August 1943

Eastern Front

Bitter fighting continues to rage southeast of Leningrad as the Mga offensive labors on. The 67th and 8th Guards Armies have failed to breach the German lines despite repeated attacks.

The Kalinin Front joins the offensives rippling along the line north of Smolensk. New attacks by the 39th and 43rd Armies of the Kalinin Front toward Dukhovshina make slow but steady progress.

The Steppe Front fights its way deeper into Kharkov, street fighting raging as the XI Corps struggles to hole up the tide of Soviet attacks. The towns of Bolshaya and Danilovka fall near Kharkov as the Soviet envelopment draws closer to success.

Malinovsky's Southwest Front begins its Donbas offensive, attacking the 1st Panzer Army following the removal of the German armored units to the north. This presents Manstein with a second problem. With the security of the German units around Kharkov undermined, Manstein has drawn the bulk of his forces north to deal with this threat, not realizing that the Stavka intends to launch new attacks along the Donets and Mius as soon as this happens. Even if the German had realized this is the Soviet plan, Hitler's insistence that not a yar of ground be given up ties the German armies down, preventing the implementation of a mobile defense. For the Donbas operation the Southwest Front has 565,000 men and the South Front 446,000 men.