In 1941 the Axis invaded the Soviet Union, planning to overrun the European part of it
before the onset of winter.
However, the resistance was stronger than expected and by the beginning of October they
had expended much of their offensive capabilities.
Assuming that the Red Army was on the brink of collapse, they launched an all out attack.
The Soviet Union had still resources left and the Axis forces found themselves overextended.
The Red Army was seriously weakened, but it did not let the opportunity slip and counterattacked
with all available forces, forcing the Axis into a retreat.
In the Black Sea region, the Soviets undertook an amphibious operation.
They landed their forces in the Crimea, survived the Axis counterattack and made preparations
to retake the whole peninsula.
In Ukraine they pushed towards the Dnieper river and managed to gain ground before their
attack was contained.
Near Leningrad, the Red Army broke a breach into the German line and pushed into their
rear threatening to unhinge their front.
The Soviets concentrated most of their forces against the Army Group Center.
After having pulled back from the approaches of Moscow, the Germans decided to stand fast
and regroup on their present positions.
This gave the Red Army a chance to conduct an encirclement of the German forces.
Overextension had created several gaps in the German lines and Red Army exploited them
in order to bypass and cut off the German units.
Despite of moving behind the German lines, they did not have enough strength to cut the
main railway supplying the German forces and the Germans were able to cut off and contain
the breakthroughs.
In the North the Soviets encircled the German second core at Demyansk, but it was sustained
by air supply.
After realizing, that it lacked the strength to conduct a major attack, the Red Army concentrated
its efforts on the most promising sectors, however by this time the Germans had secured
their position and the attacks achieved only minimal progress.
After having reorganized further, the Germans were able to conduct small offensives of their
own in the most critical sectors.
They destroyed some Soviet units in the Army Group Centers rear and reestablished a land
connection with the Demyansk pocket.
As the winter ended both sides drew up their plans for the summer.
The Soviets were rebuilding the Red Army, but it would be far from ready by summer and
the Axis would still have the upper hand.
The Soviets believed the Axis would use this to undertake a major offensive towards Moscow
and prepared to take a defensive stance.
The question was, what to do with the many salients that had been formed in the front.
They provided good opportunities for the encirclement of both the Axis and Soviet units and were
difficult to defend.
In order to conduct a successful defence, they would have to be eliminated.
One option was to abandon the salients, the other was to destroy the Axis-held salients.
Although it was not clear if the Red Army would have enough strength to do so, they
decided to risk it.
They would destroy the Axis forces in vulnerable positions and this would drain the strength
from the main Axis attack.
After the main attack was repelled, the build-up of the Red Army would have reached a level,
that would allow it to go on a major offensive.
The Germans were indeed preparing to carry out a major attack.
Comparing with the previous year, their resources had decreased and they were unable to mount
a large Barbarossa style offensive.
Instead, they planned to undertake several consecutive offensives in order to destroy
the Soviet Union.
As a first step, they would capture the Caucasus oil fields in order to deny the Soviet Union
most of their oil supply and gain a long-term source of it themselves.
This would allow the Germans to continue waging the war in full capacity.
Next Leningrad would be taken and then the Murmansk railroad would be cut, depriving
the Soviet Union of its main sources of foreign aid.
Meanwhile, in the center, the German forces would hold their forward positions in order
to provide a good springboard for an offensive.
After the Red Army had been weakened by previous steps, and the Axis had freed up their forces,
they would occupy the main Soviet industrial base in Central Russia.
Before and during the main operations, the Axis would clear out as many of the contested
areas as possible to free up more troops.
The first Soviet attack was in the North, where they attempted to push the Axis forces
back in order to increase the security of the Murmansk railroad, but they failed to
make any serious advances in the rough terrain and went on the defensive.
The next operation was meant to destroy the most vulnerable German salient at Demyansk,
but the Germans continued to hold on to their positions and the progress was minimal.
The next operation was undertaken by the Axis in the southernmost part of the front.
In the Crimea the open steppe suited well for close air support and the Germans used
it to break through the Soviet lines.
The Red Army had previously conducted several offensives and its forces were deployed forward,
lacking the depth to contain the Axis breakthrough.
The Soviets were unable to stop the Axis advance and had to abandon the peninsula.
In Ukraine the Soviets had finished their preparations first and went on the offensive
attempting to take Kharkov with a two-pronged attack.
The Axis forces were not far behind in their deployment and five days after the beginning
of the Soviet attack they went on an offensive of their own.
The Red Army did not anticipate such a move and the German units managed to cut off the
attacking Soviet troops and destroy them.
In the North, near Leningrad the Soviets were unable to fully exploit their breakthrough.
Having realized the vulnerability of their position, they decided to evacuate the salient,
however, the Germans beat them to it and cut the neck of the salient.
During the next month the encircled Soviet forces were eliminated.
In the center both Soviets and the Germans were preparing their own offensives.
As the German operation was of smaller scale, it was ready first and they proceeded to clear
out the pocket south of the railroad.
Soon they had full control over the territory, although part of the Soviet forces managed
to escape and reach their main lines.
After having regrouped their forces, they turned against the northern salient.
They cut its communications with the main Soviet front, and pushed into it, eliminating
most of the Soviet units.
Destruction of the Red Army formations behind the German lines, forced a change in the Soviet
plans and their offensive in the center was postponed.
In the South, the failure of the Kharkov offensive had left the Red Army in disarray and the
Germans decided to exploit the opportunity.
They conducted two smaller attacks, but this time the Soviets pulled their forces back
and did not offer strong resistance.
The amount of prisoners taken was limited.
Now everything was ready to carry out the German plan to capture the Caucasus.
As the first step, the Axis forces would encircle and destroy the Soviet formations on their
Southern flank.
Then they would advance and take strong defensive positions along the Volga and Don rivers to
cut the communications between the Soviet heartland and the Caucasus.
This would shield the Axis forces in the South from the main force of the Red Army.
As the third step, the Axis forces would move into the Caucasus and take over the oil fields.
The first German attack reached the Don river as planned.
The Soviets expected that they would turn North towards Moscow and deployed their reserves
conducting a counterattack from this direction.
However in the South the Red Army began to withdraw to avoid encirclement.
Because the German plan was founded on the assumption, that the Soviets would avoid retreat,
as they had done in the previous year, they were now confronted with the possibility of
Soviet forces escaping the encirclement.
They altered the plan, sending their forces immediately to the South in order to catch
the Soviet units.
However, the Soviet formations further South joined the retreat, allowing most of them
to escape the encirclement.
By this time the Soviet command had understood the German intentions and had deployed their
strategic reserves to keep the Axis away from the Volga river, meanwhile their other forces
retreated South over the Don.
During that time the Germans had also captured Sevastopol and when it was clear that the
the Caucasus direction was properly covered, they sent the freed up forces North to take
Leningrad.
In the central part of the front, the Germans were finishing the preparations to destroy
another Soviet salient, but before that, the Red Army had finished deployment and commenced
its offensive against the Army Group Center.
The Germans reinforced the defences and then attempted to cut the southern Soviet salient
with weaker forces, but were unable to.
The terrain in the area of the Soviet attack was not suitable for the use of heavy weapons
and the main brunt of the fighting fell to the infantry which suffered heavy casualties.
Despite pushing the Germans back, they were unable to destroy their forces.
Limited attacks continued for a month more, but they failed to secure more territory.
In the North, the Germans planned to use reinforcements from the Crimea to cut off Leningrad.
In addition, they planned to undertake several operations in order to improve their defensive
positions.
The Red Army was meanwhile preparing to re-establish the land connection to Leningrad, by pushing
through the thinnest strip of the German held territory.
The Soviets attacked first and the Germans had to use the reserves to repel them.
The defence tied up their forces and they lost the time they needed for the encirclement
of Leningrad.
In addition, they could spare enough troops only to widen the neck of the Demyansk salient.
In the South, the Axis had failed to destroy the Soviet formations opposing them, but at
the same time, the quick retreat had thrown the Soviet forces into disarray putting them
in need of reorganization.
Meanwhile the Axis troops were left unscathed.
The Germans decided to solve the situation by not allowing the remaining Soviet units
to reorganize and moved immediately towards the Caucasus, while the other part of their
forces would secure the flank.
The Soviet forces continued their retreat until they reached the Caucasus mountains.
There they made a stand and dug in on the bottlenecks.
In the North the Germans used the open steppe terrain to outmaneuver the Soviet reserves
and moved slowly towards Volga.
By the end of August, they had reached the river and entered the city of Stalingrad and
began to slowly clear out the city.
In the Caucasus the German alpine troops traversed the mountain passes, but they lacked the strength
to reach the sea and were stopped on the Southern slopes.
During the following months the spread out Axis forces continued to make small gains.
Although the Axis had made serious advances, they were unable to deliver a crippling blow
to the Soviet war effort and decided to complete their objectives in the next year.
They anticipated, that the Soviets would have enough strength for a winter offensive in
one sector and that they would attempt to destroy the salient in the central part of
the front.
The Germans countered the threat by deploying their reserves.
Meanwhile in the South, the Axis forces attempted to improve their positions as much as possible
before the onset of winter.
They tried to cut off the Red Army units on the Black Sea coast, but they could not break
through the hills.
In the central Caucasus, the Germans caught the Red Army off balance and moved deep into
the hills, until the Soviets redeployed their units.
After that, the coming of the winter snow put an end to the offensives in the Caucasus.
By the Volga, the Axis forces had advanced steadily during the last months, and in the
middle of November, they were in the process of removing the last Soviet presence in Stalingrad.
They were not expecting a major attack in the South and instead of creating a defence
in depth, the forces on the Axis flank were deployed offensively, concentrating in the
east at the point of effort.
In this situation the Soviet bridgeheads over the Don were considered of secondary importance
and were covered by Romanian forces, who lacked anti-tank equipment and were not keen on fighting.
Contrary to German estimations, the Red Army had the forces to conduct two winter offensives.
They had deployed their second force in the south to make full use of the Axis deployment
in this sector.
The Red Army managed to achieve surprise and overran the Romanian forces opposing them.
Then they broke into the undefended Axis rear, cutting off their forward units.
Next they had planned to reach the sea and cut off all the Axis forces in the Caucasus
region.
However, some of the Red Army forces had to be diverted to repel the German attempt to
relieve the Stalingrad pocket and the advance could not be conducted to full extent.
The year in the South ended with the Soviets crushing all Axis hopes to sustain their forces
in the Caucasus and Stalingrad and were threatening to advance into Ukraine.
All over the front the Axis forces began to redeploy in order to meet this threat.
At the same time the Red Army was attempting to cut the German salient in the center.
The Germans had deployed their reserves and were prepared for the attack.
The Soviet attacks were met with staunch defence and where they were able to penetrate the
German defences, they were thrown back by counterattacks.
The Soviet offensive failed to achieve its objectives and only in the western sector
did the Red Army achieve some success.
Thus 1942 came to an end.
The Soviets had secured the oil and now the Wehrmacht lacked a proper plan to defeat the
Soviet Union.
The Soviet forces were moving west with the hope to inflict a decisive defeat on the Axis.
At the same time, the Germans attempted to save the situation and create a stalemate.
Whether they are successful will be decided in the next year.
There is another question: how could I animate so many divisions.
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