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

The same attack again. The whole Abteilung. Now the fun starts… The regimental commander[Büsing] took a hit, bailed out. Hauptman Karen arrived. Took a hit, bailed out. Hauptmann Borsch came up, took a hit, bailed out… Hit in the steering, move on a bit and then back. Track torn off. Have to bail out.⁶¹

Tank battles north of Orel, 5–12 July 1942.

Hager and his crew walked on foot back to their battalion assembly area – a not unusual occurrence for tankers on the Eastern Front – and admitted that ‘not one Pz.IV came back’ from the attack. The men of II/Pz.Regt 39 spent all of 11 July recovering their knocked-out tanks with the battalion’s Sd.Kfz.9 (FAMO) semitracks and, amazingly, the I-Gruppe mechanics repaired six of the Pz.IVs by the end of 12 July. By that point, Zhukov’s offensive had failed to seriously dent 2.Panzerarmee’s front or to inconvenience German plans. Although PzAOK 2 suffered about 5,000 casualties, both the 3rd and 10th Tank Corps were rendered combat-ineffective for some time. Soviet C² was abysmal during the offensive and inter-unit coordination non-existent. Despite much heroism and bloodshed, the Red Army had not yet learned how to break an entrenched German defensive line, particularly one supported by panzers and assault guns.

Although Zhukov’s Zhizdra-Bolkhov offensive failed, he was quick to urge more offensive action in this sector as well as against the German 9.Armee in the exposed Rzhev salient. Zhukov still had four intact tank corps under his immediate control and General-leytenant Petr L. Romanenko’s 3rd Tank Army was nearby in the RVGK.

However, the Germans noted that the recent bungled Western Front offensive presented Heeresgruppe Mitte not only with an opportunity to mount a riposte to eliminate all or part of the Sukhinichi salient before the Red Army recovered, but also to distract Zhukov’s remaining armour away from the vulnerable Rzhev salient. Despite the priority of Blau, Hitler and the OKH authorized a limited offensive known as Wirbelwind, set to begin in early August. Schmidt’s 2.Panzerarmee would form the schwerpunkt of its offensive with General der Infanterie Heinrich Clößner’s LIII Armeekorps, which was given 11 and 20.Panzer-Divisionen, the 197 and 202.Sturmgeschütz-Abteilungen and four infantry divisions. In addition, Schmidt retained Lemelsen’s XXXXVII Panzerkorps with the 18.Panzer-Division and gained Generaloberst Josef Harpe’s XXXXI Panzerkorps, with the 9, 17 and 19.Panzer-Divisionen. Schmidt’s divisions also received their first Pz.IIIJ and Pz.IVF2 replacement tanks, putting them on a more equal footing with Zhukov’s T-34s. Despite the concentration of six panzer divisions in a fairly small sector north of Bolkhov, Operation Wirbel-wind has been overshadowed by Operation Blau and the Battle of Stalingrad.

Clößner’s LIII Armeekorps attacked the boundary of the Soviet 61st Army north of Bolkhov on the morning of 11 August and achieved some initial success. In particular, the 11.Panzer-Division was able to advance up to 25km in heavily wooded terrain toward the intermediate objective – Sukhinichi. Thereafter, Soviet resistance hardened quickly and the Red Army was particularly formidable in forest-fighting. German tankers were wary of moving along narrow forest tracks that were usually mined and covered by anti-tank ambushes. While the 2.Panzerarmee succeeded in gaining a small bridgehead over the Zhizdra river, the 16th Army blocked any further advance toward Sukhinichi by moving Burkov’s rebuilt 10th Tank Corps and General-major Aleksei V. Kurkin’s 9th Tank Corps to contain the German advance. Three Soviet rifle divisions were cut off and destroyed and the two Soviet tank corps lost about 200 tanks, but Wirbelwind failed to seize significant terrain or seriously impair Zhukov’s freedom of action. Instead, it was the German panzer units that suffered heavy losses in the ill-judged offensive and diverted resources that could have been better used elsewhere. The 9.Panzer Division, which started the operation with 110 tanks, lost forty-four tanks in Wirbelwind.⁶² Although difficult terrain was certainly a factor in the failure of Wirbelwind, this was the second time since the beginning of Blau that a German panzer schwerpunkt had been stopped cold by determined Soviet resistance, which was an ominous portent of the Red Army’s growing competence.