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

Rybalko’s armour advanced rapidly and covered 165km in a single day; by the evening of 21 September his lead units were approaching the Dnepr Bend. Then his tanks ran out of fuel, just short of the river. General-major Mitrofan I. Zin’kovich, commander of the 6 TC, frantically radioed Rotmistrov and requested an emergency fuel resupply of 20–30 tons of diesel.¹⁷⁹ Some of the Soviet infantry travelling as desant troops with Malik’s brigade continued on foot to the river and the 95-man Submachinegun Company used a few small boats to cross near Grigorovka, north of Kanev, before dawn on 22 September. This tiny force was soon reinforced to battalion-size. Shortly thereafter, small numbers of infantry from General-polkovnik Kirill S. Moskalenko’s 40th Army’s 309th Rifle Division also crossed the Dnepr at Rzhyshchiv, 25km to the west. These initially non-contiguous lodgements of 3 GTA and 40 A were thereafter collectively known as the Bukrin bridgehead. The Bukrin area was heavily wooded and isolated. There were no German troops in the area, but Rittmeister Helmut von Moltke’s Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 19 had been assigned to conduct screening operations in this sector and was already en route. Rybalko’s troops were the first to cross the Dnepr, but unless he could quickly get tanks and artillery across, the Germans would move against the tiny Bukrin bridgehead and crush it. At Grigorovka the Dnepr was 600–800 meters wide and 8 metres deep, so tanks could not cross without pontoon bridges or ferries, which would take days to prepare.

It took the Germans about 24 hours to realize that the Soviets had already gained a toehold across the Dnepr at Bukrin, but once this was confirmed by von Moltke’s reconnaissance troops on the afternoon of 23 September, Källner was ordered to move a reinforced Kampfgruppe (two Panzergrenadier battalions, one artillery battalion, one tank company and a few Panzerjägers and pioniers) from his division to conduct a counter-attack. Nehring’s XXIV Panzerkorps, still crossing at Kanev, was also ordered to send a Kampfgruppe from 57.Infanterie-Division to Kanev. On the night of 23–24 September, Rybalko and Moskalenko conducted a ‘mass crossing’ of the Dnepr with thousands of troops moving to the opposite shore on rafts and fishing boats or simply swimming. By 24 September, Moskalenko and Rybalko had enough troops on the west side of the Dnepr to expand their bridgehead to a depth of 3–4km and pushed back von Moltke’s screening troops. General-major Zin’kovich personally decided to cross into the bridgehead with some of his infantry (an odd choice for a tank corps commander), but he was mortally wounded by a Luftwaffe air attack that struck the crossing site.¹⁸⁰

However, the main Soviet play came that evening, when Vatutin decided to commit the airborne troops to reinforce and expand the bridgehead. The airborne operation was a three-star mess from the beginning, starting with a 24-hour delay due to weather and logistical problems, then shortages of transport aircraft. Instead of committing all three brigades (which would have delayed the operation further), Vatutin decided to go with two brigades and the last-minute planning changes led to chaos. At 1930 hours on 24 September, the Soviet transports began dropping paratroops from the 3 GAB and 5 GAB southwest of the Bukrin bridgehead. The drops were badly scattered and most of the 4,575 paratroops who jumped missed their drop zones; instead they landed on top of the Panzergrenadier-Regiment 73, which by the fortunes of war was just arriving in sector. With the sky full of white parachutes, the Panzergrenadiers had a field day and engaged the paratroopers with automatic weapons and light flak. In the first 24 hours, the Germans captured or killed 901 paratroopers and the airborne operation failed to reinforce the Bukrin bridgehead.¹⁸¹

Nehring tried to organize a counter-attack against the Bukrin bridgehead as quickly as possible, but he only had part of the 19.Panzer-Division and part of 57.Infanterie-Division, which he felt was insufficient to overrun the enemy position. In fact, the Soviets had not yet succeeded in bringing more than a few heavy weapons across the Dnepr and no tanks, so the Soviet position was still quite tenuous. However, the Germans were not sure exactly how many Soviet troops were in the bridgehead and Nehring decided to wait for further reinforcements. Von Manstein sent him Kampfgruppen from the 7.Panzer-Division and 20.Panzergrenadier-Division, but this delayed the counter-attack until 29 September. The Soviets used this week-long respite wisely, digging in their infantry and using a small number of pontoons to begin ferrying tanks and artillery across the river on 26 September. By the end of that day, Rybalko had 14 tanks and 18 120mm mortars on the western side of the river and Moskalenko was able to push 17 tanks, 27 76.2mm guns and 51 45mm anti-tank guns across on the first day.¹⁸²