Plan code name offensive operation Southwestern, Stalingrad and Don fronts during the Great Patriotic War, during which the Stalingrad group of the Wehrmacht was surrounded.
The situation at the beginning of the operation
By the time the operation began, it had already been four months. Repeated attempts by the 6th Army of the Wehrmacht (commander - Colonel General) to take Stalingrad by storm were unsuccessful. The 62nd and 64th armies held a strong defense on the outskirts of the city. The stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops, the stretching of the rear and the approach of winter led to the fact that the German army was in a difficult position. The command of the Wehrmacht intended to hold the occupied lines until the onset of spring, and then carry out a decisive offensive.
Operation plan and preparation for it
The first discussions of the plan for an offensive operation near Stalingrad took place at the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief in early September 1942. During them, it was decided that the offensive should solve two main tasks - to surround and isolate the German group operating in the city area from the main forces of the Wehrmacht, and then defeat it.
The plan for the operation, which received the code name "Uranus", was distinguished by its breadth and boldness of design. The troops of three fronts were involved in it - Stalingrad (commander - colonel general), Southwestern (commander - lieutenant general, from December 1942 colonel general) and (commander - lieutenant general, from January 1943 colonel general ). The total offensive area was 400 square meters. The northern group of troops had to overcome the German defenses and fight 120-140 kilometers, and the southern group - 100 kilometers, after which both groups were supposed to meet, completing the encirclement of the Paulus army. When developing the operation, it was taken into account that the German troops, in an attempt to take Stalingrad, had used up all their reserves - by mid-November, he had only six reserve divisions scattered over a large sector of the front. The German command tried to strengthen them, but it was too late.
To prepare for the offensive, the fronts were strengthened. Part Southwestern Front two tank divisions, a cavalry corps, a number of artillery and tank units and formations were included; in the Stalingrad - mechanized and cavalry corps, three mechanized and three tank brigades; the Donskoy included three rifle divisions. All these forces were deployed as soon as possible - from October 1 to November 18, 1942. In total, at the beginning of the operation, those involved in it Soviet troops numbered about 1 million 135 thousand soldiers and commanders, about 15 thousand guns and mortars, more than 1.5 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns, more than 1.9 thousand aircraft. Thus, a decisive superiority over the enemy was created in this sector of the front: in personnel by 2-2.5 times, and in artillery and tanks - by 4-5 times.
The general management of the operation from the Headquarters was carried out by the head General Staff colonel general (since January 1943 - army general). Preparation for it was carried out with the participation of General of the Army and Colonel-General of Artillery N. N. Voronov.
The Soviet command widely used methods of misinforming the enemy about the place and time of the strike. Thanks to the high-quality camouflage of troop movements, the enemy did not know until the very last moment what kind of forces the Soviet troops had on the Stalingrad sector of the front. The construction of false objects was widely used - only 17 bridges were built across the Don, 12 of which were false. All these measures led to the fact that the Wehrmacht command did not expect a counter-offensive near Stalingrad, thinking that an offensive operation would be undertaken on the Rzhev salient or in the Caucasus.
The course of hostilities
The operation began on November 19, 1942. On this day, the South-Western and right wing of the Don Front went on the offensive. Due to bad weather conditions, the command had to abandon air support, and rely only on artillery. At 7:30, 3,500 guns and mortars began shelling enemy positions simultaneously in several areas. German troops, not expecting a strike, suffered heavy losses. The first to go on the attack were the 14th (commander - Guards Major General A. S. Gryaznov) and the 47th (commander - Guards Colonel, from December 1942 Guards Major General F. A. Ostashenko) Guards, 119th ( commander - colonel, since January 1943, Major General M. M. Danilov) and the 124th (commander - Major General A. I. Belov) rifle divisions. The enemy offered stubborn resistance - in the first four hours of the offensive, the Soviet units advanced only 2-3 kilometers. The 1st (commander - Major General of Tank Troops M. E. Katukov) and 26th (commander - Major General of Tank Troops A. G. Rodin) tank corps were introduced into the breakthrough, which completed the work of breaking through the defense - enemy troops , most of which in this area were Romanian units, were partly pushed back, partly surrendered. By the middle of the day, the defense was finally broken through and developed further actions behind enemy lines. In an effort to push back the Soviet troops and restore the situation, German command commissioned operational reserves - four divisions. However, they only managed to delay the advance of the Red Army units. The 63rd (commander - Colonel N. D. Kozin), 76th (commander - Colonel N. T. Tavartkiladze), 96th (commander - Major General I. M. Shepetov), 293 -I (commander - Major General F. D. Lagutin) rifle divisions, 4th Panzer (commander - Major General of Tank Troops A. G. Kravchenko) and 3rd Guards Cavalry (commander - Major General I. A . Pliev) Corps. The mobile formations of the Southwestern Front were rapidly moving south, into the operational depth, destroying the enemy's reserves, headquarters and retreating formations. The Romanian troops suffered especially heavy losses here - two of their corps were completely defeated, another one was surrounded.
On the Don Front, the 65th Army (commander - lieutenant general) dealt the main blow. By the end of the first day of the operation, she advanced 4-5 kilometers, failing to break through the defenses. However, the stubborn resistance of the enemy in this area could not save the situation - the gap formed as a result of a breakthrough on the left flank of the Paulus army was growing rapidly. On November 20, 1942, units of the 26th Tank Corps stormed a strategically important node highways Perelazovskoe. On the same day, the troops of the Stalingrad Front were put into action. The 57th (commander - major general) and 64th (commander - lieutenant general) armies simultaneously, after artillery preparation, struck enemy positions from two flanks. The enemy defense was broken through in several sectors: the 57th Army by the forces of the 169th (commander - Colonel I. I. Melnikov) and the 422nd (commander - Colonel I. K. Morozov) rifle divisions, and the 64th - by the forces of 36 1st Guards (commander - Major General M. I. Denisenko), 38th (commander - Colonel A. D. Korotkov) and 204th (commander - Colonel, since December 1942, Major General A. V. Skvortsov ) rifle divisions. The 13th tank (commander - Colonel T.I. Tanaschishin), 4th mechanized (commander - Major General V.T. Volsky) and 4th cavalry (commander - Lieutenant General T.T. . Shapkin) corps, which launched an offensive to the north-west and south-west. Unlike the attack in the north, the southern one was unexpected for the German command. Already on the second day of the operation, the enemy was forced to put into action all his remaining reserves. These measures could only delay the advance of the Red Army.
The command of the 6th Army and the Wehrmacht did not assess the scale of the threat to their Stalingrad group in time. Only on the evening of November 20, 1942, did it become obvious to Paulus that the Soviet units were carrying out a major operation. Realizing that the threat of complete encirclement loomed over him, he transferred part of his reserves, but many of them did not manage to break through. Seeing this, Paulus suggested that the command break through to the southwest, leaving the Stalingrad lines, but Hitler did not go for it. The offensive of the Soviet troops led to the fact that the command post of the 6th army was under the threat of a blow, and Paulus transferred it deeper to the rear, to the village of Nizhne-Chirskaya. In the ranks German units, and especially among their allies - Romanians, Hungarians, Italians - panic began to grow.
On November 23, 1942, the 26th Tank Corps liberated the city of Kalach. On the same day, near the Soviet farm, its units met with the 4th mechanized corps, which marked the connection of the troops of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts and the closing of the encirclement. It contained about 330 thousand enemy soldiers and officers (22 divisions, 160 separate and auxiliary units). The next day, the defeat of the Romanian units in the area of the village of Raspopinskaya was completed - about 30 thousand soldiers and officers surrendered. In the shortest possible time, an encirclement front was created, protected both from the inside and from the outside - it was obvious that the enemy would soon try to break through it. On November 24, 1942, Paulus suggested that Hitler leave Stalingrad and break through to the southwest to join the main forces, but he again answered with a categorical refusal.
Over the next week, the Stalingrad and Don Fronts completed the encirclement, driving back parts of the 6th Army and thereby reducing the front to 80 kilometers from west to east and to 40 from north to south. Having condensed his battle formations, Paulus managed to organize an effective defense, including using those fortified lines on which the Soviet troops held the defense during the summer-autumn of 1942. This significantly delayed the Soviet troops and delayed the defeat of the Stalingrad group.
The German command tried to organize a breakthrough with the forces of the Goth shock army group (commander - G. Goth), which was part of the Don Army Group (commander -) and numbered 9 infantry and 4 tank divisions. Manstein intended to implement it in the area of the city of Kotelnikovo. On December 12, 1942, the troops involved went on the offensive and pushed back the Soviet troops. However, on December 15, 1942, across the Aksai River, as a result of stubborn resistance from the Soviet troops, this offensive was stopped. The enemy had 40 kilometers to the front line from the inside of the ring. On December 16, 1942, units of the Southwestern Front went on the offensive and broke through its defenses over the next three days. The Gotha group, which also included one Italian army, suffered heavy losses, its front completely crumbled. As a result of the counterattack, the outer line of the encirclement was pushed back from the inner one by 200-250 kilometers, which finally deprived the 6th Army of hope for its breakthrough in the near future.
By January 1943, the position of the Stalingrad group had finally deteriorated. On January 8, the Soviet command gave Paulus an ultimatum to surrender, but Hitler categorically forbade surrender. Then the Soviet troops launched an offensive operation to finally defeat the 6th Army (code name - Operation "Ring"), as a result of which Stalingrad was liberated, and the enemy soldiers and officers still alive by that time, led by Paulus himself, surrendered in captivity.
Operation results
As a result of Operation Uranus, German, Romanian, Hungarian, Italian, Croatian units suffered a severe defeat. Their irretrievable losses amounted to more than 800 thousand soldiers and officers. During the fighting, more than 155 thousand soldiers and commanders of the Red Army were killed, more than 300 thousand people were injured. This operation demonstrated to the whole world the operational and tactical skills of the Red Army command and had a huge political effect - in the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition and in the occupied territories, the victory on the Volga caused a general upsurge. In Germany, the defeat of the Stalingrad group was met with three days of mourning. In Italy, Hungary and Romania, which have lost a significant part of their armed forces, the defeat became one of the reasons for the internal political crisis, which subsequently resulted in the overthrow of the leaders of these states and their withdrawal from the alliance with Hitler.
On November 19-20, 1942, Soviet troops made a breakthrough on both flanks, on the Don and south of Stalingrad, and began to cover German armies. The German command did not expect such a large-scale offensive, and all enemy attempts to prevent the encirclement turned out to be belated and weak.
The concept of the operation
The idea of an offensive operation in the area of Stalingrad was discussed at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command already in the first half of September 1942. “At this time,” writes Marshal A.M. Vasilevsky, “we were finishing the formation and training of strategic reserves, which consisted largely of tank and mechanized units and formations, armed for the most part with medium and heavy tanks; stockpiles of other military equipment and ammunition were created. All this allowed the Stavka already in September 1942 to draw a conclusion about the possibility and expediency of delivering a decisive blow to the enemy in the near future ... When discussing these issues at the Headquarters, in which General G.K. Zhukov and I took part, it was stipulated that the planned counteroffensive should include two main operational tasks: one - to encircle and isolate the main grouping of German troops operating directly in the city area, and the other - to destroy this grouping.
After the war, the Stalingrad offensive operation, like any victory, had many fathers. N. Khrushchev claimed that, together with the commander of the Stalingrad Front, A. I. Eremenko, presented to the Headquarters at the end of September a plan for a future counteroffensive. Yeremenko himself said in his memoirs that he put forward the idea of Stalingrad counterattacks right on the day of his appointment as front commander. It can be said that in the second half of September the idea of a counteroffensive was in the air. Fleet Admiral N. G. Kuznetsov indicated the real author, who took responsibility for the implementation of the plan: “It must be said frankly that with the enormous and sometimes decisive The commander-in-chief determined the success of the battle.
The counteroffensive plan, which received the code name "Uranus", was distinguished by its boldness of design. The advance of the Southwest. The Don and Stalingrad fronts were to deploy on an area of 400 square meters. km. Troops maneuvering around the enemy's encirclement had to fight a distance of up to 120-140 km from the north and up to 100 km from the south. They planned to create two fronts to encircle the enemy group - internal and external.
“The directions of the Russian strikes,” writes the German general and military historian Kurt Tippelskirch, “were determined by the very outline of the front line: the left flank of the German group stretched for almost 300 km from Stalingrad to the Don bend in the Novaya Kalitva region, and the short right flank, where the especially weak forces, began at Stalingrad and was lost in the Kalmyk steppe.
Large forces were concentrated in the Stalingrad direction. The Southwestern Front was reinforced: two tank (1st and 26th) and one cavalry (8th) corps, as well as a number of tank and artillery formations and units. The Stalingrad front was reinforced by the 4th mechanized and 4th cavalry corps, three mechanized and three tank brigades. The Don Front received three rifle divisions for reinforcement. In total, in a relatively short period of time (from October 1 to November 18), four tank, two mechanized and two cavalry corps, 17 separate tank brigades and regiments, 10 rifle divisions and 6 brigades, 230 artillery and mortar regiments. The Soviet troops consisted of about 1135 thousand people, about 15 thousand guns and mortars, over 1.5 thousand tanks and self-propelled artillery pieces. The composition of the air forces of the fronts was brought up to 25 aviation divisions, which had over 1.9 thousand combat aircraft. The total number of calculated divisions in three fronts reached 75. However, this powerful grouping of Soviet troops had a feature - about 60% personnel The troops were young recruits who had not yet had combat experience.
As a result of the massing of forces and means in the directions of the main attacks of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts, a significant superiority of Soviet troops over the enemy was created: in people - 2-2.5 times, artillery and tanks - 4-5 times or more. The decisive role in delivering strikes was assigned to 4 tank and 2 mechanized corps.
German anti-aircraft battery captured by soldiers of the Soviet 21st Army near Stalingrad
In early November, General of the Army G.K. Zhukov, Colonel-General A.M. Vasilevsky, Colonel-General of Artillery N.N. Voronov and other representatives of the Stavka again arrived in the Stalingrad region. Together with the command of the fronts and armies, they were supposed to conduct directly on the ground preparatory work for the implementation of the Uranus plan. On November 3, Zhukov held a final meeting in the troops of the 5th Panzer Army of the Southwestern Front. In addition to the command of the front and the army, it was attended by the commanders of corps and divisions, whose troops were intended for an offensive in the direction of the main attack. On November 4, the same meeting was held in the 21st Army of the Southwestern Front with the participation of the commander of the Don Front. On November 9 and 10, meetings were held with the commanders of the armies, commanders of formations and the command of the Stalingrad Front.
In the northern sector, the 5th Panzer and 21st Armies of the Southwestern Front under the command of N.F. Vatutin, who delivered the main blow, were supposed to advance from the bridgehead southwest of Serafimovich and from the Kletskaya area, were supposed to break through the defenses of the 3rd Romanian army and develop an offensive to the southeast in the general direction of Kalach. The troops of the Don Front under the command of K.K. Rokossovsky - part of the 65th (former 4th tank) and 24th armies - delivered auxiliary strikes in the general direction to the Vertyachiy farm in order to encircle the enemy forces in the small bend of the Don and cut them off from the main German grouping in the area of Stalingrad. The strike force of the Stalingrad Front under the command of A. I. Eremenko (51st, 57th and 64th armies) was tasked with launching an offensive from the region of lakes Sarpa, Tsatsa, Barmantsak in a northwestern direction to join with the troops of the South-Western front.
Support for the advancing troops was provided by: on the Southwestern Front - the 2nd and 17th Air Armies, on Stalingrad - the 8th Air Army, on the Don - the 16th Air Army. Stalin attached particular importance to the air preparation of the operation. On November 12, the Supreme Commander conveyed to Zhukov that if the air preparation for the operation on the Stalingrad and Southwestern fronts was unsatisfactory, then the operation would end in failure. The experience of the war shows, he noted, that the success of an operation depends on air superiority. Soviet aviation must fulfill three tasks: 1) concentrate its operations in the area of attack of the strike units, suppress the German aviation and firmly cover their troops; 2) to break the way for the advancing units by systematic bombing of the German troops standing against them; 3) to pursue the retreating enemy troops by systematic bombing and assault operations in order to completely upset them and prevent them from gaining a foothold on the nearest defense lines. Much attention was paid to strengthening the air armies of the fronts. In November, the 1st Mixed Aviation Corps arrived from the Headquarters reserve to the 17th Air Army, and the 2nd Mixed Aviation Corps arrived to the 8th Air Army. It was also decided to use large long-range aviation forces during the counteroffensive.
The shock groupings of the Soviet troops, concentrated north and south of Stalingrad, were supposed to defeat the flanks of the Stalingrad grouping of the enemy and, with an enveloping movement, close the encirclement around it in the Sovetsky, Kalach area. After the destruction of the Stalingrad grouping of the enemy, our troops were to develop success towards Rostov, defeat the German troops in the North Caucasus, launch an offensive in the Donbass, in the Kursk, Bryansk, Kharkov directions.
The Soviet command, which widely used methods of camouflage and misinformation, this time managed to mislead the enemy about the place, time of the strike and the forces with which it was supposed to deliver it. So, only in order to deceive German air reconnaissance, 17 bridges were built across the Don in various places, but only 5 of them were supposed to be actually used. As noted earlier, the enemy did not expect a large-scale Russian offensive in the Stalingrad area. The greatest threat was seen against Army Group Center. High Command ground forces(OKH) discussed the possibility of a winter offensive by Russian troops against the Rzhev salient; also the likelihood of a Russian offensive against the northern flank of Army Group B with access to Rostov and the Sea of Azov. The command of the 6th Army and Army Group "B" monitored the concentration Soviet forces on the bridgeheads near Kletskaya and Serafimovich, predicted an imminent enemy offensive in its lane, but underestimated its scale. Thus, despite reports that the Russians were preparing for an offensive, the OKH ordered the offensive to continue to capture Stalingrad, despite the objections of the commander of the 6th Army. Most of the staff generals agreed that the Russians did not have the strength to deliver powerful enough blows, that the enemy was bled white by the battles in Stalingrad, and in this they miscalculated very badly.
A column of Romanian soldiers captured near Stalingrad moves past a truck with Red Army soldiers
Thus, even if the enemy command near Stalingrad in the autumn of 1942 began to notice signs of the impending offensive of the Soviet troops, then it had no clear idea about its scale, time, composition of strike groups, or the direction of the main attacks. Far from the front, the high command of the German troops turned out to be even less able to correctly assess the true extent of the danger that threatened its Stalingrad grouping.
Colonel General Jodl, chief of staff of the operational leadership of the OKW (Supreme High Command of the Wehrmacht), subsequently admitted the complete surprise of the Soviet offensive for the high command: “We completely overlooked the concentration of large Russian forces on the flank of the 6th army (on the Don). We had absolutely no idea about the strength of the Russian troops in the area. Previously, there was nothing here, and suddenly a blow of great force was dealt, which had crucial". The surprise factor became an important advantage of the Red Army.
Relying on the capture of Stalingrad at all costs and setting more and more new terms for this, the high command used up its reserves in these attempts, and practically lost the opportunity to radically strengthen the position of its troops on the southern strategic flank. In mid-November, the enemy had only six divisions as operational reserves in the Stalingrad direction, which were scattered over a wide front. The command of Army Group "B" began to withdraw some divisions to the reserve, planned to regroup the troops of the 6th and 4th tank armies in order to create a deeper operational formation and strengthen the flanks of their grouping. The 22nd German tank division in the Perelazovsky area and the 1st Romanian Panzer Division - behind the 3rd Romanian Army at the turn of the river. Chir near Chernyshevskaya. South of Stalingrad, in the area east of Kotelnikovo, at the beginning of October, the 4th Romanian army was deployed (initially, its divisions were part of the German 4th tank army) in order to strengthen the right flank of the Stalingrad group. But these measures were belated and insufficient to change the situation radically.
Breakthrough of enemy defense
November 19th. On November 19, 1942, the troops of the Southwestern and right wing of the Don Front went on the offensive. Breakthrough of the enemy defenses was carried out simultaneously in several areas. The weather was foggy, non-flying. Therefore, it was necessary to abandon the use of aviation. At 07:30, artillery preparation began with a volley of rocket launchers - "Katyushas". 3500 guns and mortars smashed the enemy defenses. One hour was fired for destruction and twenty minutes for suppression. The artillery preparation inflicted great damage on the enemy.
At 0850 hours, the rifle divisions of the 5th Panzer Army of P. L. Romanenko and the 21st Army of I. M. Chistyakov, together with tanks of direct infantry support, went on the attack. The 14th and 47th Guards, 119th and 124th Rifle Divisions were in the first echelon of the 5th Tank Army. Despite the powerful artillery preparation, at first the Romanians stubbornly resisted. The remaining unsuppressed enemy firing points seriously slowed down the movement of our troops. By 12 o'clock, having overcome the first position of the enemy's main line of defense, the Soviet divisions advanced only 2-3 km. Then the army commander decided to bring into battle the success development echelon - the 1st and 26th tank corps. The enemy defense was still not broken through, and there was no gap for entering the breakthrough of mobile units. Tank formations overtook the infantry and broke through the enemy defenses with a powerful blow. Romanian troops fled, began to surrender. The rear line of the enemy was immediately overcome.
Thus, the mobile group of the 5th Panzer Army - the 1st and 26th Tank Corps - by the middle of the first day of the offensive had completed the breakthrough of the enemy's tactical defense and developed further actions in the operational depth, paving the way for the infantry. In the resulting gap (16 km along the front and in depth) in the second half of the day the 8th cavalry corps was introduced.
Artillerymen - guards inspect the captured German 150-mm six-barrel rocket mortars "Nebelwerfer" 41 (15 cm Nebelwerfer 41) on the Stalingrad front
Soviet light tank T-70 with troops on the armor on the Stalingrad front
Soviet soldiers at the T-26 tank on the outskirts of the liberated village near Stalingrad
The enemy resisted by bringing operational reserves into battle. The 1st Romanian Panzer Division (it had only light Czechoslovak and French captured tanks) was moved from the Perelazovsky area to the front to help its infantry divisions. In addition, the enemy command sent the 7th cavalry, 1st motorized and 15th infantry division, which temporarily delayed the advance of the Soviet units here. The stubborn resistance of the enemy in front of the front of the 14th Guards Rifle Division created a threat to the right flank of the 5th Tank Army and delayed the advance of the left flank of the 1st Guards Army.
The 21st Army was advancing from the Kletskaya area on a 14 km front. In the first echelon of the army, the 96th, 63rd, 293rd and 76th rifle divisions advanced. The enemy offered stubborn resistance here too: the 96th and 63rd rifle divisions advanced slowly. The 293rd and 76th rifle divisions were more successful in the direction of the main attack. The commander of the 21st Army, Chistyakov, also used his mobile formations to complete the breakthrough of the enemy defenses. A mobile group consisting of the 4th Tank and 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps was thrown into the attack.
The 4th Panzer Corps, under the command of Major General of the Panzer Troops A. G. Kravchenko, moved in two echelons, along two routes, and solved the task of breaking through the enemy defenses. The right column of the 4th tank corps, consisting of the 69th and 45th tank brigades, on the night of November 20, went to the Pervomaisky state farm, Manoilin and broke through 30-35 km. The left column of the corps, consisting of the 102nd tank and 4th motorized rifle brigades, by the end of November 19, having advanced to a depth of 10-12 km, went to the Zakharov, Vlasov area, where they met stubborn enemy resistance.
The 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps under the command of Major General I. A. Pliev, fighting with the retreating enemy, advanced in the direction of Verkhne-Buzinovka, Evlampievsky, Bolshenabatovsky. In his memoirs, the former commissar of the 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps, Colonel D.S. Dobrushin, writes: “The 32nd and 5th Cavalry Divisions marched in the first echelon, the 6th Guards in the second. The order of the corps commander was as follows: to bypass the pockets of enemy resistance - they will either cease to exist on their own, or they will be destroyed by the infantry following the cavalry. On the line of the villages of Nizhnyaya and Verkhnyaya Buzinovka, the enemy, trying to hold back the advance of our units, opened heavy artillery and mortar fire. The artillery of the advancing units, having turned around, took up firing positions. An artillery duel has begun. General Pliev decided to bypass Nizhne-Buzinovka from the south with units of the 6th Guards Cavalry Division and attack the enemy from the rear. “The regiments at a trot went out in the given directions. At this time, units of the 5th and 32nd cavalry divisions, together with T-34 tanks, advanced from the front to the enemy's trench line. The fight had been going on for two hours. The army commander of the neighboring army, General Kuznetsov, drove up and began to express dissatisfaction with the fact that the corps was marking time. At this time, soldiers began to jump out of the enemy's trenches in disarray. It was the cavalry who struck from the rear. Soon the enemy's defense was broken through to the full depth.
As a result, the mobile formations of the shock group of the Southwestern Front completed the breakthrough of the enemy defenses and began to move south into the operational depth of the enemy, destroying his reserves, headquarters and retreating units. At the same time, the rifle divisions, advancing behind the mobile formations, completed the cleansing settlements and captured the remnants of the defeated enemy troops. Our troops advanced 25-35 km, broke through the defenses of the Romanian 3rd Army in two sectors: southwest of Serafimovich and in the Kletskaya area. The Romanian 2nd and 4th Army Corps were defeated, and their remnants with the 5th Army Corps were flanked.
Romanian prisoners of war taken prisoner in the area of the village of Raspopinskaya near the city of Kalach
Don front. The troops of the Don Front on November 19 also went on the offensive. Main blow the formations of the 65th Army under the command of P.I. Batov were inflicted. At 7 o'clock. 30 min. regiments of heavy guards mortars fired the first salvo. At 8 o'clock. 50 min. the infantry went on the attack. The enemy offered stubborn resistance, counterattacked. Our troops had to overcome the strong resistance of the enemy in an inaccessible area for the advancing. “Let the reader imagine this area: winding deep ravines abut against a chalk cliff, its steep walls rise to 20-25 meters. There is almost nothing to grab onto with your hand. Feet slip on wet chalk. ... It was seen how the soldiers ran up to the cliff and climbed up. Soon the entire wall was strewn with people. They broke, fell, supported each other and stubbornly crawled up.
By the end of the day, the troops of the 65th Army, with their right flank, advanced into the depth of the enemy's position up to 4 - 5 km, without breaking through the main line of his defense. 304th rifle division this army, after a stubborn battle, occupied Melo-Kletsky.
Soviet soldiers in the battle for the Krasny Oktyabr plant during the Battle of Stalingrad. November 1942
Assault Group 13th guards division cleans houses in Stalingrad
To be continued…
Today is a special day in the history of our country.
Smooth 70 years ago, on a gloomy and overcast morning, Operation Uranus began.
- which in its development eventually led to the beginning of a radical turning point in the war. The Third Reich began to roll back in a strategic sense.
But on that day, her future success was still unknown to anyone and hidden in the fog of war: the Kharkov catastrophe under the leadership of Timoshenko-Khrushchev, for which large forces were also preparing, happened only six months ago. The injury wound was bleeding. Therefore, now the measures for covert concentration, camouflage of troops and encryption of negotiations at all levels were unprecedented - otherwise everything could go the way it did in summer, that is, catastrophically. Some Soviet commanders went to this operation with doubt and uncertainty - such as, say, tank general V.T. Volsky, who wrote a panicked letter to Stalin. Nevertheless, despite the possible risks, on November 13, at a meeting of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, the operation was finally approved by Stalin and the flywheel for moving troops to their original positions was launched.
The counteroffensive of the Soviet troops near Stalingrad began after a powerful artillery preparation on the morning of November 19 - the troops of the Southwestern and Don Fronts broke through the defenses of the 3rd Romanian Army (Hitler's satellite) in a number of sectors and mobile tank units entered the resulting breakthrough. The next day, on the 20th, from the other side, the shock group of the Stalingrad Front went on the offensive, breaking through the front of the 4th Panzer Army of Hoth. Both Soviet groupings will unite in four days in the Kalach-on-Don region, locking the VI Army of Colonel General Paulus into a cauldron, which will later become world famous.
The offensive really turned out to be completely unexpected for the Wehrmacht: the highest secrecy in the preparation of the operation fully justified itself. But the Red Army also turned out to be an unexpected cauldron - a preliminary estimate of the troops in that area assumed their number was about 90-120 thousand, but in reality it turned out that there were three times as many in the "bag" - 330 thousand people. But the Soviet commanders do not yet know about this either. Just as the Germans do not know this day that this is not a tactical offensive, but a large-scale one, pursuing strategic goals. The true impact force will be determined for them only after 2-3 days - precious days when it was necessary to act immediately and the clock went on.
Let's open the "Red Star" for this day. It is completely ordinary, and nothing betrays what began to happen on the fronts 3-4 hours after the issue was signed for printing. Is it possible that Stalin's meaningful statement is placed on the cap with the idea that " every dog has his day". And that's it.
3. Those who are interested can study the message of the Sovinformburo for the previous day - I place it in full.
4. The next day, November 20, "Asterisk" actually puts a message about the impact. But not about this and not in this place of the front: the newspapers of the Soviet Union will be silent about the Stalingrad breakthrough for another three days, and only when the Headquarters receives a message about the connection of the fronts in Kalach, will the command be given to print an emergency message about the counteroffensive.
So far, everything is going in "silence" - the world does not know that epoch-making changes are already taking place on both sides of Stalingrad.
5. So, let's remember the feat of our ancestors on this significant day. They deserve it.
6. And here is a schematic map of the "Stalingrad Cannes". This is how the boiler was formed.
But on November 19, events lie in the fog of war - everything is still ahead.
* * *
My grandfather Vasily, unfortunately, did not live long enough to see this day, he died on September 15, 1942. But his wife, Agrafena Stepanovna, my grandmother, at the very end of July 1942, crossed the Volga at the Stalingrad railway crossing, following from the city of Shakhta, already occupied by the Germans, and having an 11-year-old daughter and a one-year-old baby (my father) in her arms. Then it was evacuated further to the east, to Prokopyevsk. So that's why I have the opportunity to talk to you today. If I didn't have time, I wouldn't be there.
But at the same time, on the Right Bank was the younger brother of my other grandfather - Anatoly. He fought on the "hot" front in Stalingrad for only a month, was seriously wounded at the end of November, then he was commissioned and after the hospital in the spring of 43 he left for small homeland in Transbaikalia. And he was called up in the spring of the 42nd, and spent almost half a year in the Volga field camps of the Red Army in formation.
Therefore, all important Stalingrad dates (November 19, 23 and February 2) are dear to me and I remember and celebrate them.
7. After the war, November 19 deservedly became Artillery Day and missile troops, with which I congratulate the gunners and missilemen.
8. And in the end - the legendary march of Stalin's gunners.
It is especially relevant today. Listen and get into it.
Once again, Happy Holidays to all those for whom this day is a holiday!
Operation Uranus (November 19, 1942 - February 2, 1943) - the code name of the Stalingrad strategic offensive operation of the Soviet troops during the Great Patriotic War; counteroffensive of the troops of three fronts: Southwestern (commander - General N.F. Vatutin), Stalingrad (commander - General A.I. Eremenko) and Don (commander - General K.K. Rokossovsky) with the aim of encircling and destroying the enemy group of troops near the city of Stalingrad.
Military situation before the operation
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| Nikolai Fyodorovich Vatutin | Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky | Andrey Ivanovich Eremenko | Alexander Mikhailovich Vasilevsky |
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| Maximilian von Weichs | Hermann Goth (right) and Heinz Guderian. June 21, 1941. USSR border | Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus | Field Marshal General Erich von Manstein |
By the end of the defensive period of the Battle of Stalingrad, the 62nd Army held the area north of the Tractor Plant, the Barrikady plant and the northeastern quarters of the city center, the 64th Army defended the approaches to its southern part. The general offensive of the German troops was stopped. On November 10, 1942, they went over to the defensive on the entire southern wing of the Soviet-German front, with the exception of sectors in the areas of Stalingrad, Nalchik and Tuapse. The position of the German troops became more difficult. The front of Army Groups A and B was stretched for 2300 km, the flanks of the shock groups were not properly covered. The German command believed that after many months of heavy fighting, the Red Army was not in a position to carry out a major offensive. For the winter of 1942-1943, the German command planned to hold on to the occupied lines until the spring of 1943, and then go on the offensive again.
The balance of forces on the fronts
Before the start of the operation, the ratio of manpower, tanks, aviation and auxiliary forces in this section of the theater of operations was as follows:
| Red Army | Wehrmacht and allies | Ratio | |
| Personnel | 1.103 000 | 1.011 000 | 1,1: 1 |
| Guns and mortars | 15501 | 10290 | 1,5: 1 |
| tanks | 1463 | 675 | 2,1: 1 |
| Aircraft (combat) | 1350 | 1216 | 1,1: 1 |
Operation plan
From September 1942, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and the General Staff began to develop a counteroffensive plan. On November 13, the plan for a strategic counter-offensive, codenamed "Uranus", was approved by the Headquarters, chaired by I. V. Stalin, to Stalingrad. The plan was as follows: the Southwestern Front (commander - N. F. Vatutin; 1st Guards, 5th Tank, 21st, 2nd Air and 17th Air Armies) had the task of inflicting deep strikes from bridgeheads on the right bank of the Don from the areas of Serafimovich and Kletskaya (offensive depth - about 120 km); The shock group of the Stalingrad Front (64th, 57th, 51st and 8th Air Armies) advanced from the Sarpinsky Lakes region to a depth of 100 km. The shock groupings of both fronts were to meet in the Kalach-Soviet region and encircle the main enemy forces near Stalingrad. At the same time, part of the forces of these same fronts ensured the creation of an external encirclement front. The Don Front, consisting of the 65th, 24th, 66th and 16th air armies, delivered two auxiliary strikes - one from the Kletskaya region to the southeast, and the other from the Kachalinsky region along the left bank of the Don to the south. The plan provided for: to direct the main blows against the most vulnerable sectors of the enemy's defense, to the flank and rear of his most combat-ready formations; strike groups to use terrain advantageous for the attackers; with a generally equal balance of forces in the breakthrough areas, by weakening the secondary areas, create a 2.8-3.2-fold superiority in forces. Due to the deepest secrecy in the development of the plan and the enormous secrecy of the concentration of forces achieved, the strategic surprise of the offensive was ensured.
Ruins in Stalingrad, October 1942
Operation progress
Start of the offensive
The offensive of the troops of the South-Western and right wing of the Don Fronts began on the morning of November 19 after a powerful artillery preparation. Troops of the 5th tank armies broke through the defenses of the 3rd Romanian army. The German troops tried to stop the Soviet troops with a strong counterattack, but were defeated by the 1st and 26th tank corps brought into battle, the advanced units of which went into the operational depth, advancing to the Kalach area. On November 20, the strike force of the Stalingrad Front went on the offensive. On the morning of November 23, the advanced units of the 26th Panzer Corps captured Kalach. On November 23, the troops of the 4th Tank Corps (A. G. Kravchenko) of the Southwestern Front and the 4th Mechanized Corps (V. T. Volsky) of the Stalingrad Front met in the area of the Sovetsky farm, closing the encirclement ring of the Stalingrad enemy grouping in the interfluve of the Volga and Don. The 6th and main forces of the 4th tank armies were surrounded - 22 divisions and 160 separate units with a total strength of 330 thousand people. By the same time, a large part of the outer front of the encirclement was created, the distance of which from the inner one was 40-100 km.
On November 19, 1942, Soviet troops launched Operation Uranus to encircle the Stalingrad group of the Wehrmacht. As a result, 300 thousand German troops ended up in the boiler. Despite the desperate attempts of the Nazi troops to break out of the encirclement, they failed to do so. The Germans capitulated, more than 90 thousand soldiers and officers were taken prisoner, including the commander of the 6th Army, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus. At Stalingrad, Nazi Germany suffered a crushing defeat. This battle changed the course of World War II. About how the Red Army managed to achieve strategic success - in the material RT.
- Captured Nazis on the streets of Stalingrad
- RIA News
“People just fell from the sky. They fell from above to the ground and again found themselves in the Stalingrad hell, ”said 94-year-old Hans-Erdman Schönbeck, who was surrounded by the Red Army at the end of 1942, in an interview with Der Spiegel. The former Wehrmacht soldier recalled how his colleagues tried to board a plane that was leaving the battlefield.
German soldiers and the officers called the battle for Stalingrad hell on Earth and red Verdun (meaning the unsuccessful attack of the Kaiser troops on the positions of the French in 1916 ). The Nazi soldiers, who did not know serious defeats, were amazed at the capabilities that the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA) demonstrated.
Soviet troops defeated the invaders during the operation, codenamed "Uranus". Marshal Alexander Vasilevsky in his book "The Work of All Life" argued that the code names for all the strategic operations of the Red Army were personally invented by the People's Commissar of Defense Joseph Stalin.
The counteroffensive began on November 19, 1942 with successful attacks on the Romanian positions located on the flanks of the Stalingrad group. On November 23, 1942, the most combat-ready German units landed in the Red Army cauldron, and on February 2, 1943, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, commander of the 6th Army, capitulated.
- Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, commander of the 6th Army of the Wehrmacht, captured by Soviet troops
- RIA News
- Georgy Lipskerov
"No step back!"
The Battle of Stalingrad began on July 17, 1942, after the Wehrmacht troops crossed the Chir River. The 6th Army of General Friedrich Paulus was supposed to cover the left flank of the Nazi troops operating in the North Caucasus from counterattacks. The capture of Stalingrad as an important transport hub was intended to ensure the success of the Germans in the south of the USSR.
Having lost industrially rich Ukraine, in the summer of 1942 Soviet Union was in the most difficult position. On July 28, 1942, Joseph Stalin signed the famous order No. 227, which forbade even a forced retreat and was popularly called "Not a step back."
Initially, the Wehrmacht concentrated 14 divisions of about 270 thousand people from Army Group B in the Stalingrad direction. Subsequently, the grouping to capture Stalingrad was increased to 1 million.
In the second half of July, the Nazis were opposed by about 160,000 Soviet troops. The Red Army was inferior to the enemy troops in tanks, artillery and aircraft. As a result of the regrouping in November, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command (VGK) increased the number of troops in the Stalingrad region to 800 thousand people.
Thus, before the start of Operation Uranus, the Red Army was unable to concentrate on the front, the length of which was up to 850 km, superior forces to the enemy. Moscow was still under the threat of a strike, and the Supreme High Command decided not to risk a massive transfer of troops from Central Russia.
- Joseph Stalin
- globallookpress.com
In the context of a shortage of human and material resources, non-standard actions were required to defeat the Wehrmacht near Stalingrad. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, one of the main keys to the success of "Uranus" was the brilliantly conducted intelligence operations to disinform the Nazi command.
red herring
Back in March 1942, the Stavka was aware that Hitler had set his generals the task of occupying the southern part of the USSR, masking preparations for the next attack on Moscow. At the same time, the Soviet leadership was aware that the Wehrmacht had enough forces to launch an offensive against the capital in the event of a weakening of the positions of the Red Army in Central Russia.
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As General Sergei Shtemenko recalled, in the summer of 1942, "the Soviet command did not have the opportunity to ensure decisive action to defeat the advancing enemy grouping in a short time."
The reason for the lack of reserves, as the RF Ministry of Defense explains, was not only the need to defend Moscow, but also the frequent offensive operations initiated by Stalin.
The situation near Stalingrad was largely saved by Soviet intelligence. In 1942, the Abwehr (German military intelligence and counterintelligence agency) received a lot of disinformation information of an operational-strategic nature. The headquarters sought to hide from the Nazis the fact of the concentration of units of the Red Army in the Stalingrad region.
For this purpose, a diversionary operation called "Mars" was carried out. Soviet scouts had to convince the German generals that the Red Army under the command of Georgy Zhukov would launch a large-scale counteroffensive in the Rzhev region (200 km west of Moscow), and not near Stalingrad.
According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, if the disinformation measures had not achieved their goal, Operation Uranus could have ended in failure. The victory of the Nazis in the Battle of Stalingrad would have led to the entry into the war against the USSR of Turkey and Japan and the inevitable defeat of the Soviet Union.
Scouts and analysts of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces knew that the Germans were monitoring Zhukov's movements. His appearance in certain sectors of the front was interpreted as a sign of the intensification of the actions of the Red Army. famous commander skillfully performed the role assigned to him, and this helped to confuse the Nazi command.
“Zhukov was appointed by Stalin to manage the Central Front in order to mislead the Germans about the real plans of the USSR,” Mikhail Myagkov, chairman of the scientific council of the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO), explained in an interview with RT. “The Wehrmacht knew about the authority of Marshal Zhukov and, of course, had to assume that since such a strong commander was placed at the head of the Central Front, it means that the main forces of the Red Army would be located there.”
- Army General Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov (left)
- RIA News
- Peter Bernstein
The operation near Rzhev under the leadership of Zhukov really began in the second half of November 1942. However, it was not as large-scale as the Abwehr expected, and pursued a strategic plan that was the same as Uranus.
The fact that the Headquarters managed to outwit the Germans is evidenced by the erroneous forecasts of the Wehrmacht commanders. In particular, the head of the Foreign Armies of the East department of the General Staff of the German Ground Forces, Reinhard Gehlen, was sure that the Red Army would inflict the main blow on the 9th Army of the Center group, which was located just near Rzhev, in the fall.
"German Eastern Front more and more convincingly it is confirmed that the point of application of the main efforts of the upcoming operation is in the sector of Army Group Center.<…>The preparation of the enemy for an offensive in the south is not carried out so intensively as to believe that major operation in the south in the near future will begin simultaneously with the expected offensive against Army Group Center, - reported on November 6, 1942 Gehlen.
The head of intelligence of the 9th Army, Colonel Georg Buntrok, reported in a report received by the headquarters of Army Group Center: "The enemy is preparing for a major offensive against the 9th Army, intending to strike from the eastern and western sides of the (Rzhevsky) trapezoid ..."
Buntrock believed that the Red Army was going to "surround the troops stationed in it (trapezoid), destroy the 9th Army, break through the front line, eliminate Army Group Center and consolidate the victory with a triumphant advance to Smolensk and taking it by storm."
Secret "Uranus"
In an interview with RT, Mikhail Myagkov noted that Soviet command made every effort to classify Operation Uranus. According to the expert, the cost of the defeat of the Red Army at Stalingrad was too high. The Soviet army was supposed to deliver a powerful and completely unexpected blow.
“Radio silence was introduced, troop movements were carried out at night, documents on the start of the counteroffensive were written by hand, and not dictated to the machinists. It was also decided to make a distraction in the form of an offensive operation on the Central Front. The Wehrmacht was misinformed about the Red Army's offensive plans and did not expect a serious blow on the Southern Front, ”Myagkov said.
The expert believes that the Headquarters came to the right conclusion, deciding that it was near Stalingrad that a radical turning point in the war with Germany would be made. Success directly on the battlefields of the Red Army was ensured thanks to the improvement of the training system for military personnel. The encirclement of the German group was carried out by trained and well-armed fighters.
“The experience gained by the Soviet army during the two years of the war also played its role, and, importantly, the army learned to interact with different branches and types of troops,” Myagkov explained.
According to the expert, due to the fact that Soviet army for quite a long time held back the onslaught of the enemy, the rear was significantly strengthened, the production of weapons was established, and new formations were formed.
- Soviet soldiers storm a house in Stalingrad, February 1943
- RIA News
- George Zelma
“Sufficient forces were accumulated for a decisive counteroffensive, when soviet soldiers and the officers, remembering the shed blood of their comrades-in-arms, broke the enemy and reached from Stalingrad to Berlin itself. The bet of the Soviet leadership turned out to be correct, and the victory on the southern front really brought success in the war as a whole, ”summed up Myagkov.