Tigers East (Kirov Series Book 25)

by John Schettler

  “Can they still fight? If so, move them right behind the 75th. Hansen can also throw in Army assets—artillery, engineers, a couple Stug battalions. There’s only one enemy rifle division on the line there now. They should get through.”

  “Very well, and what about Leibstandarte?”

  “It will move north, on the right shoulder of Das Reich at the outset. When that division swings left, Leibstandarte swings right. It’s objective is to cut that damn rail line.”

  “That is all of 30 kilometers from their jumping off point!”

  “The Brandenburg Division will join in on the right,” said Manstein. “It will attack with Grossdeutschland, and get through that Guards Rifle division you spoke of easily enough. Then the Brandenburgers will move northeast to support Leibstandarte. Grossdeutschland can continue along the road east. So you see? The main attack is against the enemy’s lines of communication, not directly into the city. Once we have cut those lines, then we reorganize for the city fighting. Hopefully, we will have that promised infantry by then.”

  “A good plan,” said Steiner. “But let us hope it doesn’t take us another two weeks. Winter is coming.”

  “All the more reason to isolate the city before the snows set in.”

  Steiner shook his head in agreement. “Herr General,” he said. “I suppose the enemy is thinking the exact same thing. Suppose they stage another offensive from those bridgeheads? You know that is what they are planning for their big winter offensive.”

  It did not take any great imagination to reason that, but Steiner was going to see his prediction come true much sooner than he expected.

  Chapter 27

  With new orders, the 4th Shock Army was leaping off the trains, fat, fresh, and ready to attack. The battle hardened Siberian troops deployed quickly and moved back to their assembly point for Operation Uranus. By nightfall on the 16th Yeremenko had established his headquarters in Perelazovskiy. The Army had four rifle divisions, a cavalry division, four tank brigades and numerous ski troops. They would not yet wax their boards, but 4th Shock Army would put the mass, shock and speed into Zhukov’s planned attack.

  The main breakthrough force would be the few tank and mech corps that Zhukov had husbanded for this operation. He had 1st Tank Corps, 4th Mech Corps, and the newly reorganized 24th and 25th Tank Corps. 4th Shock Army was the follow on force, intending to exploit any breakthrough obtained.

  Even as this force was preparing to attack, word came that the Germans had opened a new attack on both sides of the Don as it flowed down towards Kalach. Manstein’s plan was underway, not knowing that a much bigger Soviet offensive was gearing up to the west of that attack. The 167th Rifle Division was closest to the river on the western side, its lines anchored on the riverside hamlet of Mostrovskiy. 690 Assault Pioneer Battalion supported 3rd Battalion of the Germania regiment there, and just west of that attack, 2 battalions of that regiment pushed forward with the support of the 190th Stug Battalion from 11th Army reserve. The main effort would be made along that road, the most direct route to Golubinskaya where the Russians had built a new road bridge over the Don to communicate across the river to forces of the 64th Army defending there.

  In order to use that road, it was first necessary to take a high hill that overlooked the scene, number 584 on the maps, its flanks wrinkled by balka runoff channels clotted with scrub and low undergrowth. That job was given to the 75th Recon Battalion and 741 Pioneers, which moved up the hill in the pre-dawn hours, launching a quick attack that stormed the position as the sun began to come up. Once in command of the hill, two battalions of the Nordland SS Regiment moved up to the left, where the remainder of the 167th Rifle Division had been positioned on the ground leading up to that hill. Behind this attack, the entire Westland Regiment waited with the long column of assault boats and bridging units. The Germans wanted to be able to quickly establish communications across the river with Das Reich if their plan succeeded.

  The Russians knew that road had to be defended, and the call went out to Rokossovsky at his headquarters with the 24th Don Army. “We need your help,” said General Rodin. “It they get to Golubinskaya, we will have no choice but to blow those bridges. That means everything south of that town on the other side of the river will be cut off and forced to withdraw.

  A veteran of the fighting the previous winter at Moscow, Rokossovsky, gritted his steel teeth and looked at his list of reserves. “I have several units that came in by rail two days ago from Saratov,” he said. “They aren’t much, all understrength, but I can send you a few light tank brigades, and engineers.”

  “Anything would help, but it needs to be quick!”

  What General Rodin received that day were the light tanks of the 9th, 10th and 12th Brigades. To call them brigades was a misnomer, as each unit was little more than a battalion in actual strength. They had been sent to Rokossovsky to form the nucleus of a new tank corps as more reserve units arrived, but were just waiting in his Don Security Group to receive tanks. At the moment, they still had 35 T-70s, and 18 T-34s between the three units, about the same number that might be in a single tank brigade. Yet tanks were tanks, and Gille’s Wikings had none to oppose them. Instead they sent the two Stug Battalions that had been attached to his assault, and a close range duel ensued, with the German Stug-IIIs being more than a match for the Soviet light tanks. The T-34s were tougher to knock out, but there were not enough of them to pose a serious threat.

  Mostrovskiy fell a little after noon, and a company of Wiking motorcycle infantry started up the road, pursuing scattered elements of the 167th Rifle Division, which was now retreating north. The Russians were then bolstered by the engineer units Rokossovsky had sent, desperately trying to block the road about 2 kilometers south of the bridge. By late afternoon, the Westland Regiment was ready to move forward, and all the heavy guns of 11th Army reserve thundered out the renewed attack.

  By evening the attack by the Wiking Division would coalesce and become unstoppable. They took on anything Rokossovsky sent, grinding them up one unit at a time with a methodical efficiency. Had this division been at full strength, it would have cut through the enemy lines in a matter of hours. As it was, with unit ranks down to 50% or less in many instances, it took time to burn through, but the outcome was not in doubt. A little after midnight, they had recon companies probing just outside Golubinskaya.

  As General Rodin had warned, this breakthrough was now compromising the position of the 2nd Volga Rifle Division on the other side of the Don. Engaged by the German 102nd Infantry, it had held the line like a rock, but now it would be forced to fight a withdrawal. The unit fell back towards Ryumino, having to move around a marshy inroad from the Don as they did so. They arrived south of that town just as a company of armored cars from Das Reich was approaching. That company was not going any further, and the Volga Rifles took up blocking positions, ready for anything else the Germans sent against them.

  East of the Don, the Soviet 64th Army had been under attack by both 1st and 2nd SS Divisions, just as Manstein had planned it. The Germans had but one infantry division on the east side of the river, the 102nd, and it was facing off against the last division of the Volga Rifles. General Friesner’s troops had only intended to lean on the Soviets there, knowing he did not have the strength to break through. It would be enough to engage and pin down the 2nd Volga Rifles, perhaps the best division the Soviets still had on the line in that sector. His men did that job—until the Russians decided they had to leave. Then the hardened veterans of so many years fighting against Volkov’s troops simply executed a perfect tactical withdrawal under fire, and Friesner was powerless to stop them.

  Das Reich threw itself against the Soviet 49th Rifle Division and the 12th division to its right. Taking on two divisions, the early going was slow, though one regiment of the12th Rifles had been overrun and surrounded by mid-morning. The Russians responded by sending in the 53rd Rifle Brigade, which they had in reserve, but the real crisis was further east in the 1s
t SS sector. The 247th Rifle Division took the full brunt of the Leibstandarte attack, which was pushing up a good road. 112th Tank Brigade was posted there, and as it moved south in response to the attack, a sharp engagement ensued, with the German Pz-IV F2s and new Panthers slugging it out with T-34s.Where the Pz-IIIs had been outgunned, these two newer German tanks were both more than capable of taking on the Soviet tanks.

  In the midst of that firefight, 2nd Panzergrenadier Regiment veered right as planned, where they soon ran into the local 75th NKVD Brigade that had been watching the front just behind the outer crust of 64th Army’s lines. Stubborn on defense, and with a good number of machineguns in the NKVD unit, the advance was held up for several hours, then eventually bypassed as the Leibstandarte turned further east, only to run into the 132nd NKVD MG Brigade.

  The fighting often pulls a unit in a direction it had not intended to go. As 1st SS made that move east, the entanglements with those two NKVD brigades and the Soviet 25th Engineer Battalion forced it to turn north to deal with that resistance. On its right, the Brandenburgers had broken through, and so now the Germans executed a tactical decision in the field that would change Manstein’s plan.

  “We’ll be another two or three hours dealing with these damn NKVD troops,” said Sepp Dietrich when he reported to Steiner. “Then we can move northeast again.”

  “Don’t bother,” said Steiner. “Beckermann’s Brandenburg Division has already broken through. Grossdeutschland has the enemy line fully engaged, and Beckermann’s troops are spilling over the top of that line like water over a dam. He already has troops approaching Spadnovka, which is just twelve kilometers from the rail line we want to cut. So do this—build two Kampfgruppes and send one up the road to Hill 259. That will put you on the outside edge of the envelopment Das Reich is fighting to achieve.”

  “And the second Kampfgruppe?” asked Dietrich.

  “Send it up the secondary road to Peskovatka. The two shock columns will be moving parallel to one another as you move north. Once you get Pestkovatka, reconnoiter towards Vertyachi. I’ll scrounge up some bridge battalions and send them up that road. Look over the river for a suitable crossing point.”

  “You want me on the west bank of the Don?”

  “Not just yet, but I want the option to send you there if the situation warrants.”

  “Very well. I still have two regiments of the 247th Rifle Division blocking that main road. They’ll have to be dealt with tonight.”

  Dietrich was a practical man, and a daring one when dash and nerve was needed. He would take this assignment in hand like any other, and see what fruit he could shake from the tree.

  The Brandenburg Division, he thought as he stepped into his staff car outside Steiner’s HQ. They get the glory and the open field running. I get this turning movement to a place I had never intended to go. Well, let me see if we can get to Vertyachi first. That may yield some opportunities. But now our two divisions will be moving in different directions. Who will fill the gap that develops? That will be Steiner’s problem. I had better get back to division and form those kampfgruppes.

  As he made his way back over the bridge at Kalach, the radio man. Lieutenant Fuchs in the back seat, began to seem edgy. He was listening to traffic on his headset, a linguist who could speak Russian so he could sample the random traffic from the airwaves in a fight like this. It often gave a good sense of what the enemy was up to, and now he leaned forward with a warning in his eyes.

  “Herr General,” he said. “A lot of traffic on the radio, it’s suddenly very heavy.”

  “Hunting foxes again?” said Dietrich. “Hopefully they are orders to retreat.”

  “No sir,” said Fuchs. “I get tone of voice as much as anything else. This is an attack. Something big is up tonight.”

  “Steiner said there was unusual movement in the forward lines west of the Don,” said Dietrich. “The rifle divisions have been probing more aggressively.”

  “Well sir, I’ve listened in on Rifle Corps traffic for a good long while. Not many radios in those units. This is something more. I think they have armor.”

  “Can you pick out any unit names?” asked Dietrich.

  “They never use direct division names,” said Fuchs. “It’s always Red Star One or Red Banner Three—that sort of thing. Herr General, there’s a lot of red banners in the wind tonight.”

  Dietrich gave him a dark eyed look. “Keep listening,” he said, and then he told the driver to go a little faster.

  Armored Car Battalion 1, Brandenburg Division,

  28 Kilometers NE of Oblivskaya ~ 02:40 AM, October 16, 1942

  It was the only unit of the Brandenburg Division that was not operating with its parent formation, one bird that had flown the nest when it was caught refueling at Surovinko during the Soviet Mars offensive. It participated in the successful defense of that key supply center, and helped drive the Russians north again when the offensive was called off. After that, it had been in a gap just north of the hamlet of Kirov, between the 3rd SS and the 299th Infantry Division on its right. The battalion was never relieved, and so it continued to stand its watch until it received orders to the contrary, which never came.

  It had three companies, mostly armored cars, with a few Marders, mobile flak and 75mm guns mounted on halftracks, and a platoon of engineers. It heard that movement Fuchs was picking up on his radio, and the alert recon troops were quick out of the trenches and into their armored vehicles when the first sign of enemy attack started.

  3rd Company had five SdKfz 233s, the squat eight wheeled Schwere Panzerspähwagen with a short barreled 7.5cm main gun on top. It also had eight SdKfz 234/2 vehicles, eight wheeled, but with a modified light tank turret on top, the same one used for the new light tank Germany was calling the Leopard. It mounted a 50mm main gun, good enough to penetrate the armor of most lighter tanks and other vehicles, but rapidly losing its punch against the newer Soviet T-34s and KV-series tanks. Three older Austrian made ADGZ armored cars were also in the unit, with a 20mm cannon and a pair of 7.62 MG-34s. Two light scout cars, a single SP mortar and one 7.5cm gun mounted on a 251/9 halftrack rounded out this company.

  The company was just west of hill 636, some of the highest ground around, where the 299th infantry had two battalions posted. A stream ran down from that height, marshy at the outset, but there was a secondary road there that the company was watching, and something was moving on it. The 299th was the unlucky division that night, for all along its front the Russians were sending up their crack 2nd Guards Rifle Corps, composed of three divisions, the 3rd, 5th and 7th Guards. On either side of that three division front, roads led south towards Steiner’s forward HQ at Surovinko, and along those roads the Soviet heavy mechanized units were now rumbling forward in the darkness.

  The guardsmen were up front, marking the road to lead the mech units on. There was no artillery barrage to soften the enemy line. Instead it would be the shock of those three experienced rifle divisions hitting the line like a big wave, and then the double envelopment by the heavy armored formations. On the right would come the newly reformed 24th Tank Corps, with Kolypov’s tank brigade in the lead. On the left would come the 1st Guard Tank Corps, right into the gap between the 299th Infantry and the 3rd SS Division. It was beefed up with the addition of two independent heavy tank brigades, each with two dozen of the very newest tanks the Soviets had produced. These were the all new SK-Is, the initials standing for ‘Sergie Kirov.’ They would be the equivalent in power to the JS-I Stalin tank that would now never be built, and every single tank that had been squeezed out of the factories in the last six months was here, a total of 120 in all, spread over five heavy tank brigades.

  The Kirovs had heavy armor at 110mm, and a powerful new 85mm main gun that was being field tested for the first time. Work was already underway to upgrade the design with an even more powerful 122mm main gun, but none of those had entered production yet. There was also a new SU series assault gun on the field that did have a 122mm gun,
but it was the M-30S howitzer and not the anti-tank variant that would be built into the Kirov tanks soon. The 33 ton SU-122s were mated with a few SU-152s in the heavy assault gun brigade with 1st Guard Tank Corps. Unfortunately for Hauptmann Beck, the armored cars of the Brandenburgers were in their way.

  At the outset, the companies of armored cars held their own against the infantry. Their cannon and MG weapons put out good suppressive fire, and the armor on their vehicles was just good enough to stop small arms fire and shrapnel. But a fresh Guards Rifle Division is well equipped, and soon the Russians were getting 45mm AT guns and a few of the newer 57mm guns into action. The lone 88 in Beck’s 1st Company on a mobile halftrack was hit and knocked out, and with that, the recon unit realized they would not be able to hold their positions any longer when all that heavy enemy armor began to grind its way forward through the ranks of the Soviet guardsmen. Hauptmann Beck got on the radio and immediately notified Steiner that they were under heavy attack.

  “We got hit with a full division, and there are a lot of tanks right behind it. They’re coming right through the gap east of Totenkopf—right towards the village of Kirov on the stream behind us. We’ll have to fall back and try to hold there, but the best we can do is buy you a little time. You’ll need a full panzer division here!”

  Steiner didn’t have a panzer division in reserve. He had sent 5th SS into the Golubinskaya operation early the previous morning, and it was now heavily engaged. What he did have is a single Stug Battalion with 12 STG IIIs and six Marders. He ordered it up the road through Osinovka and past Hill 495 to approach that river line position at Kirov. Now he could hear the distant rumble of artillery, a roll of thunder from the north, and he knew that the Russians had probably mounted another spoiling attack. He had worried about this, expressing his concerns to Manstein.