Operations
AFTER KHARKOV—RETREAT TO THE DNEPR IV
In spite of a few German tactical successes such as the above incident, the attack by the Soviets in the center of 6. Armee threatened to split the army in half and drive on to Stalin or even penetrate to the Dnepr. Already, there was the dangerous situation in the south in which Russian infantry built three bridgeheads over the…
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Germany under Pressure 1943 Part IV
Whatever the means that secured them, the improvements in Soviet Intelligence enabled Stavka’s planning for the summer to proceed more or less in parallel with the German. However, the planners were soon confronted by the disconcerting discovery that the new German Tiger I heavy tank was far superior to their…
Unternehmen Wintergewitter (Operation Winter Storm)
The operations plan to extricate the Sixth Army Meanwhile, the OKH had informed Manstein that it would provide other forces for Army Group Don’s mission. Two panzer divisions (the 6th and the 23rd) and a Luftwaffe field division (the 15th), would be attached to Colonel General Hoth’s Fourth Panzer Army,…
Operation Mars I
It is worth dwelling for a moment on the audacity of Stavka’s grand strategic design in autumn 1942. The aim was not only substantial encirclements in the Rzhev-Viazma and Stalingrad areas but even more gigantic encirclements of both Army Group Center and Army Group South. As the planetary nomenclature suggested—Mars,…
Operation Mars II
The fourth item of evidence is in the memoirs of Army General A.I. Gribkov, who as a captain on the General Staff took part in ‘Mars’. The corps he was attached to (Solomatin’s) fought for several days in encirclement, and after the remnants of it had managed to break through…
OPERATION AERIAL (NORTHERN SECTOR)
Operation Ariel: Polish troops standing in an assembly point in Ancenis, France, before their evacuation. Note their uniforms of the French mountain infantry, the Chasseurs Alpins. Ports utilised during the evacuation of British and Allied forces, 15–25 June 1940, under the codename Operation Ariel. Operation Aerial (also Ariel) was the…
OPERATION AERIAL (SOUTHERN SECTOR)
Lancastria sinking off St Nazaire RAF personnel being evacuated from Brest Ports utilised during the evacuation of British and Allied forces, 15–25 June 1940, under the codename Operation Ariel. During Operation Aerial, Admiral Dunbar-Nasmith had two tasks at the ports in the southern sector. As well as rescuing a large…