Thor's Anvil (Kirov Series Book 26)

by John Schettler

  The front dipped closest to Morozovsk in the 3rd Shock Army sector, and that force put in a strong attack, committing all its mobile reserves in fast moving cavalry units. The ski brigades would also get their first chance to wax the boards and speed off over the light snowpack from the recent storm. 60th Light Tank Brigade found a hole open in the lines of the German 305th Infantry Division and raced on through, gaining ten kilometers and reaching the main road from Morozovsk to Chern.

  That got Manstein’s attention immediately. He had already thinned out his cupboard, sending the three Reserve Don Group infantry battalions up to the front to facilitate the withdrawal of 336th Infantry. Now, with an enemy tank unit just six kilometers from his desk in Morozovsk, the 336th was immediately ordered to halt its eastward march, turn about, and come west along the main road.

  Its 686th Regiment had been at the tail of the column, and now it quickly became the vanguard, the trucks racing west on the road to the crisis point. The division would assemble at a road mark known as Kilometer 161 on their maps, and deploy to push back the penetration the enemy had achieved here. Better motorized, the swift moving Motorcycle Recon Battalion raced ahead, following the rail line south of the main road to reach Morozovsk late on the 25th of October. They soon ran into Soviet cavalry and armored cars, but this had been designed as no more than a spoiling attack, meant to draw in any mobile reserves the Germans might have waiting behind the front. The real offensive was much farther west, but it was taking time to get underway.

  The sometimes ponderous nature of Soviet operations at this stage was slowing Saturn down, but it eventually built up like too much snow on the roof of the German line. Now that roof began to collapse. The weight of the entire 5th Shock Army was soon falling on the 24th Panzer Division. II Battalion of 21st Panzergrenadier Regiment was simply overrun and destroyed, with III Battalion surrounded. Volsky’s big 4th Mech Corps had joined this attack, like a bear coming out of hibernation. And now the 1st Tank Army was reaching the scene in force, the landscape suddenly alive with the grind and growl of tanks again on every quarter. They were through the gap in the German ranks, trundling south.

  The German 23rd Panzer had jogged right to come up on the flank of the beleaguered 24th, and its lines were reasonably secure and well organized. It was holding on the left, but the weight of 5th Shock Army, Volsky’s Mech Corps and all the tanks of 7th and 10th Tank Corps were simply too much on the right. 24th Panzer Division was being overrun. The Recon Battalion and four of the six Panzergrenadier Battalions were all but destroyed, the artillery park fleeing south in a mad chaotic rush. Lengsfeld’s 23rd tried to counterattack on the shoulder of the enemy penetration, but it felt like they were trying to force a hatch shut against a flood of onrushing seawater on a sinking ship.

  Meanwhile, off to the east, Winter Storm continued to rage against 5th Tank Army. The 3rd SS had swung north off the main road and pushed right over the Chir against 24th Tank Corps, and now, relieved by elements of 3rd Motorized, the Reichsführer Brigade that had been defending near Oblivskaya swung right up the road to the east, and plowed into Surovinko. That was just the added wind in the storm that was needed, allowing Scheller’s 9th Panzer Division to drive the remnants of 1st Tank Corps out of the town. Meanwhile, Balck found Hauser by the river, still screening that site he had chosen for a good crossing point.

  “The tanks have pulled out,” said Hauser. “Now the far bank is only screened by infantry.”

  “Then it looks like we should try them here,” Balck decided. There was no other flanking move possible for his division. His right flank was just the increasingly marshy banks of the Chir as it wound down towards the Don. Now it was time to take 11th Panzer over that river, but half his division was very low on supplies. So he attacked with the other half.

  Two hours later, Manstein got the report that Balck was over the Chir with a strong Kampfgruppe, ready to join the units of 9th Panzer. Thus far, Winter Storm had met his every expectation, a complete success in smashing 5th Tank Army and throwing its shattered tank corps back in considerable disarray. Yet it was still well over 40 kilometers to Kalach. The fight there had worn down his divisions, supply was needed, and he knew that the storm must soon abate.

  Beyond that, the reports coming in from 14th Panzer Korps were most disturbing. The Russians had produced yet another fresh reserve army to throw at him, and Manstein could not understand how they were doing it. The 336th had stopped the penetration north of Morozovsk, but now, with the collapse of 24th Panzer, a new and more serious threat was developing from the northwest. He was going to have to pull his entire left wing back, trading space for time. Orders were sent that hour for the two Luftwaffe Field Divisions to withdraw with the 294th Infantry. Manstein wanted infantry to reform a defensive front so he could pull 23rd Panzer out of the storm and get some mobile reserve in hand again.

  In a strange flip on either side of the map, the Germans had finished off the Soviet 24th Tank Corps, and they now had Surovinko back in the east. Yet the Soviets had nearly destroyed 24th Panzer Division, and they were coming for Morozovsk in the west. Manstein had laid down a nice flush, in spades, but Rokossovsky had a full house, Jacks and Queens high.

  See Map: General Situation, Oct 30, 1942 at www.Writingshop.ws

  Chapter 24

  Steiner had been pacing in his headquarters, eager to get on with the demolition of this city. It would complete his mission for the whole of Operation Blue, match Rundstedt’s accomplishment in investing Voronezh, justify his decision to pull 54th Korps east of the Don. After all, that was the direction they had been pushing. It wasn’t a retreat, he kept telling himself, but an advance on the primary objective with as much strength as he could get his hands on. He overlooked the fact that he was handing all the ground between Surovinko and Kalach to the Russians. Manstein was still out there, with his miracle workers like Hermann Balck and the others. They would get through in short order.

  His old Wiking Division had broken through in the south, and this after fighting at Golubinskaya, then force marching to Surovinko and holding there. Now he was glad he gave the order for his Norsemen to pull back to Nizhne Chirskaya. They are truly Thor’s Hammer, he thought, and he was using them to pound away at the anvil of this city, crumbling its stone buildings further with every blow.

  We’ve run them out of Beketova and Kupersnoye; pushed them back to Yelshanka. All in a day’s work for my iron men of the north. But I think the troops they had in Beketova went somewhere, did they not? The south may get more difficult, but if it comes to a race between the Wikings and Das Reich to see who can get to the Volga first, my money if on the fighting 5th. I have had to add the Korps Stug Battalions and Sturmpioneers to the attack in the north. There are some very tough Russian divisions up there, and Das Reich is fighting with only one good arm.

  Infantry… I grabbed all I could get my hands on, but it is never enough. If I had another regiment or two, then Das Reich could pull its Grenadiers off the aqueduct line. Should I send for that reserve regiment at Kalach? That would be a very long march. The fighting is already five or six kilometers from Rynok. It would most likely be over before those troops even arrived.

  In the center, both Hörnlein and Beckermann are sitting on most of their initial objectives. Only the old military base near the airfield remains in enemy hands. I’m counting on those two divisions to push right on through to Central Volgograd.

  That same day Steiner’s bet paid off when the Wikings seized the railroad bridge over the gorge at Kupersnoye, then the Motorcycle Recon Company of the Nordland Regiment pushed on east, reaching the Volga at 11:00 hours on the 24th of October, just a day before the traditional celebration of the October Revolution. Steiner was very gratified by the news, telling the quartermaster that he was to fish out some special rations from the Korps stockpiles and have them trucked to that recon battalion, along with a commendation and his own personal thanks.

  Yet the north remained stubbornly impervious
, until the Sturmpioneers he had attached to beef up Das Reich launched a concerted attack on the morning of the 25th. Heavily supported by the two Korps Stug battalions, and 6th Company from the Das Reich Panzer Regiment, their assault carried the into the first of the heavy concrete Mushrooms east of Rynok. Yet the Russians counterattacked immediately, their officers screaming “Red October!” As they led their men in, retaking that bunker on its northern segment. Enemy artillery fire rained down as the Russians sent in their own engineer battalion from 2nd Volga Rifles to shore up that segment of the line. On this day, the anniversary of the Revolution put additional steel into the backbones of every Soviet soldier who was engaged.

  But every day ends….

  On the morning of the 26th Steiner got a most encouraging report. Manstein had dispatched two long truck columns with ammunition and spare parts from the depot at Chern two days ago. They had gone down through Tormosin, over the bridge there, and the leading column was now arriving at Martinovka.

  “Excellent,” he said. “Then I can be a bit less stingy with what we now have on hand. Order the quartermasters to distribute what remains in the depots here. When the divisions top off, then we’ll renew this offensive.”

  He wanted to time everything to jump off the morning of the 27th, and so all that day and night, the trucks would be moving. “Division commanders should begin positioning their shock groups at once,” he ordered. “Get hold of General Gille with the Wiking Division. I want him to make his main thrust here, up the dry riverbed of the Yelshanka river. He should position accordingly.”

  That was the sector occupied by the Germania Regiment, and that night, the Wiking division shifted all the recon battalion, armored cars, the mobile Panzerjager companies, and the pioneers to that Regiment. In addition, Volkov’s troops came up along the line of the Leopard Gorge, just north of Kupersnoye. They would now man that position, relieving the Nordland regiment so it could begin organizing a second strong kampfgruppe behind Germania.

  Hörnlein got the next call, for he had only just cleared the last and easternmost cemetery on yet another winding balka that ran right down through central Volgograd.

  “I want you to organize a strong group to push down that balka,” said Steiner.

  “But we haven’t taken the Hospital yet,” said Hörnlein. “It’s a sturdy concrete building, and they are fighting us from one ward to another. Then, just when we think we have a section cleared, they come up from the cellar beneath and reoccupy rooms behind our assault teams! I warned you the fighting would get complicated like this.”

  “Just break through,” said Steiner. “I’ll get you all the ammunition you need. Drive for the Gorki Theater.”

  “Still contemplating a show with the Russian Generals?” said Hörnlein with just an edge of sarcasm. “Very well, but you haven’t seen the ground here. It’s a web of many balkas, with three branches all running north from that channel. We should attack to one side or another—not down the main balka. It still has water in it, and the ice is very thin. If I attack on the north side, I’ll have the damn hospital at my back. Better on the south side.”

  “North, south, east or west,” said Steiner. “I want you in that theater as soon as you can get there. We’ll pocket the entire southern half of the city—all of Novo Kirovka.”

  “With respect, Herr General, the entire city is already one big pocket. That won’t matter. They will still fight. There’s at least four full Rifle Divisions in that sector, and three or four brigades. That’s the entire 64th Army. Do you think we can reduce such a pocket with two divisions? My attack will also just dig a deeper hole into the city, and I’ll have to defend both flanks as I advance. I tell you we need infantry! You are in too big a hurry here. What is happening west of the Don?”

  “Manstein has retaken Surovinko.” There was a brief silence on the telephone.

  “Well that is good news,” said Hörnlein at last. “How soon before he reaches Kalach? We’ll need supplies soon.”

  “A truck column arrived this morning. That’s what this push is all about.”

  “I see… Well general, I would advise you to leave some bread in the pantry, but I will do what I can here to see you don’t waste your ticket to the theater.”

  Just before dusk on the 26th, Steiner got yet another unexpected surprise. The Luftwaffe made a big delivery to Gumrak airfield, not with crates of ammunition this time, but with the transports crammed with fresh replacements. He rubbed his hands together, both to chase the cold and express his delight. Then ordered the men onto trucks and began sending them off to the selected points where his division commanders were now concentrating for the attack the following morning.

  That night the Brandenburgers sent their entire assault pioneer battalion to Hörnlein, and said they had orders from Steiner to take the hospital the general had complained about. Hörnlein kicked in two companies of Grenadiers and another Panzerpioneer company. The battle there was furious, with demolition squads blowing holes in the walls, the engineers slithering through them like black lizards, the flame thrower teams blasting into a room, literally consuming the oxygen inside before the attack.

  Eighty percent of the defenders were slain, but as dawn came, 3rd Machinegun company of the 204th Rifle Division was still in the hospital on the upper floors, down to the last few belts of ammunition, and taking to relying on a handful of grenades to stop the pioneer assault teams. When the Germans would hear the grenades rattling down from above, they would all dive for cover. So the Russians simply started throwing chunks of stone down, or even their empty canteens filled with sand, to achieve a similar effect, until the Germans caught on. The only hitch was that they would never know whether the next clattering sound would be a grenade, a canteen, or merely a rock. Guessing wrong could quickly be fatal.

  Sensing something was up near that hospital, the Russians shelled the cemetery again that night, but most of the German squads had already moved forward and down into the last balka which was their jumping off point. The late barrage arced over their heads to fall among the dead. For many, and certainly for unlucky men like Private Heintz Romer, they were grateful to be out of the graveyards, but now they looked ahead to the city, and the battle, that would become a cauldron of misery for all involved.

  The following morning the Germans put in one of the strongest and most coordinated attacks of the battle. Their Kampfgruppes were all assembled, tank heavy, with recon elements poised just behind the expected breakthrough point to exploit any successes. A thunderous artillery barrage shook the cold morning air all along the 60 kilometer length of the city, from Rynok in the north to Yelshanka in the south.

  The Wikings were the first to jump off, Germania Regiment eager to gain its share of the division laurels. Yet, as if sensing trouble with his very experienced nose, Shumilov had ordered up the 1st Siberian Division from the ferries after they arrived from Beketova, and he sent them to the exact spot the Germans had selected, deploying them along the knotted balka from Maksimovskiy Rail Station to the suburbs of Yelshanka east of the Minina Worker’s Settlement. The pioneers stormed the rail station to eliminate that as an enemy barb behind the attack, and in spite of stubborn resistance, the weight of the full Germania Regiment slowly drove the Siberians back.

  Hörnlein’s attack was even more successful. His assault pioneers finished off the last resistance in the Hospital, and then he threw the main weight of his storm groups north of the balka where a main road wound its way east towards the city center. While the ground remained open, he led with armor, a full battalion committed to the assault. They met and shattered the enemy 56th Tank Brigade, and the Grenadiers followed them, leaping up out of the balka start line. The panzers were able to penetrate the Russian line, advancing 1500 meters by mid-day, with the infantry fighting their way after them. At one point, 2nd Company of the Panzer Battalion nearly overran the headquarters of the 204th Rifle Division, driving it east into the residential sector. They had broken all the way through to
the enemy artillery positions, and the tankers could see the Russian guns lined up at the edge of the urban sector, still firing.

  Not to be outdone, Beckermann’s Brandenburg Division decided to mount a pincer operation to surround and isolate the stubborn enemy defense of the old Army Barracks near the Kirov Airfield. The ground was very open east of that position, a perfect attack corridor that led strait to the Mamayev settlement, bounded by two arms of the extensive Tsarista River and Balka system. If the settlement were reached and taken, it would become the perfect staging point for an attack on the big hill itself. But first that Barracks position had to be reduced, which would be no small order, and it was now defended by no fewer than six battalions of the 196th Rifle division.

  The pincer operation was successful, breaking through to either side of the enemy position, but now the Brandenburgers had a big lump of stone in their throat, they had bagged the bulk of that enemy division with that masterful stroke, but now they would have to find a way to kill it.

  In the north, the attack put in by Das Reich was the most successful. Rather than continuing their push towards the Volga north of Rynok as originally planned, they shifted their weight south towards the seam between the two defending Russian divisions. The Samara Rifles were now on their right, their line anchored at the Little Mushroom and extending in a wide arc through the wooded country. On their left was the tough 2nd Volga Rifles. The SS had two initial goals—clear that Mushroom, then punch through the seam between the two divisions. Their intention now was to move just south of the Surchaya Balka, and Rynok itself, following the secondary road that eventually met the main coast road along the river. There a great anomaly now stood as their principal objective, a massive road and rail bridge over the Volga that had not really been built at that site into the 1950s. Yet in this world it had stood as a stubborn bone of contention between Volkov’s forces and the Red Army for over ten years. Neither side ever attempted to destroy it, as they both believed it would one day see their victorious troops marching into the enemy’s territory.