German and Russian Tactics during the Battle of Stalingrad

GERMANS:

German military doctrine was based on the principle of combined-arms teams and close cooperation between tanks, infantry, engineers, artillery and ground-attack aircraft.

Rattenkrieg:

Rattenkrieg, or "Rat's War," the opposing forces broke into squads eight or 10 strong and fought each other for every house and yard of territory. The battle saw rapid advances in street-fighting technology, such as a German machine gun that shot around corners and a light Russian plane that glided silently over German positions at night, dropping lethal bombs without warning.

Operation Blue

One of the most important plans established by the Germans was the “Operation Blue” that consisted in concentrating all the available forces in the southern flank of the long front, then, destroying the front line of Russian forces there, and then spread in two directions to the most important industrial centers remaining in South Russia. These are some of the points stated in this strategy:

·         First, they will advance through the mountainous Caucasus region, to capture the oil fields on the Caspian Sea.

·         Then they advance East, to Stalingrad, the biggest industrial and transportation center on the West side of the Volga River (which was the main waterway of inner Russia).

·         In order to reduce losses, Chuikov’sstated that they needed to narrow the gap between the Russian positions and the German positions to the minimum, so the German dive bombers will not be able to drop their bombs on the Russian positions without risking the German soldiers. 

RUSSIANS:

Response to Operation Blue:

·         General Zhukov (Russian) planned and prepared a massive counter attack, Uranus squad would attack the German flanks at their two weakest points, 100 miles West of Stalingrad, and 100 miles south of it.

·         Then, the two Russian forces will meet far Southwest of Stalingrad and encircle the entire German army near Stalingrad and cut its supply lines. Zhukov’s goal was to win not just battle of Stalingrad but the entire campaign in South Russia.

“Hugging”:

Soviet commanders adopted the tactic of always keeping the front lines as close to the Germans as physically possible. Chuikov called this "hugging" the Germans. This forced the German infantry to either fight on their own or risk taking casualties from their own supporting fire; it neutralized German close air support and weakened artillery support.

Technology, Weapons, and Armies

Technology, the key to the outcome of the battle:

The battle was won due to lack of technology as opposed to key technology. The Germans had rifles, machine guns, panzer tanks and even support from the “Luftwaffe”. However the battle came down to hand to hand combat in individual street battles. The Russians won because they overpowered the Germans with their manpower. General Zhukov divided his men into six armies to surround the city of Stalingrad and trap the Germans.

This is a chart that compared the amounts of weapons between the two nations in the Stalingrad battle:

German Army	RussianArmy
LedbyPaulus	Ledby Zhukov
1,011,500 men	1,000,500 men
10, 290 artilleryguns	13,541 artilleryguns
675 tanks	894 tanks
1,216 planes	1,115 planes

In Russia:

The weapons that they used the most were:

·         Tokarev SVT-40

·         MosinNagant 1882

·         PPS-42

·         PPSh-41

·         Tokarev TT-30

·         PTRS-41

·         DP-28

·         T-34

·         Gibovski G-11

·         Waco CG-3

·         the Yakovlev Yak-series -14 -6 and -8

This included tanks, aircrafts, and guns.

In Germany:

The weapons that they used the most were:

Germans:

 Karabiner 1898 Kurtz

Gewehr 41

MP40

MP38

MG42

MG34

Walther P38

Flammenwerfer 35

Flammenwerfer 41

Panzer and Tiger Tanks

JU88

JU Junkers 52 

This also included machine guns, minor weapons, tanks, and aircrafts.