Balck Friday: The Tatsinskaya Raid, December 1942
Balck Friday: The Tatsinskaya Raid, December 1942
Wait a minute. Don't we mean BLACK Friday?
Nope. It's "Balck Friday," as in German General Hermann Balck. In the winter of 1942, his crack 11th Panzer Division fought an amazing series of battles along the Chir River in response to the Soviet surprise attacks that surrounded Stalingrad. It has been called one of the finest divisional actions of all time.
Bottom line, a single Panzer division, fighting one day after another (frequently after overnight marches) pretty much destroyed an entire Soviet tank army. And more.
But it's a virtually unknown story, as the disaster of Stalingrad and Manstein's relief effort (our own Wintergewitter game) get all the headlines. It may be hard to imagine, but minus Balck's extraordinary fire-brigade work, Stalingrad would have been much, much worse!
On Christmas Day (a Friday), Balck and his units were called upon once again. They had to stop a Soviet probe deep behind the porous German lines, aimed at knocking out the airfield at Tatsinkaya, which was supporting the Stalingrad Pocket. ATO spotlights Balck's amazing efforts with a new, unpublished and complete game.
