Balck saluted, and was on his way. He knew who he wanted to see first, his incomparable Hauser. He would have him get his fast moving motorcycle battalion down south and scout out the situation while he got the rest of the division ready to move.
The fighting in the Kalach Bridgehead had been a grinding battle of attrition. Steiner had kept both the Brandenburg and Grossdeutschland divisions in the fight, eventually reinforcing their effort with Das Reich and all his Korps assets. They pushed relentlessly along the main road that led through Martinovka, a vital rail station and airfield and the site of Chiukov’s Volga Front headquarters. As Balck was moving into the lower Donets, Steiner continued to push up that road until they came up against a stolid wall of old steel.
It was a Soviet Armored Division, one of the last of the old formations that had once been their massive mobile arm. The 1st Division had been moved to Volgograd long ago by rail, but now had little transport and almost no fuel. Chiukov had simply placed it astride the road to block the way to Martinovka. Like water seeing the path of least resistance, Steiner’s troops simply washed up against it, then turned to attack the airfield to the southwest of that town. By the 30th of August, they were attacking the field, their tanks shooting up the hangers, what remained of them after the artillery preparation.
The 502nd Schwerepanzer Brigade, had been a part of the fighting in the bridgehead. It had arrived on the front with 45 of the new Tiger tanks, and an equal number of Lions. Now it was down to 67 tanks, an acceptable level of attrition given the normal rates on this front. Yet it had less than 10% of its normal supply issue, low on both ammunition and fuel, and had to be pulled off the line. So that unit sat in reserve 15 kilometers west of the river, and its brother unit the 503rd Brigade had also been pulled off the line to await supply at the rail depot of Surovinko on the Chir.
It was this lack of supply, as much as anything else, that was holding Steiner up. Once a unit got provisioned, he quickly moved it over the Don and back into the fight to relieve troops that had fought so hard for that bridgehead. Now some of the rifle companies in the Brandenburg Division had no small arms ammo at all. In spite of the massive effort, Steiner was told that it would be at least another two weeks before the rail line from Belaya Kalivta on the Donets could be repaired as far as Surovinko on the Chir.
Meanwhile Chiukov had retreated from the line of the Askay River and fell back on the Myshkova defense line to better consolidate his forces. The nose of Steiner’s attack was still about 50 kilometers west of the city, but many of his positions on the Myshkova were only 30 kilometers southwest of Beketova, the southernmost outlier to the main city of Volgograd. There Volkov had his 1st Khazak Field Army reinforced by the Kazakh Mobile Corps, and to its left, his Mountain Corps had joined with 9th Infantry Corps to fight their way up from Nizhny Chirskaya. They were now shoulder to shoulder with the Germans after linking up the previous week.
East of the Volga, the 4th Orenburg Army still sat in its fortified bunkers, with 5th Orenburg Army occupying the line of the Volga as it reached north from the city. All of Chiukov’s supplies still depended on that single rail line coming down from the north, and a second spur that ran northwest near Golubinskaya, the only rail crossing on the Don still retained by Soviet troops. That was a new line, never built in Fedorov’s history. It ran from Golubinskaya on the Don, through Kalmykov, Perelazovsky and then on to Veshenskaya on the upper Don, where it crossed the river again.
All these forces surrounded the defenders of the city on three sides, the battle becoming a slow WWI style grind, with progress of one to three kilometers achieved per day. Further west, in the hard fought battle for Voronezh, the German 2nd and 3rd Panzer Armies continued to apply relentless pressure on the defense. Hoth’s push for Lipetsk was called off. Instead his Army was directed southeast to close on Voronezh from the north. Model was pulling in units from the north near Tula, as they were slowly relieved by infantry still coming up from the Kirov Pocket. More than anything, it was this steady flow of one new infantry korps after another that would keep the panzers free to maneuver to weaker sectors of the Soviet defense without trying to hold ground they had already taken.
September 3 was a big day in the field there, when 2nd Panzer Armee punched through southeast of Voronezh and drove a deep wedge all the way to the Donets. Seeing his opportunity, Rundstedt gathered all the bridging equipment he could find and sent it to Model. If a crossing could be forced there, the entire Soviet position could come unhinged. Three Soviet armies that had fallen back from Kursk were still holding in a bulge south of that breakthrough. Their position was fed by one rail line running through Georgu Deza on the Donets, and Model had elements of 4th and 5th Panzer Divisions some 20 kilometers from that vital crossing point.
At his wits end, Sergei Kirov summoned Zhukov and demanded to know what he would do about the situation. “We cannot let them cross the Donets there,” he said. “It would cut off all those troops! Last month you argued that a timely withdrawal was needed when you pulled out of the Kursk Bulge, yet now all those same troops are at risk again.”
There was good ground where I posted them, but look at the map,” Zhukov pointed. There must be 15 or more Panzer Divisions, all massed in this drive to take or isolate Voronezh. I have thrown everything at them, 2nd Guards Army, and yes even the first of the new Tank Armies we were building. We have delayed them, but we simply cannot stop such force. I need another army.”
Kirov ran a hand over his forehead. “You say that like you are asking for a new pair of shoes, but I can read a map as well. Everything we have is tied up on the line.”
“Then we must pull something off that line,” said Zhukov. “I propose we take the 17th Siberian, and what little is left of the 24th. They were on the line well south of Tula at the point of the initial German breakthrough. Then they folded back to hold the northern shoulder. Now that the panzers have all pushed south, that sector is quiet again. There is nothing but German infantry there, and I could relieve those troops with reserves from the armies to either side. They can assemble at Yeremov and then move by rail to Voronezh.”
“What about the Shock Armies you used in Operation Mars?”
“I would rather leave them right where they sit. Those troops are still reasonably well equipped and supplied. If we are to mount any kind of a winter offensive, they will be the armies I must use again.”
“General Zhukov, you assume we will survive until winter. One more disaster and the entire front could collapse.”
“That danger is very real,” said Zhukov, “but given the circumstances, this is all I can do. There is not a single army remaining in reserve now. Anything we use must come off the line from somewhere else.”
“What about the line west of Moscow? That sector has been quiet for months.”
“Yes, and our men there have fattened up, as have the German Infantry they oppose. We could launch a spoiling attack, but as it is so far from Voronezh, it would do little to affect that battle. Better to leave those troops for a possible attack in the winter.”
“What about Karpov and the Siberians?
“He is obsessed with his effort to take Sakhalin Island from the Japanese. We can expect no further help from him now.”
“That is useless,” Kirov ran a hand through his thick hair, his frustration evident. “I must arrange a meeting with that man, and get him to understand the gravity of our situation. What good will it do if he takes Sakhalin while we lose Voronezh and Volgograd?” His eyes played over the map. “What about Rostov? What about the Donets Basin?”