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

Paulus’ AOK 6 was exhausted after six weeks of continuous combat and his panzer divisions were worn down. Nevertheless, he needed to get AOK 6 across the Don in order to push into Stalingrad. At 0310 hours on 21 August, four infantry regiments from AOK 6 began crossing the Don at Vertiachii by means of the assault boats of the 902 Sturmboote Kommando. A bridgehead was rapidly seized and pioneers constructed two 20-ton pontoon bridges across the Don within twenty-four hours. During the night of 22–23 August, Hube’s 16.Panzer-Division crossed the pontoon bridges, followed by the 3.Infanterie-Division (mot.). At 0430 hours on 23 August, Hube attacked out of the bridgehead with the panzers of Kampfgruppe Sieckenius in the lead followed by Kampfgruppe von Strachwitz – a broad panzerkeil (armoured wedge) of tanks and SPWs moving across the fender-high steppe grass toward the Volga. Fliegerkorps VIII mounted a maximum effort, enabling Hube’s panzers to easily blast through the Soviet 62nd Army’s defenses. After a dash of 60km, the 6./Pz.Regt 2 reached the Volga north of Stalingrad at 1835 hours. One German noted that ‘from the towering heights of the western shore there is a stunning view of the mighty river and the Asian steppe spreading out to infinity.’⁵⁶

Although the rest of XIV Panzerkorps was approaching along the same route, Hube’s division was in a very exposed position at the end of a long corridor, with Soviet forces ringed around him. Hube deployed his division in kampfgruppen-size hedgehogs and waited for the infantry of AOK 6 and resupply to arrive. The Germans had succeeded in reaching Stalingrad, but without the kind of coup de main that had effortlessly taken other cities – there would be no cheap victories at Stalingrad. Despite the appearance of German armour outside Stalingrad, the Stavka made the decision not to evacuate the StZ tank factory, which built 250 T-34s – or 20 per cent of Russia’s total output of T-34s – in August.

Tank Battles north of Orel, 5 July–29 August

Zhukov had expected the main German summer offensive to try again for Moscow and the Stavka assessed that the most likely enemy avenue of approach was from the Bolkhov region, north of Orel. Consequently, Zhukov ensured that a great deal of the new tank production was sent to this sector and that he would have control over them. Yet when it became obvious by early July that the Germans were not going to try for Moscow again, Zhukov refused to allow his heavily-reinforced Western Front to stand idle while Heeresgruppe Süd crushed the Bryansk and Southwestern Fronts. With six tank corps under his command, Zhukov recommended to Stalin that the Western Front could mount a counterstroke against the German 2.Panzerarmee guarding the northern part of the Orel salient. On 2 July, the Stavka authorized Zhukov to conduct a counteroffensive to help take some of the pressure off the Bryansk Front and possibly divert Hoth’s armour away from Voronezh. With minimal planning, Zhukov directed General-leytenant Konstantin K. Rokossovsky’s 16th Army to attack the Zhizdra sector held by General der Artillerie Joachim Lemelsen’s XXXXVII Panzerkorps and General-leytenant Pavel A. Belov’s 61st Army to attack the Bolkhov sector held by the German LIII Armeekorps. These two Soviet attack sectors were 90km apart and hence not mutually supporting. Zhukov was hoping to execute something resembling Deep Battle, but in his eagerness to ‘do something’ before Voronezh fell, he opted to commit two of his armies to an operation with negligible logistical preparation or coordination between units.