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

Von Manstein knew that Hoth’s panzers no longer had a chance of reaching Stalingrad, but he ordered Hoth to keep Kampfgruppe Hünersdorff at the Vasilyevka bridgehead for three days, while he sought to cajole Paulus into activating the unauthorized breakout operation known as Donnerschlag (Thunderclap). However, Paulus refused to disobey Hitler and, as time slipped by, Malinovsky’s armour began massing against Kampfgruppe Hünersdorff. Even worse, the new Soviet offensive – Operation Little Saturn – forced von Manstein to order Hoth to give up his strongest formation, 6.Panzer-Division, to support Heeresgruppe Don’s collapsing left flank. Wintergewitter was over. In a bitter postscript, Hitler ordered that LVII Panzerkorps would hold the bridgeheads over the Aksay river ‘at all costs,’ which meant that 17 and 23.Panzer-Division were badly battered by Soviet counterattacks from 20–25 December. Hoth was not authorized to retreat from the Aksay River until the evening of 26 December and then LVII Panzerkorps conducted a rapid withdrawal back down the rail line, pursued by Rotmistrov’s 7th Tank Corps. Soviet numerical superiority was now telling, with large numbers of T-34s threatening the retreating Germans from all directions. The 23.Panzer-Division was reduced to only five operational tanks by the time that it reached Kotelnikovo, which was then lost on 29 December.

Operation Mars, 25 November–20 December

While the Red Army had been preparing for Operation Uranus in October, Zhukov ensured that his own project – Operation Mars, the attack against Model’s AOK 9 in the Rzhev salient – received priority in terms of reinforcements and supplies. The two fronts involved in the operation – Western and Kalinin – received the newly-formed 1st and 3rd Mechanized Corps as well as one of the first artillery divisions. Altogether, Zhukov committed 2,352 tanks and thirty-seven rifle divisions to Operation Mars, against Vasilevsky’s 1,560 tanks and thirty-four rifle divisions earmarked for Operation Uranus.⁸⁷

Zhukov’s basic plan was to conduct a double envelopment of the Rzhev salient, with Generalpolkovnik Maksim A. Purkaev’s Kalinin Front attacking the western side of the salient with the 22nd and 41st Armies, while Ivan S. Konev’s Western Front attacked the eastern side with the 20th Army. A supporting attack would also be launched by the Kalinin Front’s 39th Army against the northern side of the salient. Zhukov believed that once the German-held salient was simultaneously hit from three different directions that AOK 9 would collapse like a house of cards. Then, the Western and Kalinin Fronts would release their armour – two mechanized and two tank corps – to complete the enemy’s defeat by linking up and encircling the remnants of Model’s battered army. Zhukov believed that Operation Mars would lead to the disintegration of Heeresgruppe Mitte.

However, Zhukov did not put a professional effort into planning Operation Mars. He made little effort to employ maskirovka during the build-up phase in October, which enabled Model’s intelligence officer to not only accurately assess that a Soviet major offensive was imminent, but which sectors were threatened. Model demonstrated real talent for defensive tactics in the Rzhev salient and he personally visited each sector and ensured that his front-line units had preplanned engagement areas on likely enemy avenues of approach; anti-tank and anti-personnel mines were laid and covered by fire.

Model also positioned the 5 and 9.Panzer-Divisionen, with a total of 180 tanks, as mobile reserves to support General der Panzertruppe Jürgen von Arnim’s XXXIX Panzerkorps on the eastern side of the salient, and the 1.Panzer-Division to support General der Panzertruppe Josef Harpe’s XXXXI Panzerkorps on the western side of the salient. Although Model’s panzer divisions only had one Panzer-Abteilung each and his infantry divisions were at half-strength, his troops were well-entrenched and supported by 260 artillery pieces. Unlike the Romanian 3rd and 4th Armies near Stalingrad, Model was expecting Zhukov’s offensive and well-prepared.

Operation Mars began on the morning of 25 November, with simultaneous assaults around the periphery of the Rzhev salient. The scale of the Soviet assaults was awesome – Zhukov and Konev both favored mass – but it just did not work against Model’s defense.