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

At 0800 hours on 16 December, Kuznetsov’s 1st Guards Army began a massive ninety-minute artillery preparation against the Italian II and XXXV Army Corps near the Osetrovka bridgehead. With the 6th Army launching a supporting attack with infantry across the frozen Don on his right, Kuznetsov committed two guards rifle corps against the Italian Ravenna infantry division and part of the German 298.Infanterie-Division. However, the Italo-German defense proved quite solid and Soviet infantry failed to achieve a breakthrough on the first day of Operation Little Saturn and only made limited advances of 1–2km depth. German anti-tank mines knocked out twenty-seven Soviet tanks, preventing meaningful armour support until engineers cleared lanes through the obstacle belts. During the afternoon of the first day, Tröger’s 27.Panzer-Division even managed a small counterattack with twenty tanks that checked further progress.

Lelyushenko’s 3rd Guards Army also attacked mostly with infantry on the first day and failed to make much progress. A counterattack by remnants of the 22.Panzer-Division forced Lelyushenko’s assault troops to retreat across the Don. The first day of Operation Little Saturn demonstrated that well-entrenched infantry, secure behind an obstacle belt, was just as effective at stopping an infantry assault as during the First World War.

Frustrated by the lack of progress, Vatutin ordered Kuznetsov and Lelyushenko to begin feeding their armour into the battle. On 17 December, Kuznetsov committed General-major Pavel P. Poluboiarov’s 17th Tank Corps, General-major Boris S. Bakharov’s 18th Tank Corps and General-major Petr R. Pavlov’s 25th Tank Corps into an infantry support role and finally broke through the front of the Italian II Army Corps some thirty-six hours after the start of Little Saturn. Contrary to German efforts to paint the Italians as scapegoats, the Cosseria and Ravenna divisions put up unexpectedly tough resistance, forcing Vatutin to commit three of his four tank corps before he finally got his breakthrough. Yet while tough, the Italian defenses were thin in depth and once the Soviet armour achieved a breakthrough, there was nothing left to stop them. By late on 17 December, Vatutin alerted General-major Vasily M. Badanov’s 24th Tank Corps to prepare to begin its exploitation mission on the next day. In the 3rd Guards Army sector, Lelyushenko committed General-leytenant Ivan N. Russiyanov’s 1st Guards Mechanized Corps, which gained some ground before being stopped.

The boldest part of Little Saturn began at 0200 hours on 18 December, when Badanov’s 24th Tank Corps passed through the penetration corridor between the shattered Ravenna and Cosseria divisions and began advancing southward. Pavlov’s 25th Tank Corps had already gone through the gap in the Italian front and moved ahead of, and independent of, Badanov’s corps. Vatutin directed these two corps to conduct a deep raid against the Tatsinskaya and Morozovskaya airfields, which lay 240km from the start-line on the Don. Up to this point, it was unprecedented in the history of warfare to move a large armoured formation so far behind enemy lines. However, the logistic preparations made by Vatutin’s staff were inadequate to support raids of this scale and depth, which led to unanticipated dissipation of combat power prior to reaching the objectives. Aerial resupply of armoured spearheads – which the Germans had frequently utilized since the beginning of Operation Barbarossa – was not even considered by Vatutin’s staff, even though transport planes were available. Badanov’s and Petrov’s corps each relied upon what they could carry on their own vehicles, which amounted to two loads of fuel and ammunition and five days’ rations.