladimir Filippov’s 52nd Tank Brigade – a low-quality unit equipped with a mixed group of forty-six T-34s, T-60s, Valentines and Lees. A total of 4,500 tankers who had escaped into the Caucasus after abandoning their tanks – a shocking indictment of the low state of morale and training in the Red Army’s tank units in mid-1942 – were sent to the Urals to reequip with new tanks.⁴⁶ It was at this point that the Germans decided to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm List was one of Hitler’s uninspired choices to lead his main effort in the 1942 campaign, since he had limited experience with armour – just the brief Balkans campaigns – and had completely missed the first year of the war on the Eastern Front. List brought an old-school, First World War mentality to his handling of Heeresgruppe A and he was concerned when von Kleist’s panzers went charging off toward Grozny and Baku, while leaving AOK 17 to clear out the Kuban and the coastline. He believed that Soviet forces in these areas posed a threat to his right flank, even though the 47th and 56th Armies had minimal combat strength remaining and just fifteen light tanks. Nevertheless, on 12 August List ordered von Kleist to divert both the III Panzerkorps and the LVII Panzerkorps to support a drive westward to Tuapse to cut off the two Soviet armies and clear the coast. During 12–18 August, SS-Wiking, the 13.Panzer-Division and the 16.Infanterie-Division were tied up in this ridiculous diversion, which consumed their limited fuel supplies on a secondary objective. List sent this collection of armour down a narrow road into the mountains, which was easily blocked – and they never reached Tuapse. Meanwhile, von Kleist continued toward Grozny with just 3.Panzer-Division and part of 23.Panzer-Division; even though the Wehrmacht had nineteen panzer divisions on the Eastern Front, the schwerpunkt aimed at the critical objectives of the entire summer offensive was reduced to less than two. List also diverted much of Heeresgruppe A’s limited supplies toward his efforts to clear the Kuban and the coast, leaving von Kleist’s spearhead to sputter for lack of fuel.