Soviet planning

The Soviet 24th Tank Corps^{[note 1]} (later the 2nd Guards Tank Corps) belonged to the 3rd Guards Army, which was commanded by General Dmitri Lelyushenko, which was a part of the Southwestern Front under the command of Nikolai Vatutin. The corps was designated as the army's exploitation force, in line with the doctrine of Deep Battle. It was therefore not to be committed during the initial breaching of the tactical defenses of Axis forces in the sector, but would be committed once a breach in these defenses had been opened.

The assault by 3rd Guards Army commenced during the morning of 16 December 1942. In order to accelerate the breaching of the Axis tactical defense by his rifle formations, Lelyushenko committed the other two tank corps available to him (17th and 25th Tank Corps) during the initial phase of the battle.

The 24th Tank Corps was ordered to commence its operation at 1130 hours on 17 December. At this stage, the 17th and 25th Tank Corps had already reached the operational depth^{[clarification needed]} and were in the process of encircling Italian 8th Army and battling the forces of Army Detachment Hollidt. 25th Tank Corps later conducted a deep raid towards Morozovsk to the east of Tatsinskaya. The purpose of the two deep raids was to cut off the German formations conducting Operation Winter Storm, the relief attempt for the German 6th Army.

The raid

The raid was aimed at the German Luftwaffe's Tatsinskaya Airfield, from which a major part of the Stalingrad relief airlift was conducted. The airfield was located at the town of Tatsinskaya (population 5,000 at the time). On Christmas Eve, 24 December 1942, the Soviets captured the town and the airfield.^[1] The airfield may not have received a warning, since flight operations were still going on. An eyewitness account by a Soviet officer describes the scene:

Our tank detachments unexpectedly broke into Tatsinski military airport. First to penetrate enemy's territory was captain Nechaev's battalion. A tough fight between tanks and enemy anti aircraft artillery began. Germans were shooting grenades at the Russian (sic - Soviet) tanks and managed to blow up several of them. However the Soviet tank crews broke the Nazi defense. After they destroyed patrol forces, Russian (sic) soldiers started shooting German pilots that rushed to their planes desperately hoping to save their lives.^[2]

The airfield housed 170 operational transport aircraft, plus an unknown number of non-operational aircraft. The German defenses were quickly overrun, while about 100 (according to German estimates) transport planes managed to escape. German estimates were that 72 were destroyed, or almost 10% of the transport capacity of the Luftwaffe. Many of the planes were destroyed by Soviet tanks ramming the tail sections. A number of planes were destroyed while still on railway cars on which they had arrived. Shortly after the airfield was seized however, the 24th Tank Corps was cut off by the arriving German reinforcements and found itself without supplies deep inside the German lines.

Zhukov wrote in his memoirs that the Corps "captured a trainload of disassembled aircraft", and "crushed" 200 German transport aircraft "ready to take off." Then "for five whole days the armoured corps held Tatsinskaya, putting up fierce resistance to encircling enemy reserves."^[3]: 136

German reaction^[4]

Already while the battle for the airfield and the town were going on, it became clear to Badanov that he had been cut off, when march columns of his 24th Motorized Brigade were followed from the north by German forces. On 26 December, the last elements of the 24th Motorized Brigade managed to break through the encirclement to join the main body of the corps. Field Marshal Erich von Manstein had meanwhile ordered the XLVIII Panzer Corps to move towards the deep penetrations the Red Army had achieved with the 11th Panzer Division and 6th Panzer Division. From 26 December, the two divisions had cut off completely the connection between the 24th Tank Corps and 1st Guards Army. Towards the north, a mixed Kampfgruppe blocked the road against other Red Army formations that might come to the assistance of the 24th Tank Corps. The German command also brought up the 579th Infantry Regiment of the 306th Infantry Division and three armoured trains: PZ 10a, 10b and 28.^[5] Together, these forces launched an attack with the aim of destroying the 24th Tank Corps.

Stavka reacted by ordering the Front command to assist Badanov's force. The available units were 25th Tank Corps, which had been reduced to 25 tanks by heavy combat, and 1st Guards Mechanized Corps, which had incurred losses too. They were reinforced with infantry, but did not manage to break through to Tatsinskaya. This led to the need for Badanov and his surviving men to break out to escape destruction, and permission to do so was given on 28 December. Most of the matériel and many men were lost during the break-out, but the damage to the Germans had been done. German forces engaged in the relief of Stalingrad had to be withdrawn to deal with the raiders, and many irreplaceable transport planes of the Luftwaffe had been destroyed, with their crews and ground personnel mostly killed. The 24th Tank Corps claimed the destruction of 84 tanks, 106 guns, the killing of 12,000 Axis soldiers and the capture of almost 5,000 more in this operation.^{[citation needed]}

Soviet forces

German forces

• XLVIII Panzer Corps
  • 11th Panzer Division
  • 6th Panzer Division
  • 306th Infantry Division