Chir River Battles
Dec 4-22 1942

Battle of 19 December: Kalinovski

by Russel H.S. Stolfi


By 0500, still in pitch darkness, the division was concentrated near the Soviet bridgehead and ready to attack at first light. The Soviet unit that was about to advance farther out of the bridgehead was the 5th Mechanized Corps, a powerful tank and mechanized infantry force with 1 tank and three mechanized brigades. Maps 4 and 5 illustrate the battle; the former shows that the 5th Mechanized Corps had attacked on 18 December 1942 with at least 100 tanks against weak elements of the 7th Luftwaffe Field Division and alarm units of Group Stahal leftover from the end of November.

Map 4: 18 December (slow: 99K)
Map 5: 19-20 December (slow: 105K)

The mechanized corps at this time probably had a personnel strength of approximately 10,500 men, and the engagement about to develop at first light would be between the following forces:

Battle of 19 December 1942 (Kalinovski area)

Soviet 5th Mechanized Corps
Approx 10,500 men, 100 tanks

German 11th Panzer Division
Approx 9,500 men, 25 tanks

In an extraordinary tactical circumstance, the 25 tanks still running with the German 15th Panzer Regiment slipped in behind the Soviet tanks already deployed on line and beginning to move south. The crews of the German Panzer III and IV tanks armed with 50mm L/60 and 75mm L/75 tank guns knocked out 65 Soviet T-34 tanks in this initial encounter in the battle without the loss of a single German tank. The one-sided gun battle lasted only "minutes", the accompanying Soviet infantry fled north, and, in the words of the German division commander, the mechanized corps ceased to exist.

Evidence in the form of the pattern of attacks against the 48th Panzer Corps indicates that each major attack by the 5th Tank Army was under the direct guidance of the army commander, Romanenko himself. Pressed by the higher command to achieve some positive result along the lower Chir, Romanenko continued the attack in the face of the disaster to his mechanized corps.

The 5th Tank Army had been attacking since 4 December and 15 days later had made neither significant territorial gain on the lower Chir nor destroyed a major German formation. [34]

The Soviet High Command had changed Operation Saturn to Little Saturn significantly because the 5th Tank Army had not driven the German forces back from the Chir River toward Rostov. This circumstance and other similar ones, forces the high command away from a far wider encircling move southwest through the Italian 8th Army and toward an advance southeast into the area behind the German forces along the whole length of the Chir. Needing a success and with strong forces still at his disposal, Romanenko continued the attack against 48th Panzer Corps.

During the evening of 19 December 1942, a Soviet mechanized brigade broke into the left flank of the 110th Panzer Grenadier Regiment and overran its 1st Battalion. Balck committed the whole 15th Panzer Regiment to restore the situation. The next day, the 11th Panzer Division attacked north into the bridgehead at Nizhne Kalinovski. Romanenko, however, was determined to regain the initiative and score some success; the Soviets launched a strong attack against the extreme right flank of the panzer division, breaking into the rear of the 11th Panzer Grenadier Regiment. By these persistent attacks, the Soviet 5th Tank Army forced Knobelsdorff's panzer division and the rest of the corps onto the defensive again on 20 December 1942. Early in the morning of 21 December, Major Kienitz, Ia Operations Officer of the division, awakened Balck at 0200 with more bad news. Balck noted laconically in his memoirs: "the devil was loose in every nook and cranny. 110 broken through, 111 rolled up. Panzer regiment radios: situation very grave." [35]

Balck combined the 15th Panzer Regiment and 61st Motorcycle Battalion, and launched night and early morning counterattacks which by 0900 on 21 December 1942 brought the situation under control.

The next day was quiet and the Chief of Staff of the 48th Panzer Corps noted that "in fact our great defensive battles on the Chir had come to an end." [36]

For a period of 19 days from 4-22 December 1942, the panzer corps had fought the Soviet 5th Tank Army to a standstill inflicting catastrophic casualties and damage. The panzer corps fought, however, in the midst of strategic disaster and was finally overtaken by it. On 22 December 1942, the corps headquarters received the order to take the 11th Panzer Division and move 90 miles to the west to combat Soviet ground forces that had broken through the Italian 8th Army.

The Soviet 24th Tank Corps now lay in Tatinskaya, threatening the rear of German Army Group Don and Army Group A, lying farther to the south, and still in the Caucasus. The battles on the Chir were indeed finished and the 48th Panzer Corps headed toward Tatinskaya and eventually to Kharkov and Kursk.

Notes

[1] See in, General Franz Halder, The Halder Diaries, vol. 6 (Washington, D.C.: Infantry Journal, 1950), pp. 132,146, entries for 26 July and 1 August 1940 respectively.
[2] See in, Generalfeldmarschall Fedor von Bock, Tagebuchnotizen Osten I, 22.6.1941 bis 5.1.42, Bunclesarchiv, Militararchiv, Freiburg, FRG, pp. 14.15.18.
[3] See in Pz.A.O.K.2, H.Qu.den 23.8.1941, Starken Panzergruppe, U.S. Archives Records of German Field Commands, Panzer Armies, Copy T-313, Roll 163 Fr. 7346281.
[4] See, for example, Colonel T.N. DuPuy, U.S. Army, Ret., Numbers, Predictions and War, Using History to Evaluate Combat Factors and Predict the Outcome of Battles, Revised 1985 (Fairfax, VA: HERO, 1985), pp. 107-11.
[5] Signal, Numero de decembre 1941 (Berlin: Deutscher, 1941), pp. 4-10.
[6] DuPuy, Numbers, Predictions and War, pp. 62-64.
[7] This Russian predilection is described in Walter Kerr, The Secret of Stalingrad (New York: Doubleday, 1978), as the thesis of the entire work.
[8] See, for example, Strategy & Tactics Staff Study Nr. 1, War in the East, The Russo-German conflict, 1941-1945 (New York: Simulations, 1977), pp. 107-25.
[9] Earl Ziemke, Stalingrad to Berlin: the German Defeat in the East (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1968), p. 37.
[10] Ibid., p. 50.
[11] See map in, 1984 Art of War Symposium, From the Don to the Dnepr: Soviet Offensive Operations, December 1942-August 1943, Transcript of Proceedings (Carlisle Barracks, PA: US Army War College, 26-30 March 1984), p. 41. See also Ziemke, Stalingrad to Berlin, p. 57.
[12] Major General F.W. von Mellenthin, Panzer Battles: A Study of the Employment of Armor in the Second World War (New York: Ballantine, 1971), p. 207.
[13] Paul Carell, Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965), p. 599.
[14] Ibid., p. 600.
[15] Ibid., p. 601.
[16] Hermann Balck, General der Panzertruppe, a.D., Ordnung im Chaos, Erinnerungen, 1893-1948 (Osnabruck: Biblio, 1980), p. 398.
[17] See, for example, the map in Carell, Hitler Moves East, p. 583, and Mellenthin, Panzer Battles, p. 206.
[18] See, Steven J. Zaloga and James Grandsen, Deutsche Bearbeiten Horst Scheibert, Die Panzer der Ostfront (Dorheim: Podzun-Pallas, 1985), p. 90, for the types of tanks in the Rumanian armored division and, Carell, Hitler Moves East, pp. 578, 579, for the numbers of tanks and their condition.
[19] Mellenthin, Panzer Battles, p. 211.
[20] Carell, Hitler Moves East, pp. 600, 603.
[21] For a succinct account of this action and the aftermath in Operation Little Saturn, see, 1984 Art of war Symposium, Soviet Offensive Operations, 1942-1943, pp. 38-88.
[22] See in, Strategy and Tactics, War in the East, p. 149.
[23] See the orders of battle in, Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., Hitler's Legions, The German Army Order of Battle, World War II (New York: Stein and Day, 1985), pp. 395-413.
[24] Interview, General der Panzertruppe a.D. Hermann Balck, 15-17 December 1978, Asperg (near Stuttgart), West Germany.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Balck, Ordnung im Chaos, p. 400.
[27] The number of men and numbers and types of weapons are based on Strategy and Tactics, War in the East, pp. 117,120,144,150, and Ziemke, Defeat in the East, pp. 50, 506.
[28] Balck, Ordnung im Chaos, p. 401.
[29] Ibid., pp. 401, 402.
[30] Ibid., p. 403.
[31] 1984 Art of War Symposium, Soviet Offensive Operation, 1942-1943, p. 49, notes: "Vatutin proved to be one of the more impetuous Soviet commanders."
[32] See in, Ziemke, Defeat in the East, pp. 61-65.
[33] Balck, Ordnung im Chaos, p. 405.
[34] Ziemke, Defeat in the East, p. 68. The author notes that the failure of the 5th Tank Army offensives on the Chir in early December led to increased nervousness and a case of "jitters" on the Soviet Southwestern Front.
[35] As noted laconically but colorfully by, Balck, Ordnung im Chaos, pp. 405, 406.
[36] Mellenthin, Panzer Battles, p. 210.

Chir River Battles Dec 4-22 1942

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