It took Eremenko a few days to bring up the rest of his two armies, but on 3 January he sent the 2nd Guards Mechanized Corps and 3rd Guards Tank Corps against the 17. Panzer-Division, while the 6th Mechanized Corps reinforced Tanaschishin for an assault upon Zimovniki. General-major Aleksei P. Sharagin’s 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps was sent to envelop Wiking’s eastern flank, forcing them to extend their front. Although the 17. Panzer-Division managed to destroy about 17 Soviet tanks, Kirchner was forced to refuse both his left and right flanks to prevent from being encircled. Reinforced by part of the SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Germania, the Wiking managed to hold Zimovniki until 7 January when mounting pressure on both flanks forced Kirchner to retreat 25-km south to Kuberle. It was at Kuberle that SS-Sturmbannführer Johannes-Rudolf Mühlenkamp’s SS-Panzer-Abteilung 5 finally arrived. Yet no sooner had Mühlenkamp’s panzers driven into Kuberle than the SS-Wiking Division received a report that Soviet infantry had cut the rail line behind them at Orlivskiy. Although the 23. Panzer-Division was supposed to be screening the area east of the rail line to Proletarskaya, its positions were so thinly spread that they had failed to detect a battalion of Sharagin’s 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps getting around behind the SS-Wiking Division. When the Soviet infantry entered Orlivskiy on the morning of 8 January there were only rear-echelon troops there and they quickly retreated, leaving the Soviets in control of half the town. Mühlenkamp’s panzers were immediately ordered back to Orlivskiy to clear the Soviet raiding party but by the time that they arrived, a local counter-attack by an engineer unit had chased off the Soviets; the SS tankers were then ordered to drive back to Kuberle – an exhausting back-and-forth effort that exhausted both men and tanks. On the icy roads in the dark, the panzers were only capable of making 3–4km/hour, which meant that Mühlenkamp’s panzers spent over 24 hours driving to and fro to no purpose.
Meanwhile, the main body of Sharagin’s 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps (3GMC) advanced westward along the north side of the Manych, heading for Proletarskaya. Sharagin’s corps had only been in action for two weeks and was close to full strength, although it did not have sufficient trucks for its nine infantry battalions. Despite frequent snow showers, Luftwaffe reconnaissance spotted Sharagin’s forces 40km east of Proletarskaya and alerted Generalmajor Nikolaus von Vormann, who had just taken command of the 23. Panzer-Division. This Panzer-Division was in exceedingly poor condition, having just 19 operational tanks in Panzer-Regiment 201 and 4 SPW in the I./Panzergrenadier-Regiment 128.{15} Indeed, the division was so short of infantry that it had been forced to create two ad hoc infantry companies from dismounted tankers. Ammunition and fuel stocks were extremely low. Nevertheless, von Vormann realized that his forces were too weak to defend against a full-strength Soviet mechanized corps, so he opted to attack instead. Both Tiger companies from s. Panzer-Abteilung 503 were attached to von Vormann’s division. The other Tiger company, 2./s. Pz.-Abt. 502 was sent north to Kuberle to assist the 17. Panzer-Division’s rearguard.{16}
On 5 January, both Kampfgruppe Bachmann (Pz. Regt. 201) and Kampfgruppe Post (17 Tigers and 20 Pz III from s. Pz.-Abt. 503) conducted probing attacks eastward and encountered strong resistance from the vanguard of Sharagin’s corps near the village of Stavropol.{17} The next day, von Vormann mounted a deliberate assault upon the Soviet mechanized brigade in Stavropol, with the Tigers mounting a frontal assault while Kampfgruppe Bachmann enveloped the town. The Luftwaffe managed to provide a few Stukas to support the attack, but the Tigers received only limited infantry and artillery support. The attack on Stavropol was noteworthy as the first major combat experience of the Tiger tank on the Eastern Front and the first time that the Germans encountered the new-style Soviet mechanized corps on the defence. In between snow squalls, the Tigers moved across the flat terrain toward the town in several wedge formations, with a thin screen of dismounted infantrymen following. The Soviet mechanized brigade in Stavropol had about 20–25 tanks in support, as well as a battalion of 76.2mm cannons and 12 45mm anti-tank guns. The Soviet 76.2mm guns succeeded in destroying one of the Pz IIIs and inflicted heavy losses on the German infantry, but could not stop the Tigers. Instead, the Tigers knocked out 13 Soviet tanks and several artillery pieces. However, it was the outflanking manoeuvre by the Pz IIIs and Pz IVs of Kampfgruppe Bachmann that forced the Soviet mechanized brigade to retreat. The next day, Kampfgruppe Bachmann continued to pursue the defeated Soviet brigade eastward but by 8 January it had nearly exhausted its supplies; Panzer-Regiment 201 was reduced to just 3–4 Panzergranate rounds and 300 machinegun rounds per tank and about 140 litres of fuel – just enough to make it back to Proletarskaya.{18}
While von Vormann was pushing one of Sharagin’s brigades back, the others were pushing into the centre of 23. Panzer-Division’s sector near the village of Vessely. Without Bachmann’s panzers, von Vormann’s command post was nearly overrun and Sharagin’s infantry and tanks threatened to split the LVII Panzerkorps’ defence. Von Vormann ordered an immediate attack against the Soviet force in Vessely, including the Tigers from Kampfgruppe Post and the exhausted Kampfgruppe Bachmann. At 0930 hours on 9 January, the German counter-attack began with 11 Tigers and 12 Pz III Ausf N lumbering across the open steppe toward Vessely. Indeed, the Tigers were moving across the snowy terrain at just 10km per hour – little more than the British Mark V tank in the First World War. However, in the 24 hours since taking the village, Sharagin had reinforced the mechanized brigade here with additional tanks, artillery and anti-tank guns, which gave the Germans a warm welcome. Amazingly, the first German assault was repulsed and the accompanying German infantry suffered crippling losses. Undeterred, von von Vormann personally ordered a second assault and a third – both of which were repulsed. While the Tigers managed to destroy eight T-34s over the course of the 6-hour battle, two Tigers were knocked out by 76.2mm fire and all the rest suffered considerable damage. In addition, 2 Pz III Ausf N were destroyed and seven more damaged.{19} One Tiger was hit 11 times by 76.2mm fire and 14 times by 57mm; although the fighting compartment was not penetrated, the tank was reduced to a wreck. Bachmann’s panzers also suffered heavy losses and were reduced to just seven operational tanks.{20} The German panzer counter-attack at Vessely was a costly fiasco that reduced both the 23. Panzer-Division and s. Pz.-Abt. 503 to combat ineffectiveness. Sharagin’s mechanized troops had won an impressive defensive victory which did not go unnoticed by the Stavka.
Von Vormann wasn’t willing to accept defeat and when a trainload of replacement tanks arrived in Salsk, he used them and the last two Tigers to form a new armoured spearhead, Kampfgruppe von Winning. On 11 January, Kampfgruppe von Winning succeeded in eliminating most of a Soviet artillery battalion west of Vessely, but at the same time Sharagin’s corps was overrunning the 23. Panzer-Division’s SPW battalion to the south, at Krasny Skotovod. Kampfgruppe von Winning re-oriented southward and the next day launched a major counter-attack against the Soviet mechanized brigade at Krasny Skotovod. Despite receiving fire support from 23. Panzer-Division’s entire artillery regiment and two Stukas, the attack was a failure. Not only did the Soviet mechanized brigade retain the town, but it was now apparent that Kirchner’s LVII Panzerkorps could no longer remain north of the Manych River much longer. Over the next few days, the panzers, assault guns and remaining infantry conducted a delaying action back to Proletarskaya. The 2./s. Panzer-Abteilung 502, supporting the 17. Panzer-Division, knocked out 11 Soviet tanks but was reduced to just 3 operational Tigers. On 14 January the 17. Panzer-Division pulled south of the Manych, followed by the 23. Panzer-Division on 16 January. During the retreat, Kirchner’s LVII Panzerkorps destroyed hundreds of vehicles that could not be repaired or were immobilized by lack of fuel. In the harsh winter weather, the retreat was hazardous and Mühlenkamp’s SS-Panzer-Abteilung 5 lost three Pz IIIs that slid off the road into ditches and had to be abandoned.{21} Once the rest of Kirchner’s corps had crossed the 1,000-meter wide Manych, the SS-Wiking Division, reinforced with the last 2 operational Tigers, deployed into a hedgehog to defend the bridgehead at Proletarskaya as long as possible.