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

The encirclement of Hube’s PzAOK 1 was the largest catastrophe facing the Wehrmacht since Stalingrad. Hube’s army comprised over 200,000 troops in 10 Panzer-Divisionen (LSSAH, Das Reich, 1, 6, 7, 11, 16, 17, 19), one Panzergrenadier-Division (20), 12 infantry divisions, one artillery division, s.Pz.Abt.509 and s.Panzerjäger-Abteilung 88 (Nashorn).[43] Although the army only had 35 operational tanks when it was surrounded, the loss of the veteran personnel would effectively cost Germany half her trained tankers. After much arguing with Hitler, von Manstein finally convinced him that Hube had to break out of encirclement or Heeresgruppe Süd’s front would collapse. Although it was possible that Hube could have crossed the Dnestr, this would have made it very difficult for von Manstein to establish a new front. Instead, Hube was ordered to attack westward, where a relief force would assemble near the town of Berezhany. Hube reorganized his forces for combat, dividing all his units into two main assault formations: Korpsgruppe von der Chevallerie (1., 6., 7., 11. 16, 19.Panzer-Divisionen and LSSAH, plus six infantry divisions) and Korpsgruppe Breith (Das Reich and 17.Panzer-Division, plus seven infantry divisions). Unlike previous pockets where the entrapped forced remained stationary in order to receive air resupply, Hube did not intend to remain tied to airfields since he knew that Zhukov would soon assemble overwhelming forces around the pocket to prevent escape or rescue. Instead, Hube intended to fight his way through the Soviet encirclement and rely upon parachuted supplies. Having learned quite a bit about supplying encircled forces, the Luftwaffe sent a special team (Kesseltrupp) into the pocket equipped with air-ground radios, beacons and flares in order to mark drop zones as needed.²³ Hube ordered all unnecessary or damaged vehicles destroyed, in order to reduce his army’s fuel requirements. On 28 March, Hube began attacking westward with Korpsgruppe Breith.

Badanov’s 4 TA was the main force blocking Hube’s escape, with his 10 GTC holding the vital road junction at Kamenets-Podol’skiy and the 6 GMC located just west of there. Although Badanov only had about 100 tanks left, he still had plenty of infantry, artillery and anti-tank guns with him. The 10 GTC formed a hedgehog in Kamenets-Podol’skiy which blocked the main routes across the Smotrich River, a tributary of the Dnestr. Rather than assaulting the Soviet strongpoint, the 17.Panzer-Division seized a crossing site over the Smotrich north of Kamenets-Podol’skiy and Hube’s army crossed over there. In the process, the 10 GTC itself was temporarily surrounded at Kamenets-Podol’skiy and Badanov, trying to stop the German breakout, was badly wounded on 29 March. The experienced General-leytenant Dmitri K. Lelyushenko was brought in to take command of 4 TA, but there was little that he could do but try to delay the breakout.

Initially, Zhukov was over-confident about the Kamenets-Podol’skiy pocket and simply assumed that Hube’s PzAOK would sit put. Instead of reinforcing Badanov, Zhukov sent Katukov’s 1 TA to capture Chernovtsy on 30 March and focused most of his effort on preventing any German units from escaping south across the Dnestr. He also committed the bulk of the 60th Army to reducing the German fortress of Tarnopol, even though the garrison was less than 5,000 troops. Both Zhukov and Konev used their infantry armies to compress the northern side of the pocket, but paid little attention to the western side of the pocket. At the same time, Hitler was furious that both Heeresgruppe Süd and Heeresgruppe A were in retreat and he opted to sack both von Manstein and von Kleist, whom he had lost faith in. In the case of von Manstein, the relief was not unjustified since von Manstein had consistently failed to anticipate enemy actions since Kursk and seemed more interested in retreats than counter-attacks. In their place, Hitler substituted Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model to command Heeresgruppe Süd and Schörner to command Heeresgruppe A. However, the immediate impact on the battle was negligible and both army groups continued to retreat.