Huddled beside his burning tank, the adjutant detected a T-34 tank hidden behind one of the houses and watched as one of the Tigers entered the battle:
About 80 meters to one side of us, a Tiger crawled up the hill… The Tiger had hardly made it up the hill when there was a huge explosion, and light and debris flew all around us. When we looked up, we saw a gouge in the Tiger’s turret a meter square in area. But at the same time we saw its 8.8cm gun move and point to the target like a finger. A stream of fire came out of it. Half of the house flew away, and we got a clear view of a burning enemy tank with its turret blown off… From the edge of the entire town, two dozen T-34s emerged from their hiding places.{57}
The Tiger, soon joined by its partner, picked off eight of the T-34s, causing the others to turn and flee. After the village was secured, the LSSAH troops found no less than 56 enemy anti-tank guns in the area – a startling indicator that Soviet defensive capabilities were steadily improving and that traditional Panzer attacks were becoming more costly to execute. Although the LSSAH managed to get across the Mzha River without too much difficulty, one Tiger broke through the ice and could not be recovered for several days.
On 7 March, the LSSAH closed in on the heavily-fortified town of Valkiy, held by 49th Guards Rifle Division, and was forced to conduct numerous small set-piece attacks against outlying villages. In one action, the LSSAH Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung attacked an anti-tank position in the village of Balki, where one StuG-III crew discovered the dangers of ‘throwing track’ while under fire:
Only down at the collective farm [Kolkhoz] headquarters, where there was evidently a commissar leading the resistance, was there even the weakest attempt at defence. Geschütz 234 moved out toward it, all its weapons firing away. It rolled right over the anti-tank gun, wound its way through the smoldering farm, dead Soviets lying everywhere, and suddenly got stuck in the meter-high snow, which had lifted the track off the drive wheel. The driver slammed it into reverse to pull up the track, which was still resting on the [return] rollers. Exactly the opposite happened. The track fell off the drive wheel completely, and the sticky snow, which had lodged itself between the rollers and the bogie wheels, began to push it off all along the way. Ivan spotted something now. An anti-tank gun began to fire, and the riflemen began to work their way forward in little groups, protected by the ruins of the town. Our men could still defend themselves with high-explosive shells and the on-board machinegun, but the ammunition supply was rapidly dwindling. In addition, those weapons only provided frontal support; once the enemy got into their dead space, the situation would get risky. Support could not be expected, for the radio equipment was out of order. On top of that, no one had noticed in the stormy advance that the Batterie had not followed. The only solution: jump out and try to get back to the Batterie.{58}
The StuG-III crewmen managed to run back to their unit and soon thereafter, successfully towed the immobilized assault gun under fire and brought it to a friendly assembly area. Well-trained crews can hook up tow cables in seconds, although if the final drive is not disconnected – which requires opening the back deck – the transmission will likely be damaged when the vehicle is towed.
Once the SS-Panzerkorps broke through the Soviet defences south of Kharkov, it swung to the west and began to envelop the city while von Knobelsdorff’s XXXXVIII Panzerkorps advanced toward the eastern side of the city with the 6. and 11.Panzer-Divisionen. Hoth hoped to encircle the city and avoid sending his mechanized forces into urban combat, but Hausser and his troops were eager to avenge their earlier retreat from the city. Between 10–14 March, Hausser’s SS-Panzerkorps fought its way into Kharkov and gradually overcame the uncoordinated Soviet resistance in vicious street fighting. On 14 March, the city was in German hands and Golikov’s shattered Voronezh Front was in headlong retreat. Rybalko’s 3TA was effectively destroyed.
After securing Kharkov, the third phase of von Manstein’s counter-offensive began with the advance north toward Belgorod. The spring thaw was beginning, melting some snow and turning the roads into deep mud. Von Manstein wanted to seize as many follow-on objectives as possible before the weather and eventual Soviet reinforcements could halt his advance. It was Großdeutschland which made the most progress, smashing into Kazakov’s battered 69th Army and rolling it up with a one-division mini-Blitzkrieg. On 13 March, the Großdeutschland captured Borisovka, east of Belgorod. Golikov brought Kravchenko’s understrength 5GTC over to stop the Großdeutschland’s advance as well as the 3rd Guards Tank Corps. The Stavka even provided Golikov with Badanov’s 2nd Guards Tank Corps (formerly the 24th Tank Corps), which had been virtually destroyed in the Tatsinskaya Raid in December 1942; although re-equipped, this formation was unready for combat. The Graf Strachwitz’s well-trained panzer crews destroyed these ill-trained Soviet units piecemeal in a series of actions between 13–18 March that were reminiscent of the heady days of Barbarossa, except for the mud; the Panzer-Regiment Großdeutschland claimed 128 Soviet tanks destroyed in this period. In one action, the enemy simply abandoned their tanks and Großdeutschland captured 15 intact T-34s. Although outnumbered 3–1 or worse, Strachwitz’s panzers completely outclassed their opposition and, unlike the Waffen-SS tankers, knew how to keep their own losses down with proper battlefield reconnaissance. On the night of 14–15 March, the Großdeutschland detected an impending Soviet armoured counter-attack and Strachwitz deployed his panzers in ambush near Borisovka, as related by a German tank platoon leader:
After a quick briefing of the tank commanders on the distribution of fire, radio silence was ordered. The platoon leader gave the order to open fire only on his command. Critical minutes now followed. Barely 1,000 meters away the diesel engines of enemy tanks suddenly roared to life. It wasn’t just the sounds of two or five tanks – there had to be many more.
The morning of 15 March 1943 dawned; the roar of engines slowly drew nearer. The tank commanders spotted the outlines of the first T-34s over on the road. The gunners at their sights were already restless, but in the twilight they could not yet see their targets clearly. They held their breath and sighed with relief when the first T-34 entered their field of view. All the while the loader crouched tensely by his gun, a shell in his hands, two more clamped between his legs; for every second counted… There were already five T-34s in the field of view. Unsuspectingly, the T-34s ground through the snow and mud. Seven were already visible, and their broadsides were too tempting for the gunners.