Operation Winter Storm (German Unternehmen Wintergewitter) was the German Fourth Panzer Army's attempt to relieve the German Sixth Army from encirclement during the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II. The operation commenced on 12 December 1942 and was able to advance just halfway to its objective before a Soviet outflanking move further to the north forced the relief force to break off and withdraw, dooming the Sixth Army to defeat and capture. Panzergruppe 4 4. ... The 6. ... Combatants Axis Powers Soviet Union Commanders Erich von Manstein Friedrich Paulus Georgy Zhukov Vasily Chuikov Strength 500,000 (6th Army) 1,700,000 Casualties 850,000 military 750,000+ military 40,000+ civilian The Battle of Stalingrad was a major turning point in World War II, and is considered the... Combatants Allied Powers Axis Powers Commanders {{{commander1}}} {{{commander2}}} Strength {{{strength1}}} {{{strength2}}} Casualties 17 million military deaths 7 million military deaths World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a mid-20th century conflict that engulfed much of the globe and is accepted as the largest and deadliest... December 12 is the 346th day (347th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year. ... State motto (Russian): Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Transliterated: Proletarii vsekh stran, soedinyaytes!) (Translated: Workers of the world, unite!) Capital Moscow Official language None; Russian (de facto) Government Federation of Socialist republics/ Communist state Area  - Total  - % water Largest on the planet 22,402,200 km² ?% Population  - Total  - Density 3rd before collapse 293,047,571 (July...

The surrounding of the German Sixth Army by Soviet forces in Operation Uranus had pushed the main body of the Wehrmacht's Army Group South back by sixty to eighty miles. While Fourth Panzer Army's XLVIII Panzer Corps established a line on the Chir River, its southern wing had been shattered and only skeleton forces managed to prevent the Soviet 51st Army from breaking into Kotelnikovo, a railhead eighty miles south of Stalingrad, by turning them away at Pakhlebin a couple of miles to the north of that town. Therefore any relief attempt depended on gathering armored forces from elsewhere. Freshest of the troops chosen was the 6th Panzer Division, then refitting in France after nine months on the Eastern Front. From Army Group Center came the 17th Panzer Division from the Zhizdra front, and from Army Group A in the Caucasus came the 23rd Panzer Division, recovering from the narrowly averted disaster before Orzhonikidze. These three divisions constituted the LVII Panzer Corps. The eastern front at the time of Operation Uranus. ... Wehrmacht â–¶ (help· info) was the name of the armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. ... Army Group South (Heeresgruppe Süd in German) was a German Army Group during World War II. Germany used two army groups to invade Poland in 1939: Army Group North and Army Group South. ... The XLVIII Panzer Corps (German ), originally called the XLVIII Motorized Corps, was a corps level formation of the German Heer which saw extensive action on both the east and western fronts during World War II. History The corps was originally formed on 15 December 1940 in Germany as the XLVIII... 1st Light Brigade 1st Light Division 6th Panzer Division The German 1st Light Brigade was a mechanized unit established in October 1937 in imitation of the French Division Légère Mécanique, intended to take on the roles of army-level reconnaissance and security that had traditionally been the... The Eastern Front was the theatre of combat between Nazi Germany and its allies against the Soviet Union during World War II. It was somewhat separate from the other theatres of the war, not only geographically, but also for its scale and ferocity. ... Army Group A was the name of a German Army Group during World War II. During the German invasion of the Low Countries and France Army Group A was the southern attacking Army Group. ... The Entholinguistic patchwork of the modern Caucasus - CIA map The Caucasus, a region bordering Asia Minor, is located between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea which includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands. ... Photo of Vladikavkaz cathedral mosque in 1912. ...

Where to launch the relief attempt was key. The bridgehead over the Don at Verkhne-Chirskaya was physically closest to Stalingrad, but the Russians saw this coming and made sure this bridgehead was knocked out before the anticipated German reinforcements could be assembled. In any case the Don was insufficiently frozen for troops to cross safely — the weather in late November and early December 1942 ranged intermittently from snow to heavy rain. The Don (Дон) is one of the major rivers of Russia. ... This article is about the year. ...

Instead LVII Panzer Corps was assembled at Kotelnikovo. With 6th Panzer in the middle, 17th Panzer to its left and 23rd Panzer to its right, plus the remnants of the Romanian Fourth Army holding the thinly-manned flanks facing the Kalmyk steppes, the offensive began on 12 December. Two rivers lay in the force's path — the Aksai River and the Myshkova River. The force made good progress at first, reaching and crossing the Aksai by the end of the first day but being drawn into heavy fighting at the 8th of March collective farm at Verkhne-Kumsky, and around the railway ganger's hut immediately to the north of the Aksai's banks. The relief force ground towards the Myshkova, using up precious time, but could not cross. In Stalingrad itself, General Friedrich Paulus dithered as to whether to instruct his exhausted and freezing troops to break out to the south, where they would join with Hoth's panzer force at Abganerovo and together withdraw to Kotelnikovo. Without a direct order from Adolf Hitler, he could not make the decision. Obsessed with not withdrawing from where his forces had set foot, Hitler did not give that order, and Paulus stayed put. Whether his fuel- and food-lacking forces could have got themselves out of Stalingrad at all by then is open to question. Im about to write this article in the memory of my grand father who fought against the russians in 1944. ... The Republic of Kalmykia ( Russian: Респу́блика Калмы́кия; Kalmyk: Хальм Тангч) is a federal subject of the Russian Federation (a republic). ... December 12 is the 346th day (347th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Field Marshall Friedrich Paulus Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus (September 23, 1890, Breitenau – February 1, 1957, Dresden) was a German general, later promoted to field marshal, during World War II. Paulus was the son of a schoolteacher. ... â–¶ (help· info) (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 and Führer (Leader) of Germany from 1934 to his death by suicide. ...

As the relief force made its thrust, Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov hit the Axis front line further to the north. The Italian Eighth Army on the middle Don was suffering the same effects of the cold weather, and gave little resistance to the T-34s that now came crashing through their positions on 16 December. Having brushed aside the Italian contribution to the war on communism, Zhukov added insult to injury by making for Tatskinskaya, the air base closest to Stalingrad and from which the Luftwaffe had been embarking on the hopelessly ambitious task of supplying half a million fighting men in uncertain weather. On Christmas Day the Soviet tanks drove through snowstorms to the airfield and roamed about for hours, blowing away the German transport planes at their leisure. Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgi Zhukov Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov (Russian: Георгий Константинович Жуков) (December 1 N.S./November 19 O.S., 1896 – June 18, 1974), Soviet military commander and politician, considered by many as one of the most successful field commanders of World War II. // Prewar career Born into a peasant family... The T-34 is a Soviet medium tank first produced in 1940. ... December 16 is the 350th day of the year (351st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... The Luftwaffe ▶(?) (German: air force, IPA: [luftvafə]) is the commonly used term for the German air force. ...

Seeing that this force was swinging to the left in order to come down behind the German relief army, Erich von Manstein had to detach the 6th Panzer Division from the Myshkova and rushed it to the Italians' aid, saving the position there for the moment but dooming the relief attempt. Accordingly, the Soviet 51st Army then attacked the relief force anew, driving it back to and beyond Kotelnikovo by 29 December and now threatening both Rostov and the entire Army Group A of 400,000 men still bottled up on the Terek River in the Caucasus. Hitler had to make the hard decision to pull this force out altogether, consigning Stalingrad to its fate. Generalfeldmarschall Erich von Manstein Erich von Manstein (November 24, 1887–June 10, 1973) was a lifelong professional soldier who rose to become one of the most prominent commanders of Nazi Germanys Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) during World War II; he attained the rank of Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschall), although he was... December 29 is the 363rd day of the year (364th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 2 days remaining. ... The Terek (Те́рек) is a major river in the Northern Caucasus, flowing through Georgia and Russia into the Caspian Sea. ...