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

However, on 6 October 1943, the Soviet Kalinin Front launched a massive attack near the boundary of Heeresgruppe Nord and Heeresgruppe Mitte. The 3rd and 4th Shock Armies, with a total of 16 rifle divisions and 300 tanks, attacked the II.Luftwaffen-Feldkorps near Nevel and rapidly achieved a major breakthrough. Both AOK 16 and PzAOK 3 were compelled to commit all their reserves to this endangered sector, to prevent the Kalinin Front from driving a wedge between the two German army groups. Von Küchler had to send his only mobile reserve, the Tigers of s.Pz.Abt.502, to support a counter-attack intended to retake Nevel and crush the Soviet penetration. The fighting around Nevel dragged on indecisively for months, although the Germans claimed that 1,450 Soviet tanks were destroyed in this sector over the course of the battle.

Despite the distraction of the Nevel breakthrough, by late 1943 the OKH assessed that the Soviet Leningrad Front would eventually attack Heeresgruppe Nord’s AOK 18 in force, so Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner’s III.SS-Panzerkorps headquarters was sent to join Lindemann’s command in ealy December 1943, along with 11.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Nordland and 4.SS-Panzergrenadier-Brigade Nederland. Despite their grandiloquent titles, these recently-raised Waffen-SS formations were of mediocre quality, consisting primarily of Volksdeutsche, and poorly equipped. The Nordland’s SS-Panzer Battalion 11 was supposed to be equipped with Panther tanks, but most proved defective and the battalion was still unready for combat in January 1944.¹ A few of the immobilized Panthers were sent to the front and dug in as strongpoints. Instead, the Nordland had SS-Sturmgeschutz Battalion 11 with 42 StuG III and the Nederland brigade had a battery with 10 StuG III. In order to increase its anti-tank capabilities, AOK 18 had also formed Panzer-Zerstorer-Bataillone 477 and 478, each equipped with 20 of the new 8.8cm Panzerschreck rocket launchers. As a contingency plan, Heeresgruppe Nord began construction of the Panther Line on 7 September 1943; the line was intended to run from Narva, behind Lake Peipus to Pskov and Ostrov. By the end of December, some anti-tank ditches and fieldworks were in place, but the bulk of the fortification effort would not be completed until March 1944.²

The main problem for AOK 18 was the Oranienbaum salient, which the Red Army had held since late 1941. This heavily-fortified salient was supplied by sea and forced AOK 18 to maintain at least a corps-size formation to contain it. Steiner’s corps was assigned to defend the southern side of the Oranienbaum salient, to prevent a link-up between the Soviet forces in Leningrad and the enclave. Nordland would serve as a mobile reserve for this critical sector. However, von Küchler and Lindemann were not particularly concerned about the Oranienbaum salient, which had been a quiet sector for two years. Instead, von Küchler and Lindemann focused on repelling a Soviet breakout from Leningrad toward the Pulkovo Heights. Once again, the Germans were let down by their poor intelligence support, which failed to note a shift in Soviet intentions. General-leytenant Leonid A. Govorov, commander of the Leningrad Front, was resolved to end the German threat to the city and to destroy AOK 18. Instead of attacking from the east, as he had tried in all previous offensives in 1941–43, this time Govorov decided to make his main effort from the Oranienbaum salient.