Tatsinskaya Raid

Part of the Battle of Stalingrad and the Eastern Front of World War II

Soviet Advances during Operation Little Saturn.

Date	December 16–28, 1942
Location	Tatsinskaya, Soviet Union
Result	Soviet strategic victory

Belligerents

Germany

Soviet Union

Commanders and leaders

Hermann Balck

V.M. Badanov

Casualties and losses

Soviet claims for 12,000 KIA,
5,000 POW,
unknown WIA,
84 tanks,
106 guns,
300 aircraft destroyed

Unknown KIA
Unknown MIA
Unknown WIA
up to 190 tanks

The Tatsinskaya Raid was a Soviet armoured raid deep into the German rear conducted by 24th Tank Corps under the command of Major General Vasily Mikhaylovich Badanov in late December 1942, during the last phases of the Battle of Stalingrad (Operation Little Saturn). It was designed to force the Germans to divert forces attempting to relieve the 6th Army trapped in Stalingrad. The Soviet force captured its objective, the Luftwaffe's airfield at Tatsinskaya, destroying over 72 aircraft on the ground, but was left cut off and without supplies. Despite the loss of most of the tank corps during the ensuing breakout, the raid was a great operational victory.

The Red Army had encircled the Wehrmacht's 6th Army in Stalingrad with Operation Uranus, begun on 19 November 1942. By the middle of December, the German relief effort, Operation Winter Storm, reached within 48 km of the encirclement ring, and the airlift trying to supply the encircled army was in full swing. In this situation, STAVKA decided to launch Operation Little Saturn, to encircle all of German Army Group A, by penetrating to the south and the coast of the Sea of Azov. The danger this operation created was so serious that the German command had to give up any hope of relieving the 6th Army, and instead turned its attention to fighting the advancing Red Army formations, while simultaneously trying to move as many formations as possible to the west. As a consequence of the threat, the most potent of the German divisions involved in the relief effort, 6th Panzer Division, was turned west, and ordered to first clear the raiding force from Tatsinskaya, and later to establish a new frontline towards the north of the airfield. With that decision, any hope of breaking through to 6th Army had vanished.

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