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

Eremenko was advancing toward Proletarskaya with General-leytenant Rodion Ia. Malinovsky’s powerful 2nd Guards Army and General-major Nikolai I. Trufanov’s 51st Army, which altogether had two tank and three mechanized corps. Although Eremenko’s armour was depleted after the heavy fighting since the beginning of Operation Uranus on 19 November 1942, he likely still had at least 300–400 operational tanks. Out in front was General-major Trofim I. Tanaschishin’s 13th Tank Corps, approaching Zimovniki from the northeast. Tanaschishin was a veteran tanker who had been commanding armour units since the 1930s and he recognized that Hoth’s frontline was fluid, so he decided to launch an immediate assault upon Zimovniki. Around 0830 hours, six tanks and a battalion of motorized infantry pushed into the northeastern corner of the town, catching the Germans completely by surprise. In panic, staff officers believed this handful of tanks to be the vanguard of Eremenko’s host and ordered all stores and equipment at the rail station destroyed, including 47,000 winter uniforms and new tanks that had just arrived. All damaged vehicles in the repair units were also set on fire.¹⁴ However, the Soviet incursion was just a raid and SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Westland arrived in time to prevent the fall of the entire town and evicted Tanaschishin’s raiding force. The SS panzergrenadiers quickly established a coherent defensive hedgehog in the town, but their tanks were well to the rear and 17.Panzer-Division was covering their western flank out to the Sal River. It is important to note that the German panzer units were forced to spread their tanks around to cover a large sector, depriving them of mass and violating their accepted doctrine of concentration.

It took Eremenko a few days to bring up the rest of his two armies, but on 3 January he sent the 2nd Guards Mechanized Corps and 3rd Guards Tank Corps against the 17. Panzer-Division, while the 6th Mechanized Corps reinforced Tanaschishin for an assault upon Zimovniki. General-major Aleksei P. Sharagin’s 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps was sent to envelop Wiking’s eastern flank, forcing them to extend their front. Although the 17. Panzer-Division managed to destroy about 17 Soviet tanks, Kirchner was forced to refuse both his left and right flanks to prevent from being encircled. Reinforced by part of the SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Germania, the Wiking managed to hold Zimovniki until 7 January when mounting pressure on both flanks forced Kirchner to retreat 25-km south to Kuberle. It was at Kuberle that SS-Sturmbannführer Johannes-Rudolf Mühlenkamp’s SS-Panzer-Abteilung 5 finally arrived. Yet no sooner had Mühlenkamp’s panzers driven into Kuberle than the SS-Wiking Division received a report that Soviet infantry had cut the rail line behind them at Orlivskiy. Although the 23. Panzer-Division was supposed to be screening the area east of the rail line to Proletarskaya, its positions were so thinly spread that they had failed to detect a battalion of Sharagin’s 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps getting around behind the SS-Wiking Division. When the Soviet infantry entered Orlivskiy on the morning of 8 January there were only rear-echelon troops there and they quickly retreated, leaving the Soviets in control of half the town. Mühlenkamp’s panzers were immediately ordered back to Orlivskiy to clear the Soviet raiding party but by the time that they arrived, a local counter-attack by an engineer unit had chased off the Soviets; the SS tankers were then ordered to drive back to Kuberle – an exhausting back-and-forth effort that exhausted both men and tanks. On the icy roads in the dark, the panzers were only capable of making 3–4km/hour, which meant that Mühlenkamp’s panzers spent over 24 hours driving to and fro to no purpose.