Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front, 1941–1942 by Robert Forczyk

Author:Robert Forczyk [Forczyk, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War II
ISBN: 9781473834439
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2014-02-24T06:00:00+00:00

Guderian Tries for Tula, 22 October–30 November

After two weeks of inactivity at Mtensk, Guderian struggled to get his Panzerarmee 2 back into the fight in the last days of October. Aside from a paucity of fuel and ammunition, he only had two panzer divisions from von Schweppenburg’s XXIV Armeekorps (mot.) to continue the advance toward Tula. The Bryank Front’s 26th Army erected a stout defense around Mtensk based upon the 6th Guards Rifle Division and the 11th Tank Brigade. Kempf’s XXXXVIIII Armeekorps (mot.) was advancing due east toward Kursk while Lemelsen’s XXXXVII Armeekorps (mot.) was immobilized around Bryansk and Orel for lack of fuel. Determined to push back the Bryansk Front’s 26th Army covering forces north of Mtensk, Guderian and von Schweppenburg prepared a deliberate attack to break out of the Mtensk bridgehead on 22 October. Guderian decided to mass his remaining armour in Kampfgruppe Eberbach, which was given the 6.Panzer-Regiment from 3.Panzer-Division and I./Pz.Regt 18 from the 18.Panzer-Division, giving him six Panzer-Abteilungen with about 150 tanks. After initial efforts to break out out of the Mtensk bridgehead directly failed, Guderian reverted to the standard formula of a flanking maneuver by sending Kampfgruppe Eberbach to cross the Zusha River west of Mtensk near Roshenez. On the night of 21–22 October, several companies of schUtzen crossed the 40-meter-wide Zusha river in rubber boats to secure a bridgehead, then German pioneers began building a 16-ton bridge. The bridge was not completed until 0930 hours and it took three hours for the first German armour to get across: the III./Pz.Regt 6 (three Pz.II, sixteen Pz.III and five Pz.IV) under Hauptmann Ferdinand Schneider-Kostalski and the 1./SR 3 with infantry mounted in SPW half tracks. The Soviets had shelled the bridgehead heavily but the 26th Army missed the opportunity to launch a counterattack with the 11th Tank Brigade before the Germans got panzers across. Now, Schneider-Kostalski’s small force advanced rapidly eastward to seize the village of Shelyamova. Around 1300 hours, seven T-34s from a company of the 11th Tank Brigade that had been in a nearby assembly area moved to engage the approaching German column. A brief tank battle ensued, with two T-34s and two Pz.IIIs knocked out. Inexplicably, the Soviet tanks broke off the action and retreated, enabling the German column to capture the village and establish a defensive hedgehog for the night.128

During the night of 22–23 October, much of the rest of Kampfgruppe Eberbach crossed the small bridge over the Zusha, including two more Panzer-Abteilungen. When morning came, Eberbach’s forces fanned out to roll up the Soviet defenses still at Mtensk from behind. Despite the successful outflanking maneuver, it still took more than a day to overwhelm the 6th Guards Rifle Divisions but, by late on 24 October, Eberbach advanced with the III/Pz.Regt 6 to reach the Mtensk–Tula road, where they caught a retreating Soviet column and engaged them in a wild night-time tank battle. Two KV-1 tanks were disabled in close combat and three other Soviet tanks knocked out. Fuel was a

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