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

Hoth consolidated his forces on the Aksay, enabling his pioneers to build a pontoon bridge across the river. Meanwhile, the 23.Panzer-Division, which was echeloned to the right of 6.Panzer-Division, engaged the 254th Tank Brigade at Ssamochin on the morning of 14 December. The Germans were alerted to the approach of the Soviet brigade due to poor communications security, with radio traffic being sent in the clear, and ambushed the two lead companies. A total of twelve Soviet tanks, including two KV-1, were knocked out by Kampfgruppe von Heydebreck, which lost two tanks and one Marder III. After this, Kampfgruppe von Heydebreck advanced to capture an intact railroad bridge over the Aksay at Kruglyakov at 1430 hours. Soviet counterattacks against both bridgeheads began on 14 December and continued the next day, forcing the panzer-grenadiers to entrench. The 23.Panzer-Division knocked out ten T-34s and two T-60s on 15 December, but lost two 8.8cm flak guns.⁸⁵ On 16 December, two companies of T-34s from the 13th Tank Corps attacked the Kruglyakov bridgehead and overran two Pak guns and three 10.5cm howitzers before being driven off. All momentum was gone from Hoth’s brief advance.

Reinforcements were trickling in to LVII Panzerkorps, such as Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 228 which arrived with forty-two assault guns, but Yeremenko’s forces were being reinforced as well. On 16 December, Raus tried committing Kampfgruppe von Hünersdorff again, but the 4th Mechanized Corps and other Soviet rifle units had established a defense-in-depth north of the bridgehead that could not be broken by an armour-heavy attack. Raus claimed that camouflaged Soviet PTRD anti-tank rifle teams proved too difficult to eliminate and that, ‘never before had our tank crews felt so powerless.’⁸⁶ The second German armoured attack north of the Aksay had failed.

On 17 December, Raus switched tactics and used Kampfgruppe Zollenkopf with two dismounted panzer-grenadier battalions, artillery support and Luftwaffe support to expand the Zalivsky bridgehead. The 23.Panzer-Division was able to expand its own bridgehead and the lead element of 17.Panzer-Division, Kampfgruppe Seitz, arrived to reinforce the offensive. Raus massed his firepower and infantry at one point and managed to punch a hole through the 4th Mechanized Corps’ front, which unhinged Volskii’s defense. As the Soviet 51st Army began to fall back to the Myshkova River, Raus sent his SPW-mounted battalion to seize Verkhne Kumski in a sudden night assault. Hoth spent much of 18 December mopping up bypassed pockets of resistance and moving his forces toward the Myshkova River. By the end of 18 December, Hoth only had 101 operational tanks left and his remaining combat power was dwindling. In one last throw of the dice, Raus sent Kampfgruppe Hünersdorff in a 30km end-run on 19 December that bypassed Soviet blocking positions and managed to reach the Myshkova River, where they seized a bridge over the river at Vasilyevka at 2000 hours. The oft-repeated mythology about Stalingrad and Wintergewitter has made a great deal about Hünersdorff reaching a position that was just 48km from Stalingrad and how – if only Paulus had chosen to conduct a break-out effort at this point – events might have turned out differently. This is a fantasy. Stalin had released Malinovsky’s 2nd Guards Army to Yeremenko on 15 December and, after a 200km road march, the lead elements of Rotmistrov’s 7th Tank Corps and 2nd Guards Mechanized Corps were just reaching the Myshkova River, where they encountered scouts from Kampfgruppe Hünersdorff. Hoth’s forces lacked the strength to fight their way through the 2nd Guards Army and Paulus’ army lacked the mobility to even reach this area. Both of Hoth’s flanks were virtually open and the closer that he came to Stalingrad, the greater the possibility that his own small strike force would be enveloped and then surrounded. In reality, Operation Wintergewitter failed on its second day, but the Germans did not recognize this until their schwerpunkt ground to a halt on the Myshkova River.