Mostrovskiy fell a little after noon, and a company of Wiking motorcycle infantry started up the road, pursuing scattered elements of the 167th Rifle Division, which was now retreating north. The Russians were then bolstered by the engineer units Rokossovsky had sent, desperately trying to block the road about 2 kilometers south of the bridge. By late afternoon, the Westland Regiment was ready to move forward, and all the heavy guns of 11th Army reserve thundered out the renewed attack.
By evening the attack by the Wiking Division would coalesce and become unstoppable. They took on anything Rokossovsky sent, grinding them up one unit at a time with a methodical efficiency. Had this division been at full strength, it would have cut through the enemy lines in a matter of hours. As it was, with unit ranks down to 50% or less in many instances, it took time to burn through, but the outcome was not in doubt. A little after midnight, they had recon companies probing just outside Golubinskaya.
As General Rodin had warned, this breakthrough was now compromising the position of the 2nd Volga Rifle Division on the other side of the Don. Engaged by the German 102nd Infantry, it had held the line like a rock, but now it would be forced to fight a withdrawal. The unit fell back towards Ryumino, having to move around a marshy inroad from the Don as they did so. They arrived south of that town just as a company of armored cars from Das Reich was approaching. That company was not going any further, and the Volga Rifles took up blocking positions, ready for anything else the Germans sent against them.
East of the Don, the Soviet 64th Army had been under attack by both 1st and 2nd SS Divisions, just as Manstein had planned it. The Germans had but one infantry division on the east side of the river, the 102nd, and it was facing off against the last division of the Volga Rifles. General Friesner’s troops had only intended to lean on the Soviets there, knowing he did not have the strength to break through. It would be enough to engage and pin down the 2nd Volga Rifles, perhaps the best division the Soviets still had on the line in that sector. His men did that job—until the Russians decided they had to leave. Then the hardened veterans of so many years fighting against Volkov’s troops simply executed a perfect tactical withdrawal under fire, and Friesner was powerless to stop them.
Das Reich threw itself against the Soviet 49th Rifle Division and the 12th division to its right. Taking on two divisions, the early going was slow, though one regiment of the12th Rifles had been overrun and surrounded by mid-morning. The Russians responded by sending in the 53rd Rifle Brigade, which they had in reserve, but the real crisis was further east in the 1st SS sector. The 247th Rifle Division took the full brunt of the Leibstandarte attack, which was pushing up a good road. 112th Tank Brigade was posted there, and as it moved south in response to the attack, a sharp engagement ensued, with the German Pz-IV F2s and new Panthers slugging it out with T-34s.Where the Pz-IIIs had been outgunned, these two newer German tanks were both more than capable of taking on the Soviet tanks.
In the midst of that firefight, 2nd Panzergrenadier Regiment veered right as planned, where they soon ran into the local 75th NKVD Brigade that had been watching the front just behind the outer crust of 64th Army’s lines. Stubborn on defense, and with a good number of machineguns in the NKVD unit, the advance was held up for several hours, then eventually bypassed as the Leibstandarte turned further east, only to run into the 132nd NKVD MG Brigade.
The fighting often pulls a unit in a direction it had not intended to go. As 1st SS made that move east, the entanglements with those two NKVD brigades and the Soviet 25th Engineer Battalion forced it to turn north to deal with that resistance. On its right, the Brandenburgers had broken through, and so now the Germans executed a tactical decision in the field that would change Manstein’s plan.
“We’ll be another two or three hours dealing with these damn NKVD troops,” said Sepp Dietrich when he reported to Steiner. “Then we can move northeast again.”
“Don’t bother,” said Steiner. “Beckermann’s Brandenburg Division has already broken through. Grossdeutschland has the enemy line fully engaged, and Beckermann’s troops are spilling over the top of that line like water over a dam. He already has troops approaching Spadnovka, which is just twelve kilometers from the rail line we want to cut. So do this—build two Kampfgruppes and send one up the road to Hill 259. That will put you on the outside edge of the envelopment Das Reich is fighting to achieve.”
“And the second Kampfgruppe?” asked Dietrich.
“Send it up the secondary road to Peskovatka. The two shock columns will be moving parallel to one another as you move north. Once you get Pestkovatka, reconnoiter towards Vertyachi. I’ll scrounge up some bridge battalions and send them up that road. Look over the river for a suitable crossing point.”
“You want me on the west bank of the Don?”
“Not just yet, but I want the option to send you there if the situation warrants.”
“Very well. I still have two regiments of the 247th Rifle Division blocking that main road. They’ll have to be dealt with tonight.”
Dietrich was a practical man, and a daring one when dash and nerve was needed. He would take this assignment in hand like any other, and see what fruit he could shake from the tree.
The Brandenburg Division, he thought as he stepped into his staff car outside Steiner’s HQ. They get the glory and the open field running. I get this turning movement to a place I had never intended to go. Well, let me see if we can get to Vertyachi first. That may yield some opportunities. But now our two divisions will be moving in different directions. Who will fill the gap that develops? That will be Steiner’s problem. I had better get back to division and form those kampfgruppes.
As he made his way back over the bridge at Kalach, the radio man. Lieutenant Fuchs in the back seat, began to seem edgy. He was listening to traffic on his headset, a linguist who could speak Russian so he could sample the random traffic from the airwaves in a fight like this. It often gave a good sense of what the enemy was up to, and now he leaned forward with a warning in his eyes.
“Herr General,” he said. “A lot of traffic on the radio, it’s suddenly very heavy.”
“Hunting foxes again?” said Dietrich. “Hopefully they are orders to retreat.”
“No sir,” said Fuchs. “I get tone of voice as much as anything else. This is an attack. Something big is up tonight.”
“Steiner said there was unusual movement in the forward lines west of the Don,” said Dietrich. “The rifle divisions have been probing more aggressively.”
“Well sir, I’ve listened in on Rifle Corps traffic for a good long while. Not many radios in those units. This is something more. I think they have armor.”
“Can you pick out any unit names?” asked Dietrich.
“They never use direct division names,” said Fuchs. “It’s always Red Star One or Red Banner Three—that sort of thing. Herr General, there’s a lot of red banners in the wind tonight.”