Little Stalingrad

For Hitler and OKW, it was the "Battle of the Cherkassy Pocket", but the troops trapped within called it “Little Stalingrad.” On 28 January, the Red Army’s latest offensive in the Ukraine had cut off a large salient containing two German Corps—the 9th and 42nd. Trapped as well was the …

1944-02-14

DASL05

D05

For Hitler and OKW, it was the "Battle of the Cherkassy Pocket", but the troops trapped within called it “Little Stalingrad.” On 28 January, the Red Army’s latest offensive in the Ukraine had cut off a large salient containing two German Corps—the 9th and 42nd. Trapped as well was the SS Wallonie Brigade, prime element of Gruppe Stemmermann. Stemmermann’s men were fighting a grim rearguard action against Koniev’s Second Ukrainian Front while the bulk of the German forces prepared to break out to the west. At OKW, Hitler himself was particularly interested in the fate of Stemmermann’s command. Politics had much to do with his concern, for the chief of staff of the Wallonian brigade was Leon Degrelle, head of the fascist Rexist Party in Belgium and a living symbol of Axis solidarity. Nazi prestige would suffer if Degrelle was allowed to fall in Russia. Meanwhile, 1500 miles away, Degrelle had more important things on his mind than Nazi prestige.

Novaya Buda, Russia

The Battle of Korsun–Cherkasy, or the battle of the Korsun–Cherkasy pocket, was a World War II battle fought from 24 January to 16 February 1944 in the course of the Soviet Dnieper–Carpathian offensive in Ukraine following the Korsun–Shevchenkovsky offensive. In the battle, the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts, commanded, respectively, by Nikolai Vatutin and Ivan Konev, encircled German forces of Army Group South in a pocket near the Dnieper River. During weeks of fighting, the two Red Army Fronts tried to eradicate the pocket. The encircled German units attempted a breakout in coordination with a relief attempt by other German forces, resulting in heavy casualties, estimates of which vary. The Soviet victory in the Korsun–Shevchenkovsky offensive marked the successful implementation of Soviet deep operations. Soviet deep battle doctrine envisaged the breaking of the enemy's forward defences to allow fresh operational reserves to exploit the breakthrough by driving into the strategic depth of the enemy front. The arrival of large numbers of American- and British-built trucks and halftracks gave the Soviet forces much greater mobility than they had had before. This, coupled with the Soviet capacity to hold large formations in reserve gave the Red Army the ability to drive deep behind German defenses again and again.

Russian

German

Scenario Type = Deluxe