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

After securing Kharkov, the third phase of von Manstein’s counter-offensive began with the advance north toward Belgorod. The spring thaw was beginning, melting some snow and turning the roads into deep mud. Von Manstein wanted to seize as many follow-on objectives as possible before the weather and eventual Soviet reinforcements could halt his advance. It was Großdeutschland which made the most progress, smashing into Kazakov’s battered 69th Army and rolling it up with a one-division mini-Blitzkrieg. On 13 March, the Großdeutschland captured Borisovka, east of Belgorod. Golikov brought Kravchenko’s understrength 5GTC over to stop the Großdeutschland’s advance as well as the 3rd Guards Tank Corps. The Stavka even provided Golikov with Badanov’s 2nd Guards Tank Corps (formerly the 24th Tank Corps), which had been virtually destroyed in the Tatsinskaya Raid in December 1942; although re-equipped, this formation was unready for combat. The Graf Strachwitz’s well-trained panzer crews destroyed these ill-trained Soviet units piecemeal in a series of actions between 13–18 March that were reminiscent of the heady days of Barbarossa, except for the mud; the Panzer-Regiment Großdeutschland claimed 128 Soviet tanks destroyed in this period. In one action, the enemy simply abandoned their tanks and Großdeutschland captured 15 intact T-34s. Although outnumbered 3–1 or worse, Strachwitz’s panzers completely outclassed their opposition and, unlike the Waffen-SS tankers, knew how to keep their own losses down with proper battlefield reconnaissance. On the night of 14–15 March, the Großdeutschland detected an impending Soviet armoured counter-attack and Strachwitz deployed his panzers in ambush near Borisovka, as related by a German tank platoon leader: