Chapter 46 Enemy Attack on Sixth Army

On December 2, the enemy made its first attack on the Sixth Army.On the 4th and 8th, two consecutive attacks were launched, but both were repelled by our heroic army.Fortunately, the supply situation now appears to have turned out to be much better than we had imagined, for on December 2 the army reported that, after withholding rations and slaughtering a large Calculated from the 30th day of the month, it can roughly last for twelve to sixteen days.At the same time the weather conditions have encouraged us to hope that the air supply situation can improve. On December 5, there was a record (unfortunately, a record) of 300 tons airlifted.Nevertheless, it was clear that no time should be wasted, and the Sixth Army must be contacted on the ground as soon as possible and rescued from the encirclement.

So far, the only thing that has been really beneficial to our side has been that the enemy dare not venture deep enough to take the opportunity to cut off the Donets River crossing in our rear line of communication, or the Rostov bottleneck (the latter can also cut off the A Army Group).In addition, in the areas where we are planning to launch rescues, the situation is deteriorating rapidly. On the part of the Fourth Panzer Army, the arrival of the Fifty-seventh Panzer Corps from the Caucasus has been delayed, as already mentioned.The original assembly date was December 3rd, which was changed to the 8th, and then changed to the 11th.During such a long period of time, it is naturally impossible to hope that the enemy will stop completely.On December 3 he sent a force towards Kotnikov, the main disembarkation station of the Fifty-seventh Panzer Corps, and it was clear that the enemy's objective was to clear that area.The next day he was driven back by the 6th Armored Division, which had just arrived.Since December 8, the enemy has again shown signs of strengthening its forces north of the Fourth Panzer Army (that is, northeast of Kotnikov), and has discovered a new designation of the Fifty-first Army.On the contrary, it remained calm on the east side of the Panzer Army, which was mainly in charge of the units of the Romanian Fourth Army.The same goes for the 16th Motorized Division near Irista.In order to make the Romanians more at ease, we ordered the division to send a fast motorized force to search north, deep into the rear of the Russian army facing them.It does prove that the enemy is not gathering any significant forces west of the Volga at this time.