There were also other factors that could have influenced the decisions. Both the 5th Guards and 6th Tank Armies were stretched thin already on 28 January, and Kravchenko was about to lose half his mobile force. The Soviet commanders did not have a considerable force available to pursue an attack on Uman, and they could not know for sure that the Germans had little strength available to stop an advance towards that target.
The unstable weather, a mixture of snow, rain, and thaws, must also be taken into consideration as an argument against a Soviet advance on Uman. It was possible that the forces would be delayed on the roads, just when they might be desperately needed elsewhere. All factors considered, it seems that the Soviet choice to keep a defensive line to the south was cautious but realistic, especially if they based their decisions on an inflated picture of the strength of the surrounded German force. Thus Vatutin and Konev allotted the forces they deemed sufficient to hold the outer defense ring, and tried to reduce the pocket as soon as possible.
With the 40th, 53rd, 5th Guards Tank, and 6th Tank Armies allocated to the outer ring, Vatutin could use the 27th Army to cover the cauldron, while Konev gave the same task to the 4th Guards and 52nd Armies. Neither the 27th, nor the 52nd Armies were particularly strong initially. The 4th Guards Army was undoubtedly the largest, having seven divisions on 29 January, compared to three each for the other two armies.282
But the mere fact that the divisions were available was not at all the same thing as having them in place. On the morning of 29 January, the bulk of 4th Guards Army had not advanced far from the initial position it held on 25 January, and the 52nd Army had not advanced at all. The area where the 5th Guards Tank Army had penetrated was still contested, which in fact meant that most of the forces Konev had designated to the inner encirclement ring would have to fight their way to create the desired inner ring around the pocket.
Vatutin’s forces had made better progress. The 27th Army had reached the outskirts of Steblev and Shenderovka, which meant that almost one third of the distance that separated the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts had been covered. However, the difficulties of keeping the units sufficiently supplied with fuel, ammunition, and other necessities, as well as the fact that 27th Army for the moment only had two divisions available on this sector, excluded the possibility that the 1st Ukrainian Front could push much further to the southeast. It was imperative that Konev’s armies make more progress.
As we have seen, on 27 January the German 11th Panzer Division managed to cut off the 20th and 29th Tank Corps from their comrades further to the east. Rotmistrov instructed the two tank corps to continue towards Zvenigorodka, and ordered the 18th Tank Corps and the 5th Guards Cavalry Corps to reopen the communications cut by the German 11th Panzer Division. The first attempt by the two Soviet corps, on 28 January, may hardly be described as successful. They did manage to poke some holes in the German blocking position, but it is certainly an exaggeration to claim that a corridor had been reopened.
The arrival of substantial Soviet reinforcements eventually turned the scales.283 On 29 January the Soviet grip on the Turiya–Pisarevka area tightened, even though the German I./Pz.Rgt. 26 Panther battalion clung to hill 205.4 west of Pisarevka, and fired upon Soviet tanks and other troops that tried to advance west. The German tanks inflicted substantial losses on the Soviet units, but the Panthers also received many hits, even though only one tank was lost. Eventually the German commanders had to acknowledge that the Soviet defenses had become too strong in the Kapitanovka region. In a discussion with Wöhler, von Vormann suggested that the 14th Panzer Division should for the moment be split. Its 108th Panzer Grenadier Regiment was already cut off north of Kapitanovka, and von Vormann’s intention was to subordinate the other Panzer grenadier regiment to 3rd Panzer Division, which would extend its front further to the west. The armored battle group of 14th Panzer Division would be placed under 11th Panzer Division, which in turn should shift further west, to try to cut off the Soviet spearheads by attacking west of Turiya. Wöhler agreed with von Vormann, who quickly briefed his division commanders. The Germans also pulled back the tanks of 11th Panzer Division, which had held a position between the I./Pz.Rgt. 26 and Kampfgruppe von Brese.284
With the corridor at Kapitanovka gradually being cleared, Konev considered how to use his forces effectively. The 18th Tank Corps, which had been fighting on the southern shoulder of the corridor, was to continue forward, to link up with the rest of 5th Guards Tank Army. The 5th Guards Cavalry corps was sent northwest, to create a solid ring around the two surrounded German corps. This maneuver constituted an important step in the process of constricting the cut-off German forces.285
Once the bottleneck had been secured, the Guards Cavalry was directed towards Shpola, with the intention that it should turn north as soon as that town had been reached. Between Kapitanovka and Shenderovka there was a large gap, with only scattered units on either side. This was both a problem and an opportunity. If the Germans could assemble strong forces from the two surrounded corps, they might break the encirclement. On the other hand, if the Soviets could use the opportunity, they could strike towards Korsun and perhaps split the pocket into smaller parts, a task suited to cavalry. It would take a day or two for the Guards Cavalry Corps, commanded by Major-General Selivanov, to reach Shpola, but assuming that the situation remained static, the chance of splitting the pocket was a tempting one for the Soviet commanders.286
The staff of XXXXVII Panzer Corps had little reason to rejoice during the afternoon of 29 January. At noon the Rossokhovatka–Reyementarovka line had been abandoned and positions further south had been occupied. Still, the Germans had some overview of the area where the Red Army was advancing west. At 14.20hrs approximately 1,500 horsemen, accompanied by T-34 tanks, were observed moving west from Pisarevka. The German observers directed artillery fire on the column, but could not do anything else. Somewhat later the Germans observed intense supply traffic heading west, in the Ositnyazhka–Pisarivka area, but with the increasing darkness there was little they could do. Clearly the 2nd Ukrainian Front had opened the route to its spearheads at Zvenigorodka. Another cause for concern was Kampfgruppe von Brese, which had been cut off for a couple of days. It received orders to try to move to Zhuravka, so that it could cooperate with the 11th Panzer Division, which had been tasked with chasing the Soviet units northwest of Novo Mirgorod.287
The mood was hardly better among the staff of 8th Army. Already at 00.35hrs on 29 January, the XI Corps reported that Soviet forces had broken into Tashlyk, near the junction between the 389th and 72nd Divisions. During the morning fighting continued, but before noon the Germans had lost Tashlyk and left the mopping up of the village to the Red Army. Major Norbert Bittl, a staff officer from 8th Army, was ordered to fly into Korsun, to get an up-to-date report on the situation there. The heavy clouds and intermittent rain showers that had dominated the morning had settled so that the aircraft landed safely at Korsun. Major Bittl’s flight probably offered encouragement to the officers trapped inside the pocket, but his aircraft was not the only one to arrive. Before noon, 23 Ju-52s had landed at Korsun, bringing badly needed supplies and heralding the beginning of the airlift operation that was instrumental in keeping the soldiers inside the pocket supplied with ammunition and fuel.288