I can already see the comment section in the end of the European war be like… Steiner… And the entire thing
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OH HOI live Stream Steiner is also counterattacking 
He is a busy guy throwing rocks (steiner) in every direction 
LIVESTREAM: WW2 - Hearts of Iron IV: No Step Back [Sponsored] - YouTube
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It is the defector vs Steiner… Now. My bet… No one will win. Steiner will tell his men to go home and defector will defect
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Not sure my only comment is GO CHEWIEKOV (he is my Russian uncle and it not wise to upset a Wookie 
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These puns…
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The Pittsburgh Press (November 28, 1942)
RUSSIANS SLASH GERMAN LINES
300,000 Nazis in Red trap, London hears
Vital town 75 miles from Stalingrad reported in Soviet hands
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Moscow, USSR –
The Red Army newspaper, Red Star, today reported that Soviet forces have cut the most important communications and supply lines of the German siege army at Stalingrad.
Exchange Telegraph quoted Swiss radio reports as saying that the Russians had captured Kletskaya, 75 miles northwest of Stalingrad.
Red Star said the Soviet successes opened the way not only to drive the Germans from Stalingrad but to turn the Nazi retreat into a complete rout.
Fog, snow hamper action
Red Star said:
Our duty is to drive the enemy from every line and destroy the encircled troops.
Fog and snow hampered operations on the Stalingrad Front to some extent, dispatches reported, but the Russian offensive was said to be gaining new ground northwest of the Volga city.
It was announced today that Joseph Stalin had promoted 24 men to major general.
Military observers in London believed that the Russians had closed a pincer somewhere south of Kalach on the Don River and trapped up to 300,000 Germans on the Stalingrad Front.
Those penned in have only two possibilities of escaping capture or death, observers said. Hacking a way out or grimly holding on in anticipation of a relieving counterattack from the southwest.
Resistance increases
The Russians advanced inside, northwest and southwest of Stalingrad, although the two latest Soviet communiqués indicated that German resistance was increasing. But battlefront dispatches pointed out that the Russians are out to kill Germans and the question of advances was secondary, so long as they accomplished their primary objective.
The BBC, as heard by CBS, reported that the Russian pincer lacked only 20 miles of completely encircling the Germans at Stalingrad.
Radio Berlin said Axis forces were outnumbered 10 to 1 at some places on the Stalingrad Front.
The noon Red Army communiqué indicated that the offensive inside Stalingrad was broadening, although it did not indicate the position of pincers somewhere in the plains west of the Don River.
Strong counterattacks were reported northwest and southwest of Stalingrad by German reinforcements, but they did not retard the Russians seriously.
At least four towns of some importance, and vast amounts of booty had been captured by the Russians in the last 24 hours.
Radio Moscow said the one-time defenders of northern Stalingrad had joined forces with Red Army men who began the attack outside Stalingrad to break a defense area which the Germans had boasted was impregnable.
Gap narrowed
The Stalingrad garrison gained on all sectors – in the northern part of the city, in a factory district, and in the center.
Inside Stalingrad, the Russians narrowed a gap behind the Germans with the capture of Marinovka, 20 miles due west of the city, and 10 miles east of the junction from which a spur line branches from the Stalingrad-Kharkov railway and runs 10 miles to the northwest, toward Russian-held Kalach.
A German Transocean dispatch last night said Axis forces had opened several powerful counterattacks against Russian forces which had broken into their positions at Stalingrad.
It still spoke of a big Russian offensive on the Central Front, particularly around Toropets, 120 miles from the Latvian border. “New waves of tank and infantry” assaulted German positions Thursday and yesterday “without any successes worth mentioning,” the dispatch said. A Soviet tank division which broke into German positions west of Toropets was “completely annihilated,” it said.
Attack at Leningrad
Northeast of Tuapse Naval Base, in the Western Caucasus, the Russians captured a tactically important height, the Soviet communiqué said. The Germans vainly tried to retake it.
The liveliest activity in some time was reported on the Leningrad Front. There, the communiqué said, Soviet artillery reconnaissance units and snipers have killed more than 1,000 Germans in three days and destroyed 28 pillboxes and earth and timber forts.
The Soviet Information Bureau issued a special communiqué denouncing the Nazis for telling “fairytales of Arabian Nights variety” about the situation on the Stalingrad Front.
For example, the communiqué said, the Germans had announced the rout of 10 Soviet divisions.
Units don’t exist
Some of the divisions the Germans named, the communiqué continued, do not exist and have never existed. Others are not fighting in the offensive; the several which are form part of the Soviet forces which are hurling back the Germans.
The communiqué said:
The Germans do not have any flamethrower tank capable of hurling fire six stories high, or an electric machine gun that fires 3,000 rounds a minute.
What, then, is the purpose of telling those lies? The Hitlerites clearly do this with the purpose of preserving by means of unscrupulous lies, German troops, who find themselves in an extremely tight corner, from utter demoralization and forcing them to fight by any means whatever. The Hitlerites also need these lies in order to reassure in some way the Germans in the rear.
Völkischer Beobachter (November 29, 1942)
In Wenigen Tagen härtester Abwehr –
449 Sowjetpanzer vernichtet
dnb. Aus dem Führer-Hauptquartier, 28. November –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
Deutsche und rumänische Truppen wiesen im Westkaukasus Angriffe des Feindes im Gegenangriff zurück. Auch ostwärts Alagir brachen stärkere Angriffe der Sowjets unter Verlust von 35 Panzerkampfwagen zusammen. Jagdflieger schossen hier sieben Sowjetflugzeuge ab. Motorisierte deutsche Truppen vernichteten bei einem Vorstoß in der Kalmückensteppe wiederum eine feindliche Kräftegruppe. 600 Gefangene wurden eingebracht.
Zwischen Wolga und Don, im großen Donbogen und in Stalingrad scheiterten wiederum schwere Angriffe des Flakartillerie und Schlachtflieger griffen wirksam in die Erdkämpfe ein und vernichteten 34 Sowjetpanzer. Nach bisherigen Meldungen verlor der Feind in der Zeit vom 20. bis 27. November zwischen Wolga und Don 319 Panzerkampfwagen. Außerdem wurden 26 Geschütze zerstört und über 2000 Gefangene eingebracht. An der Donfront vereitelten italienische Truppen einen Übersetzversuch.
Südwestlich Kalinin und im Raum um Toropez dauern die schweren Abwehrkämpfe an. Eigene Gegenangriffe schlugen den Feind an verschiedenen Abschnitten zurück, wobei erneut 95 Panzer abgeschossen wurden, davon 56 allein durch eine Panzerdivision. Kampffliegerverbände griffen bei Tag und Nacht, zum Teil bei Schneesturm, Marschkolonnen, Truppenbereitstellungen und die Bahnanlagen von Toropez mit guter Wirkung an.
Sturzkampfflieger erzielten im hohen Norden Bombentreffer schweren Kalibers in Bahnhöfen der Murmanstrecke.
In Nordafrika nur örtlich beschränkte Kampftätigkeit. Zeltlager und Kolonnen zwischen Bengasi und Agedabia wurden mit Bomben und Bordwaffen bekämpft. Weitere Luftangriffe richteten sich bei Tag und Nacht gegen Flugstützpunkte und motorisierte feindliche Kräfte in Tunesien. Deutsche und italtenische Jagdflieger schossen im gesamten Kampfraum zwanzig feindliche Flugzeuge ab.
Deutsche Jäger griffen bei einem Tagesvorstoß zur Südküste Englands Eisenbahnziele erfolgreich an.
funny, how it doesn’t mention of the 6th army being completely surrounded
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funny, well humor was never their shtick 
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The Pittsburgh Press (November 29, 1942)
Soviets make 18-mile gap in Nazi lines
Russian ring around Stalingrad also perils Germans
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Moscow, USSR –
The Red Army, which has been forging an iron ring around the Germans attacking Stalingrad, has opened a Central Front offensive in which 10,000 Nazi troops have been killed, a special communiqué reported today.
While the German siege army before Stalingrad was reported floundering without a single communications-supply line, the Soviet Army on the Central Front was driving through the German lines, creating at one point a breach 18 miles wide, according to the special communiqué.
Radio Berlin admitted that the Russians were pressing heavy attacks northwest of Moscow and in the Stalingrad area between the Volga and the Don. Radio Vichy said big tank battles were being fought on the Rzhev-Velikiye Luki front with large Russian losses.
The attack was launched west of Rzhev and east of Velikiye Luki, which is 100 miles west of Rzhev and 230 miles west of Moscow.
The special communiqué on the Central Front said the Soviet troops, having taken the offensive “in the past few days,” overcame stubborn enemy resistance and broke through the strongly-fortified defense line established by the Germans.
The communiqué said:
In the area of Velikiye Luki, the German front was broken on a width of 30 kilometers (about 18 miles). In the area west of Rzhev, the enemy was broken in three places, at one point to a width of 20 kilometers (about 12 miles), at another point to a width of 17 kilometers [about 10 miles], and at a third point to a width of about 10 kilometers [about six miles].
The Red Army advanced in these areas to depths ranging up to 18 miles, the special communiqué asserted.
An indication that the offensive had passed Velikiye Luki was seen in the communiqué’s statement that the Red troops had cut the railroad line between Velikiye Luki and Nevel, 75 miles southwest of Velikiye Luki. Other railroads cut ran between Velikiye Luki and Novosokolniki, 60 miles west of Velikiye Luki, and Rzhev and Vyazma, 80 miles south of Rzhev.
The Axis tried to stem the advance with numerous fierce counterattacks, the communiqué continued, but lost heavily and were repulsed.
The special communiqué asserted:
In the course of this offensive, our troops liberated more than 300 populated places and routed four German infantry divisions and one German tank division.
In three days of fighting, the announcement continued:
…the enemy left on the battlefield up to 10,000 dead soldiers and officers. The offensive of our troops continues.
At Stalingrad, the Russians also gained.
Exchange Telegraph reported from Moscow that Kletskaya had been captured by the Russians after a bitter battle in which all of the 760 houses in the city had been destroyed. Only seven inhabitants of the city were said to have survived the battle which was described as turning the city “into a German cemetery.” Kletskaya is a highly strategic town on the west bank of the Don. It was regarded as the northern hinge of the battle lines around Stalingrad.
Weather hampers Reds
Soviet offensive operations in the Stalingrad sector were hampered, it was reported by fog and snow but the Red Army did not halt its multiple operations which were designed to chop the German forces between the Volga and the Don into small pockets for methodical wiping out.
London sources believe the Russians had completed the encirclement of the Stalingrad army, trapping an estimated 20 German divisions – possibly 300,000 men, minus casualties.
The Soviet columns northwest, west and southwest of Stalingrad reported further progress despite Nazi counterattacks by fresh reinforcements. Within Stalingrad itself, the stubborn defenders were pressing back the Germans particularly in the northern factory district where 20 pillboxes and several factory buildings were reoccupied.
The chief Soviet objective was said to be to continue the tempo of their drive, preventing the Nazis from establishing strong defense lines anywhere between the Volga and the Don.
Cut Nazi supply lines
Red Star, organ of the Red Army, reported that the last important German communications-supply lines leading up to the German positions at Stalingrad were now in Russian hands.
Red Star said:
A situation has developed which will give the Red Army an opportunity not only to develop its successes but to transform them into the complete rout of the enemy on a strategically important battlefield.
Our duty is to drive the enemy from every line he tries to hold and destroy his encircled troops.
The gap between the Soviet columns operating to the rear of the Germans at Stalingrad was reported appreciably narrowed with the capture of Marinovka, 30 miles due west of Stalingrad and 10 miles east of the junction from which the spur line from the Stalingrad-Kharkov railroad branches off to Kalach, 10 miles to the northwest.
The Russians were said to be to the east – the only direction in which the Germans found retreat possible.
This report indicated that substantial numbers of German troops are now being attacked from two sides by the Russians.
The Russian column advancing northwest in the Kletskaya direction was reported to have killed thousands of Germans and taken other thousands prisoner.
It was reported that for the first time since the start of the war the German armored forces had proved themselves no match in opening fighting with the Russian forces. The number of Nazi tanks destroyed or captured was approaching 1,400.
The weakness of the German tanks was said to be due, in part, to the failure of the German Air Force to give them usual protection. Despite bad weather and poor visibility, the Red Air Force was making constant attacks on German armored strength.
Attack from two sides
Red Star said the Russians were attacking from every possible direction. The Germans were said to have been cleared out entirely from one section of the west bank of the Don and to have been thrown back moving along the railroad toward Stalingrad, developing their attacks from the rear on the Nazi forces which still hold their advanced positions within Stalingrad.
A TASS (Soviet) Agency report from the northwest front said that Russian tanks, pursuing the retreating Germans, inflicted a crushing defeat on the enemy, attacking from the flanks and throwing the Nazis into confusion.
Russian troops inside Stalingrad were pressing their attacks in the northern part of the city with the aid of the force which effected contact with them by a drive down the west bank of the Volga.
They were said to be breaking into strong German defense positions in the Tomilin, Akatovka and Latoshanka workers settlements.
To the southeast, the Germans were bringing up reinforcements from positions far to the rear in an effort to slow down the Soviet progress.
wait a min… if there is an 18 mile gap can’t the Germans somehow find a way to exploit it by cutting them off and encircling them?
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The Pittsburgh Press (November 30, 1942)
REDS SET NEW TRAP FOR NAZIS
Russians break Stalingrad lines at more places
Soviet troops 60 miles from Latvia aim to encircle Smolensk sector
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Moscow, USSR –
The Red Army, its tanks and infantry pressing westward with the fury of a Russian blizzard, blasted new holes in Hitler’s Stalingrad defense lines today and threatened similar envelopment of the salient running northeastward from Smolensk to Rzhev.
Russian units had reportedly advanced to within 60 miles of the Latvian border in an offensive of mounting power.
There were apprehensive German reports that the Russians were also preparing a third big offensive around Voronezh, midway between Stalingrad and Moscow, where the Russians were said to have massed great forces of tanks and infantry. Similar German reports preceded the Rzhev offensive.
May cut off Rzhev
The Russians were driving hard against Novosokolniki, west of Velikiye Luki and only 60 miles east of Latvia. Railroad connections between the two towns had been severed early in the offensive west of Moscow and it appeared that Velikiye Luki might be cut off altogether. Rzhev appeared to be meeting a similar fate.
The German High Command reported that Axis troops had stopped Soviet attacks on all sectors of the Russian front.
In the Stalingrad area, where the Germans fought desperately against impending annihilation, the Russians crossed the Don River some 35 miles northeast of Kalach, breaking through the Nazis’ east bank fortifications and occupying Vertachy and Peskovotka. The two towns, six miles apart, were pivotal points in the German defensive system.
The newspaper Pravda reported that in the area northwest of Stalingrad, the Germans had been forced to turn to transport planes to bring up reinforcements because their railroad communications had been cut. The Soviet Air Force was shooting down many of the transports, Pravda said.
Blizzards handicap Reds
It was believed that Col. Gen. Hermann Hoth could not hope to receive sufficient German reinforcements from the west or southwest to give him any chance of blasting his way out of the pocket.
Soviet artillery on the front northwest of Moscow was handicapped by blizzards, but the Germans managed to put planes into the air for a strong counterattack, with tanks and reserve infantry, which the Russians broke in bitter fighting.
The latest communiqué reported today that the Russians had captured 38 fortified dugouts and blockhouses in Stalingrad and in 10 days had taken 66,000 prisoners there alone, while the German dead mounted to 100,000.
An earlier communiqué had reported Russian gains in the Tuapse sector on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus.
Kill 3,750 in one day
In one sector alone did the Germans essay offensive action. There, in the Nalchik area of the Caucasus Mountains, they tried an attack but were thrown back with heavy losses.
The latest communiqué reported over 3,750 Germans killed in a single day’s operations.
In the factory area of Stalingrad, in the northern part of the city proper, the famous Red Army artillery supported by mortars opened a blasting bombardment which killed about 1,000 Germans, destroyed three artillery batteries totaling 12 guns and wrecked 38 dugouts and blockhouses so that infantrymen could go in and mop them up.
In the southern outskirts of Stalingrad, the Germans were cleared from 12 dugouts and blockhouses.
Gain on east bank of Don
To the northwest of the city, where the Russians had broken through a new German defense line on the east bank of the Son, the Russian advance continued. Here, 1,000 Germans were killed, and a Russian shock unit, storming an important fortified point, made an advance of over two miles.
Southwest of Stalingrad, two villages and the important railroad town of Nebykovski, 80 miles from the industrial capital of the Volga, were taken by storm in face of desperate enemy resistance.
In Stalingrad itself, the Russians made an advance of 300-400 yards.
The special communiqué reported that in the 10 days up to yesterday, the Russians had captured in their amazing Stalingrad offensive 1,379 tanks, 2,000 guns of all calibers, 3,395 machine guns, more than 6,000 motortrucks, 4,677 carts laden with war materials and 10,700 horses.
Destroy 234 Nazi planes
Seventy-two three-motored troop transport planes were destroyed.
The regular communiqué reported that in the seven days ending yesterday the Russians had destroyed 234 German planes for a loss of only 96 Russian planes.
Dispatches revealed that on the Central Front, the Russians had spent many nights cutting tracks in the frozen snow leading to the enemy lines with pickaxes.
Snow ‘hides’ Soviet move
The night before the zero hour, Red Army men marched six miles up to the frontlines dragging machine guns on skis and trench mortars on their shoulders, the noise of their movements deadened by the snow.
Field guns were dragged along the tracks that had been cut.
What the High Command calls the Todt Line of German defense, named for the late Nazi engineer, Fritz Todt, extends on the Central Front from the Vyazma-Rzhev sector, 100 miles west of Moscow, to the Velikiye Luki-Novosokolniki-Orsha sector another 150 miles westward. It forms a quadrilateral 150 miles deep from east to west and 150 miles wide from north to south.
In the first phase of the offensive, the Russians broke through on the east and north. They smashed four big holes in the German lines out the railroad between Velikiye Luki and Nevel and Velikiye Luki and Novosokolniki and then rolled back the northwestern part of the German line.
Raise rifles silently
At the zero hour, assistant commanders, who until recently were political commissars assigned to units, read the order of attack and the Red Army men acknowledged it by raising their rifles silently.
At 8 a.m., rockets announced the zero hour and massed artillery opened a barrage on German gun positions which scouts had determined. The infantry advanced, heavy tanks immediately behind them, and crashed through the German lines.
The Russians met a desperate defense. The Germans had converted even churches into forts and had dug pits for disappearing cannon in cemeteries. Submachine-gunners fought from windows and even from chimney tops.
The Pittsburgh Press (December 1, 1942)
NEW RED BLOWS STAGGER NAZIS
Big night push gains ground at Stalingrad
Russians advance 16 miles on Moscow Front, cut more rail lines
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Moscow, USSR –
Russian forces in a sudden combined night attack by all arms of the service have sent the German line reeling backward southwest of Stalingrad for new and impressive losses, it was announced today.
Axis defenses were crumbling before the Red Army’s onslaught in the Rzhev-Vyazma-Velikiye Luki triangle northwest of Moscow. The Russians advanced through fierce blizzards in several sectors despite increasing counterattacks, and occupied a number of localities and heavily fortified points.
The Russians had penetrated 16 miles beyond the German frontline defenses and were assaulting successive rings of defense lines, elaborately constructed to great depth.
The fighting raged toward a series of pivotal points on which the entire German communications system hinged – Rzhev, Vyazma, Smolensk, Velikiye Luki and Riga, Latvia. Front dispatches said the enemy was yielding slowly.
While Red Army troops drove ahead inside Stalingrad and northwest of it, the southwest Stalingrad Command sent tanks, mobile detachments, infantry and cavalry into a combined attack during the night.
Nazis abandon rifles
First a barrage by massed Russian guns hit the enemy positions and boxed them in to prevent the arrival of reinforcements.
Led by tanks, the infantry went to the assault, dispatches reported, while the mobile units and the cavalry harassed the enemy flanks.
The latest communiqué, reporting that the enemy had been “forced to reel backward southwestward,” supplemented the news a few hours before that in one southwest Stalingrad area, the Russians had stormed a fortified village and sent the Germans, broken, into a mad flight in which they abandoned even their rifles.
Radio Moscow, heard in London, reported that northwest of Stalingrad, the Germans in some sectors were abandoning their arms and rations as they fled before the Russian attack, and prisoners were quoted as saying that German officers, deserting their men, were leading the fight.
Gain all along front
The communiqué reported that on the west Moscow front, the Russians, overcoming stubborn German resistance, had occupied several new fortified villages, killing about 1,000 enemy troops.
Radio Moscow asserted that the German command had issued a “no retreat” order on the Central Front and that machine-gunners were firing on any soldier who tried to go back.
There was only news of steady Russian advances all along the front.
In Stalingrad itself, the Russians repelled a series of German counterattacks. Elsewhere in the city, the Russians took more pillboxes and dugouts.
Have two-fold objective
At Stalingrad, the Russians continued successful development of the second phase of their operations with a two-fold objective:
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To mop up pockets of resistance in the central part of the Don River elbow between the east of the Don and Stalingrad.
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To fill the gaps in two semi-circular lines surrounding Axis armies estimated at upwards of 20 divisions (300,000 men).
The inner ring surrounding the Germans extended from a point on the Voronezh-Stalingrad railroad along the east bank of the Don bend, bisected the Stalingrad-Rostov railroad and ended in the south sector of the Stalingrad Front.
The outer ring stretched southwestward from Kletskaya, 75 miles northwest of Stalingrad, touched Chernyshevskaya in the Rostov administrative district, crossed to Surovikino on the Stalingrad railroad and cut the Stalingrad-Caucasus railroad.
All railroads and important highways in the Stalingrad area were in Russian hands.
Of the Moscow Front battle, the army newspaper Red Star said Hitler had warned his commanders that “the loss of Rzhev would be equivalent to the loss of half of Berlin.” Accordingly, German leaders exhorted their men to hold the city to the last man to facilitate extricating encircled German troops in the area.
South of Rzhev, the Russians had cut the railroad to Vyazma, depriving the enemy of his sole important supply line.
The Germans launched determined counterattacks in an attempt to recapture the Rzhev-Vyazma railroad yesterday, front dispatches said, but all were repulsed.
Bag 147 Axis tanks
Communiqués reported German losses yesterday alone to total 3,500 men in the Stalingrad Front and 7,500 in the Central Front, and the total of German dead in the past four days at Stalingrad alone was put at 20,000 men.
The total of German losses in material mounted amazingly as the Russians swept forward along the 800-mile front.
Yesterday, with the aid of the air force, the Russians captured or destroyed 147 enemy tanks and 143 field guns.
Nazi captives see Volga ‘first time’
Moscow, USSR (UP) –
Constant streams of German prisoners, shivering in shabby clothes, are moving eastward in the Stalingrad area, the newspaper Izvestia said today.
It commented:
At last, they are seeing the much-coveted Volga for the first time.
The prisoners, often wearing women’s clothes which they had looted, were moved to the Volga by the thousands, and shipped behind the lines in barges.
The Pittsburgh Press (December 2, 1942)
Soviet troops gain 5 miles at Stalingrad
Russians capture two key hills near city, tighten net on Nazis
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Moscow, USSR –
Russian troops have stormed and captured two important heights in the Stalingrad area and driven Nazi lines back two-and-a-half to five miles, front dispatches reported today.
Red Army shock troops who captured the heights, known as the Southern Hill, south of the Volga capital, destroyed three German infantry battalions and two artillery units. Their advance tightened the Russian pincers enveloping the city.
Red Star, army organ, said the Southern Hill commanded the entire sector immediately south of Stalingrad and dominated the area stretching east to the Volga. So long as the Germans held this height, the Russians could not observe enemy positions or reserves approaching the city, Red Star said.
Red Marines storm hill
The height north of the city, known as Mamayev Hill, was stormed by Russian Marines after it had changed hands several times.
They were described as the most important heights strategically in the Stalingrad sector.
The London Exchange Telegraph reported from Moscow that the Germans had withdrawn an entire division from within Stalingrad itself in an attempt to recapture the Southern Hill. But Soviet troops smashed the German counterattack and advanced two-and-a-half to five miles against the rear of Nazi assault troops within the city, the report said.
Other Soviet forces, which previously crossed the Don River from the west, were reportedly driving deeper into German positions northwest of Stalingrad. The Germans were forced to retreat from a series of defense lines, thus shrinking the distance separating the advancing Russian troops from Stalingrad.
Gain on Moscow Front
Red Star reported that the German troops northwest of Stalingrad, realizing how precarious their positions were with Russian forces closing in on them from opposite directions, were fighting desperately to hold inhabited localities. This barren steppe area is so sparsely populated, that whenever the Germans are ousted from a village, they are left without cover, Red Star said.
Although the Russian drive on the Moscow Front made further progress with the reported capture of a fortified township on the Rzhev-Vyazma railroad, the capture of the Southern Hill outside Stalingrad appeared to be the big victory of the day and one of the biggest of the week.
Hill dominates rail station
The hill dominates the railroad station at which the Germans had detrained troops and supplies for transport by truck into the city proper.
For two and a half months, they had fortified it against Russian attacks.
The Red Army shock troops took it in face of desperate resistance.
Then swarms of Russian planes went into action when the Germans started to send great three-motored transport planes over the Stalingrad area with food, ammunition and supplies for their men threatened with entrapment.
A communiqué reported the Russian planes shot down 20 of the planes in combat and destroyed 30 on the battle area flying fields from which they were about to take off.
Bag 93 German tanks
It was indicated that the planes were Junkers Ju 52 transports, worth millions of dollars in money and priceless in terms of military value.
In the course of yesterday’s fighting, the communiqué said, the Russians killed more than 8,400 German troops, captured or destroyed 93 tanks and armored cars, 108 field guns and more than 400 trucks filled with troops and supplies.
In some sectors of the Stalingrad Front, the Russians met strong German counterattacks or halted to consolidate positions. But the general offensive, both in the south and on the Moscow Front, continued at its furious pace.
The entire German position northwest of Stalingrad was threatened by the Russians who had crossed the Don from west to east and had driven deep into enemy defenses constructed on the east side of the river, to protect the rear of the Germans inside Stalingrad. Here the Russians were driving eastward along the Kharkov-Stalingrad railroad, attacking in the direction of the city.
The Germans, numbering many divisions, were fighting with desperation inside a triangle facing attacks from west, south and east and, perhaps soon, by the Russians inside Stalingrad.
Eight miles from key town
Southwest of Stalingrad, the Russians were now within eight miles of Kotelnikovo, 90 miles from Stalingrad on the Caucasus railroad, after capturing three towns which form an arc north and east of it.
On the Central Front west of Moscow, the Russians continued to advance slowly west of Rzhev and east of Velikiye Luki.
Marching through blizzards, the Russians took a number of villages and smaller fortified points, dispatches said, and killed 3,200 Germans in the past 24 hours.
Red guns roar at Leningrad
A crack Jäger battalion of German shock troops was driven out of a strong fortified point between Rzhev and Vyazma.
It was indicated that this Russian success, reported in dispatches, was the same as that announced in the communiqué, in which a fortified township was taken near the Rzhev-Vyazma railroad.
In the comparatively quiet Leningrad area, the communiqué revealed, the Red Army artillery opened a major bombardment of German positions. It was also reported that in the Leningrad area, snipers had killed more than 700 Germans in the past three days.
they are seeing the much-coveted Volga for the first time.
The German soldiers be like :
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Followed by we need to leave the Volga and find a way back home ;-/
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The Pittsburgh Press (December 3, 1942)
Surprise attack –
Russian take key Nazi base
Capture may drive enemy from Don-Volga lines
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Soviet offensive continues against German forces on many sections of the vast Russian front. (1) The Red Army scored new advances in the Velikiye Luki area near Rzhev. Germany reported a new Russian offensive in the making at Voronezh. (2) The Red Army drove through line after line of Nazi defenses northwest and southwest of Stalingrad (3 and 4), seizing a key Nazi base east of the Don River. In the Nalchik (5) area of the Caucasus, the Germans were thwarted in their campaign to reach the Grozny oil fields.
Moscow, USSR –
Russian forces have captured Verkhne-Gnilovsky, one of the Germans’ most important bases on the east bank of the Don River, northwest of Stalingrad, in a sudden move that may force the Nazis to abandon all their positions between the Volga and the Don, front dispatches said today.
Verkhne-Gnilovsky is the backbone of the Germans’ defense system in the area northwest of Stalingrad. The fortifications comprise several fortified villages threatening the flank of Soviet forces driving against the Germans from the north and south on the west bank of the Don. From Verkhne-Gnilovsky, the Germans were in position to send men and supplies to the Don’s west bank if necessary.
Nazi officer errs
Capture of Verkhne-Gnilovsky, situated on high terrain commanding all northern and eastern approaches and a bulwark against frontal attack, was disclosed by the Army newspaper Red Star.
The Russians assaulted the position when the German commander erred and sent a large force of Axis troops to the river bank to prevent Soviet forces from crossing from the west.
The commander at Verkhne-Gnilovsky also turned his artillery to the west in support of the German remnants battling on the opposite bank of the river.
The west bank of the Don is considerably higher than the east bank at this point, and the Russians, taking advantage of the terrain, turned their artillery toward Verkhne-Gnilovsky while the Soviet troops on the east bank launched a direct assault against the weakened garrison.
Driving through a thick minefield, Soviet infantry and tanks took the base by the end of the day.
Verkhne-Gnilovsky is only 35 miles northwest of Stalingrad, where Russian shock troops were driving through line after line of German defenses despite stiffening resistance achieved through use of airborne reinforcements.
Continue advance
The Russians continued their advance southwest of Stalingrad and south of the city, they drove the Germans from the shores of a small lake. Inside the city, action was confined chiefly to heavy Russian artillery fire against the Axis strongpoints – emplacements and machine-gun nests – particularly in the northern factory district.
The Red Army repulsed strong counterattacks along the Rzhev-Vyazma railroad, northwest of Moscow, and east of Velikiye Luki, only 75 miles from the Latvian border, the Germans were trying desperately to cut off the deep Russian wedges in their lines.
The newspaper Pravda reported that the Germans retreated after a three-day battle, failing to restore their positions along the Rzhev-Vyazma railroad. It said the Soviet Air Force was in intense action during brief spells of clear weather.
Ski troopers, working with other infantry and tanks, surprised the Germans and captured an important village, cutting the only road over which the Nazis could hope to move supplies to the Rzhev sector.
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The Pittsburgh Press (December 4, 1942)
Resistance grows –
Cossacks knife into Nazi lines
Enemy abandons parts of rail line to Stalingrad
By M. S. Handler, United Press staff writer
Moscow, USSR –
Front reports today said that a powerful force of Cossack cavalry has swept deep into the German rear southwest of Stalingrad, forcing the Nazis to evacuate several sections of the Stalingrad-Tikhoretsk railroad.
Despite cold which hampered all military operations and fog which grounded portions of the Red Air Force, the Russian striking force was said to have driven far behind Nazi advance positions along the rail route leading from Stalingrad toward the Caucasus.
The Nazi radio in Paris quoted German reports that the Russians had launched several new strong attacks despite temperatures more than 20 degrees below freezing. The Russians were said to be thrusting both tank and cavalry forces into the area between the Volga and the Don and around the great bend of the Don.
Resistance grows
German resistance in the Stalingrad area and counterattacks at some points along the front were said to have slowed the pace of Russian advances at some points.
The German High Command said today that Axis operations in the big bend of the Don River, west of Stalingrad, had taken “a favorable course” and that strong Russian attacks on other sectors had failed.
New and strong Russian attacks were acknowledged northeast of Tuapse and on the Terek River in the Caucasus, but the High Command said they met no success. “Considerable” gains for the Germans were reported north of the Terek.
Nazis counterattack
In Stalingrad and in the sectors northwest and southwest of it, the Germans are fighting desperately to hold their positions and disrupt the Russian drive with persistent counterattacks, and they are also counterattacking on the Central Front west of Moscow.
The biggest counterattacks have been made northwest of Stalingrad with Russian troops attacking deep inside their lines.
A dispatch to the army newspaper Red Star said, however, that despite the counterattacks the Russians were slowly forcing the enemy from positions after position and had captured a new and important hill in yesterday’s fighting after breaking through a series of defense lines.
Many groups of Germans trying to filter into the Russian lines in parties of 30 to 40 have been wiped out.
Fighting slows
The fighting inside Stalingrad has slowed to some extent, the dispatches said.
In the northern factory area, Soviet scouts were able to take some gun emplacements and dugouts, Red Star reported.
Today’s communiqué, reporting shelling of enemy defense points to soften them for a renewed advance, showed the change due to the German counteractions:
STALINGRAD CITY (FACTORY AREA): Russian troops exchanged fire and scouted. Artillery smashed eight dugouts and blockhouses. Trench mortars dispersed enemy infantry and motor vehicles.
NORTHWEST STALINGRAD: Some Soviet troops continued the offensive. In a number of sectors others repelled counterattacks. A battalion of German infantry supported by five tanks attacked a Soviet position and hand-to-hand fighting developed. The Soviet troops repulsed the enemy, capturing two tanks and other spoils.
SOUTHWEST STALINGRAD: A Soviet unit cleared enemy pillboxes and small forts. The enemy twice attempted to recapture the positions but were repelled. In other sectors, Soviet units went on offensive patrols.
CENTRAL FRONT: Soviet troops continued on the offensive and repelled counterattacks. West of Rzhev, a Soviet unit in three days killed or wounded several thousand enemy troops, destroying and capturing much equipment. In the Rzhev-Vyazma road area, Soviet units repulsed counterattacks.
The communiqué said Russian coastal batteries in the far north had sunk two enemy transports totaling 16,000 tons.
Hang on a min. I thought the Bolsheviks eliminated Cossacks in the red terror. So why would they fight for communism, the very thing that tried to get rid of them?
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