Once PzAOK 1 pulled back from the Kuma River, Maslennikov’s armour-cavalry pursuit forces lost contact with the retreating Germans again. The Soviet tank groups were not configured for pursuit operations since they lacked proper support units, which meant that the tankers were dependent upon refuelling from the 9th and 44th Armies, which lagged well to the rear. Only the Soviet cavalry corps, operating on the Kalmyk steppe, was able to maintain pressure on PzAOK 1’s left flank. Yet rather than pursuing Soviet tanks and cavalry, the real problem for the retreating Germans was the icy roads and insufficient fuel. Hundreds of trucks and prime movers that ran out of fuel were blown up during the retreat. By ruthless economizing, PzAOK 1 was able to keep some of its vehicles running by abandoning others. Many disabled tanks were towed by Sd. Kfz. 9 (FAMO) recovery vehicles.{5} As SS-Wiking’s last tanks retreated to the bridge over the Don at Bataisk, they carried their frozen dead with them:
We followed the oil pipeline back to Bataisk. Our dead comrades, whom we could no longer bury, accompanied us to Rostov. In one of the tanks lay Ustuf. Buscher, behind Flugel, the commander of the 2. Kompanie. He was shot in his tank, killed immediately. After a short time he was frozen stiff and it was impossible to extract him from the tank. We had to break his arm before we could remove him, but we did not want to leave him behind.{6}
Von Kleist steadily fell back, occasionally sparring with pursuing Soviet tanks, but also pausing here and there to repair vehicles. On 22 January, Hitler finally agreed to allow part of PzAOK 1 to retreat to Rostov and two days later he changed this to the entire army. Instead, the 17.Armee would retreat into and hold the Kuban bridgehead; this decision, although belated, enabled PzAOK 1 to contribute to shoring up the crumbling German front in the Donbas region instead of becoming isolated in the Kuban. On the night of 7–8 February, the last tank from the 16.Infanterie-Division (mot.) crossed the pontoon bridge over the Don at Bataisk into Rostov; then German pioneers blew up the bridge. Von Kleist had successfully completed a difficult 610km-long winter withdrawal under extremely unfavourable conditions and saved over 150,000 of his troops to fight again another day. Although PzAOK 1 had only suffered 1,455 casualties in January 1943 (including 398 dead or missing), it had been gutted in material terms. The PzAOK 1 had abandoned something like 600 vehicles in the retreat and had fewer than 40 tanks left by the time it reached Rostov; thus von Kleist’s withdrawal was a moral victory for the Germans but a material victory for the Soviets.
The Soviet tank groups did about as well as could be expected of improvised formations, performing well against German infantry units, but much less well whenever German panzers appeared on the battlefield. Lobanov’s group lost 70 tanks (incl. 31 T-34, 15 M3 Lee, 10 Valentines and 14 light tanks) in the month-long pursuit operation and suffered 471 casualties. Filippov’s group lost 30 tanks to enemy action and 29 more to mechanical faults. Both tank groups had accomplished their immediate tactical purposes and were disbanded after the Germans evacuated the Caucasus, with remaining units returned to infantry support duties. The Stavka had realized its goal of recovering all of the Caucasus except for the Kuban, and reduced PzAOK 1 to a decimated horde of refugees.
The End at Stalingrad, 1 January–2 February 1943
After the failure of Operation Wintergewitter on 19 December 1942, Generaloberst Friedrich Paulus knew that the fate of his encircled 6.Armee at Stalingrad was sealed. While he still had 201,000 troops in 6.Armee, the Luftwaffe’s failure to meet expectations with its airlift meant that Paulus’ troops were not receiving even one-third of the food, fuel and ammunition required to sustain combat capability. Instead, the 6.Armee was consigned to a slow death by cold and starvation, which sapped the troops’ will to fight. Amazingly, Paulus’ armoured units still had 94 operational tanks and 31 assault guns at the beginning of January, although many of these vehicles were damaged. Since no spare parts were coming in by air, tanks and assault guns could only be kept functional by cannibalizing damaged vehicles; this stop-gap method kept some armour in the fight but gradually reduced much of the armour in the pocket to spare parts bins. Fuel was in very short supply, but 6.Armee was still able to issue 6 cbm (30,000 litres) of petrol on 30 December 1942, which was enough to provide limited mobility to its armoured vehicles.{7} Ammunition was also in short supply, but by taking ammunition from inoperative AFVs, the remaining tanks and assault guns likely still had 30–40 rounds each. Yet as the Red Army began to overrun one Luftwaffe airfield involved in the airlift after another – and the daily supply tonnage dropped to miniscule levels – the 6.Armee had to depend more upon the 300-odd anti-tank guns and 8.8cm flak guns still in the pocket, which were less dependent upon fuel but equally short of ammunition.
On 1 January 1943, the 6.Armee held a perimeter which was 53km long from east-west and 35km wide from north to south. Except for the urban terrain in Stalingrad, most of the 6.Armee’s units were deployed on flat, treeless terrain that offered little cover. Daily temperatures hovered around 15–20 degrees F, but at night they dropped well below 0 degrees F, which caused plenty of frostbite casualties among infantrymen and tankers. Deep snow cover restricted mobility within the pocket. The key terrain within the pocket was the Pitomnik and Gumrak airfields, both near the centre. Even though Heeresgruppe Don’s forces were in full retreat away from Stalingrad, Paulus kept 6.Armee deployed as if relief was still coming, with General der Panzertruppe Hans-Valentin Hube’s XIV Panzerkorps holding the vulnerable Marinovka salient jutting out to the southwest. Hube placed two of his motorized infantry divisions in the salient with 46 panzers.{8} Paulus kept the 14.Panzer-Division in reserve, supporting the VIII Armeekorps’ defence of the western side of the pocket. The rest of 6.Armee’s armour was deployed on the northern side of the pocket, with General der Infanterie Karl Strecker’s XI Armeekorps; the Soviets had been continuously attacking here in the Kotluban sector since September. Paulus reorganized his army for defence, dug-in and waited for the inevitable.
The Stavka had assigned General-polkovnik Konstantin K. Rokossovsky’s Don Front the honour of destroying the trapped 6.Armee in Stalingrad, while the South and Southwest Fronts dealt with von Manstein’s Heeresgruppe Don. Rokossovsky’s ramshackle command included seven different-numbered armies whose subordinate units included 281,000 troops in 35 rifle divisions and 13 rifle brigades. Rokossovsky’s infantry was worn out after months of fighting in Stalingrad, with most units reduced to 40–60 strength. Likewise, the Don Front’s armoured strength was modest, since most of the available armour had gone to support the flanking attacks against the Romanians in November, then to stop the German relief effort in December. Rokossovsky had just four tank brigades, four tank regiments and one OTB, with barely 100 operational tanks spread across seven armies. In addition, the Don Front’s logistic situation was only slightly better than that of the trapped 6.Armee, with infantrymen and tankers in forward areas subsisting on minimal rations. Consequently, the Don Front did not have a significant numerical superiority over the 6.Armee and the depleted condition of Rokossovsky’s forces suggested a protracted battle of attrition to finish off Paulus’ army.