Chir River Battles
Dec 4-22 1942

Battle of Sovhkoz 79

by Russel H.S. Stolfi


To destroy the Soviet 1st Tank Corps, Balck directed the 15th Panzer Regiment under Colonel Graf Schimmelmann, followed by 111th Panzergrenadier Regiment, to advance along the higher, better tank country northwest of Sovkhoz 79. The German force moved by night into the rear of the Soviet tank corps partly astride the enemy corps' communications with the bridgehead over the Chir.

Soviets crossing the Don by pontoons.

Balck simultaneously moved the 110th Panzer Grenadier Regiment against the west side of Sovkhoz 79 and the Pioneer Battalion and flak (antiaircraft gun) detachment of his division to the south with the mission to block any attempt of the Soviets to advance farther in that direction.

Lucht directed the artillery of his division in range of Sovkhoz 79 to support the attack on the mobile force, and, according to Balck's pencil sketch of the action, placed some infantry elements to the east of the state farm. [26]

Most of this activity took place during the afternoon of 7 December and the evening of 7/8 December 1942, and the Germans began their attack around first light (about 0700 at the latitude of Stalingrad) on 8 December 1942.

In the battle that followed, the Germans and Soviets engaged forces that were fairly closely matched in terms of their full strengths on their tables of organization (men) and equipment (weapons and other hardware). As such their strengths lay in the following key factors:

Battle of Sovkhoz 79 [27]

    TO&E (Approx) Gernian II.Pz.D.
      Men: 14,000
      Tanks: 104 (Pz.III & Pz.IV)
      Artillery: 24 (105mm), 14 (150mm)

    TO&E (Approx) Soviet I.Tk.C.

      Men: 11,900
      Tanks: 189 (T-34 & KV)
      Artillery: 48(76mm), 8(122mm)

The German 11th Panzer Division arrived on the fly at the battle deploying from administrative march columns directly into combat. It is difficult to imagine it at full TO&E strength even though it was an elite unit heading for an important assignment. The division also would have lost tanks along the way to mechanical breakdown and terrain hazards but probably none to Soviet air attack and, of course, none to ground attack.

In summary, it is necessary to assume that the division went into combat on the morning of 8 December 1942 with less than its allowance of 104 tanks. It is reasonable to assume that the panzer regiment had been reduced by mechanical breakdown to a figure of approximately 55 tanks in running order for the attack. Similar calculations would have to be made for numbers of men, artillery, etc., but the calculation for tanks would give the best picture of the striking power of 11th Panzer Division.

The Soviet 1st Tank Corps arrived at Sovkhoz 79 after a prepared attack from a large bridgehead already across the Chir and its breakthrough of the thin strongpoint line of the German 336th Infantry Division. Having the initiative, the commander of the 5th Tank Army can be assumed to have sent the attacking tank corps into action with close to full strength after its period of inactivity from 23 November to 6 December 1942.

The 1st Tank Corps, however, would have been subject to normal day-to-day break down and misadventure, special attrition in the move across the river, and in the advance to the state farm, and some percentage of combat losses along the way. The Soviet tank corps probably had about 105 tanks at Sovkhoz 79 and to the north of it on the morning of the battle.

The 15th Panzer Regiment and 11th Panzer Grenadier Regiment achieved surprise in their attack, advancing north of Sovkhoz 79 into the rear of strong Soviet forces which were heading off to the east to attack the German infantry engaged against the Soviet bridgehead. The 110th Panzer Grenadier Regiment pinned down strong Soviet forces in Sovkhoz 79 itself while the German pioneer and flak units to the south physically blocked the enemy and directed fire into the state farm.

By late afternoon, Balck's division had destroyed the Soviet 1st Tank Corps, countinig 53 Soviet tanks "shot up" on the steppe. [28]

The German count of tanks destroyed on 8 December 1942 by 1 1th Panzer Division supports a view that the Soviet 1st Tank Corps necessarily engaged a larger number of tanks approximating the total of 105 suggested above. The sources used by the author to describe this action do not elaborate on how the German tanks and Panzergrenadiers pursued the remnants of the 1st Tank Corps back to the strongly held bridgehead over the Chir or how the German infantry re-established its strongpoint line.

The situation on the day of the battle, however, is shown in detail on Map 2, which graphically displays the extent of the German victory, particularly when compared with the map showing the earlier situation on 7 December 1942.

Map 2: 8 December (slow: 99K)

The fighting in this battle and during the remainder of the engagements cannot be understood without knowledge of the ruthlessness of the communist bureaucracy in setting the psychological style of the combat. As the Germans moved into Sovkhoz 79, they found the bodies of more than 100 German prisoners executed in various ways by the Russian troops. German interrogation of Russian prisoners in the following days revealed that the troops of the Soviet 157th Tank Brigade, 1st Tank Corps, had been instructed to take no German prisoners in the fighting after 19 November 1942, with the level of detail including the point that Germans could be shot in front of Rumanians but that it was not right to shoot Rumanians in front of Germans. [29]

Balck promulgated an order of the day on 14 December 1942 in which he described the Soviet policy and suggested the hard fate of the division in the event of defeat. The politically-inspired Soviet policy seems to have had a dual purpose in it: first, to wear down the nerves of the German forces, and second, to keep the decreasing combat manpower of the Soviets in the fight by suggesting that if the Russians shot German prisoners and deserters that the Germans would do so after discovering the recently directed Soviet policy. Capture and desertion, thus, would be ruled out as life-extending options for Soviet combat soldiers after November 1942.

In the period 9-13 December 1942, Balck noted that every day passed the same as the other. "Russian breakthrough at X - attack - by evening everything is cleared up." [30]

Under the ultra-aggressive direction of General Vatutin [31] commander of the Soviet Southwestern Front, the 5th Tank Army vigorously attacked to throw the 48th Panzer Corps out of the salient on the lower Chir. Badly beaten in the first encounter, the Soviet army commander continued either to misjudge the basic correlation of forces or was just incapable of directing the subordinates under his command into a decisive, concentrated blow against the 48th Panzer Corps.

Unable to join the 57th Panzer Corps south of the Don in the attack toward Stalingrad, Knobelsdorff and Mellenthin were forced to bend every effort toward preventing the 5th Tank Army from crossing the Chir and driving down the north bank of the Don to Rostov. Balck, as commander of the fire brigade 11th Panzer Division, commented on a style of fighting during the day and moving every night to block the next Soviet breakthrough.

The technique developed in a pattern: after fighting during the day, the division moved, concentrating near the next breakthrough area, attacking at first light, surprising and smashing the enemy. Then, as Balck notes, the same game the next day, six or twelve miles farther east or west.

On 9 December 1942, the 7th Luftwaffe Field Division moved into position on the left (northwest) flank of the 336th Infantry Division, strengthening the front at the beginning of the difficult days from 9-17 December 1942. On the evening of 11 December 1942, elements of the 5th Tank Army, driven hard by its competent but stiff and unimaginative commander, General Romanenko, simultaneously broke through the left flank of the 336th Infantry Division at Nizhne Kalinovski and its center 15 miles southeast at Lissinski.

Knobelsdorff, who met with Balck every evening, directed him in general terms to clear up the situation. The commander of l1th Panzer Division decided to beat the enemy at Lissinski first, then turn northwest with the entire division and advance to eliminate the large bridgehead at Nizhne Kalinovski. Marching through the night of 11 /12 December, the concentrated panzer division attacked at dawn and annihilated the Soviet bridgehead. Later in the day, Balck led the division 15 miles northeast and attacked the strong Soviet bridgehead at Nizhne Kalinovski compressing it significantly into the dimensions shown on Map 3.

Map 3: 12 December (slow: 100K)

The next morning, 13 December 1942, as the division was about to attack the bridgehead again, it was hit by a Soviet advance that drove in its right flank and surrounded a panzer grenadier battalion. Balck counterattacked and relieved the surrounded battalion, but was unable to eliminate the strong and dangerous bridgehead.

The Chir front was quiet on 14 December 1942. The next day, 15 December 1942, Knobelsdorff moved the 11th Panzer Division south from Nizhne Kalinovski to Nizhne Chirskaya near the influence of the Chir and Don Rivers. Five days earlier, the 4th Panzer Army, with the 57th Panzer Corps as its spearhead, had begun the German drive toward Stalingrad to relieve the 6th Army. Knobelsdorff had the mission to advance with the 11th Panzer Division across the bridge still held by the Germans in Colonel Adam's bridgehead and support the drive of the 57th Panzer Corps.

By 16 December 1942, 11th Panzer Division was prepared to advance the next day across the Don River as part of German Operation Wintergewitter - "Winter Storm" -- the relief of Stalingrad. [32]

Just as the division prepared to cross the Don on the morning of 17 December 1942, corps headquarters received the devastating news that strong Soviet forces had broken through the 336th Infantry Division six miles north of Nizhne Chirskaya. Knobelsdorff ordered the 11th Panzer Division to march north and counterattack the Soviet forces to restore the situation. Almost simultaneously, 48th Panzer Corps received information that major Soviet forces had broken through the Italian 8th Army farther west and were advancing south in the general direction of Rostov.

The 48th Panzer Corps began to fight again against the new Soviet offensive on the lower Chir. The Germans identified elements of both the 5th Tank Army and 5th Shock Army, the latter showing up in fighting near the confluence of the Chir and Don.

On 18 December 1942, 11th Panzer Division drove into the Soviet bridgehead six miles north of Nizhne Chirskaya but soon received reports that a Soviet mechanized corps had broken out of the bridgehead at Nizhne Kalinovski, 12 miles farther to the northwest. Balck was adamant about staying with the Chirskayabridgehead and eliminating it completely before heading north.

On the evening of 18 December 1942, however, Mellenthin, as corps Chief of Staff and speaking in the name of Knobelsdorff, who was out of touch with headquarters, firmly directed Balck to advance immediately to master the greater crisis. Paraphrased, the discussion went roughly as follows: [33]

    Balck: Better that we finish up things here first then move out to the other position.
    Mellenthin: No, this time it's more ticklish. The division has got to move off immediately. Every second counts. Let's go.

Balck, accordingly, broke off his unfinished attack against Lissinski and moved the 11th Panzer Division during the night of 18/19 December 1942 to the area south of Nizhne Kalinovski.

Chir River Battles Dec 4-22 1942

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