Medium Don operation

Operation Little Saturn

Part of: Second World War , German-Soviet War

Course of the operation

date	December 16, 1942 to December 30, 1942
place
output	soviet victory
consequences	Destruction of the 8th Italian Army and the Hollidt Army Detachment ; Termination of the Wintergewitter company

Parties to the conflict
Italy German Empire Romania	Soviet Union
Troop strength
100,000 Italian soldiers 60,000 German soldiers 50,000 Romanian soldiers 120 tanks 110,000 reinforcements	371,000 men 1,170 tanks 5,625 guns and grenade launchers 309 aircraft 60,000 men reinforcement

The Middle Don Operation ( Russian Среднедонская операция ) was a Red Army operation that took place from December 16-30 , 1942 as part of the Stalingrad counter-offensive . It had the code name "Operation Little Saturn" ( Russian Малый Сатурн ).

prehistory

The Operation Uranus had to encircle the 6th Army in Stalingrad out. At the end of November 1942, the Soviet plans for a follow-up operation with the code name “Saturn” began. The Southwest Front under Colonel General Nikolai Watutin and the left wing of the Voronezh Front under Lieutenant General Filipp Golikow were supposed to take over the positions of the Italian 8th Army (belonging to Army Group B ) on the central Don as well as the " Hollidt Group " and the Romanian 3rd Army of Army Group Don break through on the Tschir and advance through Millerowo in a general direction towards Rostov and Taganrog . This would have cut off the entire German southern wing, including Army Group A, which is still in the Caucasus .

Soviet units during Operation Little Saturn in December 1942

At the same time as this operation, the Don Front and the Stalingrad Front were supposed to switch off the German forces in the Stalingrad pocket (Operation "Kolzo"). The plans for a further advance to Rostov were changed at the beginning of December due to the stubborn German resistance at Stalingrad, since forces intended for "Saturn" ( 2nd Guard Army ) had to be transferred to the Don Front. The start of the operation, which was scheduled for December 10th, had to be postponed to the 16th due to transport problems. At this point in time, the relief operation " Wintergewitter " of the Hoth Army Group in the Kotelnikowo area , on which all German efforts had been directed for the time being, had already started. After the defeat of the Italian 8th Army and the Hollidt group, the aim of the involved fronts was to stop German attack efforts in the Morozovsk and Nizhne-Tschirskaya area. The name of the operation was changed accordingly to "Little Saturn".

According to the Italian military attaché at OKW General Luigi Efisio Marras , a few days before the offensive some German general staff officers were of the opinion that the Soviet high command had largely used up its offensive power at Stalingrad. Nevertheless, according to a telephone conversation between Chief of Staff Kurt Zeitzler and Hitler on December 1, 1942 , the Italians received a German pioneer training command for fighting tanks and German pioneers, equipped with 9,000 hollow charges and explosive devices.

Italian 8th Army

Commander: General Italo Gariboldi , Chief of Staff: General Bruno Malaguti

Alpinikorps , Lieutenant General Gabriele Nasci, Chief of Staff: Colonel Giulio Martinat

• 2nd Alpini Division "Tridentina", General Luigi Reverberi
• 3rd Alpini Division "Julia", General Umberto Ricagno
• 4th Alpini Division "Cunense", General Emilio Battisti

II Army Corps : Corps General Giovanni Zanghieri , Chief of Staff: Colonel Ugo Almici

• 5th Infantry Division "Cosseria", Division General Enrico Gazzale
• 3rd Infantry Division "Ravenna", Brigadier General Francesco Dupont
• March 23rd Division Group, Lieutenant General Luigi Martinesi
• German Grenadier Regiment No. 318, Colonel Erich Mielke (of the 213rd Security Division )

XXXV. Army Corps General Giovanni Messe , then Francesco Zingales Chief of Staff: Colonel Gaetano Vargas

• 298th Infantry Division , Major General Arnold Szelinski
• 9th Infantry Division "Pasubio", Division General Guido Boselli
• Division Group "January 3", Lieutenant General Filippo Diamanti

XXIX. Army Corps : General of the Infantry Hans von Obstfelder

• 52nd Infantry Division "Turino", Division General Roberto Lerici
• 3rd fast division "Aosta", division general Ettore de Blasio
• 2nd Infantry Division "Sforzesca", General Carlo Pellegrini
• 156th Division "Vicenza", Brigadier General Etelvoldo Pascolini

course

The operation Little Saturn began with advance handles in battalion strength from 11 December. Affected were the Italian Cosseria division between Novaya Kalitwa and Samodurowka, the German 318th Infantry Regiment near Deresowka, the Ravenna division from the Verkhniy-Mamon bridgehead and the Pasubio division near Ogolew. The liaison officer to the Italian 8th Army, General Kurt von Tippelskirch , considered these attacks to be fettering attacks and did not believe in any intention to break through. The German liaison command to the Italian troops later suspected that these preliminary attacks were aimed at weakening the Italians, who were not used to the Russian winter, and that this was achieved after prolonged fighting, and that the Italian troops were “almost completely exhausted” before the start of the major attack " were. On December 16 at 8 o'clock the main attack began with an hour and a half of artillery bombardment. The attack troops of the Soviet 6th Army (Lieutenant General FM Kharitonov ) and the 1st Guard Army (Lieutenant General WI Kuznezow ) crossed the frozen Don east of Novaya Kalitwa and advanced from the Verkhniy-Mamon bridgehead and from the surrounding area. The 3rd Guard Army (Lieutenant General DD Leljuschenko ) formed on the left wing in the area east of Bokovskaya to break through over the Tschir . Dense fog prevented the use of air forces until noon. The Italian II Corps held out for a day and then fell back; the Ravenna division standing in front of the bridgehead was overrun. The German 298th Infantry Division at the Italian XXXV. Corps was deployed, also had to withdraw. In the days that followed, the Soviet breakthrough led to a panic and desperate retreat to Taly and Kantemirowka, which the Italian Army High Command could no longer control, also because it no longer received any situation reports from the overrun units and did not have sufficient reserves.

The Soviet troops made a breakthrough on December 17th due to their strong superiority in tanks and their attack tips advanced 20 to 25 km in the direction of Kantemirowka. The left flank of the Hollidt group was exposed by the Italian retreat. On the same day, the 3rd Guard Army attacked the remains of the Romanian 3rd Army and the Hollidt group in a westerly direction across the Tschir .

At the end of December 18, the enemy front was cut into four pieces. The 24th (Major General WM Badanov ) and the 25th Panzer Corps (Major General PP Pavlov ), which developed the offensive on Tazinskaya and Morozovsk, were particularly successful in advancing into the depths of the enemy defense . In order to slow down the Soviets, four armored and four infantry divisions were relocated here from other sections of the front as well as from Western Europe. Because of the Soviet successes, Erich von Manstein decided on December 23rd to break off the Wintergewitter operation and thus the attempted relief of the 6th Army encircled in Stalingrad. The further Soviet advances into the hinterland, to Chertkowo , Millerowo and finally up to Ternoskaya allowed the union with Soviet units that had broken through in the southeast in the area of ​​the Hollidt Army Detachment . With that, the 8th Army was encircled except for the Alpini Corps in the very north-west. The groups that had been cut off tried to break through to the south-west in two groups: The northern group was broken up on December 21, 1942 at Arbusowka. The southern group suffered heavy losses at Verkhne-Tschirskaja, the rest managed to retreat via Skosiskaja to Forschstadt am Donets.

At the end of December 24, the main forces of the Italian 8th Army at Alexsejewo-Losowskij and Verkhne-Tschirskaya, where they had been trapped, were crushed. At the end of December, the troops on the south-western front reached the Novaya Kalitva - Markovka - Voloshino - Chernikovsky line.

Raid on Tazinskaya

Actual inventory of the aircraft used to supply Stalingrad with air
(excluding He 111 ) from December 6th to December 26th, 1942 (extract)

On December 24th, the airfields near Tazinskaya with the large storage depot located there were taken by the Soviet 24th Panzer Corps under General WM Badanov. From there, most of the air supply for the troops trapped in Stalingrad took place. The Sowinformbüro reported on December 27, 1942 that 300 aircraft had fallen into the hands of Soviet troops. In addition, another 51 that were still loaded on railroad cars. According to a diary entry by Martin Fiebig on December 24, 1942, 108 Junkers Ju 52s and 16 Ju-86s of the 180 aircraft at the airfield were able to escape. According to an eyewitness report, "40 Ju's destroyed" were counted when the airfield was recaptured on December 28th. After a list of the transport machines used by the Air Force High Command to supply air to Stalingrad , the actual number fell between December 24th. and 26.12. suddenly at 45 Ju-52s and 20 Ju-86s . The pension benefit fell on December 24th. to 0 tons and on December 25th to 7 tons. On the evening of December 25th, the 1st Quartermaster of the 6th Army Kunowski informed the Chief Quartermaster of Army Group Don Finck that the supply situation “had become very serious due to the failure of 2 days”. The OKW's war diary noted for December 25: "Air supply not possible due to snow storm."

During the counterattack, Badanov's corps was locked in but was able to break out. According to the OKW's war diary , only 12 tanks could break out. The commander of the 11th Panzer Division that led the counterattack, Hermann Balck, claims in his memoirs that 12 tanks and 30 trucks broke out, and these were destroyed when the trucks got stuck in a stream. According to him, the attack was started with only 20 operational tanks, of which 10 to 12 were canceled during the fight.

consequences

The Red Army smashed about 10 divisions of the Axis Powers (6 Italian, three Romanian and one German), took 60,000 prisoners, captured 1,900 guns, 176 tanks and 370 aircraft, advanced 250–300 km and reached the rear of Army Group Don.

All German efforts to relieve the troops trapped in Stalingrad had to be broken off after this defeat, as the stabilization of the front was given absolute priority. This practically sealed the fate of the 6th Army. On December 30th, Army Group A in the Caucasus, threatened with being cut off, received the order to retreat.

literature

• David M. Glantz : From Don to Dnepr. Soviet Offensive Operations December 1942-August 1943 . London / New York 1991.
• Alexander Michailowitsch Samsonow: Сталинградская битва. Moscow, 1989.

Web links

• Middle Doner Operation (Russian)
• https://www.e-reading.club/chapter.php/1004335/33/Ivanovskiy_Artem_-_Uteryannye_pobedy_Krasnoy_Armii.html

Individual evidence

1. ^ Report for the Commando Supremo of January 15, 1943. Printed in: Thomas Schlemmer: Die Italiener an der Ostfront 1943/43 . Munich 2005, p. 249 f.
2. ↑ Helmut Heiber: Hitler's situation discussions : The protocol fragments of his military conferences 1942 - 1945 . Stuttgart 1962, p. 59.
3. ↑ Schlemmer, p. 63.
4. ↑ Summary of the combat reports of the German Liaison Command in the divisions of the 8th Italian Army and joint conclusions of November 12, 1943. Quoted in Schlemmer, p. 112.
5. ^ Manfred Kehrig: Stalingrad. Analysis and documentation of a battle . Stuttgart 1974, p. 634 f.
6. ^ Janusz Piekałkiewicz : Stalingrad. Anatomy of a battle . Munich 1977, p. 355 f.
7. ^ Hermann Plocher : The German Air Force Versus Russia, 1941-1943 . Volume 2, p. 294.
8. ^ Report by Sergeant Wolfgarten from Panzergrenadier Regiment 4. Printed in: Horst Scheibert: Between Don and Donez. Winter 1942/43 . Neckargemünd 1961, p. 54.
9. ↑ Kehrig, p. 634 f.
10. ↑ Kehrig, p. 635.
11. ↑ Kehrig, p. 611.
12. ↑ Percy Ernst Schramm (ed.): War diary of the High Command of the Wehrmacht . Bonn undated, Volume 2, 2nd half volume, p. 1185.
13. ↑ Schramm, War Diary of the High Command of the Wehrmacht . Volume 2, 2nd half volume, p. 1204. Entry from December 29, 1942.
14. ↑ David Zabecki, Dieter Biedekarken: Order in Chaos: The Memoirs of General of Panzer Troops Hermann Balck . Kentucky 2015, p. 454. Limited preview in Google Book search