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

Another crisis for Heeresgruppe Mitte was unfolding around the city of Velikiye Luki, near the boundary with Heeresgruppe Nord. General-major Kuzma N. Galitski’s 3rd Shock Army from the Kalinin Front had encircled the city on 27 November 1942, trapping 8,000 German troops from the 83.Infanterie-Division and other units. The city was heavily fortified and the Luftwaffe could provide aerial supplies to this small force for a time, but it was clear that a relief operation needed to be mounted. Generalleutnant Erich Brandenger’s 8.Panzer-Division was equipped with only 32 tanks, mostly obsolete Pz 38 (t) light tanks, but it was assigned to Gruppe Chevallerie to mount a relief operation.[8] Hauptmann Horst Krafft’s Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 185 was also provided to the relief operation; as an experiment, the 3.Batterie in this battalion was entirely equipped with the StuH 42 armed with the 10.5cm howitzer.³³ However, two hastily-assembled relief attempts in late November and mid-December 1942 failed with heavy losses, including all the StuH 42 assault guns and many of the Pz 38(t) tanks. Galitski’s 3rd Shock Army was supported by vastly more and better armour, including General-major Ivan P. Korchagin’s 2nd Mechanized Corps, the 13th Guards Tank Regiment equipped with KV-1 heavy tanks and two other tank brigades and five other tank regiments. Korchagin was a veteran tank officer and his corps was equipped with over 100 T-34 tanks and 70 T-70 light tanks – in itself more than a match for Brandenberger’s scrap-heap Panzer-Division. Consequently, it came as no surprise that the German relief efforts failed and Galitski’s infantry and artillery proceeded to reduce the encircled garrison in Velikiye Luki. However, Soviet efforts to send tanks into the city proved costly, due to the effectiveness of the German Panzerjägers in the wrecked city streets.

By New Year, Velikiye Luki had been surrounded for five weeks and pounded into rubble; it was clear that the garrison could not hold out much longer. Von Chevallerie was resolved to make one more relief attempt and was provided a handful of additional units, including the I./Panzer-Regiment 15 with 37 tanks (including 28 Pz III Ausf L/M and 3 Pz IV Ausf G). This battalion belonged to the 11.Panzer-Division and had been designated to return to Germany to re-equip with the new Panther tank at Grafenwöhr but had been diverted to Heeresgruppe Mitte to save the Velikiye Luki garrison. On 4 January, von Chevallerie launched Operation Totila and was able to batter his way to within 9–10km of the city, before the effort bogged down in the face of determined Soviet resistance. One German panzer platoon leader, Oberfeldwebel Gerhard Brehme, distinguished himself during the relief attempt by knocking out eight Soviet tanks; like a number of veteran German panzer NCOs, Brehme already had about 40 ‘kills’ over the past two years of combat. Nevertheless, the effort failed and Galitski’s troops overran the eastern part of the city.

On 9 January, Major Günther Tribukait, commander of Jäger-Bataillon 5, proposed one last desperate attempt to reach the remaining defenders in Velikiye Luki’s citadel: mounting his Jägers on the remaining panzers and SPWs and making a full-speed dash through the Soviet lines to reach the citadel. Unwilling to write the garrison off, von Chevallerie agreed even though it seemed a futile gesture. By afternoon, Tribukait assembled nine tanks from I./Pz. Regt. 15, 8 SPWs and 1 Sd. Kfz. 10/4 with a 2cm flak in a wooded area near the front. All the German vehicles were white-washed to blend in with the snow. Some infantrymen mounted on the tanks and others rode in the SPWs. At 1330 hours, Tribukait ordered the armour to advance in a wedge at high speed across the snow-covered terrain, followed by the halftracks. There was no artillery preparation and the Soviets were caught by surprise – these were not standard German panzer tactics. By the time the Soviets eventually began to react, the bulk of Tribukait’s formation had blitzed its way through the outer defences, losing some vehicles to anti-tank guns. In just an hour, the panzers reached the citadel, to the joy of the defenders. However, there was to be no rescue. A Soviet 76.2mm ZIS-3 anti-tank gun destroyed the trailing Pz III tank just as it entered the citadel gateway, trapping the other German tanks in the courtyard area. Soviet artillery then pounded the citadel, reducing the German panzers and SPWs to junk. Tribukait and the survivors joined the defenders. With no hope left, the German garrison attempted a breakout on the night of 15–16 January, but fewer than 200 troops succeeded in reaching German lines.³⁴