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

Once sent into the city, panzer divisions were forced to commit their armour in small platoon and company-size detachments in the infantry support role – the antithesis of how the Wehrmacht wanted to use its armour. The Luftwaffe had heavily damaged large portions of Stalingrad, clogging streets with rubble that greatly limited the mobility of the German tanks. Due to enemy snipers, panzer commanders were forced to operate in ‘buttoned up’ mode in the city, which greatly reduced visibility and situational awareness. Soviet anti-tank guns and PTRD anti-tank rifle teams could get close to German armour that lacked effective infantry support. German infantry commanders frequently tried to use Pz.III and Pz.IV tanks as assault guns, even though the lacked the additional 30mm bolt-on armour plates that made StuG IIIs better suited for urban combat. On the Soviet side, General-leytenant Vasily I. Chuikov’s 62nd Army mounted a dogged defense of the city that astounded the Germans. Chuikov’s armoured support never exceeded eighty tanks and was often reduced to just a couple of dozen tanks. Most Soviet tank commanders in Stalingrad chose to dig in their tanks and integrate them into infantry fighting positions. The presence of even a few dug-in T-34s could make a Soviet battalion-size position virtually impregnable. Paulus’ first assault succeeded in capturing the southern part of Stalingrad by late September and the StZ workers built their last T-34s and then joined the battle.

While AOK 6 was fighting to evict Chuikov’s 62nd Army from the city, Zhukov pressured Yeremenko to mount another offensive against the German northern flank around Kotluban, held by von Wietersheim’s XIV Panzerkorps. General-major Kirill S. Moskalenko, unemployed after the destruction of his 1st Tank Army, was given a new command – the 1st Guards Army – and the Stavka transferred Kravchenko’s 4th Tank Corps, Rotmistrov’s 7th Tank Corps and the battered 16th Tank Corps to provide armoured muscle to this strike force. By mid-September, Moskalenko had massed a force of 123,000 troops and 340 tanks (including forty-two KV-1 and 143 T-34) opposite the 60 Infanterie-Division (mot.) and 76.Infanterie-Division (mot.) near Kotluban. However, mass was not enough and Yeremenko failed to employ deception, so Paulus saw the blow coming and concentrated his anti-tank guns and 8.8cm flak guns in this sector.

Moskalenko attacked on the morning of 18 September, in broad daylight, across flat terrain with good fields of fire. The German anti-tank guns and flak guns ripped the Soviet armour to pieces, inflicting 106 losses on the first day; the new 7.5cm Pak40 was now available in quantity and could destroy either the KV-1 or T-34 at ranges up to 1,000 meters or more. The Luftwaffe also bombed the 1st Guards Army mercilessly and the impotence of Soviet air support ensured failure. Hube’s 16.Panzer-Division launched a vicious counterattack with about fifty tanks that demolished two of Rotmistrov’s tank brigades, knocking out seventy-five of his ninety-three tanks. One of Hube’s panzer companies, the 7./Pz.Regt 2, had only seven operational tanks but succeeded in knocking out twenty-two of Rotmistrov’s tanks. Moskalenko’s 1st Guards Army suffered 46,000 casualties during the offensive and lost 341 of 384 tanks committed, including forty-eight KV-1 and 173 T-34. Rotmistrov’s 7th Tank Corps was reduced to just eighteen operational tanks. German newsreels filmed after the battle depict a vast tank graveyard in the open steppe north of Stalingrad, marking another cheap German tactical victory due to the ill-considered offensive ordered by Zhukov.⁶⁴ It was not that Zhukov was incompetent – he knew better – but he had been around Stalin too long and come to accept that he could dictate a victory rather than planning one. Zhukov went back to Moscow empty-handed, but proclaimed the Kotluban offensive to have been an attritional victory.