Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front 1943-1945: Red Steamroller

Despite mines and a dense belt of anti-tank guns, the Großdeutschland overran the 166th Rifle Division and advanced over 12km within five hours to isolate the two Soviet tank corps near Kotelva. However, Zhukov worked with Vatutin in rapidly assembling a relief force from other elements of the 27th Army and 6 GA, which relentlessly attacked Großdeutschland and the German forces around Akhtyrka. Two rifle corps from the 47th Army, supported by General-major Viktor T. Obukhov’s 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps, routed the German 57.Infanterie-Division north of Akhtyrka, which forced the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps to divert resources away from its own counter-attacks. Although a tenuous contact was made between Totenkopf and Großdeutschland, the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps lacked the strength to eliminate the two isolated Soviet tank corps. Furthermore, the Panthers continued to take a beating in combat; Meyer was killed on 19 August and most of his tanks were knocked out in just a few days.

The swirling tank mêlées continued south of Bogodukhov until 18 August, by which point the 1 TA and 5 GTA had been halted and severely damaged, but Breith’s III. Panzerkorps was also in very poor shape. Over 35 German tanks had been knocked out or destroyed, including five of the 19 Tigers. The two Soviet tank armies had lost hundreds of tanks south of Bogodukhov and General-major Dmitry Chernienko, commander of 31 TC, was killed in action on 18 August. While the three Waffen-SS divisions still had some combat capability left, the 3.Panzer-Division only had 10 tanks left and 6.Panzer-Division had just four. All the German armour west of Kharkov barely amounted to 100 tanks and assault guns. Inside Kharkov, the Sturmgeschütz-Abteilungen 228 and 905 had a total of 22 assault guns left to defend the city. Since Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA had failed to envelope Kharkov, Konev was forced to mount a costly frontal attack upon the city which ground up his forces and Raus’ XI Armeekorps.

The final act of Rumyantsev occurred near Lyubotin, on the western road leading out of Kharkov. On Zhukov’s orders, Vatutin transferred Rotmistrov’s battered 5 GTA to Konev’s control on 20 August for the final assault on the city. Within a remarkably short time, Rotmistrov was able to partly restore Yegorov’s 18 TC and Skvortsov’s 5 GMC and use them to support a major attack by 53rd Army against Lyubotin on 21 August. This sector was chosen because it was the left flank of Raus’ XI Armeekorps and not as well defended, but the minor Udy River proved to be more of an obstacle than the German infantrymen. Rotmistrov’s tanks tried to ford it, but became bogged down in its marshy banks. It took Konev’s engineers half a day to build a pontoon bridge over the Udy, then Rotmistrov’s two corps crossed. During the night, the bulk of Das Reich shifted eastward to block Rotmistrov’s bridgehead. By coincidence, the first Waffen-SS Panthers arrived at the front and unexpectedly joined the defence; these were two companies of Hauptsturmführer Hans Weiss’ I.SS-Panzer-Regiment 2 with 42 Panther Ausf D. At 0500 hours on 22 August, the 53rd Army fired a large artillery preparation against the German positions then Rotmistrov’s two corps advanced with 111 tanks. A protracted tank battle ensued for three hours, with the Panthers knocking out about half of Rotmistrov’s tanks but some Soviet tank-infantry teams fought their way into Korotych, in the western suburbs of Kharkov. Although Rotmistrov’s depleted 5 GTA had failed to break through, by that evening von Manstein finally authorized Wöhler to begin evacuating the city. By 1100 hours on 23 August, Konev’s forces fought their way into the city and liberated Kharkov.

Operation Rumyantsev had succeeded in taking Belgorod and Kharkov and it had effectively smashed Hoth’s front line. However, the cost had been extremely high, even by Red Army standards. Altogether, Vatutin’s Voronezh Front and Konev’s Steppe Front suffered over 255,000 casualties (including 71,611 dead or missing) and lost 1,700 tanks. Since the Red Army controlled the battlefield, a good number of these tanks would be recovered and repaired. Hoth’s and Kempf’s forces had suffered over 32,000 casualties, including about 8,000 killed and 4,000 captured. German armoured losses were only a fraction of the Soviet losses – roughly 250 tanks and 50 assault guns – but they were enough. Virtually all of von Manstein’s Panzer-Divisionen were combat-ineffective after Rumyantsev and the number of operational German tanks had dropped from 2,287 on 5 July to only 926 by 20 August.¹⁶³ Furthermore, the loss of territory during Rumyantsev cost the Panzerwaffe hundreds of damaged tanks that could not be moved in time; this was particularly true for the Panther and Tiger, both of which required multiple recovery vehicles to move.