In a previousseriesofarticles I examined the state of play on the German Sixth Army's flanks outside of Stalingrad during the Axis assault on the city. In this follow-up article I would like to take a look at the Romanian Third Army's positions opposite the "bridgeheads" that would prove so crucial in the eventual success of the Soviet Southwestern Front's portion of the Red Army's November 19, 1942 counter-offensive. First, let's examine the formation of these bridgeheads over the Don River and why they were so important.
Between July 6th and October 24, 1942 the Red Army launched
The initial plans for Germany's 1942 summer offensive, code-named "Operation Blue" called for four sequential operations. The first, Blue I, featured the Four Panzer Army, German Second Army, and German Sixth Army all working together to encircle and destroy Soviet forces before the city of Voronezh along the upper Don River. The second part of the campaign, Blue II, called for the German Sixth Army to turn south in hopes of engineering a planned encirclement at Millerovo on the Donets River.
