Armata Italiana in Russia, Part Two
By Ottavio Ricchi
Edited by John Stafford
August 2012

The Soviets conceived Operation Little Saturn as part of a wider strategic plan for autumn 1942 and winter 1943. Operation Uranus had been the first blow, and Operations Mars and Saturn had to immediately follow. It is out of the scope of this article to provide an account at the strategic level, but the direct connections with the operations around Stalingrad should be mentioned.

The initial intent of Operation Saturn was to concentrate on the Italian sector, destroy the Axis forces (including a few remaining Romanian divisions) on that front, and then drive armored forces south toward Rostov. This would cut off General Ewald von Kleist’s army group in the Caucasus. This larger Saturn operation, as initially conceived by STAVKA, entailed the southwest front (under the command of General Nikolai Vatutin) and the Voronezh Front (under General Filipp Golikov). The initial breakthrough in both the Italian and Romanian sectors would be followed by a pincer movement of the armored troops towards Millerovo to encircle all the Axis forces in the sector. The second phase would see the use of the powerful second Guards Army (General Rodion Malinovsky) that would march to Rostov. However, in the first week of December the overall strategic situation changed. Thus this great (and perhaps unrealistic, given the lack of logistics and transport in the Red Army) Operation Saturn was substantially modified and the amount of forces assigned to it reduced.

In the original plans, the Axis troops encircled in Stalingrad were to be completely destroyed in a few days. This plan proved infeasible as it was based on a completely inaccurate estimate of the troops encircled (250,000 versus the planned 80,000). Also, the Germans were able to organize an all-round and aggressive defense and in the first days of December driving back the first Soviet attempts to break into the town with high losses. Consequently, the Soviet High Command was forced to keep a very large force around the pocket to prevent the Germans form breaking out. This task kept entire Don Front of Rokossovskij busy. To counter this Soviet threat, the Germans unleashed Operation Winter Storm with the aim of reaching the encircled 6th Army.

This sealed the fate of the initial Operation Saturn plan. On December 13, Stalin diverted the 2nd Guards Army to help repel the German counter-offensive. At the same time STAVKA sent Golikov and Vatutin new directives for Operation Saturn with more limited short term objectives.

The first part of the Soviet offensive remained virtually unchanged entailing the initial attack on the Italian lines on the Don and those of the Romanian troops placed along the Chir River. The operation was now aimed at disrupting rear area logistics of Axis troops, gaining control of the important railway lines, and in the process eliminating the 8th Italian Army. After destroying enemy forces, the powerful Soviet mechanized forces in the second echelon would proceed rapidly in two directions: west towards the communications centers at Kanterinowka and Millerovo, and especially to the southeast to seize the ​​airports from which the Luftwaffe was supplying the Stalingrad pocket.

The Soviet deployment, coordinated by the representative of STAVKA General Nikolai Voronov, consisted of a main body placed against the ARMIR consisting of the 6th Army of the Voronezh Front (General Golikov) and the 1st Army (it had approximately 750 tanks). A second group consisting of the III Guards Army belonging to Vatutin (with another 300 tanks) was placed against the so-called Hollidt Detachment, formed from the remains of some Romanian divisions and a German infantry division.

The buildup of troops began at the end of November and accelerated during the first days of December. The Soviets were able to mass 10 infantry divisions, four tank corps, and three independent tank regiments, thus achieving a massive superiority. The superiority in armor was dramatic, even when the 27th Panzer Division made it to the front. Furthermore, the quality of Soviet tanks in this sector was much higher than that of Axis forces.

Soviet Tank Strength Facing the ARMIR

Axis Forces

The Soviet divisions along the front would also engage in local attacks to draw away the Axis reserves. These preparatory attacks would also gain reconnaissance information to discover the weak points of the enemy defenses, and gaining footholds in the opposite side of the river which would ease the following stage of the offensive. Breakthrough operations would follow, opening a gap wide enough for a full scale advance of armored troops. The third stage (exploitations phase) entailed the in-depth penetration by the tank corps followed by infantry units to secure the positions captured by the armor. Finally, the plan called for reaching Tachinskaya airport and Morozowsk and establishing a new front line.

The start of Operation Little Saturn, initially scheduled for the 5th December, kicked off on the 16th due to a number of logistic problems, some of which were still solved by the time of the operation. For instance, the army level artillery did not make it in time for the massive opening barrage of the 16th. However preliminary actions started as early as December 11th. Soviet accounts of the five days that preceded the official start are usually not very informative. Conversely, Italian sources provide a vivid picture of the harsh fighting that took place. During these days there was fierce fighting at battalion (if not at regimental) level in the sectors of the 2nd Army Corps, against the Divisions Ravenna and Cosseria, and of the 35th Army Corps, against the Pasubio division. The official battle accounts of the Italian army estimate the Soviets employed approximately 10% of their troops and suffered massive casualties. However, the reports also acknowledge that Italian defenses were severely degraded and all available spare forces had been committed by the time the main offensive took place. The territorial gains of these preliminary actions by the Soviets were minimal; because each time a number of strongpoints were captured the Italians reacted with very aggressive counterattacks to restore the line. For such counterstrikes, initially the Italians employed the regimental reserves, then Blackshirt battalions, and finally all sorts of remaining assets (mixed formation of engineers, railways battalions, etc.).

Soviet advances during Operation Litgtle Saturn.

The Germans noticed the stoutness of the Italian defense, but their initial appreciation of Italian efforts soon gave way to concern as the situation became more serious and the reserves were depleted. The German command simply did not believe that the Soviets had sufficient forces available to launch additional offensives of the scale of Operation Uranus. They dismissed reports by the Italian 8th Army noting the buildup of Soviet forces in front of them, deciding only a local threat existed. The view in Berlin was different. To Hitler, the chance that the Italian sector would be subject to a full scale attack represented a personal nightmare for him. First, he ordered that anti-tank capabilities in the sector should be enhanced; and, as a consequence, a number of small panzerjäger units were placed in the Italian rear area. Furthermore German divisions were directed to the sector and arrived or were on the verge of arriving when the Russian offensive began. The 318th Infantry Regiment was placed in between the Cosseria and Ravenna Divisions during the first days of December. The 385th Division arrived soon after the start of the offensive, to be followed by the 27th Panzer Division. A third division, the 387th Infantry Division, would make it too late to have an impact on the outcome of Little Saturn, but eventually helped in building a defensive shoulder in the right flank against the Soviets. None of these units represented an elite unit, and the 27th Panzer Division (with weak tanks) put in a poor performance. Finally, the Germans formed a peculiar unit, Kampfgruppe Fegelein, from a mix of SS police force regiments, Wehrmacht elite units (Fuhrer Begleit Battalion), and a few company level assets. However, the poor deployment and utilization of these units in the ensuring campaign, as well as the reluctance of the German 298th Division to help the Ravenna division during the initial dramatic hours, almost determined the Soviet breakthrough.

The tale began with Part One.