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Firestorm Stalingrad Phase III: Operation Little Saturn

Firestorm Stalingrad Phase III: Operation Little Saturn
with Jim Naughton

The third round of our Legions Pittsburgh Firestorm Stalingrad Campaign began on December 7th and was completed on December 28th. The delay and extra week was caused by a resurgence of interest in Team Yankee on the day after American Thanksgiving, our Late War Toys for Tots event, and some holiday travel. This round saw eight games completed.

Click here to learn about Firestorm: Stalingrad...

As before, we used Battle Plans to determine the actual scenario played. The side controlling the battle arrow had to select ATTACK or MANEUVER while other side needed to choose either MANEUVER or DEFEND. A number of players selected MANEUVER to avoid minefields or deep reserves, producing situations where the game attacker might be the notional sector defender.

Click here to see part one of this Firestorm Stalingrad battle report...

Click here to see part two of this Firestorm Stalingrad battle report...

Operation Little Saturn was the name for the Soviet offensive that put the final nail in the coffin of 6th Army in Stalingrad. It was a reduced plan from a more ambitious Operation Saturn, which originally aimed at seizing Rostov and completely cutting off Army Group A as well as significant elements of Army Group B. Stalin and Zhukov had to give up on the full plan because Soviet losses during Uranus and Winter Storm had exceeded planning norms.

The Firestorm rules for this phase placed the control squarely with Marshall Zhukov, with a 3+ die roll indicating a Soviet battle arrow. Ben I, as Marshall Zhukov, allocated one attack to Stalingrad sector (Battle 4), Ben also directed attacks from Millerovo to Tshymiyanka (Arrow 1), Savolnoye to Askoye, Soviet base area to Betanovka, and one combat in Stalingrad.

This offensive plan attempted to cut off the German penetration to the outskirts of Stalingrad along the German baseline, replicating the final Soviet effort to push the Germans beyond air transport distance of Stalingrad and cutting off the spearheads of 4th Panzer Army.

Rob G, as Marshal Manstein, attempted to shorten the logistics stretch supplying Stalingrad by recapturing Chir Station with his single attack. His orders to his subordinate commanders called for them to select MANEUVER as their battle plan. This would increase the chance of recapturing lost ground. In our campaign, the MANEUVER option gave a victorious defender the opportunity to gain a space on a 4+.

Firestorm Stalingrad Phase III: Operation Little Saturn

Rob G and Ben I first squared off to fight Chir Station. Rob G’s MKIVs defeated Ben I’s improved Valentine Swarm from Red Banner 7-2 in Counterattack.

Firestorm Stalingrad Phase III: Operation Little Saturn

I took up the slack from absent German players, deploying a Grenadier Company with MK IV and Marders in Bridgehead. Ben tightened the inner ring around Stalingrad 7-2 with the same Valentine list.  However, my Grenadiers earned their place in history as Major Stransky led the counterattacks over and over again to capture three KV-1s, doubtless qualifying for the Knight’s Cross in the process. Feldwebel Steiner was regretfully evacuated after suffering serious wounds.  Unfortunately Stransky’s efforts were not enough.

Ben next played Tim I for Tshymiyanka using the improved Valentine swarm against Tim M’s Gepanzerte Panzer Grenadiers in Dust Up, with our first appearance of the Ferdinand from Ghost Panzers. This wasn’t enough to tip the odds as Ben managed to win 8-1

I switched back to Soviets for the next week as more German players were available. My classic T34/KV-8 force did not do so well attacking into Betanovka, as they were handily repulsed by Tim’s Panzer Grenandiers using the same force’s combination of mobility and machineguns playing Encounter, 8-1.

We also had another visit from the Americans, with Jason D. fighting for the Axis with his Armored Rifles. The American stand-ins proved successful in winning a Stalingrad battle 8-1 in Counterattack over the so-far difficult improved Valentine swarm under Ben I.

Holiday scheduling then stretched the campaign past Christmas.

The final week produced four new fights. Ben I and Rob G squared off again in Counterattack, this time with the Russians in the driver seat. Rob G’s MK IVs proved unable to stem the tide, and this battle saw the Soviets capture Askoye, 7-2.

Tim M fought Jeremy C in Stalingrad, posting a convincing 7-2 win at counterattack as the Gepanzerte Panzer Grenadiers proved as flexible in defense as attack or maneuver. Jeremy C’s Strelkovy proved unable to shift the Panzer Grenadiers.

Firestorm Stalingrad Phase III: Operation Little Saturn

Finally, I played Russians, facing John’s Americans serving the Fuhrer, in Breakthrough, winning 8-1 when American infantry supported by Shermans proved incapable of stopping KV-8s. This posted another win in Stalingrad, bringing the Stalingrad VPs to 3-2, Russians.

As it turned out, the Germans did reasonably well in the last Firestorm period.  Of 8 games posted they won three. However, all three victories were Tim M with his Gepanzerte Panzer Grenadiers with the Ferdinand.

Firestorm Stalingrad Phase III: Operation Little Saturn

Overall Statistics
We played 23 games over 7 game sessions. Thirteen players participated. The Soviet side won 15 games while the German side won 8. Americans fought on both sides and posted wins each way.  The final outcome saw the Soviets with 28 VPs while the Germans scored 10. The last phase featured a critical Germans win in the ‘Chir Station’ sector’ as well as two wins in Stalingrad that grew their score more than the Soviets managed in the last phase. But the Soviets grew just enough. According to the Firestorm Rules, this was a narrow Soviet tactical victory.  The map, however, shows the Stalingrad pocket bigger, but just as thoroughly cut off. Tim M was our best German player with 5 victories while Ben I complemented his strategy by winning 6 games for the Soviets.

Lessons
When I was still in the US Army, the ARSTAFF went through a great review of the pluses and minuses of Operations Desert Storm/Desert Shield. At the time this work was completed, the Army was enmeshed in the operations that would lead to Blackhawk Down. The staff officers involved were then required to carry a bound edition of the report and a stack of vu-graphs around the Pentagon pre-briefing all manner of General Officers before briefing the CSA and VCSA.

During one of these pre-briefings, one of the Generals listened, complimented all on their excellent work, and then said pensively, “But there is one small change I’d like to see.”

If you’ve never been in one of these briefings, you’ll have to imagine 22 colonels, lieutenant colonels and majors picking up pens and focusing on the General, waiting for this pearl of wisdom so it could be recorded in living color on the next iteration of the briefing charts.

The General looked down the table, shook his head, and said, “You need to change the title to LESSONS. Based on what I just heard about the movements to Mogadishu, we haven’t learned a damn thing.”

So I have a natural caution against calling this Lessons Learned. I may or may not do better next time.

The first thing is maintaining momentum and scheduling battles. From previous Firestorm efforts I knew we were unlikely to finish a phase in a single week. Retrospectively, I should have rolled dice to allocate a second round of attacks in the phase. This would have eliminated the confusion that occurred.

Refighting battles proved less satisfactory than I hoped. The problem is that when at most one refight is possible an 8-1 victory can only be ‘averaged’ to a draw. Also, when the attacker wins 8-1 or 7-2 he has no interest in refighting the action. This led to extra battles on the Stalingrad track.

Most of our Soviet players prefer ‘tankovy’ armies and thus only reluctantly chose “DEFEND” when fighting against German-controlled battle arrows. Only a few games saw the Soviets literally hold ground. The Germans deliberately shifted, as noted in the discussion above, to “MANEUVER” in order to increase the likelihood of a positive strategic result. It was a smart move, but the battles they won after that change weren’t ones that allowed a follow-up.

Firestorm Stalingrad Phase III: Operation Little Saturn

There were some insights into list-building worth discussing. Probably the most surprising to me was the efficacy of the Soviet Valentine ‘swarm’ when compared to T34s. The point difference allows nearly twice as many Valentines as T34s in the same priced-company. When the Soviets are dealing with light-armored Marders and Hornisse or similar, the extra tanks are more useful than the extra gun-power. The Red Banner unit allows upgrade to 6 PDR and that makes them even more attractive as the T34 still limps along with AT-9. Proving the point that there are only Lessons rather than Lessons Learned, I have stubbornly clung to the T34 (so far).

Firestorm Stalingrad Phase III: Operation Little Saturn

From the German side the main lesson seemed to be that you need both lots of AT and machine guns, and so it was not terribly surprising that the German players gravitated away from Panzer IIIs to Marders, and eventually to Ferdinands. We saw a brief appearance of the Tiger I, but it proved too expensive when faced with either T34 or Valentine swarms.

German infantry definitely needed Panzerknackers – relying on the Soviet tanks to fail counterattack was not actually reliable, although in a couple spectacular cases it did work.

Aircraft proved to be an interesting feature of these battles, and our jury is still out. Some players strongly favored them as the gun-armed planes like the Stuka with 37mm and the Sturmovik provided an answer to lightly-armored tank destroyers. I found that they don’t work well with an aggressive style of play – when they showed up the tank destroyers had already done most of their work, and I was too close to gain much by throwing them in.

Bringing us to the final narrative:

Manstein looked at the unsatisfactory results of Operation Wintergewitter and realized that the failure to clear either rail line into Stalingrad meant that resupply of von Paulus would be totally dependent on trucks – trucks Manstein needed to resupply his spearheads and attempt to widen the breach into Stalingrad. So he made the fateful decision to reopen at least one rail line and concentrated the spearheads of Fourth Panzer Army and Army Abteilung Hollidt into a supreme effort to recapture Chir Station.

Zhukov cannily decided to avoid head-on fights with the German schwerpunkt instead striking for the airfields supplying Stalingrad and reaching deeper along the rail lines. Diverting strength from a proposed deep penetration to Rostov, Zhukov gave up the possible destruction of Army Group A for the low-hanging fruit of 4th Panzer Army’s spearheads.

The battle renewed on 22 December. The headlong plunge of 17th Panzer Division – Manstein’s last fresh force – successfully drove the Soviet 21st Army off the looted supply dumps of 6th Army, regaining the vital Don Bridge at Chir Station. With the rail bridge over the Askay repaired, the first trains moved into Stalingrad in time for Christkrindlmart, and renewed 6th Army’s offensive spirit leading to more bloody fighting in the ruined city.

Manstein’s brief success had a bitter fruit. The Soviet 3rd Guards Army turned southeast, avoiding the trap Manstein had prepared for it on the approaches to Rostov, and smashed through Army Abteilung Hollidt’s left flank. 24th Tank Corps raced ahead to seize the vital airfield at Tatskinskya where it destroyed 70 Ju52 transports on the ground and captured mounds of supplies waiting airlift into Stalingrad.

Meanwhile, 28th Army and 51st Army renewed their offensive operations south of the Askay River, fighting their way through weakened 16th Motorized Division to capture Askoye. Suddenly LVII Panzerkorps was all but cut off. With XLVIII Panzerkorps brushed aside by 3rd Guards Army and 6th Soviet Army demonstrating toward Rostov, there was no choice but to order LVII Panzerkorps to breakout back southwest toward Rostov to save the cadres of three veteran panzer divisions. Maintenance failures and fuel shortages cost dearly as the surviving German motorized units retired quickly. Unfortunately, this left major elements of two German infantry divisions holding villages along the rail line and protecting the withdrawal of the Panzerkorps, as well as leaving disabled German tanks and trucks scattered across the steppe.

Operation Little Saturn had succeeded, and Stalingrad was permanently cut off from the outside world.
~Jim


Last Updated On Thursday, January 17, 2019