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

The Soviet tank groups did about as well as could be expected of improvised formations, performing well against German infantry units, but much less well whenever German panzers appeared on the battlefield. Lobanov’s group lost 70 tanks (incl. 31 T-34, 15 M3 Lee, 10 Valentines and 14 light tanks) in the month-long pursuit operation and suffered 471 casualties. Filippov’s group lost 30 tanks to enemy action and 29 more to mechanical faults. Both tank groups had accomplished their immediate tactical purposes and were disbanded after the Germans evacuated the Caucasus, with remaining units returned to infantry support duties. The Stavka had realized its goal of recovering all of the Caucasus except for the Kuban, and reduced PzAOK 1 to a decimated horde of refugees.

The End at Stalingrad, 1 January–2 February 1943

After the failure of Operation Wintergewitter on 19 December 1942, Generaloberst Friedrich Paulus knew that the fate of his encircled 6.Armee at Stalingrad was sealed. While he still had 201,000 troops in 6.Armee, the Luftwaffe’s failure to meet expectations with its airlift meant that Paulus’ troops were not receiving even one-third of the food, fuel and ammunition required to sustain combat capability. Instead, the 6.Armee was consigned to a slow death by cold and starvation, which sapped the troops’ will to fight. Amazingly, Paulus’ armoured units still had 94 operational tanks and 31 assault guns at the beginning of January, although many of these vehicles were damaged. Since no spare parts were coming in by air, tanks and assault guns could only be kept functional by cannibalizing damaged vehicles; this stop-gap method kept some armour in the fight but gradually reduced much of the armour in the pocket to spare parts bins. Fuel was in very short supply, but 6.Armee was still able to issue 6 cbm (30,000 litres) of petrol on 30 December 1942, which was enough to provide limited mobility to its armoured vehicles.⁷ Ammunition was also in short supply, but by taking ammunition from inoperative AFVs, the remaining tanks and assault guns likely still had 30–40 rounds each. Yet as the Red Army began to overrun one Luftwaffe airfield involved in the airlift after another – and the daily supply tonnage dropped to miniscule levels – the 6.Armee had to depend more upon the 300-odd anti-tank guns and 8.8cm flak guns still in the pocket, which were less dependent upon fuel but equally short of ammunition.

On 1 January 1943, the 6.Armee held a perimeter which was 53km long from east-west and 35km wide from north to south. Except for the urban terrain in Stalingrad, most of the 6.Armee’s units were deployed on flat, treeless terrain that offered little cover. Daily temperatures hovered around 15–20 degrees F, but at night they dropped well below 0 degrees F, which caused plenty of frostbite casualties among infantrymen and tankers. Deep snow cover restricted mobility within the pocket. The key terrain within the pocket was the Pitomnik and Gumrak airfields, both near the centre. Even though Heeresgruppe Don’s forces were in full retreat away from Stalingrad, Paulus kept 6.Armee deployed as if relief was still coming, with General der Panzertruppe Hans-Valentin Hube’s XIV Panzerkorps holding the vulnerable Marinovka salient jutting out to the southwest. Hube placed two of his motorized infantry divisions in the salient with 46 panzers.⁸ Paulus kept the 14.Panzer-Division in reserve, supporting the VIII Armeekorps’ defence of the western side of the pocket. The rest of 6.Armee’s armour was deployed on the northern side of the pocket, with General der Infanterie Karl Strecker’s XI Armeekorps; the Soviets had been continuously attacking here in the Kotluban sector since September. Paulus reorganized his army for defence, dug-in and waited for the inevitable.