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

Yeremenko reacted quickly to Hoth’s rapid advance and committed Volskii’s 4th Mechanized Corps, which had thirty-two T-34s and thirty-eight T-70s, to occupy blocking positions at Verkhne Kumski, while Trufanov moved Tanaschishin’s 13th Tank Corps to Zutov to block the 23.Panzer-Division from getting across the Aksay.⁸⁴ Yeremenko also sought permission from the Stavka to transfer General-leytenant Rodion I. Malinovsky’s 2nd Guards Army from the Don Front to reinforce Soviet defenses on the approaches to Stalingrad, but Stalin was initially reluctant since this formation was earmarked to be used in the reduction of the Stalingrad kessel.

Shortly after dawn on 13 December, Oberst Walther von Hünersdorff led his armoured Kampfgruppe consisting of I. and II./Pz.Regt 11, II.(SPW)/Pz.Gren.Regt. 114, six artillery batteries, a Pioneer-Kompanie and a Panzerjäger-Kompanie across an unguarded ford at Zalivsky over the Aksay River. Kampfgruppe Hünersdorff had advanced 40km in the first twenty-four hours, although half of the 6.Panzer-Division was still engaged south of the Aksay River. After securing the Zalivsky bridgehead, Hünersdorff advanced another 12km to the village of Verkhne Kumski, a nondescript one-street Russian village. According to Raus’ unreliable memoirs, Hoth had ordered 6.Panzer-Division to stop once it seized a bridgehead across the Aksay and wait for 23.Panzer-Division to catch up, but Raus allowed von Hünersdorff to move north of the river to engage and destroy Soviet armoured reserves. Shortly after von Hünersdorff occupied Verkhne Kumski, two Soviet tank brigades were spotted advancing across the open steppe toward the village from north and east. Raus goes on to describe a fanciful ‘revolving battle’ around the village, with von Hünersdorff’s two Panzer-Abteilungen engaging a total of five Soviet brigades, which attacked piecemeal and were defeated in turn; he claims that von Hünersdorff’s forces knocked out 135–140 enemy tanks in this one action, but does not mention German losses.

In actuality, von Hünersdorff had advanced directly into the 4th Mechanized Corps assembly areas around Verkhne Kumski and quickly found his kampfgruppe nearly surrounded by a superior force. It is unclear why Volskii had no forces in the village itself, and his C² was inadequate to mount a coordinated attack to crush Kampfgruppe von Hünersdorff; instead, each of his brigades attacked at the initiative of its commander. Part of Tanaschishin’s 13th Tank Corps also got in the fight. While II.(SPW)/Pz.Gren.-Regt. 114 and the artillery and engineers set up a hasty defense in the tiny village, von Hünersdorff’s two Panzer-Abteilungen maneuvered outside the village to engage the Soviet brigades. Soviet tank losses were heavy, but a group of T-34s managed to reach the village and overrun some of the German artillery before they were knocked out by panzer-grenadiers with the new Hafthohlladung hollow charge magnetic anti-tank mines.

Although von Hünersdorff managed to prevent his command from being destroyed, he was forced to conduct a fighting withdrawal at dusk when it became clear that Soviet armour had cut his line of communications and his fuel and ammunition were nearly expended. Von Hünersdorff retreated to the Zalivsky bridgehead and remained there for the next three days. Contrary to Raus’ lurid account, the Battle of Verkhne Kumski on 13 December was a Soviet tactical and operational victory, since Hoth’s advance on Stalingrad had been halted for three critical days. Since the 4th Mechanized Corps held the ground at the end of the day, many of its knocked out tanks would be recovered and repaired. Hoth’s schwerpunkt had been stopped and Kampfgruppe von Hünersdorff forced to retreat with heavy losses (at least thirty panzers knocked out).