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

The delaying actions fought by Gruppe Hollidt and Armee-Abteilung Fretter-Pico in January 1943 contributed greatly to the stabilization of the German southern front along the Donets after the disaster at Stalingrad and prevented 4.Panzerarmee and Heeresgruppe A from being isolated south of the Don. As von Manstein noted in his memoirs, Gruppe Hollidt’s defence ‘could never have been maintained had not our Panzer-Divisionen time and again shown up at danger spots at just the right moment.’²⁹ Nevertheless, the German defensive victory did not come cheaply. During January, Gruppe Hollidt suffered 14,909 casualties, including 4,808 dead or missing. During this period, the 6. and 11.Panzer-Divisionen lost a total of 89 tanks ‘totalausfalle’ (destroyed) and received 92 replacement tanks. At least nine of these replacement tanks were not new-build models but older, short-barrelled Pz III or Pz IV models from repair shops. On the Soviet side, Vatutin kept Popov’s 5 TA at the front too long and his armour reserves were spent, which led to the culmination of his offensive before reaching Rostov or cutting off Heeresgruppe A’s retreat. However, von Manstein opted to abandon Rostov in order to transfer armour to save his crumbling left flank, providing a consolation prize for Vatutin.

Destruction of the 2nd Hungarian Army, 12–29 January 1943

Before Vatutin could crush Heeresgruppe Don with Operation Gallop, the Stavka wanted to deal a fatal blow to Heeresgruppe B in the Voronezh sector in order to open the doorway to Kharkov. If both the Donbas and Kharkov could be liberated before the end of winter, the Red Army would have greatly weakened the Wehrmacht’s hold on the eastern Ukraine. Following the winning formula employed during Operation Uranus against the Romanians, the Stavka decided to make a maximum effort against the Hungarian 2nd Army and the remnants of the Italian 8th Army.

General Gustav Jány’s Hungarian 2nd Army held a 186km-wide sector along the Don, south of Voronezh. Jány commanded the III, IV and VII Army Corps, with a total of eight light infantry divisions. Although General-polkovnik Filipp I. Golikov’s Voronezh Front held a bridgehead across the Don in the Hungarian sector at Uryv, the Hungarian troops had occupied this sector for five months and were fairly well dug in. In open terrain, the Hungarian infantry divisions would have been at a major disadvantage against Soviet armour, since they were still equipped with 37mm and 47mm anti-tank guns and their division-level artillery was obsolescent. Nevertheless, Generaloberst Maximilian Freiherr von Weichs, commander of Heeresgruppe B, believed that with proper support the Hungarian 2nd Army could hold its own; he assigned two Luftwaffe Flak battalions to support the Hungarian IV Corps in the critical Uryv sector. Von Weichs also placed Generalkommando z.b.V. Cramer in Jany’s sector to act as a reserve, but under German command. Cramer’s force included two German infantry divisions and the Hungarian 1st Armoured Division. Altogether, the Hungarian 2nd Army was supported by about 100 Axis tanks and 40 assault guns, in the following units:

• The Hungarian 1st Armoured Division, under Brigadier General Ferenc Horváth, had the 30th Armoured Regiment with two tank battalions consisting of 50–60 operational Pz 38(t) light tanks and up to 20 older Pz IV medium tanks with short 7.5cm howitzers. In addition, Horváth’s division had a company of Toldi light tanks, a company of Csaba armoured cars and a battalion of Nimrod 40mm self-propelled AA guns that could also serve in the anti-tank role. By East Front 1943 standards, the Hungarian 1st Armoured Division was fragile, but it did have the structure of a combined arms team in its attached motorized artillery, infantry, engineers and AA which increased its overall combat value.

• In autumn 1942, Panzer-Verband 700 had been formed from a Panzer-Abteilung staff from 14.Panzer-Division and three Panzer-Kompanien from the 22.Panzer-Division, consisting of a total of 27 rather worn-out Pz 38(t) light tanks.³⁰

• Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 190, commanded by Major Gerhard Peitz, was attached to Gruppe Cramer.

• Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 242 had just been organized in Germany in November 1942, but one Batterie was sent to Tunisia and the other two went to Heeresgruppe B. The two assault gun batteries were just unloading at Ostrogoshsk on 12 January when Soviet offensive was beginning and the battalion was hurriedly dispatched to support the Hungarian IV Corps.