To begin with, there had been no disaster at Stalingrad. Manstein pulled his best Panzer Divisions out of the fight for Volgograd, and sent in ten infantry divisions. When those troops had reduced the Soviet defense there to a tiny strip along the Volga near the factory district, he then turned over the whole operation to Volkov. All those divisions, along with many extracted from the Voronezh pocket, were now the forces he commanded in the Caucasus. That campaign had achieved startling results, overwhelming the weary and supply starved divisions the Soviets had left behind there, and then driving Volkov’s forces all the way to edge of Groznyy.
The German army had proved itself to be a potent and dangerous force. It had not taken the staggering losses it sustained in the real history at Stalingrad, and instead of desperately trying to patch together a front that had been completely shattered between November of 1942 and February of 1943, Manstein commanded forces and lines of battle that were solid, well provisioned, and backed by strong reserves.
In the real history, the SS Panzer Korps was only now beginning to form as a strong cohesive fighting force that it would become, but in these Altered States, Steiner had commanded those divisions from the outset of Operation Blue, driving all the way to Volgograd, and then forming the backbone of the defense against Zhukov’s winter offensives. He had a hardened and highly skilled force, and for the last month his three remaining divisions had been in reserve, receiving new tanks, equipment and replacements.
So the Spring of 1943 found the German army unbroken, raging through the Middle East, and yet still as strong as ever on the Ostfront. Paulus was alive and well, and his 6th Army had never died the agonizing death it experienced at Stalingrad. That saved 40 German and Axis allied divisions from destruction, and made a major difference in the prospects for 1943. Even as Manstein focused his own attention to the battle in the Caucasus, the Don Front was strongly held by good German divisions, with a few weak spots that had been filled by Luftwaffe Field divisions formed into several Korps. The whole region was still looking for a definitive battle that might form a turning point in this campaign, and both sides were churning through possible offensive plans for the Spring.
Through the long winter months of January and February, the opposing armies had dug in and worked to replenish their forces. Now the Russians were again ready to go on the attack, and Zhukov had outlined a grand offensive scheme he wanted to launch in April. The plan was both daring and complex, and it would test the limits of the Soviet commanders’ ability to coordinate large mobile forces in the field over multiple fronts.
He met with Sergei Kirov and his intelligence Chief Berzin at their headquarters in Leningrad to explain the plan. “Kharkov,” he said at the outset. “That is the primary objective.”
“Not Rostov?” said Kirov.
“Old hat,” the General replied quickly. “We’ll return to that sector in good time, but we must have Kharkov if we are to ever have any chance of getting over the Dnieper.”
“The Dnieper? Isn’t that a far reach for us now?”
“It is, but it must remain the primary strategic objective of our effort this year. We tried to liberate the Donbass last year, but failed; so now we will strike the line farther north. The liberation of Ukraine will begin by seizing one of its greatest cities, Kharkov.”
“Show me how you want to proceed,” said Kirov, gesturing to the table map.
“Very well,” said Zhukov. “Manstein is deep in the Caucasus choking Ivan Volkov, and that is a gift we never expected to receive in this war. While the political situation has ruled out alliance with Volkov, given the military reality of the situation, that is what we have now. Our forces cannot coordinate with each other, but we have one common enemy, and so we must take every advantage of that. Last winter, our forces were strongly concentrated here after the reduction of the Voronezh pocket.” Zhukov pointed to the region southwest of Voronezh near Kursk. “We pushed hard for Bryansk, but the winter conditions prevented any real concerted effort. Now, with the Spring, we are ready to try again, only this time, it will be Kharkov.”
“With Rokossovsky?”
“Correct… And Vatutin.”
“Can we manage an offensive from two fronts at the same time?
“We will soon find out, but I have I have every confidence that we can succeed. To begin with, this is not the army the Germans defeated with their Operation Barbarossa. Both our Generals, and the troops they now command, have gained much experience, particularly in the use of our armor. Last year we enjoyed one advantage in that our tanks were found to be superior to those of the enemy. They hit harder, moved faster over open terrain, and we were able to get them out in sufficient numbers to matter. Our Tank Corps concept was only just being introduced at the time of the Tula operation, now it has been adopted across the entire army. We no longer operate the armor in packets embedded within the Rifle Division armies. Now over 80% are fielded in these new Tank and Mech Corps.”
“So the task is to learn how to coordinate them in an offensive,” said Kirov.
“Correct, but we cannot yet fight as the Germans do.”
“What do you mean?”
“They avoid frontal engagements, concentrate everything at the point of penetration, and often utilize the strategy of the double envelopment to create a battle of encirclement.”
“Yes,” said Kirov with a shrug, “a million of our soldiers learned that they hard way.”
“We cannot fight as they do,” said Zhukov. “Our strategy must be adapted to the structure of the army, the capabilities of our soldiers and Generals, the terrain we fight on, and our objectives. So I have begun to attack on a broad front, with multiple thrusts, or perhaps one or two larges offensive pushes. The Germans fight to destroy our forces, and do not mandate terrain objectives. They gain ground only after destroying our armies, as we have seen. By contrast, we are fighting to liberate the Soviet Union, and so recapturing terrain is our principle objective, and we seek to destroy the enemy because he opposes us as we pursue that purpose. They seek a decisive decision with each operation, we instead seek to wear our enemy down by mass and attrition. This is why we pushed to develop more artillery. Now our armies will be supported by two or three times the number of guns in our offensives compared to 1941. We break through with the shock of those guns and the massing of our armor.”
“But they have managed to stop us at every turn.”
“True, but they pay a price for that. While they are rapidly introducing new and better tanks, their forces are now fighting on many fronts, and it is no longer easy for them to concentrate for big offensives. So our strategy must be to keep up relentless pressure, and this is why we attack in the south. There the terrain is broken by a series of parallel river barriers, the Don, Donets, and Dnieper. Our plan is to attack on a broad front, but with concentration in key areas to achieve breakthrough and threaten envelopment of their forces. Their natural defense would be to withdraw to the next defensible position—the next river—which then gives us all the terrain between those two walls of water. Our objective here is to move from the Don to the Donets, and liberate everything in between.”
“We could not do that in the south last year.” Kirov remained understandably skeptical.
“True, but things have changed. Their invasion of the Caucasus took twenty divisions with it, and many will have to stay there for some time. Last November we tried out the concept of the massed Shock Group—multiple armies focused on a strong concentric thrust. They stopped us, but had to use their very best mobile divisions to do so. This time we play out that strategy with multiple thrusts, aiming to overtax their defense.”