In order to win, the Red Army needed to relearn operational maneuver art and combined arms warfare, as well as gaining a cadre of tactically-astute junior and mid-level leaders, but this did not occur until eighteen months into the war. Until the Red Army learned these lessons, it could not win, it could just avoid losing. In November 1942 there was a subtle shift in the Red Army, as months of military disasters finally caused Stalin to reduce some of his interference in military operations and allow the quiet professionals such as Vasilevsky, Vatutin and Rokossovsky to prepare proper offensives such as Uranus and Little Saturn. Nevertheless, the use of Soviet armour at the operational level remained impulsive and Zhukov and other commanders repeatedly made the same mistake of committing their armoured exploitation forces before a true breakthrough had been achieved. Both sides grappled with the problems of armoured logistics throughout the war and neither ever completely mastered the ability to sustain mobile operations for extended periods. Just as the German failure to sustain their armoured spearheads in late 1941 led to the failure of Barbarossa, the Soviet inability to sustain their tank corps in 1942 prevented Operation Little Saturn from becoming an immediate death-blow to Heeresgruppe Don.
Appendix I
Rank Table
Appendix II
Armour Order of Battle, 22 June 1941
German
Heeresgruppe Nord (Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb)
Panzergruppe 4 (Generaloberst Erich Höpner)
• XXXXI Armeekorps (mot.) (General der Panzertruppen Georg-Hans Reinhardt)
○ 1.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Friedrich Kirchner)
○ 6.Panzer-Division (General der Panzertruppen Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma)
○ 36.Infanterie-Division (mot.) (Generalleutnant Otto-Ernst Ottenbacher)
• LVI Armeekorps (mot.) (General der Infanterie Erich von Manstein)
○ 8.Panzer-Division (General der Panzertruppen Erich Brandenberger)
○ 3.Infanterie-Division (mot.) (Generalleutnant Curt Jahn)
• Army Group Reserve
○ SS-Division “Totenkopf” (SS-Gruppenführer Theodor Eicke) WIA – 8 July 1941
Heeresgruppe Mitte (Generalfeldmarschall Fedor von Bock)
Panzergruppe 2 (Generaloberst Heinz Guderian)
• XXIV Armeekorps (mot.) (General der Panzertruppen Leo Freiherr Geyr von Schweppenburg)
○ 3.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Walter Model)
○ 4.Panzer-Division (Generalmajor Willibald Freiherr von Langermann und Erlencamp)
○ 10.Infanterie-Division (mot.) (Generalleutnant Friedrich-Wilhelm von Loeper)
• XXXXVI Armeekorps (Generaloberst Heinrich von Viettinghoff-Scheel)
○ 10.Panzer-Division (General der Panzertruppen Ferdinand Schaal)
○ SS-Division “Reich” (Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS Paul Hausser) WIA – 15 October 1941
○ Infanterie-Regiment (mot) Großdeutschland (Oberst Wilhelm-Hunold von Stockhausen)
• XXXXVII Armeekorps (General der Artillerie Joachim Lemelsen)
○ 17.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Hans-Jürgen von Arnim)
○ 18.Panzer-Division (General der Panzertruppen Walther Nehring)
○ 29.Infanterie-Division (mot.) (Generalmajor Walter von Boltenstern)
Panzergruppe 3 (Generaloberst Hermann Hoth)
• XXXIX Armeekorps (mot.) (General der Panzertruppe Rudolf Schmidt)
○ 7.Panzer-Division (General der Panzertruppen Hans Freiherr von Funck)
○ 20.Panzer-Division (General der Panzertruppen Horst Stumpff)
○ 14.Infanterie-Division (mot.) (Generalleutnant Friedrich Fürst)
○ 20.Infanterie-Division (mot.) (Generalleutnant Hans Zorn)
• LVII Armeekorps (mot.) (General der Panzertruppen Adolf Kuntzen)
○ 12.Panzer-Division (Generaloberst Josef Harpe)
○ 19.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Otto von Knobelsdorff)
○ 18.Infanterie-Division (mot.) (Generalmajor Friedrich Herrlein)
Heeresgruppe Süd (Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt)
Panzergruppe 1 (Generaloberst Ewald von Kleist)
• XIV Armeekorps (mot.) (General der Infanterie Gustav von Wietersheim)
○ 9.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Alfred Ritter von Hubicki)
○ SS-Division “Wiking” (SS-Brigadeführer Felix Steiner)
• III Armeekorps (mot.) (Generaloberst Eberhard von Mackensen)
○ 13.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Walther Düvert)
○ 14.Panzer-Division (General der Panzertruppen Friedrich Kühn)
• XXXXVIII Armeekorps (mot.) (General der Panzertruppen Werner Kempf)
○ 11.Panzer-Division (General der Panzertruppen Ludwig Crüwell)
○ 16.Panzer-Division (Generaloberst Hans-Valentin Hube)
• Army Group Reserve:
○ SS-Division (mot.) Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (SS-Obergruppenführer Joseph Dietrich)
○ 16.Infanterie-Division (mot.) (Generalleutnant Sigfrid Henrici)
○ 25.Infanterie-Division (mot.) (Generalleutnant Heinrich Clößner)
Note: There were also 11 Sturmgeschütz battalions supporting Operation Barbarossa; 2 with Nord, 6 with Mitte and 4
with Süd.
Reinforcements:
September:
• 2.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Rudolf Veiel) [194 tanks]
• 5.Panzer-Division (General der Panzertruppen Gustav Fehn) [186 tanks]
December:
• Panzer-Regiment 203 (Oberst Hero Breusing) [142 tanks]
Soviet
Northern Front (General Leytenant Markian M. Popov)
14th Army (General Leytenant Valerian A. Frolov)
• 1st Tank Division (General-major Viktor I. Baranov)
23rd Army (General Leytenant Petr S. Pshennikov) KIA- 13 December 1941
• 10th Mechanized Corps (General-major Ivan G. Lazarev) Arrested – July 1941
○ 21st Tank Division (Polkovnik Leonid V. Bunin)
○ 24th Tank Division (Polkovnik Makariy I. Chesnokov)
○ 198th Motorized Rifle Division (General-major Vladimir V. Kryukov)
Front Assets:
• 1st Mechanized Corps (General-major Mikhail L. Cherniavsky)
○ 3rd Tank Division (Polkovnik Konstantin Yu. Andreev)
○ 163rd Motor Rifle Division (General-major Ivan M. Kuznetsov)
Northwest Front (General-Polkovnik Fedor I. Kuznetsov)
8th Army (General Leytenant Petr P. Sobennikov)
• 12th Mechanized Corps (General-major Nikolai M. Shestopalov) Captured – 28 June 1941
○ 23rd Tank Division (Polkovnik Timofei S. Orlenko) Died – 14 October 1941
○ 28th Tank Division (Polkovnik Ivan D. Chernyakhovsky)
○ 202nd Mechanized Division (Polkovnik Vladimir K. Gorbachev)
11th Army (General Leytenant Vasily I. Morozov)
• 3rd Mechanized Corps (General-major Aleksei V. Kurkin)
○ 2nd Tank Division (General-major Egor N. Solyankin) KIA – 26 June 1941
○ 5th Tank Division (Polkovnik Fedor F. Fedorov)
○ 84th Mechanized Division (General-major Petr I. Fomenko)
Western Front (General-Polkovnik Dmitry G. Pavlov) Executed – 22 July 1941
3rd Army (General Leytenant Vasily I. Kuznetsov)
• 11th Mechanized Corps – (General-major Dmitri K. Mostevenko)
○ 29th Tank Division (Polkovnik Nikolai P. Studnev) KIA – 14 July 1941