Operation Uranus

Operation Uranus
Part of the Battle of Stalingrad on the Eastern Front of World War II
Date 19–23 November 1942 Location Near Stalingrad (now Volgograd) 48°42′N 44°31′E / 48.700°N 44.517°E / 48.700; 44.517Coordinates: 48°42′N 44°31′E / 48.700°N 44.517°E / 48.700; 44.517 Result Decisive Soviet victory Encirclement of Axis forces
Belligerents
Soviet Union	Germany Italy Romania Hungary
Commanders and leaders
Joseph Stalin Georgy Zhukov Konstantin Rokossovski Aleksandr Vasilevsky Nikolai Vatutin	Adolf Hitler Friedrich Paulus Petre Dumitrescu
Strength
1,143,500 personnel (including reserve) 894 tanks 13,451 artillery pieces 1,500 aircraft	German: 250,000+ personnel unknown number of artillery pieces 732 aircraft (402 serviceable) Italian: 220,000 personnel unknown number of artillery pieces or aircraft Romanian: 143,296 personnel 827 artillery pieces 134 tanks unknown number of aircraft Hungarian: 200,000 personnel unknown number of artillery pieces or tanks

Operation Uranus (Russian: Операция «Уран», romanised: Operatsiya "Uran") was the codename of the Soviet 19–23 November 1942 strategic operation in World War II which led to the encirclement of the German Sixth Army, the Third and Fourth Romanian armies, and portions of the German Fourth Panzer Army. The operation formed part of the ongoing Battle of Stalingrad, and was aimed at destroying German forces in and around Stalingrad. Planning for Operation Uranus had commenced in September 1942, and was developed simultaneously with plans to envelop and destroy German Army Group Center and German forces in the Caucasus. The Red Army took advantage of the German army's poor preparation for winter, and the fact that its forces in the southern Soviet Union were overstretched near Stalingrad, using weaker Romanian troops to guard their flanks; the offensives' starting points were established along the section of the front directly opposite Romanian forces. These Axis armies lacked heavy equipment to deal with Soviet armor.

Due to the length of the front created by the German summer offensive, aimed at taking the Caucasus oil fields and the city of Stalingrad, German and other Axis forces were forced to guard sectors beyond the length they were meant to occupy. The situation was exacerbated by the German decision to relocate several mechanized divisions from the Soviet Union to Western Europe. Furthermore, units in the area were depleted after months of fighting, especially those which took part in the fighting in Stalingrad. The Germans could only count on the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps, which had the strength of a single panzer division, and the 29th Panzergrenadier Division as reserves to bolster their Romanian allies on the German Sixth Army's flanks. In comparison, the Red Army deployed over one million personnel for the purpose of beginning the offensive in and around Stalingrad. Soviet troop movements were not without problems, due to the difficulties of concealing their build-up, and to Soviet units commonly arriving late due to logistical issues. Operation Uranus was first postponed from 8 to 17 November, then to 19 November.

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