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

Similarly, Hollidt’s AOK 6 (which was now subordinate to Heeresgruppe A), was forced to hold Melitopol in the vain hope of protecting the rail link to the Crimea. Hollidt’s forces reached the illusory Wotan Stellung on 20 September and were shocked to find no prepared defences. All troops, including Panzertruppen, were ordered to dig in immediately. Unteroffizier Erich Hager, a Pz IV crewmen in the II.Pz. Rgt. 39 in 17.Panzer-Division, recounted digging in every night and fending off Soviet probing attacks every day. The weather was already turning cold due to frequent drenching rain and Hager wrote, ‘we look like pigs’.¹⁸⁵ German front-line morale was increasingly brittle. Tolbukhin’s forces soon arrived near Melitopol in strength and on 26 September, began a massive assault against AOK 6’s left flank with the 5th Shock Army and 44th Army. This sector was held by the battered IV Armeekorps, which included two Luftwaffe Feld-Divisionen. Tolbukhin committed the 11 TC, 20 TC and 4 GMC against IV Armeekorps, along with a large amount of infantry and artillery. In order to prevent a breakthrough, Hollidt rushed the 17.Panzer-Division to this sector and in five days of heavy fighting, the Germans claimed to have destroyed 181 enemy tanks.

The OKH dispatched forces to reinforce Hollidt, including the I./Pz.Rgt. 2, intended for the 13.Panzer-Division; this battalion was the first equipped with the Panther Ausf A model. The Panther Ausf A incorporated a number of minor product improvements that had been unable to include in the original Ausf D model, but it still possessed the same reliability issues. On 10 October, the new Panthers were committed to a counter-attack to repulse a local breakthrough by the 20 TC and 4 GMC, which resulted in the ‘tank battle of Oktoberfeld.’ As usual, the superior firepower of the Panthers inflicted punishing losses on the opposing T-34s – the Germans claimed about 60 knocked out – but numerous Panthers dropped out with mechanical defects. Despite heavy losses, the Soviets were often able to recover their damaged tanks and they kept pounding at AOK 6’s front throughout October. Hollidt was finally forced to yield Melitopol on 23 October and Tolbukhin made a massive push that sent AOK 6 in pell-mell retreat for the Dnepr. While two German corps retreated toward Nikopol, the XXXXIV Armeekorps (Gruppe Becker) retreated toward Kherson with the 13.Panzer-Division, the Panther battalion and two infantry divisions. The Panthers were particularly useful during the retreat, keeping 4 GMC’s armour at bay and preventing the Soviets from cutting off the escape of Gruppe Becker. Although Gruppe Becker succeeded in crossing safely at Kherson, very few Panthers of the I.Pz.Rgt. 2 were still operational. The IV and XXIX Armeekorps were less fortunate, in that rather than crossing at Nikopol, Hitler ordered them to remain on the eastern bank to protect the manganese ore mines near Nikopol; fighting for the Nikopol bridgehead would continue for nearly 100 days.[38]

In the north, the PzAOK 4 finally evacuated its Kiev bridgehead by 30 September and repulsed several efforts by Vatutin’s forces to cross the Dnepr north of Kiev. On 5 October, the 38th Army managed to seize a small bridgehead at Lyutezh, 25km north of Kiev, which was reinforced with three rifle divisions in a week. For his part, von Manstein regarded the swampy terrain north of Kiev as unsuitable for armour and did not attach much importance to the Lyutezh bridgehead. Instead, he ordered the XIII Armeekorps to seal off the bridgehead with two infantry divisions and directed Hoth to position the 7. and 8.Panzer-Divisionen nearby as mobile reserves, just in case. By the beginning of October, von Manstein was focused on crushing the Bukrin bridgehead and containing Konev’s lodgement south of Kremenchug. The Stavka was equally intent upon transforming these tactical successes into the springboard for a major operational victory and ordered Konev and Vatutin to attack as soon as they had sufficient forces across the Dnepr.

Vatutin moved an artillery division to support the Bukrin bridgehead and on 24 October he began a major effort to break through the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps’ perimeter. The Soviets were able to gain a little ground, assisted by river crossings on both flanks, but the Germans moved up the Das Reich and the 11.Panzer-Division to reinforce the defence. In very heavy fighting, the Soviet offensive was stopped cold and the Germans claimed 140 enemy tanks knocked out. By late October, Vatutin realized that the German defences were too strong at Bukrin and he ordered his forces in the bridgehead to shift to the defence. On 20 October, the Stavka also decided to redesignate the Soviet fronts: Vatutin’s Voronezh Front became the 1st Ukrainian Front, Konev’s Steppe Front became the 2nd Ukrainian Front, Malinovsky’s Southwestern Front became the 3rd Ukrainian Front and Tolbukhin’s Southern Front became the 4th Ukrainian Front.