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

In no time, Sharagin’s 3GMC, reinforced with additional infantry and artillery from the 28th Army, was pressing against SS-Wiking’s perimeter. Furthermore, Malinovsky’s 2nd Guards Army had shifted its line of march westward and was threatening to cross the Manych in a sector that was screened by the 16. Infanterie-Division (mot.), which only had a few Pz IIIs left. Mühlenkamp’s battalion succeeded in repulsing several Soviet infantry probes into Proletarskaya but he had just 10 tanks still operational and Soviet artillery fire was gradually pulverizing the town.²² The SS-Wiking managed to hold Proletarskaya until dusk on 19 January, giving additional time for Kirchner’s LVII Panzerkorps and Panzerarmee 1 to retreat toward Rostov. Then the SS troops broke contact, blew up the bridge over the Manych and joined the retreat to Rostov. Although Sharagin’s 3 GMC, joined by the 4th Guards Mechanized Corps. did an excellent job hounding Hoth’s retreat, Malinovsky was shifting his armour westward along the northern side of the Manych, looking for a crossing site to cut off their escape route to Rostov. Malinovsky formed an armoured group consisting of General-mayor Karp V. Svirodov’s 2nd Guards Mechanized Corps (2GMC), General-leytenant Pavel A. Rotmistrov’s 3rd Guards Tank Corps (3 GTC) and General-major Semen I. Bogdanov’s 5th Guards Mechanized Corps (5 GMC) and tasked them to cross over the Manych near its confluence with the Don at Manychskaya and head toward Bataisk, only 40km away. If Rotmistrov’s armour reached the bridge over the Don at Bataisk, Heeresgruppe A’s primary escape route from the Caucasus would be severed. Although running short on fuel and ammunition after their long advance across the steppe, Rotmistrov put one of his ablest subordinates, Polkovnik Ivan A. Vovchenko in the lead with the 3rd Guards Tank Brigade (3 GTB) and they succeeded in crossing at Manychskaya on 22–23 January. Since Rotmistrov’s advance threatened to get behind PzAOK 4, Hoth shifted the 17.Panzer-Division to guard his escape route and asked von Manstein to temporarily transfer part of Generalleutnant Herman Balck’s 11. Panzer-Division south of the Don to meet this threat.

After some preliminary skirmishes with Vovchenko’s brigade on 24 January, Balck’s 11.Panzer-Division spearheaded a counter-attack on 25 January against the Manychskaya bridgehead. By means of a clever feint attack, Balck was able to defeat Vovchenko’s 3 GTB and knocked out 20 Soviet tanks.²³ In his memoirs, Rotmistrov claimed that Vovchenko’s brigade was attacked by 120–150 enemy tanks and three to four regiments of infantry, but Balck’s force was about 30–40 tanks and two motorized infantry battalions. Rotmistrov also claimed that Vovchenko’s brigade knocked out 20 German tanks, but admitted in his memoirs that, ‘we suffered great losses in manpower and material’ and asked Malinovsky permission to shift to the defence in this sector.²⁴ Malinovsky agreed, not realizing how small the German blocking force was in this sector. Thus Balck’s armoured Kampfgruppe stalled the advance of the Soviet 2nd Guards Army for the better part of a week and held the corridor open long enough for Hoth’s battered panzer units to conduct a fighting retreat to Rostov. Here and there, the remaining German panzers turned and inflicted some losses on their pursuers, but by the time that Hoth reached Rostov’s outskirts on 31 January, his ‘panzer army’ was reduced to fewer than 50 operational tanks and assault guns.

While Hoth’s month-long delaying action served to save Heeresgruppe A from isolation in the Caucasus, it came at a high price in men (almost 4,000 casualties) and equipment. The commitment of Tiger tanks in this sector had only provided Hoth with a temporary tactical advantage and while the three Tiger companies managed to knock out a total of at least 39 Soviet tanks, only five of 29 Tigers were still operational after just two weeks of combat. In contrast, the ability of units such as Balck’s 11.Panzer-Division, equipped with just a handful of Pz III and Pz IV medium tanks, to conduct a mobile delay and inflict reverses upon much larger pursuing Soviet mechanized forces offered far more cost-effective value to the Ostheer. On the other side of the hill, the performance of Sharagin’s 3 GMC on the offensive, the tactical defence and pursuit had been exemplary – indicating a steady improvement in the Soviet practice of mechanized warfare. Yet it was also clear that the Red Army had not mastered the art of logistical sustainment in mobile warfare, which caused its spearhead units to run out of fuel and ammunition at the worst possible moment. Even elite guards mechanized units were forced to use Panje carts in their support units and at least half the infantrymen in the mechanized brigades rode atop tanks as desantniki, all due to the scarcity of trucks.