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

By 20 November it was clear that the Soviet 5th Tank Army and 21st Armies had achieved a major breakthrough of the Romanian 3rd Army front. A large kessel had already been formed by the Soviet armoured pincers between Bolshoy and Kletskaya, with 40,000 Romanians from Group Lascar trapped inside. Heeresgruppe B told Group Lascar to stand fast – help was on the way – but when the Romanian 1st Armoured Division tried to link up with Group Lascar it quickly became encircled within the kessel and only parts of it escaped. The 22.Panzer-Division tried to block Butkov’s 1st Tank Corps, but it was not an effective combined arms team and lost much of its armour. This was one of the few times during the Second World War that German panzer units performed poorly and German C² was actually worse than Soviet C². Hitler was infuriated by the poor performance of the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps – ignoring its material deficiencies – and ordered Heim arrested and replaced by his deputy, General-major Hans Cramer. Yet Cramer was just as helpless to stop the breakthrough or the destruction of both flimsy armoured formations. Kampfgruppe Sauvant from 14.Panzer-Division managed to prevent the Don Front from smashing in AOK 6’s left flank, but the German effort to support the Romanian 3rd Army was too little and too late.

South of Stalingrad, Yeremenko’s Stalingrad Front began its participation in Operation Uranus on the morning of 20 November by bombarding the opposing Romanian 4th Army with 4,900 artillery pieces. In this sector near Lake Sarpa, the Romanians were spread even more thinly, with division frontages averaging 20–40km wide, meaning that it was more of a screen than a serious defensive line. General-major Vasily T. Volskii’s 4th Mechanized Corps struck the Romanian VI Corps, which shattered under the weight of 200 tanks. The sector was simply too wide for a handful of anti-tank guns and minefields to seriously impede the Soviet armour. By afternoon, four Romanian divisions had been defeated and scattered. Further north, Tanaschishin’s 13th Tank Corps struck the junction of the Romanian 4th Army and the German IV Armeekorps, which proved more resilient. Nevertheless, Yeremenko rapidly achieved a complete breakthrough, routing the Romanians in their path and setting the stage for an advance to Kalach. Like Vatutin and Chistiakov, Yeremenko committed a cavalry corps into the breach to reinforce the momentum of the advance, since cavalry was less dependent upon resupply. Hoth, who was with IV Armeekorps, quickly deployed the 29.Infanterie-Division (mot.) to impede Tanaschishin’s armour, which prevented a complete collapse of AOK 6’s right flank.

Vatutin, Chistiakov and Yeremenko all achieved breakthroughs and began to exploit into the enemy’s depths within six hours of beginning their offensives, which was a first for the Red Army. These breakthroughs might still have failed if the Germans had been able to deal with them one at a time as in previous battles, but Vasilevsky, acting in the role of Stavka coordinator, played a critical role in orchestrating this complex multi-front operation. While the infantry army mopped up the Romanian 3rd and 4th Armies, three Soviet mechanized formations converged upon the town of Kalach. This was a heady time for Soviet tankers, the first where they had the operational and tactical initiative, and they had the bit between their teeth. The 22.Panzer-Division and Romanian 1st Armoured Division continued uncoordinated skirmishing with Romanenko’s 5th Tank Army, but lost almost all their tanks within two days and were forced to retreat westward.

Kravchenko’s 4th Tank Corps Advance to Kalach, 19–23 November 1942.

In contrast to Soviet decisiveness, AOK 6 and Heeresgruppe B were slow to react to the developing crisis and were not fully aware of what was going on until the second day of Uranus. All three panzer divisions of Hube’s XIV Panzerkorps were alerted on the evening of 19 November to pull out of the city fight and prepare to move west to support the XI Armeekorps, under attack by Rokossovsky’s Don Front. Altogether, Paulus had 239 operational tanks at his disposal, including 116 Pz.IIIJ/L/M and fifty-two Pz.IVF2/G; the three panzer-divisionen had thirty to fifty-five tanks each and the motorized infantry divisions had twenty to sixty tanks each. The 29.Infanterie-Division (mot.) was in the best shape, with twenty-three Pz.III with long 5cm guns and eighteen Pz.IV with long 7.5cm guns.⁷⁵ Despite the number of tanks available – which might have made a difference at the right place – the amount of fuel available was insufficient for mobile operations.