'Fischreiher' was the German extension of 'Blau II', otherwise known as 'Clausewitz' (i), in accordance with the Führerweisung Nr 45, taking Generaloberst Friedrich Paulus’s 6^th Army (18 German divisions in five corps, together with part of Generaloberst Hermann Hoth’s 4^th Panzerarmee) across the Don river and the Don 'land bridge' to Stalingrad on the great western bend of the Volga river (22 July/18 November 1942).

In basic strategic terms this was a German error of huge proportions, for whereas the task originally entrusted to Generalfeldmarschall Maximilian Reichsfreiherr von Weichs’s Heeresgruppe 'B', namely the establishment of a defensive front along the Don river in 'Blau I', had been subsidiary to the southerly offensive thrust of Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm List’s Heeresgruppe 'A' in 'Blau III', it had now become a strategic offensive ('Fischreiher') in its own right, diverging at right angles from the drive of Heeresgruppe 'A', which was also increased radically in scope to become the 'Edelweiss' offensive into the Caucasus and thence to the Caspian Sea.

The forces controlled by Paulus for 'Fischreiher' were decidedly modest in terms of the task envisaged for them and, after the German intention had become clear early in July 1942, the Soviets showed their determination not to lose Stalingrad by the formation on 12 July of General Polkovnik Andrei E. Eremenko’s Stalingrad Front 1 which, with General Polkovnik Filipp I. Golikov’s Voronezh Front and General Leytenant Rodion Ya. Malinovsky’s South Front, shared the forces of General Leytenant Nikolai F. Vatutin’s disbanded South-West Front. The defence of Stalingrad thus became centred, from north to south, on General Leytenant Stepan A. Kalinin’s 66^th Army, General Leytenant Vasili D. Kryuchenkin’s 4^th Tank Army, Kolpakchy’s (later General Leytenant Anton I. Lopatin’s) 62^nd Army, General Leytenant Kirill S. Moskalenko’s 1^st Tank Army, Chuikov’s 64^th Army, General Leytenant Nikolai I. Kirichenko’s 51^st Army and General Leytenant Aleksandr G. Batiunia’s 57^th Army within three defensive perimeters, the outermost brushing the Don river some 30 miles (50 km) or more from the city proper.

By 22 July Heeresgruppe 'B' had reached positions close to the Don river that it hoped would provide jumping-off points for the final advance on Stalingrad, while Heeresgruppe 'A' to its south had reached the lower Don river and was ready to launch 'Edelweiss'.

For this advance Heeresgruppe 'B' was divided into three groups and the 6^th Army. The northern group of two Panzer, two motorised infantry and four infantry divisions was to attack on 23 July from the area of Golovsky and Perelazovsky to take the major bridge over the Don river at Kalach in the region behind the Soviet forces deployed to the west of this river. The central group of one Panzer and two infantry divisions was to attack from the area of Oblivskaya, Verkhne and Aksenovsky in the direction of Kalach and, with the northern group, establish a block to the rear of the Soviet forces: the 6^th Army would advance to the east and crush them, so opening way to the Volga river. This would create the opportunity for an exploitation by the southern force of one Panzer, one motorised infantry and four infantry divisions, which were to cross the Don river near Tsimlyanskaya on 21 July and establish a bridgehead from which to advance on Stalingrad from the south.

For this complex undertaking von Weichs had some 30 divisions, although only slightly more than half of these were German (the rest being Hungarian, Italian and Romanian formations), supported by more than 1,200 aircraft of Generaloberst Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen’s Luftflotte IV. Heeresgruppe 'B' outnumbered the Soviet forces in the Don bend by about 2/1 in men and more in heavy weapons as a result of the great losses which General Fyedor Ya. Kostenko’s (from 25 October Vatutin’s) South-West Front had suffered in the campaign near Kharkov between January and May 1942.

On 23 July, five German divisions attacked the right wing of 62^nd Army, and the 64^th Army was also engaged on the Tsimla river. The XIV Panzerkorps broke through the Soviet line after three days of combat and advanced to the Don river, thereby outflanking the 62^nd Army to the north. Deployed in reserve, Moskalenko’s 1^st Tank Army attempted to cut off the attacking Germans by driving to the north across their axis of advance, and the 4^th Tank Army attempted to head off the German assault from the north: both of these tank armies were comparatively new creations and thus contained a heterogeneous mix of tanks and infantry which had therefore possessed little opportunity for combined training, however, so neither attack was successful.

Meanwhile General Willibald Freiherr von Langermann und Erlenkamp’s XIV Panzerkorps continued driving into the junction between the 62^nd Army and the 64^th Army, and separating these two formations as it advanced to the north-east in the direction of Kalach. General Leytenant Vasili N. Gordov, currently commanding the Stalingrad Front, was now instructed to bolster the southern sector of his area of responsibility and deployed General Leytenant Fyedor I. Tolbukhin’s 57^th Army in an effort to halt the German penetration, and was also allocated General Nikolai I. Trufanov’s 51^st Army. This meant that the Stalingrad Front’s line now extended over a distance of more than 400 miles (645 km), so the Stavka decided to form a new headquarters, the South-East Front, assume control of this southern sector.

Following their occupation of Crimea and the 'Battle of Kharkov', the Germans had launched their 1942 summer offensive with the objectives of occupying the Donbas (Don basin), Stalingrad and the Caucasus. Advancing as part of Heeresgruppe 'B', the 6^th Army pushed toward Kalach on the Don river as a step toward the capture of Stalingrad. As defenders, the Soviets were reacting to German initiatives, but they knew Stalingrad was a German objective and were determined to defend the city as far forward as possible. To meet this object, while the Soviets were generally withdrawing before the German offensive, they retained a bridgehead across the Don river at Kalach with lines behind the Tsimla and Chir rivers.

The battlefield was the steppe to the west and north-west of Kalach, where the terrain is mostly open with occasional lines of tree lines that in 1942 obscured lines of sight and fire. The land is slightly rolling with small rises to an average height of 330 to 655 ft (100 to 200 m) above sea level. The movement of vehicles across this terrain is constrained by the presence of balkas, which are steep stream banks cut deeply by erosion. Between the tree lines and balkas, the country was agricultural with occasional villages and fewer towns, and in World War II the relatively open nature of the terrain favoured long-range direct fire weapons such as the long-barrel 75-mm (2.95-in) gun mounted in the most modern variants of the Germans' PzKpfw IV battle tanks. The absence of commanding terrain and structures made observation for artillery fire challenging, and this was of benefit to the side which could fly observation aircraft: in the event, the German forces enjoyed air superiority over the Kalach battlefield with the commitment of Generalleutnant Martin Fiebig’s entire VIII Fliegerkorps.

From north to south, the 6^th Army deployed General Walter Heitz’s VIII Corps, General Gustav von Wietersheim’s XIV Panzerkorps, General Walter von Seydlitz-Kurzbach’s LI Corps, and von Langermann und Erlenkamp’s XXIV Panzerkorps. The 6^th Army commanded some 270,000 men, more than 500 tanks, and 3,000 pieces of artillery and mortars. The German forces had greater operational experience and excellent gunnery skills, and their movements and attacks enjoyed air support, but had temporarily outrun their supplies, especially of fuel and ammunition.

Soviet opposition in the Don river bend was still weak, but was strengthening. The 62^nd Army had six infantry divisions, one tank brigade and six separate tank battalions on its half of the line, and the 64^th Army comprised two infantry divisions and one tank brigade on the other half. To the north of the 62^nd Army was the 63^rd Army. The Soviet force for the defence of the Kalach front included 160,000 men, about 400 tanks, and 2,200 pieces of artillery and mortars, but suffered from serious shortages of anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns. The Stalingrad Front’s infantry divisions were in a poor state, with more than half of them understrength, ranging between 300 and 4,000 men. Between the Volga and the Don rivers, the 57^th Army was being re-formed as the front reserve and the headquarters of the 38^th Army and 28^th Army, together with those of their troops which had survived earlier battles, were being used as cadres for the construction of the new 1^st Tank Army and 4^th Tank Army. The tank armies would be committed before their organisation had been completed and without the cohesion characteristic of more experienced and better trained formations. The Soviet forces in the Kalach bridgehead were subordinated to Gordov’s new Stalingrad Front.

After a 10-day delay resulting from its lack of transportation, the 6^th Army resumed its offensive, and on 23 July Paulus submitted his plan to take Stalingrad. He proposed to reach the Don river on each side of Kalach, to take bridgeheads off the march, and then to drive a wedge of armour flanked by infantry across the remaining 30 miles (50 km) of the 'land bridge' to the Volga river. On this same day the German main body started its advance toward the Don river, and now encountered increasing Soviet resistance from the 62^nd Army and 64^th Army.

The 6^th Army had been running into and over the outposts of the 62^nd Army and 64^th Army since 17 July without knowing it. On 23 July the 6^th Army struck the Soviet main line to the east of the Chir river. In the north the VIII Corps encountered several Soviet rifle divisions in the morning, and these delayed the corps' march to the east for a period of four or five hours. The XIV Panzerkorps, directed toward Kalach, reported 200 Soviet tanks in its path and claimed to have destroyed 40 of these during the day. In overall terms, the German advance of 23 July caved in part of the 62^nd Army’s front and encircled two of this formation’s infantry divisions and one tank brigade.

On the following day, the VIII Corps cleared the northern quarter of the Don river bend except for Soviet bridgeheads at Serafimovich, around Kremenskaya and at Sirotinskaya. To the south, the 6^th Army 'consolidated' because the XIV Panzerkorps ran out of fuel and the infantry could make no headway against stiffening resistance to the north and east of Kalach. Moskalenko, who had taken command of 1^st Tank Army three days before, began the counterattack on 25 July, with General Aleksandr M. Vasilevsky, the chief of the general staff, present as the Stavka representative, ordered the 1^st Tank Army to drive to the north-west, relieving the encirclement of the 62^nd Army’s forces and cutting off those elements of the XIV Panzerkorps which had reached the Don river.

While the XIV Panzerkorps was still waiting for the arrival of more fuel, 60 Soviet tanks cut the road behind it, and Generalmajor Fritz-Hubert Graeser’s 3^rd Division (mot.) and Generalmajor Hans-Adolf von Arenstorff’s 60^th Division, the formations closest to Kalach, became entangled with 200 Soviet tanks. Generalleutnant Arthur Schmidt, the 6^th Army's chief-of-staff, informed Oberstleutnant Henning von Tresckow, the Heeresgruppe 'B' chief of operations, that 'For the moment a certain crisis has developed.' At the day’s end, the XIV Panzerkorps, LI Corps and XXIV Panzerkorps were ranged shoulder to shoulder on the Stalingrad axis, but the Soviets still held a bridgehead, some 40 miles (65 km) wide and 20 miles (32 km) deep, between Kalach and Nizhny Chir.

The German forces were suffering from continuing ammunition shortages as a result of their need to defeat the extraordinarily large numbers of Soviet tanks they were meeting in the Kalach bridgehead. The XIV Panzerkorps alone claimed to have knocked out 482 Soviet tanks in the last eight days of the month, and the total which the 6^th Army claimed was well in excess of 600 tanks. Soviet accounts confirm that strong tank forces were operational in the Kalach bridgehead, but not at the strength claimed by the Germans claimed. Moskalenko’s 1^st Tank Army had the XIII Tank Corps and XXVIII Corps (with slightly more than 300 tanks) and one infantry division. Kryuchenkin’s 4^th Tank Army entered the battle on 28 July with the XXII Tank Corps, and pushed to the west against the XIV Panzerkorps.

The hasty Soviet attacks failed to drive back the German forces, but did succeed in bringing the German advance to halt and compelling German formations and units to engage in combat at a time when their supply situation was verging on the critical. By 30 July, Generaloberst Franz Halder, the Oberkommando des Heeres’s chief-of-staff, noted that the 6^th Army's 'offensive power is paralysed by ammunition and fuel supply difficulties'.

During this phase, the Soviets fought at a disadvantage as the Luftwaffe dominated the air over the Kalach bridgehead and struck repeatedly at the 1^st Tank Army and 4^th Tank Army. In the course of the battle for the approaches to Kalach late in July and early in August, Fiebig’s VIII Fliegerkorps provided the 6^th Army with constant and effective air support, bombing Soviet troop formations, armour, vehicles, artillery and fortified positions in the battle area and at the same time decimating the Soviet supply depots and logistical infrastructure, mobilisation centres and road, rail and river traffic. Generalmajor Wolfgang Pickert’s 9^th Flakdivision used its anti-aircraft guns for ground combat against Soviet fortifications and vehicles, and also against any Soviet fighters and ground-attack aircraft which had evaded the attentions of Fiebig’s fighters.

While waiting for the fuel and ammunition it needed, the 6^th Army was receiving reinforcement in the form of the headquarters of General Karl Strecker’s XI Corps, which had been held at Kamensk-Shakhtinsky with two infantry divisions as the Oberkommando des Heeres’s reserve. On 4 August, when his mobile units had enough fuel to move about 30 miles (50 km), Paulus ordered the start of the attack on the Kalach bridgehead on 8 August. On the following day, however, the Oberkommando des Heeres requested that the attack be launched at least one day earlier because Hitler was worried that the Soviet troops would escape across the Don river if Paulus waited longer. Hitler also ordered von Richthofen to support the 6^th Army's new attack at Kalach, to the west of the Don river, on 7 August. von Richthofen flew first to Paulus’s headquarters and then to the headquarters of Heeresgruppe 'B', where von Weichs was angry at the indifferent aggression of the Italian and Hungarian formations units under his overall command. Both Paulus and von Weichs were optimistic about the success of the offensive. von Weichs and von Richthofen carefully co-ordinated the planned land and air operations for the Schwerpunkt (force concentration) on Kalach, which von Richthofen planned to strike with maximum force.

At dawn on 7 August, the XIV Panzerkorps and XXIV Panzerkorps destroyed the Soviet front line near Kalach from the north and south respectively under an umbrella of potent support from Fiebig’s air corps and parts of Pflugbeil’s air corps. From the north-east and south-west, tight against the Don river, the XIV Panzerkorps and XXIV Panzerkorps drove into the Kalach bridgehead, the two corps' spearheads making contact in the area to the south-west of Kalach by a tme late in the afternoon and in the process encircling and trapping the main body (eight infantry divisions) of the 62^nd Army. Joined by the LI Corps, the Germans now began the systematic destruction of the surrounded Soviet forces. The pocket was eliminated in four days, by 11 August. Nearly 50,000 prisoners were taken, and the Germans claimed the destruction of 1,000 Soviet tanks and 750 pieces of artillery: the claims of destroyed Soviet tanks are generally seen as exaggerated. Even so, the scale of the losses drove Iosif Stalin into a panic and persuaded him to authorise the commitment of still more reserves into the fight for Stalingrad.

Air support in the battle was crucial to the Germans, and in this respect Fiebig’s force of Junkers Ju 87 Stuka single-engined dive-bombers mercilessly hammered the trapped Soviet troops and vehicles while Heinkel He 111 and Junkers Ju 88 twin-engined medium bombers attacked the Soviet railway network and airfields with impunity, destroying 20 Soviet aircraft on the ground on 10 August alone. Numerically inferior to its German opponents and flying technically less advanced aircraft, the 8^th Air Army achieved nothing as, between 20 July and 17 August, it lost its 447 replacement as fast as it received them. The Soviet air forces were severely limited by their poor logistical systems, their low level of crew training, and dreadfully bad standards for army-air communications and liaison. The Soviet aircraft were committed to the battle somewhat prematurely, indeed immediately upon arrival, and were promptly and easily destroyed by the experienced German airmen. The disparity in effectiveness between the combatants became evident on 12 August when VIII Fliegerkorps destroyed 25 of 26 Soviet aircraft which attacked German airfields on that day and itself suffered no losses. Nor were there any German losses won the following day as VIII Fliegerkorps destroyed 35 of 45 Soviet aircraft making another attempt to attack German airfields.

Both Soviet tank armies and the 62^nd Army suffered heavy losses during the battle, which allowed the 6^th Army to close on the Don river and prepared to advance on Stalingrad despite the fact that it too had taken losses during the two-week battle. Among areas of Soviet resistance which were not eliminated was a small bridgehead across the Don river at Kremenskaya. Months later, this bridgehead became one of the launching points for 'Uran', the Soviet offensive that encircled the 6^th Army in Stalingrad and eventually forced its surrender.

For the Soviets, the loss of the Kalach bridgehead brought the close-in defense of Stalingrad nearer to actuality, and the Stavka committed more of its reserves, totalling 15 infantry divisions and three tank corps, between 1 and 20 August. The losses suffered during the 'Battle of Kalach' resulted in the temporary disbandment of the 1^st Tank Army, whose remnants were used for the partial rebuilding of the 62^nd Army from 17 August.

Hoth’s 4^th Panzerarmee had thus managed to cross the Don, and on 31 July attacked the over-extended 51^st Army as it tried to reach Tsimlyanskaya. The German drive broke through without difficulty and, as the Soviet forces attempted to pull back toward the railway line linking Tikhoretsk and Krasnoarmeysk, headed to the north-east and reached Kotelnikovo by 2 August. Farther to the north, the 62^nd Army had lost most of its infantry in the German envelopment: many of these men escaped in small groups, but only after abandoning most of their heavy equipment. The 62^nd Army was then strengthened by the remnants of 1^st Tank Army, which had been disbanded after its mauling.

With priority allocated to their seizure of Stalingrad, however, the Germans left parts of the Don river’s south bank in the hands of General Leytenant Dmitri D. Lelyushenko’s 1^st Guards Army and General Major Ivan M. Chistyakov’s 21^st Army and, with General de armatâ Petre Dumitrescu-Clap’s Romanian 3^rd Army remaining on the defensive, this was to emerge later in the campaign as a catastrophic mistake.

The determination if not the efficacy of the Soviet resistance in the Don river bend now persuaded Paulus that his 6^th Army lacked the strength to force a crossing of the river by itself, so there followed a lull as he waited for Hoth’s Panzer formations to fight their way to the north. Gradually, the balance in numbers shifted against the Soviets as the 64^th Army, which had played an important role in bolstering the 62^nd Army’s resistance, was compelled to extend its left flank farther to the east in an effort to cover the approach of the 4^th Panzerarmee.

On 5 August, Eremenko arrived at the newly completed Stalingrad command bunker, from which he assumed command of the new South-East Front four days later, but was afforded little time to organise his command. Approaching from the south, the 4^th Panzerarmee attacked the 64^th Army just as the 6^th Army had aligned itself to face due east with Fiebig’s VIII Fliegerkorps, newly based on the airfields of the the Morozovsk complex, in support. Eventually, the 4^th Panzerarmee drove in the left flank of 64^th Army and found himself within 19 miles (30 km) of Stalingrad. The 4^th Panzerarmee's penetration was halted only by Eremenko’s despatch of mixed tank, infantry and artillery force that checked Hoth at Abganerovo.

Despite the fact that the German advance had been stopped, if only on a temporary basis, the Soviet situation was still acutely dangerous. The Germans' natural axis of advance took them straight into the junction of the Stalingrad Front and South-East Front, which greatly increased the difficulties of co-ordinating the operations, especially in the allocation and movement of two commands led by generals of equal seniority. Eremenko reported this problem to the Stavka, which moved, with surprising speed, to designate Eremenko as the overall commander of both fronts with Gordov and Golikov as his deputies for the Stalingrad Front and South-East Front respectively.

The Germans came up against the Soviet first line of defence on 17 August, and were thereafter embroiled in an increasingly harsh attritional campaign.

Yet the Soviets had little opportunity to re-establish themselves. Conscious of the fact that Adolf Hitler had fixed 25 August as the deadline for the capture of Stalingrad, Paulus ordered the attack on Stalingrad to start on 23 August. Late on 22 August, therefore, von Wietersheim’s XIV Panzerkorps drove a narrow breach into the Soviet defences near Vertyachy, and on the following day fought its way into Stalingrad’s northern suburbs to reach the western bank of the Volga river during the evening of the same day.

It appeared to Paulus and von Weichs that Stalingrad was within their grasp. With von Wietersheim’s corps on the Volga and the bridge at Rynok within mortar range, it seemed that the problem which the Soviets faced in supplying, let alone reinforcing, the garrison, would be almost impossible to overcome.

von Seydlitz-Kurzbach’s LI Corps followed the XIV Panzerkorps into this break in the Soviet line, and it now seemed probable that the 62^nd Army might well be rolled up. However, events were soon to reveal the fact that the Germans had seriously underestimated the Soviet determination to fight in front of Stalingrad and, if necessary, within the city itself. While von Wietersheim managed to keep open the German corridor to the Volga river, he could not expand this corridor and the 62^nd Army was able to pull back along the Karpovka river and the railway line which ran parallel with it.

in the west von Langermann und Erlenkamp’s XXIV Panzerkorps and General Rudolf Veiel’s XLVIII Panzerkorps of the 4^th Panzerarmee pushed slowly forward to breach the second defence line on 31 August and the third line on 12 September.

In the southern approaches to Stalingrad the 4^th Panzerarmee drove back the 64^th Army, but it was clear that there would be no breakthrough.

Some 25 miles (40 km) long from north to south and 5 miles (8 km) wide from west to east, the urban and industrial city of Stalingrad was bordered on its eastern side by the Volga river, more than 1 mile (1.6 km) wide at this point, and on the other side of this major water barrier additional Soviet units were deployed. The forces holding Stalingrad were the 62^nd Army, commanded from 11 September by Chuikov, and 64^th Army, commanded after Chuikov’s reassignment by General Leytenant Mikhail S. Shumilov, in the north and south of the city respectively. As the 62^nd Army came into being and assumed the defence of the more important northern part of Stalingrad with its great industrial facilities, the Soviet situation was extremely dangerous, and the 62^nd Army was ordered to hold the city at all and any costs.

The Soviets had enough time to ship almost all of the city’s grain, cattle and rolling stock, as well as large numbers of civilians across the Volga river. This so-called 'harvest victory' left the city notably short of food even before the start of the German attack. Production continued in some of the factories in the north of the city, particularly that producing the excellent T-34 medium tank.

Before the German ground forces reached the city, their supporting air forces had rendered the Volga river, which was wholly vital for the movement of supplies, weapon, equipment and reinforcements into the city, essentially unusable to all but the smallest Soviet vessels: between 25 and 31 July German air attack sank 32 ships and severely damaged another nine.

The battle for the city of Stalingrad began with the heavy bombing of von Richthofen’s Luftflotte IV, which in the summer and autumn of 1942 was the single most powerful air formation in the world. Some 1,000 tons of bombs were dropped, and this started the process in which Stalingrad was steadily reduced to rubble, although some of the larger factories survived as working entities and continued production while workers joined in the fighting and weapons were delivered straight into the front line.

Under the urgings of Iosif Stalin, the Soviet dictator, the Stavka pressed ahead with all speed to pour troops and weapons, some of these from areas as far distant as Siberia, into the holding areas on the Volga river’s eastern bank. With all the regular ferries destroyed by the Luftwaffe, movement across the river was limited to smaller vessels and troop barges towed slowly across the river by tugs: all of these were targeted by German aircraft, most especially Junkers Ju 87 dive-bombers, and the safest time to cross the river was therefore the night. Although large numbers of civilians were evacuated to the east across the Volga, many others nevertheless remained in Stalingrad to work in the factories and to labour in large numbers, women and children as well as men, on the construction of fortifications and trenches.

A major German air attack on 23 August led to a firestorm that killed many and furthered the process of reducing Stalingrad to rubble and ash. Two days later the the Soviets ceased to record civilian and military casualties resulting from air attacks. General Major Timofei T. Khryukin’s 8^th Air Army, specifically tasked with support of the South-West Front, was largely destroyed by German air power at this time, having to be rebuilt before it could make a useful contribution to the defence of Stalingrad later in the campaign. The 8^th Air Army’s units in the Stalingrad area lost 201 aircraft between 23 and 31 August, was reinforced with only 100 aircraft in August, and could field a mere 192 serviceable aircraft including 57 fighters. The Soviets increased the tempo of aircraft deliveries to the Stalingrad area from a time late in September, but continued to suffer appalling losses as its aircraft types, while steadily improving, were still inferior to those of the Germans, and were flown by pilots and crews without the vast operational experience typical of their German opponents. Thus Luftflotte IV had complete air superiority.

Even so, the relocation of Soviet industry in 1941 was now starting to yield dividends as the new factories at sites to the east of the Ural mountain range came on stream, and Soviet aircraft production reached 15,800 machines in the second half of 1942 in a process of steady acceleration.

On the ground, the Soviets at first relied largely on workers' militia units, whose personnel were mostly workers not directly involved in war production. For a short time, tanks continued to be produced and then manned by volunteer crews of factory workers. They were driven directly from the factory floor to the front line, often without paint or even gun sights.

As noted above, by the end of August formations of von Weichs’s Heeresgruppe 'B' had finally reached the bank of the Volga river in the area to the north of Stalingrad, and another advance to the river had followed in the area to the south of the city. By 1 September, therefore, the Soviets could reinforce and supply their forces in Stalingrad only by means of river crossings rendered ever more dangerous by the efforts of the German warplanes and artillery.

On 5 September General Leytenant Ivan V. Galanin’s 24^th Army and General Major A S. Zhadov’s 66^th Army of General Polkovnik Konstantin K. Rokossovsky’s Don Front, the South-West Front’s neighbour upstream of Stalingrad, launched a major attack against von Wietersheim’s (from 15 September Generalleutnant [from 1 October General] Hans Hube’s) XIV Panzerkorps, which was the spearhead of the advance by the 6^th Army to the south-east across the land corridor (land bridge) between the Don and Volga rivers. The Luftwaffe helped signally in the defeat of this Soviet counterattack, and the two Soviet armies had to pull back at 12.00 after just a few hours, and lost to air attack 30 of the 120 tanks with which they had started their attack.

This was ever the story as the Soviets attempted to halt the 6^th Army's progress to Stalingrad. On 18 September, for example, when General Leytenant Dmitri D. Lelyushenko’s 1^st Guards Army of Vatutin’s South-West Front (upstream of the Don Front) and the 24^th Army attacked Heitz’s VIII Corps of the 6^th Army at Kotluban, Fiebig’s VIII Fliegerkorps (the other component of Luftflotte IV with Generalleutnant Kurt Pflugbeil’s IV Fliegerkorps) launched waves of Ju 87 dive-bombers to prevent a Soviet breakthrough, and the two armies' effort was defeated: the Ju 87 warplanes claimed 41 of the 106 Soviet tanks knocked out that morning, while escorting Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters destroyed 77 Soviet aircraft. Even so, as it continued to push forward to Stalingrad, the 6^th Army was already starting to suffer heavy losses.

Meanwhile, in the increasingly wrecked city the 62^nd Army (eventually 13 infantry divisions, one naval infantry brigade, five special brigades and two tank brigades) and General Leytenant Mikhail S. Shumilov’s 64^th Army (eventually five infantry divisions, one naval infantry brigade, four special brigades and two tank brigades), in the north and south of the city respectively, started to complete their defensive lines with large numbers of strongpoints built into houses and factories.

The German military thinking of the time was based on the use of combined-arms teams and a very close co-operation between armour, infantry, artillery, engineers and ground-attack aircraft. To counter this, the Soviet commanders in Stalingrad developed the tactic of keeping their front line as close to that of the Germans as was physically possible ('hugging' the Germans, as Chuikov described it), for this made it necessary for the German armour and infantry either to fight on their own or to risk suffering 'friendly fire' casualties from their own supporting artillery and tactical warplanes. The Soviet tactic therefore removed the artillery and air advantages which the Germans would otherwise have been able to exploit. The Soviets also decided that he best defence available to them was fixing their defence lines in a host of buildings which commanded important streets and squares. The Soviets therefore converted multi-storey apartment blocks, factories, warehouses, street corner residences and office buildings into strongholds protected by barbed wire and mines and containing machine guns, anti-tank rifles, mortars, snipers and small units (up to 10 men) of sub-machine gunners and grenadiers physically and psychologically prepared for house-to-house combat in an urban scenario.

Altogether farther to the south, meanwhile, the forces of List’s Heeresgruppe 'A' had crossed the Don river and begun to advance toward the Caucasus mountains, taking Proletarskaya on 29 July, Salsk on 31 July and Stavropol on 5 August. Generaloberst Ewald on Kleist’s 1^st Panzerarmee was meeting almost no opposition in the foothills of the Caucasus in 'Edelweiss' after its supply problems had been eased by the completion of the German clearance of Crimea by Generaloberst Erich von Manstein’s 11^th Army in 'Störfang', allowing the lines of communication for the 1^st Panzerarmee and Generaloberst Richard Ruoff’s 17^th Army to be re-routed through Crimea and across the Strait of Kerch straight into the Kuban region. The Germans took Maykop on 9 August and Pyatigorsk soon after this.

Despite the presence there of the oilfields vital to the survival of the USSR, the Soviet defence of the Caucasus region was rendered very difficult by lack of heavy weapons and tanks, so the Soviet infantry and cavalry formations were compelled to retreat wherever the German armour roamed. Ominously for the Germans, though, the pace of their advance was being affected for the worse as supplies of men and equipment were diverted, in part at least, to satisfy the voracious appetite of the forces committed to the seizure of Stalingrad. Moreover, the motor transport and armour allocated to Heeresgruppe 'A' had to reach the theatre via a long detour through Rostov-na-Donu and, after having received little more than a service after their gruelling service in 'Barbarossa', were becoming increasingly affected by the types of mechanical problems that demanded a complete overhaul. Moreover, as he sought to comply with the imprecise instructions laid out in the Führerweisung Nr 45, von Kleist was attempting the simultaneous achievement of several objectives including a breakthrough to the Caspian Sea and the seizure or, failing that, the destruction of the oil complexes at Maykop, Grozny and Baku, the capture of the Caucasus’s main city of Tiflis, and the support of the rest of Heeresgruppe 'A' as it drove deeper into the Caucasus and along the eastern seaboard of the Black Sea to take ports such as Sukhumi and Batumi and thereby isolate the Black Sea Fleet.

But, catastrophically, all German attention was focused on Stalingrad. The 6^th Army had renewed its attack on 24/25 August, but run into a Soviet defence that was prepared to fight and die for every yard of ground. This constant and unyielding preparedness to defend every tiny area of the city combined with the shock of suddenly losing a prize that had appeared to be ready for easy picking persuaded the Germans to pour ever larger numbers of men and weapons into the tip of their Stalingrad salient, leaving the defence of the salient’s vulnerable shoulders to poorly equipped allied forces along the eastern bank of the Don river to the north-west of Stalingrad and along the western bank of the Volga river to the south of the same city.

Elements of the 21^st Army attacked the German positions near Serafimovich and Kletskaya on the Don river, but lacked the strength to break though, and the same applied to Soviet counterattacks in the area of Samofalovka. However, the attack of the 1^st Guards Army near Novo-Grigoryevskaya enlarged its bridgehead, as did that of the 63^rd Army.

To the south, the 4^th Panzerarmee had been attempting to break through to Stalingrad, but could make no progress through a series of strongly defended Soviet strongpoints in the area to the south of the city. German armoured and motorised infantry units were quietly moved around to the south-western part of the front and reorganised near Abganerovo before launching an attack on 29 August against the 126^th Division of the 64^th Army. Hoth intended to drive a wedge into the centre of the 64^th Army and then wheel right into the rear of the difficult Soviet strongpoints, which would allow his forces to take Volga river’s western bank and the higher ground to the south of the city, and also cut off the 64^th Army’s left wing. With good air support, the attack proved very successful and Hoth’s forces found themselves in the rear areas of both the 64^th Army and its northern neighbour, the 62^nd Army. This opened the possibility of a still greater success if the 4^th Panzerarmee continued to drive to the north rather than wheel to the east, and the 6^th Army advanced to the south to meet it: the right flank of the 64^th Army and perhaps the whole of the 62^nd Army might be trapped.

von Weichs fully appreciated this fact, and twice ordered Paulus to move the 6^th Army to the south in order to effect a junction with the 4^th Panzerarmee. Paulus did not move, however, as Soviet counterattacks had persuaded both him and von Wietersheim that the northern sector was insecure and might collapse if any sizeable elements of their mobile forces were diverted south. Thus it was only on 2 September, after the Soviet pressure on the northern sector had eased, that Paulus despatched armoured and motorised infantry forces south to establish contact with Hoth. At the same time von Seydlitz-Kurzbach’s infantry made contact with the forward elements of the 4^th Panzerarmee. By this time, however, the Soviets had departed after Eremenko, not realising that Hoth had originally been intent on the destruction of the 64^th Army’s left wing, had come to believe that the Germans were seeking to encompass the destruction of the 64^th Army’s right wing and the 62^nd Army, and therefore ordered the withdrawal of his forces from the area. Eremenko thus abandoned Stalingrad’s outer defences just as the Germans realised the nature of the opportunity before them. Even so, the Germans had received a dividend as they now had the opportunity to attack directly into Stalingrad from the north, west and south without the need to break through an outer defence line.

Eremenko’s counterattacks had failed, for the most part, but had nonetheless managed to pin the 6^th Army for a few vital days, thereby preventing the junction of the 6^th Army and the 4^th Panzerarmee, in the process giving Eremenko’s forces the time they needed to effect their escape.

The Germans could now directly interdict the traffic on the Volga river, the night-time lifeline by which reinforcements and supplies reached the 62^nd Army and 64^th Army in Stalingrad proper, and could also use artillery fire and air-laid mines to prevent all shipping movement up and down the river, which was the only major channel by which oil from the Caucasus could be delivered into the main body of the USSR.

The scene was thus set for the Battle of Stalingrad. As the 6^th Army and 4^th Panzerarmee had approached Stalingrad, it had seemed that the German forces would probably be able to enter and take Stalingrad straight off the march against only minimal resistance. As they had already discovered in similar circumstances during their 'Taifun' (i) offensive to take Moscow before the end of 1941, however, the Germans now found that the terrain to the west of Stalingrad presented major manoeuvre difficulties. The nature of the city, with its enormous industrial areas and sprawling settlements, proved a hindrance to the effective co-ordination of armour, artillery, infantry and air power that was the core of the Blitzkrieg tactics which the Germans had hitherto used in the USSR to so notable an effect.

The shape and location of Stalingrad meant that the Germans were denied the use their normal tactics of envelopment, and therefore had to make a frontal assault on the city. The city’s northern end was dominated by the great industrial facilities of the Dzerzhinsky Traktornogo Zavoda (tractor factory), the Barrikady Boepripasov Zavod (ordnance factory) with the Silikat factory in front of it, and the Krasny Oktyabr Stalelityeiny Zavod (Red October steel factory), to the south of which lay the Lazur Khimichesky Zavod (chemical factory). These had been turned into a single interconnected fortified position that would see intense and extraordinary vicious and bloody combat during the coming months. The southern end of the city was divided from the rest by the Tsaritsa river, which flows directly into the Volga river just to the south of the Stalingrad No. 1 Railway Station. To the south of the Tsaritsa river were the suburbs comprising, from north to south, Minina, Yelshanka and Kuporosnoye, which were held by Shumilov’s 64^th Army and secured the left flank of the 62^nd Army under Lopatin, replaced on 12 September by Chuikov who, as commander of the 64^th Army, had stopped the 4^th Panzerarmee in the area to the south of Stalingrad.

Chuikov had studied German tactical methods, which he greatly respected, but was largely responsible for the assessment that while such methods were certainly applicable to operations in open terrain they were not effective in an urban environment: this led to the 'hugging' concept that prevented the Germans from making effective use of their air and artillery power to pave the way for and then provide direct support for armour and infantry against Soviet units in very close proximity to their opponents. Thus Chuikov’s 62^nd Army, even while outnumbered and outgunned, could hold in own and then prevail.

The operations which had brought the 6^th Army and General Rudolf Veiel’s XLVIII Panzerkorps of the 4^th Panzerarmee into the outskirts of Stalingrad had led to considerable disorganisation within these two German armies' formations, so it took some time for them to concentrate again and prepare for the assault on the city proper.

On the eve of their first assault, which started on 14 September, the Germans faced nine Soviet armies along the 400-mile (645-km) front under the command of the Stalingrad Front and South-East Front, the latter comprising the 62^nd Army, 64^th Army, 57^th Army and 51^st Army. The greater German weight was to fall on Chuikov’s 62^nd Army, which had in Stalingrad 54,000 troops, 100 armoured vehicles and 900 pieces of artillery. The 6^th Army had 15 divisions: to the north-west was Strecker’s XI Corps (four infantry divisions) guarding against any attempt at an intervention by the 21^st Army and 4^th Tank Army across the Don; to the XI Corps' right and immediately to the north of the city was Heitz’s VIII Corps (two infantry divisions) and Hube’s XIV Panzerkorps (one Panzer and two motorised infantry divisions, one of the latter detached); to the west of the city was von Seydlitz-Kurzbach’s LI Corps, which was readying itself to storm eastward into the city with five divisions (from an eventual total of two Panzer, one Jäger and six infantry divisions) and supported on its left flank by Generalleutnant Otto Kohlermann’s (from November Generalmajor Hans-Adolf von Arensdorff’s) 60^th Division [mot.] of Veiel’s XIV Panzerkorps. A formation of the 6^th Army which was not directly committed as such was General Erwin Jaenecke’s IV Corps (one motorised infantry and two infantry divisions).

The 4^th Panzerarmee was deployed to the south of the Tsaritsa, with four divisions (Generalleutnant Georg Pfeiffer’s 94^th Division, Generalleutnant Walter Krause’s 14^th Division [mot.], Generalmajor Walter von Boltenstern’s [from 20 September Generalmajor Max Fremerey’s and from 25 September Generalmajor Hans-Georg Leyser’s] 29^th Division [mot.], and Generalleutnant Bruno Ritter von Hauenschild’s [from 12 September Generalleutnant Arno von Lenski’s] 24^th Panzerdivision) of Veiel’s (from 1 November Generalleutnant Ferdinand Hein’s) XLVIII Panzerkorps facing the left flank of the 62^nd Army and the remaining two divisions (Generalleutnant Max Pfeffer’s 297^th Division and Generalleutnant Hermann Niehoff’s 371^st Division) on the far right flank facing the 64^th Army.

It is worth noting at this stage that the basic Soviet formations (army, corps, division and brigade) were generally smaller than their German equivalents. With about 300,000 men, the 6^th Army was in fact the size of a Soviet front. A Soviet army was similar in size to a German corps, and a full-strength Panzer division, with about 18,000 men, was larger than a Soviet tank or mechanised corps. This last had three tank brigades of around 60 tanks each, one mechanised brigade, one reconnaissance battalion, one mortar battalion and one artillery battalion for a total strength of 7,800 men, which was about the manpower strength of one Panzer regiment. A mechanised corps comprised three mechanised brigades, each with one tank regiment, one or two tank brigades and the normal supporting arms for a total of some 13,550 men. The Soviet infantry division had some 10,500 men and was thus about two-thirds the size of its German counterpart.

The first German assault on Stalingrad started at 06.30 on 14 September, when the LI Corps struck directly to the east in the direction of the city centre in a two-pronged assault. This caught Chuikov off guard as he was planning a series of small-scale attacks to unbalance the Germans. The LI Corps was led by Generalleutnant Alexander von Hartmann’s 71^st Division, Generalleutnant Richard Graf von Schwerin’s 79^th Division and Generalmajor Otto Korfes’s 295^th Division while, to the south of the Tsaritsa, the 4^th Panzerarmee attacked the 64^th Army with the 24^th Panzerdivision and 94^th Division, which advanced through Minina, and Generalmajor Ferdinand Heim’s (from 1 October Oberst Hans Freiherr von Falkenstein’s, from 1 November Generalmajor Johannes Baessler’s and from 26 November Oberst Martin Lattmann’s) 14^th Panzerdivision and 29^th Division (mot.) heading for the Volga river through Yelshanka.

This double assault revealed that the Germans were still intent on the encirclement tactics that had served them so well under to this time: the 14^th Panzerdivision was to turn to the north after reaching the western bank of the Volga river and, after occupying central Stalingrad and the Mamayev Kurgan hill, the LI Corps was to move to the south, the two arms of the pincer to meet at the city’s central landing stage and thus isolate the 62^nd Army from its source of supply on the river’s eastern bank.

The Germans managed to take Mamayev Kurgan and the Stalingrad No. 1 Railway Station, and approached the landing stage, persuading Chuikov to urge Eremenko to send him reinforcements. As a result the 13^th Guards Division was despatched across the river and, after bitter fighting, secured the landing stage. The division was attacked by elements of the 71^st Division and 295^th Division and, in the course of a sanguinary battle lasting several days during which the railway station changed hands 19 times, the Germans committed Generalleutnant Carl Rodenburg’s 76^th Division and finally secured the station. Nonetheless, the agony of the 13^th Guards Division, which suffered a 75% casualty rate, had bought the time Chuikov required to rearrange his defences and for further reinforcements to be despatched across the river.

The fighting for Mamayev Kurgan was equally intense. The 295^th Division made an early attack, forcing Chuikov to abandon his command post on the hill, and eventually occupied this low but dominating position. This was an important tactical position that offered the Germans a clear view of both of the 62^nd Army’s flanks and the movement of supplies and reinforcements from the rear, and also allowed them to bring the Volga river crossings under sustained and accurate artillery fire. Chuikov ordered two infantry regiments to retake the hill on 17 September. The Soviet infantry attacked after a short artillery bombardment and, despite heavy casualties, reached the summit but could not secure the hill. The fighting continued for several days in which one of the key features was the large number of close support sorties flown by the Luftwaffe.

However, the Soviets counterattacked in the area to the north of Stalingrad with the 1^st Guards, 24^th and 66^th Armies against the VIII Corps and XIV Panzerkorps, which had the effect of drawing off part of the Luftwaffe’s support effort. The attack failed as a result of strong German opposition and poor Soviet co-ordination, but nonetheless allowed Chuikov to bring across reinforcements in the form of the 92^nd Naval Brigade and 137^th Tank Brigade.

Chuikov committed another attack in an effort to retake Mamayev Kurgan, but again this failed. The 13^th Guards Division lost its hold on the Stalingrad No. 1 Railway Station as the 71^st Division renewed its assault with the aim of reaching the Volga river and rolling up the 13^th Guards Division’s left flank, isolating 62^nd Army and linking with with the 76^th Division and 295^th Division as these advanced from the north-west. Only the landing of 2,000 Siberians of the 284^th Division saved the day for the Soviets, the combination of the 284^th Division and 13^th Guards Division serving to check the advance of the 71^st Division but lacking the strength to clear the area around the landing stage and the railway station.

Farther to the south, the 4^th Panzerarmee's 14^th Panzerdivision and 29^th Division (mot.) reached the Volga river and thus completed the isolation of 62^nd Army. To their left, 24^th Panzerdivision and 94^th Division advanced through Minina, the suburb defended by the 35^th Guards Division and 42^nd Brigade, which were soon joined by the 92^nd Naval Brigade. This set the scene for a very severe fight for the great concrete grain elevator complex near the river bank. This position was all that stood between the meeting of the two prongs of the 4^th Panzerarmee's attack, and was held by 20 guards and 30 naval infantrymen. The battle drew in elements of three German divisions, but eventually the Germans' overwhelming strength prevailed. By 26 September the 4^th Panzerarmee had effectively destroyed the 35^th Guards Division and also inflicted severe losses on the 92^nd Naval Brigade and 42^nd Brigade.

The 24^th Panzerdivision reached the Volga river and brought the landing stage under fire as the remnants of the Soviet units were evacuated across the river. The 62^nd Army had survived, but the Germans had won an important tactical victory inasmuch as they now controlled the Volga river to the south of the city along a 5-mile (8-km) front.

The Germans also held the Stalingrad No. 1 Railway Station and most of Mamayev Kurgan. They could bring the central landing stage under direct fire and had reduced the 62^nd Army to a pocket around the industrial area in the north of the city.

During this entire period the Luftwaffe successfully maintained its interdiction of Soviet river traffic.

What did become clear, however, was the increasingly great German concern about the nature of the war in which they were now involved. This was the so-called Rattenkrieg (war of the rats) in which the Germans found it difficult to adapt themselves, their tactical thinking and their command arrangements to warfare in an urban environment in which their well-proved and hitherto successful Blitzkrieg concepts were no longer valid: the Rattenkrieg made manoeuvre impossible and prevented the effective integration of infantry, armour and air power. The close nature of the terrain, congested and constrained by shattered buildings, rubble, cratered roads and open spaces, barricades and obstacles, rendered very difficult if not downright impossible any type of manoeuvre operation at anything over the level of the very smallest unit. Inevitably the tempo of Germans operations slowed, and a concomitant effect was therefore the emergence of an increasingly attritional nature in the fighting.

The problems were not all on the German side, however. The Soviets' centralised command structure had already proved wholly incapable of coping with Blitzkrieg warfare, which demanded rapid decisions and movements, yet the type of flexible and devolved command that were now clearly demanded did not come naturally to a Soviet officer corps purged and subjugated by Stalin in the years immediately before the start of World War II.

Even so, the fighting in Stalingrad forced the gradual adaptation of the Soviet command system to suit the nature of the urban combat which was now waged in the city. Oddly enough, perhaps, one of the key factors in this process was the very isolation of 62^nd Army, for Chuikov was effectively immune from constraints from above and could therefore develop and implement his own tactical thinking and tactical methods. Chuikov now understood that the Soviet practice of tight command and constant control was scarcely if ever feasible in the Stalingrad arena, and thus replaced units of the conventional type with what became known as the shock group, which was a force of between 50 and 100 men organised and equipped for a particular mission. This revealed that Chuikov had learned that the urban battlefield was best served by small but heavily armed groups of infantry who could be given realisable objectives by a commander no higher than the divisional level and then be given the freedom to achieve this objective in the manner which best suited the tactical situation.

Thus the 62^nd Army’s objectives and tactics came to be wholly compatible with the decentralised and indeed almost chaotic nature of the fighting. Within this basic concept, Soviet armour was different from its German counterpart in being freed from the necessity to undertake complex tactical manoeuvres, and was used instead to provide defensive firepower, the tanks often being buried in partially collapsed buildings. These tank emplacements and the artillery firing from the Volga river’s eastern bank defeated the 6^th Army's attempts to capture the city.

The first German onslaught ended on 26 September, but Paulus had already planned and was about to launch the 6^th Army's second attack. This began at daybreak on 27 September. Starting so soon after the end of the first attack, this reflected the Germans' appreciation, as September moved toward its end, that winter was not far distant. With only a short window of opportunity available before the prospect of a grim winter campaign in shattered Stalingrad became a reality, and with the fighting in the southern part of the city coming to an end, Paulus switched his attention once more to the northern part of Stalingrad and redeployed his forces for an assault on the industrial area. This was to take the form of two thrusts, one directed against the area around Mamayev Kurgan and the Krasny Oktyabr steel plant, and the other striking at the Dzerzhinsky tractor factory. The two thrusts were to break through the Soviet lines, reach the Volga river and then turn inward to trap the Soviet forces still to their west, which would be pinned by attacks on the Barrikady ordnance factory.

Chuikov had created an effective reconnaissance network within the city, and this soon detected the German redeployment. Chuikov was therefore offered the opportunity to move some of his forces to the north in order to meet the revised threat, and at the same time kept open the lifeline to the eastern bank of the Volga river, allowing reinforcements, ammunition and food to be delivered to the west, and wounded, civilians and prisoners to be evacuated to the east. This cross-river lifeline was the responsibility of the craft of Kontr Admiral Dmitri D. Rogachev’s Volga Flotilla swelled in numbers and lift capacity by a sizeable force civilian-manned fishing boats.

These riverine elements fought a constant war of attrition with the warplanes of von Richthofen’s Luftflotte IV. This comprised Pflugbeil’s IV Fliegerkorps notionally supporting Heeresgruppe 'A' and Fiebig’s VIII Fliegerkorps supporting Heeresgruppe 'B', though most of Luftflotte IV's resources had in fact been committed over Stalingrad by this time. What was becoming undeniable, however, was that the air strength of Luftflotte IV over Stalingrad was becoming as inadequate as the ground strength of the 6^th Army: neither was large or strong enough to complete the task with which it was faced. While Luftflotte IV was thus able to maintain air superiority over the city, it could not undertake both the provision of close air support for the ground troops and the isolation of the Soviet forces on the western bank of the Volga river by an effective interdiction of the Soviet riverine forces. This inability of the Germans, by land and air, to isolate the western bank of the Volga river from the sources of men and matériel on the eastern bank was to become a decisive factor in the outcome of the entire campaign.

Knowing the Germans' probable intentions, Chuikov decided to attempt a pre-emptive assault and attacked at 06.00 on 27 September toward Mamayev Kurgan with the 95^th and 284^th Divisions, and against the Stalingrad No. 1 Railway Station with the 13^th Guards Division. The two attacks drew a major response from the VIII Fliegerkorps, which pinned down the 62^nd Army for two hours.

Immediately after this the 6^th Army began its own assault with 11 divisions 2. On the German right, the 14^th Panzerdivision and 94^th Division strengthened the German hold on the city’s southern area as the 24^th Panzerdivision and 29^th Division (mot.) advanced to the north-east. Yet again the 295^th Division attempted to clear Mamayev Kurgan, while the 76^th Division guarded the Stalingrad No. 1 Railway Station and the 71^st Division and 100^th Jägerdivision moved behind the 13^th Guards Division toward the Krasny Oktyabr steel factory. The 16^th Panzerdivision, 60^th Division (mot.) and 389^th Division advanced toward the Dzerzhinsky tractor factory on three axes. There was severe fighting as the German formations advanced nearly 3,000 yards (2750 m) and almost destroyed the 95^th and 112^th Divisions.

Deciding that a crisis point was imminent, the Stavka now removed the division of responsibility for the city’s defence between the Gordov’s Stalingrad Front and Eremenko’s South-East Front. The latter was renamed the Stalingrad Front and was allocated sole responsibility for the city while, to the north, what was left of the old Stalingrad Front became the Don Front under Rokossovsky.

The fighting lasted for two days and, with the arrival of reinforcements including 193^rd Division, Chuikov managed not only to contain the German offensive but also to prevent them from taking complete control of Mamayev Kurgan.

Paulus then refused the attack on the Orlovka salient projecting into the German line to the north-west of the city. The Soviets held this salient with the 115^th Brigade and a composite battalion, all that was left of the 112^th Division. The salient was surrounded by German units, and on 29 September Paulus committed 16^th Panzerdivision, 60^th Division (mot.), 100^th Jägerdivision and 389^th Division to its elimination.

Meanwhile, the 24^th Panzerdivision pressed on doggedly toward the Barrikady and Krasny Oktyabr factories, and reached a point no more than 1 mile (1.6 km) from the Volga river. Had it managed to reach the river, the division could have moved into the rear of the Barrikady position and supplemented the German forces driving to the south for the assault on the Dzerzhinsky tractor factory. However, the 24^th Panzerdivision was halted by the 193^rd Division.

It was at this point that the 62^nd Army received fresh reinforcements in the form of the 39^th Guards Division and 308^th Division.

During the next days the 6^th Army maintained its attack, concentrating on the 193^rd Division but nonetheless pressuring the 13^th Guards Division and 284^th Division in an effort to divide the Soviet defences. These managed to hold, but only by the narrowest of margins. After moving the 14^th Panzerdivision and 94^th Division to the north, the 6^th Army committed 389^th Division and 60^th Division (mot.) in an attack toward the Dzerzhinsky tractor factory, in the process driving back the 112^th Division. At the same time the weight of the 24^th Panzerdivision's attack forced the 308^th Division to fall back to the Silikat factory in front of the Barrikady ordnance factory, while the 193^rd Division was similarly compelled to yield ground and retreat toward the Krasny Oktyabr factory.

The 6^th Army now began its supreme effort. The 14^th Panzerdivision, 100^th Jägerdivision, 94^th Division and 389^th Division attacked toward the Dzerzhinsky and Barrikady factories, but despite their hardest endeavours these formations just could not achieve any breakthrough despite the fact that they did manage to force the 37^th Guards Division, 193^rd Division and 308^th Division to fall back, and took the Silikat factory on 5 October. Another German attack was stalled by a Soviet artillery bombardment, but Chuikov’s plan for a counterattack was forestalled by an attack by the 14^th Panzerdivision supported by the 60^th Division (mot.). The Germans broke into the workers' settlements next to the Dzerzhinsky tractor factory, but there an area-saturating barrage of Katyusha unguided artillery rockets halted them and preserved the Soviet position.

Yet again the 62^nd Army had been driven back but had not broken. After learning that success at Stalingrad would lead to a posting as successor to Generaloberst Alfred Jodl as the chief-of-staff of the Oberkommando des Heeres, Paulus immediately started to develop the plans for what he hoped, and expected to be, a final offensive. Paulus asked for a reinforcement of three infantry divisions, but received instead just four specialist combat engineer battalions.

Hitler was becoming more and more obsessed with capturing the city, even though General Kurt Zeitzler, who on 24 September replaced Generaloberst Franz Halder as chief-of-staff of the Oberkommando des Heeres, said that the battle could not be won and that the campaign to take Stalingrad should therefore be terminated forthwith.

The 62^nd Army had now weathered the German second attack, and each side now sought frantically to bolster its strength, the 6^th Army for its third attempt to take the city and the 62^nd Army to rebuild its defensive capability.

As the the fighting tailed off in the last stages of the second German attack, Hitler’s mind was focused on Stalingrad to almost the complete exclusion of the original purpose of 'Blau III', the seizure of the Caucasian oil fields. On 14 October Hitler issued an order halting German operations everywhere on the Eastern Front except Stalingrad and the Caucasus. It was clear that in Hitler’s mind success or failure at Stalingrad was now the sole determinant of whether the German 1942 summer offensive should be deemed as success or failure.

As the 6^th Army girded itself for this third attack, it was surprised by a counterattack delivered by the 62^nd Army. Chuikov had been ordered to improve his position by pushing the Germans back and thereby increasing the area he had available to facilitate the type of tactical manoeuvre his army would need to defeat the Germans' inevitable next attack. On 12 October, therefore, the 37^th Guards Division and one regiment of the 95^th Division attacked the western outskirts of the Dzerzhinsky tractor factory. The attack took the Germans by tactical and operational surprise, and drove them back 300 yards (275 m), but was then halted by the forces the Germans were assembling in the area for their own attack.

At 08.00 the Germans launched their own attack with the 14^th Panzerdivision, 24^th Panzerdivision, 100^th Jägerdivision, 94^th Division, 389^th Division and the four recently arrived combat engineer battalions, a total of some 300 armoured vehicles and more than 90,000 men concentrated on a 3-mile (4.8-km) front and provided with with massive air support.

Chuikov’s extreme right, on the northern side of the Orlovka river, comprised the 124^th Brigade, while on the river’s southern side was the 112^th Division with its right flank anchored on the Orlovka river. To the left of this latter division was the 37^th Guards Division, followed by 308^th Division in the Sculpture Park in front of the Barrikady factory with the 95^th Division just behind it. Farther to the south were the 193^rd Division defending the area between the Barrikady and Krasny Oktyabr factories, the 39^th Guards Division holding the Krasny Oktyabr factory, the 284^th Division directly to the east of Mamayev Kurgan, and the 13^th Guards Division.

The German attack was of a greater scale and intensity than anything which had preceded it. The central thrust was directed against the 112^th Division, 37^th Guards Division and right flank of the 308^th Division. The the combination of the Germans' concentration of numbers and firepower drove a wedge into the junction between the 37^th Guards Division and 308^th Division, allowing most of 14^th Panzerdivision to break through and move to the north-east while the 389^th Division and 100^th Jagerdivision pinned the flanks of the Soviet defence and prevented an immediate counterattack. The 112^th Division was soon taken on each flank by the 14^th Panzerdivision and pinned frontally by the 60^th Division (mot.), and the 308^th Division also found itself in an equally dangerous situation. The Germans had surrounded three sides of the Dzerzhinsky tractor factory, broken the 37^th Guards Division and 112^th Division, and split the 62^nd Army.

Chuikov decided that he could not commit additional forces to holding the tractor factory, for it seemed probable that the Germans would launch an attack from a different direction if he weakened other areas of the 62^nd Army’s front. The loss of the tractor factory could, however, lead to the collapse of 62^nd Army’s right flank.

The Germans now committed the fresh 305^th Division in their advance toward the tractor factory, while the 16^th Panzerdivision and 60^th Division (mot.) continued their attack to the south against Polkovnik Gorokhov’s battered 124^th Brigade in the Spartanovka district. Right round their perimeter the Soviets were driven back, and in some places the Germans advanced 2,000 yards (1830 m). By this time most Soviet units were drastically under strength, and it would take time for Chuikov to deploy his only reinforcement, the 138^th Division from Siberia. The Germans renewed their attack, taking the Dzerzhinsky tractor factory and advancing to the south with the 14^th Panzerdivision, 100^th Jägerdivision and 305^th Division toward the Barrikady factory, while the 24^th Panzerdivision and 94^th Division provided support in the south.

However, the northern attack was finally slowed and then halted by the fire of artillery and the dug-in tanks of the 84^th Tank Brigade, while the 193^rd Division and 13^th Guards Division withstood the attacks of the 24^th Panzerdivision and 94^th Division. Chuikov deployed the 138^th Division to the right of the 308^th Division to defend the approach to the Barrikady factory. Meanwhile the 16^th Panzerdivision and 60^th Division (mot.) had cleared much of the northern suburbs, in the process compressing Gorokhov’s force into a small pocket. The Germans continued their relentless pressure, maintaining their advance to the south in the direction of the Barrikady factory, and overran most of the 84^th Tank Brigade in the process. This advance forced Chuikov to abandon his headquarters near the Dzerzhinsky tractor factory and to move to a new location just behind the Krasny Oktyabr steel factory. The Germans reached the edge of the Barrikady ordnance factory and the Volga river, cutting it off from the Krasny Oktyabr factory.

The 193^rd Division was now threatened by the 94^th Division, which was attempting to break into the Barrikady factory. Eventually, the combined weight of the 100^th Jägerdivision, 94^th Division and 389^th Division compelled forced Chuikov to withdraw what was left of the 193^rd Division and 308^th Division before they were annihilated.

Farther to the south, the Germans began to concentrate forces for an attack to the north toward the Krasny Oktyabr factory while pinning the Soviet forces in place. On 23 October, Paulus launched the fresh 79^th Division against the Krasny Oktyabr factory with armoured and air support. An infantry company broke into the factory’s north-western corner and was quickly reinforced as it tackled the defenders. The Germans also overwhelmed the defence of much of the Barrikady factory, and though fighting there continue for a time the factory was effectively in German hands.

Two regiments of the 45^th Division arrived to reinforce the 62^nd Army during the night of 26/27 October under the command of the 193^rd Division. The Krasny Oktyabr factory was half-occupied by the Germans, the 39^th Guards Division having been driven back by the full weight of the 79^th Division. The Germans were now a mere 400 yards (365 m) from the Volga river and had the landing stages under sustained fire.

However, the pace and weight of the 6^th Army's operations declined after 24 October as the weather started to turn notably colder. The army was also close to the point of exhaustion after two weeks of intensive and costly combat. The Germans held 90% of the city and had the remaining pockets of Soviet territory under constant fire. They had captured the Dzerzhinsky tractor factory and the Barrikady ordnance factory, and had occupied half of the Krasny Oktyabr steel factory. In the process the Germans had splintered the 62^nd Army, destroying the 37^th Guards Division, 95^th Division, 112^th Division, 84^th Tank Brigade and garrison of Spartanovka, and leaving the 193^rd Division and 308^th Division incapable of further combat. The Germans had therefore destroyed the equivalent of seven Soviet divisions, but this was not enough.

The Luftwaffe’s inability to isolate the 62^nd Army and its supporting artillery had denied the 6^th Army its victory. This failure of German air power resulted from the fact, noted above, that Luftflotte IV lacked the combat strength to provide simultaneous support the offensive of Heeresgruppe 'B' toward Stalingrad and that of Heeresgruppe 'A' into the Caucasus, and also to interdict the flow of Soviet supplies coming into the Stalingrad region, and to retain air superiority over the Soviet air force, which was growing slowly but steadily not only in strength but also in overall capability.

With the end of the Germans' third attack on 29 October, the fighting in Stalingrad died away except for a brief counterattack by the fully deployed 45^th Division between the Barrikady and Krasny Oktyabr factories.

The last German effort to take Stalingrad was 'Hubertus' (ii) on 10/18 November, when specially trained and equipped assault pioneer teams made a last but unavailing attempt to take the city’s industrial area. With the failure of 'Hubertus' (ii), the 6^th Army could now look forward only to a winter in the ruins of Stalingrad. In fact the position of the 6^th Army was altogether worse than many imagined, for the Soviets were preparing the great 'Uran' counter-offensive that would isolate the 6^th Army from the rest of Heeresgruppe 'B': with its lines of communication with the rest of Heeresgruppe 'B' cut by the surprise 'Uran' pincer offensive of Vatutin’s South-West Front and Eremenko’s Stalingrad Front, whose forces met in the German rear on the Karpovka river between Kalach and Sovetsky on 23 November, the 6^th Army was driven onto the strategic defensive.