December 1941

Eastern Front

Meretskov's 4th Army forces the Germans to give ground around Tikhvin, while the 52nd Army subjects the XXXVIII Corps to further pressure.

The temperature falls to minus 35 degrees Centigrade. Vehicles no longer start; engines freeze while they run and the breaches of artillery pieces freeze shut. In spite of the severe cold, the fighting carries on.

North of Moscow, the German advance grinds to a halt, the 3rd and 4th Panzer Groups lacking the strength to push forward, In the center, the 4th Army falls back to the Nara, having failed to dislodge the West Front in the Akulovo and Gruzino sectors. As the Germans withdraw, the 33rd, 43rd and 5th Armies launch fierce counterattacks. Around Tula, the XXIV Panzer fails to break through the Soviet defenses and is struck by the 50th Army, which also attacks the XLIII Corps.

With the Germans exhausted, over extended and at the end of supply lines stretching over a thousand miles, Zhukov prepares to begin the counteroffensive that will throw the Ostheer away from Moscow and destroy Army Group Center in a massive double envelopment. Koniev's Kalinin Front, despite reinforcement, fields 100,000 men between teh 22nd, 29th and 31st Armies with 980 artillery pieces and 67 tanks and 83 aircraft while the West Front, commanded by Zhukov, deploys 558,000 ment among 10 armies. The 10 armies, the 30th, 1st Shock, 20th, 16th, 5th, 33rd, 43rd, 49th, 50th and 10th, plus Group Belov, has 4,348 artillery pieces, 624 tanks and 199 aircraft. On the southern wing of the attack sector, the Soviets deploy elements of Timoshenko's Southwest Front, comprising the 3rd and 13th Armies and Group Kostenko, 60,000 men with 388 artillery pieces, 30 tanks and 79 aircraft.

Since June 22 the Ostheer has suffered 830,000 casualties.

Since the beginning of Operation TYPHOON the West Front has suffered 254,000 casualties, while the Reserve Front lost 127,000 and the Bryansk Front 103,000. In its brief period of operations to date, the Kalinin Front has lost 28,000 killed and missing and 21,000 wounded. The Soviets have also lost 2,785 tanks, 3,800 artillery pieces and 290 aircraft.

The brutality of the fighting since the resumption of Typhoon, and the unexpectedly early onset of winger had left the Ostheer in a state of near collapse. Barely twenty miles from Moscow, with the spires of the Kremlin visible on the horizon, the German Army had shot its bolt. Hitler had pushed his forces forward on a seven hundred-mile journey, a journey strewn with thousands of fallen comrades on both sides of the combat line. However, the very weakness of the Ostheer was exactly what Zhukov was waiting for. With skill and masterly cunning, he had assembled a powerful strike force on the flanks of the exposed German postions in the center. It was now the Germans' turn to defend as the Red Army took the offensive.

With its back against the wall, the Red Army prepared to break once and ro all the seeming invincibility of the Wehrmacht. Forces moved east from Siberia and men hastily called up int reserve armies tood ready to attack through the snow to drive the Germans west.