Chir River Battles
Dec 4-22 1942

Introduction and Background

by Russel H.S. Stolfi


December, 1942. Seven Soviet armies hold the German Sixth Army, a quarter million men, encircled and trapped at Stalingrad. Additional Soviet forces push hard against the allied armies on the flanks, threatening to break through to Rostov and cut off all German forces in the Caucasus. The Germans struggle to supply their trapped men, put together a force strong enough to punch through the encirclement, and hold the Soviets at bay.

For three weeks, the German 48th Panzer Corps fought against the Soviet 5th Tank Army at the Chir River, west of Stalingrad. In spite of the strategic disaster, the 48th Panzer Corps successfully held the lower Chir River positions, revealing a decisive superiority in tactics and operations over the opposing elite Soviets. The Panzer Corps, however, would break off and end the battles by being forced to retreat to retrieve the strategic collapse that developed on its left (northern) flank at the end of December 1942.

The Background: 22 June 1941 to 19 November 1942

The Germans attacked the Soviet Union on 22june 1941, moving out of the edge of darkness at 0305 in Army Group North and 0315 in Army Groups Center and South into furious battles with surprised and confused Soviet troops. The Red Army resisted stubbornly; the communist bureaucracy directed a prodigious mobilization; and the European Russian theater of operations with its unpaved roads, forests, swamps, and rivers, proved a formidable challenge to German offensive mobility. Interpreters of the war give these factors as the ones largely responsible for the German defeat.

The interpretation is unconvincing, however, because the German Army overcame those factors and inflicted terrible casualties and damage onthe Red Armybringingit to the edge of defeat by 4 August 1941 at the conclusion of the Smolensk battle of encirclement. During that time, and later in the greater battles at Kiev, Vyasma, and Bryansk, the Germans would establish a psychological ascendancy over the Soviets that continued to the end of the war. This German sense of superiority and the parallel efficiency of German tactics and operations are fundamental for any understanding of the German defensive successes on the Chir River later in the war.

The higher leadership of the German Army envisioned defeating the Soviet Union in European Russia by destroying the Red Army while simultaneously advancing into European Russian space fast enough and far enough to paralyze Soviet mobilization. Colonel General Franz Halder, Chief of Staff of the German Army from 1938-1942, with elegant simplicity, demanded a main drive toward Moscow. He articulated the idea that the Soviet government would be forced to defend Moscow as the capital, communications, and manufacturing hub of European Russia with the main concentration of the Red Army. [1]

The logic is impressive: if the Soviet high command committed the preponderant strength of the Red Army in the defense of Moscow, it followed axiomatically that (if committed) it could be destroyed at the time (August 1941) and place (in front of Moscow) of German choosing.

In summary, Halder, Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, the formidable commander of Army Group Center, and virtually every other German army officer associated with higher level decisions in the attack against the Soviet Union, foresaw the destruction of the Red Army in front of Moscow in August 1941. [2]

They also saw German occupation of Soviet mobilization space far enough to the east of Moscow to win the war. The German field armies advanced so effectively in the 17 weeks of Operation Barbarossa that it can be generalized that they in fact possessed the capabilities to have brought the war to a successful conclusion roughly within that time period.

German troops of the 7th Panzer Division in Panzer Group Hoth arrived 50 miles east of Smolensk cutting the main rail line and highway connecting it with Moscow on 15 July 1941, a scant 24 days into the campaign. Army Croup Center had mastered both time and space in European Russia so decisively that the army group was prepared, by approximately 12 August 1941, to advance directly at Moscow and the mobilization space lying in an arc to the east of it. They army group would have attacked with every division originally in the advance still intact and operating at about 70 percent of its original striking power (of 22 June 1941), [3] with a rail and logistics system capable of supporting it to significant distances beyond Moscow. It can be stated categorically that on approximately 12 August 1941, the Soviet field armies had little realistic capability of slowing Army Group Center and none of stopping it.

By that date, the Soviets had mobilized an additional 29 divisions from the still functioning mobilization space of European Russia and placed them around Moscow where they represented a powerful (final) strategic reserve. That reserve also would have had little chance of survival against approximately 55 intact, veteran German divisions advancing into the same area.

Adolf Hitler, after epic procrastination and against the advice of the army, instead directed Army Group Center into an eccentric operation into the Ukraine. Hitler strategically misdirected his army into defeat during the month of August seeking indecisive objectives - indecisive in the sense that Hitler's objectives could not be equated with the defeat of the Red Army and the collapse of the Soviet political system.

Soviet assault troops, Stalingrad front

Herein lies the pattern that would repeat itself in the great summer campaign of 1942, the autumn battles around Stalingrad, and the episode on the Chir River in December 1942. The German Army, even though strategically misdirected into defeat in the war in August 1941, would continue to operate with devastating effect against the Soviet armed forces. The German Army would consistently display tactical and grand tactical superiority in combat against the Soviets [4] while descending into a pattern of strategic misdirection.

Battle Superiority

The battle superiority of the German Army in European Russia is difficult to exaggerate. The army in 1941 conducted movements and inflicted casualties and damage that exemplify the paradoxical situation in which the German formations on the Chir River in December 1942 would defeat strong Soviet forces advancing against them while simultaneously being forced to withdraw at the end of December because of the disintegrating strategic picture.

The achievements of the German Army in the summer and autumn of 1941 are reflected in operational disasters for the Soviets from which they have not yet managed to disentangle themselves psychologically. Those disasters are exemplified by the following historical data:

    A. German Mobility in European Russian Space:

      Panzer Group Guderian moved 1,400 miles (straight-line distance) between 22 June-30 November 1941, most of the distance against strong resistance. The distance is the same as that from Brest- Litovsk to Molotov (Perm) in the foothills of the Central Urals.

      Note: During the same period the Germans inflicted a further 756,000 casualties captured in incidental fighting, and destroyed or captured 4,830 Soviet tanks.

The German Army thereby captured approximately 3,012,000 Soviet armed forces personnel and permanently removed 14,166 tanks from the order of battle. The Germans probably inflicted an additional 2,000,000 casualties in killed and permanently disabled: a total of some 5,000,000 Soviet troops removed from the armed forces. These casualties are part of the historical record and exemplify the tactical and grand tactical ascendancy of the German Army in the Russian campaign.

The fact that the Germans did not win the war against the Soviet Union after inflicting such casualties in so short a time period is explained by the Olympian strategic misdirection of the German forces. The parallel fact that the Soviet armed forces took almost four years to emerge on the winning side in World War II with powerful British and American military forces is explained to a significant degree by the same German superiority in tactics and grand tactics - the capability of the Germans to win battles in war. 6

Directed away from Moscow in August 1941 because of Hitler's preoccupation with the seizure of Leningrad and the Ukraine, German field armies with the mobility and striking power to get to Gorki, or possibly even Molotov under the "army plan", rampaged through the ample Russian countryside. They did so from June-October 1941, but to no decisive end. Given the opportunity to recover, the Soviet high command continued the mobilization of the armed forces, concentrating them almost entirely around Moscow.

In November 1941, therefore, in spite of the previous loss of 5,000,000 men, the Soviets were able to set up adequate defenses between the Germans and Moscow, while simultaneously putting together a strategic reserve capable of counterattacking the misdirected German forces of Army Group Center. The Soviets launched a strong offensive early in December 1941 against the German field armies around Moscow that continued through the winter of 1941-1942. Combined in an unlikely way with the erratic decision of Hitler to lay siege to Leningrad and a successful Soviet counteroffensive of more modest dimensions against Army Group South, the Soviet winter operations around Moscow stabilized the situation on the eastern front to the benefit of the Soviets through the spring of 1942.

As spring approached in that year, the German Army High Command began to redeploy the field armies in the East for continuation of the advance into the Soviet Union. Continuing the pattern of high level misdirection of the German Army, Hitler demanded an offensive in the South with the strategic goal of seizing the Caucasian oil fields. He wanted to improve the economic situation of Germany, under siege against the armed forces of Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States (after 11 December 1941).

With a strategic style inadequately explained to the present day, Hitler had no intention of attacking and defeating the main concentration of the Red Army now massed south and southeast of Moscow. Faced with a German offensive in the South, the Soviets had not quite the physical strength (numbers), or the organization (perfected tank and mechanized rifle armies), or the self confidence in command to attempt to seize the strategic initiative from the Germans in the summer of 1942. With amazement similar to that in August 1941, the Soviets saw the Germans heading southeast, i.e., in a direction utterly indecisive from the viewpoint of the defeat of the Red Army and associated fall of the Soviet government.

Hitler again misdirected the German Army in 1942, but it continued to show the virtuosity in winning battles that gained so much respect for it in World War II At Izyum, the 6th Army destroyed the Soviet forces in their spoiling attack of May 1942, and at Sevastopol, the 11th Army, in a completely different style of battle, battered its way into the fortress in the most successful siege operation of World War II.

German Offensive

Then, in July 1942, three German field armies plunged toward peripheral, distant targets in the Soviet Union, allowing the intact Red Army to continue to reinforce itself north of the Don undisturbed. The Germans would present the intact Soviet forces with a long, exposed flank offering a wealth of opportunity for counterattack. Prepared to defend themselves in the crucial heartland area between Moscow and the middle and upper reaches of the Volga River, the Soviets found themselves spectators to three German field armies marching blithely past the main concentration of the Red Army on a 600-mile move that would put them deep in the north Caucasus and close to the Caspian Sea.

In accordance with the special Russian style of holding back strong reserves for final contingencies, the Soviet High Command had concentrated huge forces for the defense of the center area of European Russia. Those forces now became available to take offensive advantage of the eccentric German move into the Caucasus. [7]

The Soviet High Command had learned the danger of encirclement from advancing German forces in 1941; now, with the loss of well over 5,000,000 men by the spring of 1942, they could no longer afford to trade casualties for time and space in which to survive. The Soviets directed a skillful disengagement of their forces in the path of the advancing Germans. During this disengagement, the Soviets for the first time in the war traded space for time.

As it became apparent that the Germans were headed for the Caucasus and Stalingrad, the Soviets were presented with hundreds of miles of thinly populated space in which to avoid the Germans while simultaneously preparing defenses closer to the oil fields and continuing to concentrate and reinforce a vast, untouched force north of the Don River. The Soviet High Command had survived into 1942 and had begun a grand reorganization of the army that can be broadly characterized as follows: [8]

    Soviet Reorganization of the Armed Forces (1942)

    1. The unwieldy 1941 infantry division of 14,000 men and two artillery regiments was converted into smaller 1942 divisions with approximately 10,000 men and one artillery regiment.

    2. Tanks continued to be diffused among tank, mechanized, motorized, and infantry organization in special tank regiments and brigades. Only by the end of 1942 did powerful, balanced tank armies emerge, capable of conducting deep, grand tactical drives.

    3. Artillery tended to be concentrated in independent regiments and artillery divisions that were employed in major operations, e.g., along main axes of advance selected by the Soviet high command.

The German summer offensive, beginning in July 1942, developed in a front from Kursk in the north to Taganrog on the Sea of Azov in the south. Hitler directed the main weight of the offensive southeast towards Grozny, not far from the Caspian Sea on the north slopes of the Caucasus Mountains. To execute Hitler's strategic directive, the German Army High Command deployed the powerful German 17th Army and 1st Panzer Army under Army Group A for the attack into the Caucasus.

Stalingrad

To protect the northern flank of the advances into the Caucasus, the high command directed the strong German 6th Army and several weaker allied armies eastward along the right (south) bank of the Don River into its great bend, jutting far away to the East. The 6th Army became the spearhead of the drive into the bend of the Don, and, as it arrived there by 25 July 1942, it almost incidentally became drawn farther cast toward the large (population approximately 500,000) industrial city of Stalingrad, lying 90 miles away on the right (west) bank of the Volga. Possessing only a few strategic attributes in its own right, Stalingrad became, part by accident, part by design, the focal point of one of the decisive battles of World War II.

Strategically, Stalingrad was no Moscow, but as a symbol, it acquired commanding proportions. [9]

The Soviet High Command instinctively massed powerful forces to defend the city and Hitler ordered its seizure (23 July 1942), directing parts of the relatively weak 4th Panzer Army, operating on the north flank of Army Group A, away from the Caucasus and toward Stalingrad.

Hitler, with his predilection for fanatical preoccupation with tactical situations, concentrated the 6th Army on a narrow front against Stalingrad and pinned down that mobile formation in a battle largely extraneous to the strategical goal of seizing the oil producing areas farther south. Had the 6th Army deployed instead on a broad front in the great bend of the Don in a flexible, mobile defense of the north flank of the German forces attacking into the Caucasus, it probably could have successfully checked the massive Soviet forces that were ultimately employed there. Hitler played into the hands of the Soviets by fixing the 6th Army around Stalingrad, and the Soviets committed powerful forces to the defense of the city under ideal circumstances for the rigid style of the Red Army - the defense of a large industrial city lying along a major rive barrier.

The main concentration of the Red Army meanwhile lay undisturbed north of the Don in August-October 1942 and was gradually reinforced by powerful strategic reserves previously held back for any contingency in the European Russian heartland south and southeast of Moscow. On 4 October 1942, Marshal Georgi K. Zhukov and General Aleksander M. Vasilevskiy, representing the Stavka (the highest Soviet military planning and executive group), headed a conference that initiated planning for a Soviet counteroffensive at Stalingrad [10] that would exploit the strategic situation using the patiently concentrated reserves.

In Uranus, the code name for the Stalingrad counteroffensive, the Soviets would employ largely the new, more controllable 1942 infantry divisions and the new tank armies behind strong concentrations of artillery flexibly tailored for each offensive, but inflexibly controlled in accordance with rigid time tables for breakthroughs.

The German Army High Command warned Hitler in strong terms during August 1942 about the dangers of a Soviet offensive across the Don River from the area in which the stronger northern envelopment in the Stalingrad encirclement developed. The Chief of Staff of the German Army, Colonel General Halder, railed at the untenable position of the 6th Army so strongly, and was so critical of inadequately-screened operations into the Caucasus, that Hitler removed him from his position on 25 September 1942.

At the strategic level, the German Army had become the prisoner of its self-willed, often brilliant, but fundamentally siege-oriented dilettante supreme commander. Hitler proved willing to present an exposed flank of vast proportions in order to include the Caucasus within his uniquely circumscribed siege space. The German Army found itself in a bizarre situation that can be generalized as follows: four German field armies advanced between 300-600 miles into the southern periphery of European Russia and then into Asia. They did so with the near-certainty from the beginning of the operation that they would have to recoil back to protect their own flank from the intact main concentration of the Red Army.

In summary of the period July 1941-October 1942, it can be generalized that a German Army capable of defeating the Soviet Union in a brief campaign of 10-17 weeks in June-October 1941, was used instead to assure the seizure of the occupied Baltic territories and the Ukraine. Roaming through the ample Russian countryside in 1941, the German field armies exhibited a marked superiority in both command and combat soldier style. Hitler strategically misdirected an instrument capable of winning the war in 1941 into failure in the war.

Hitler then misdirected the same instrument capable of maintaining the initiative for the Germans in the east in 1942 into the loss of the strategic initiative in November 1942 and accompanying severe operational setbacks. The apparent contradiction, i.e., the Germans winning battles all over European Russia while in the process of losing the war after August 1941, is explained by the immense gap between Hitler's strategic diffusion of the German Army in the campaign and the German Army's superiority in tactics and grand tactics (operations) over the Red Army.

For purposes of understanding the Chir River battles, the summary above provides a picture in which the elite German 48th Panzer Corps (11th Panzer Division, 336th Grenadier Division and 7th Luftwaffe Field Division) lay embedded in a strategic disaster taking place all around it.

Chir River Battles Dec 4-22 1942

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