Battle o Stalingrad

The Battle o Stalingrad (23 August 1942 – 2 Februar 1943)^{[9][10][11][12]} wis a major battle o Warld War II in which Nazi Germany an its allies focht the Soviet Union for control o the ceety o Stalingrad (nou Volgograd) in Soothren Roushie.

Battle o Stalingrad
Pairt o the Eastren Front o Warld War II
Date 23 August 1942 – 2 Februar 1943a (5 months, 1 week and 3 days) Location Stalingrad, Roushie SFSR, Soviet Union 48°42′N 44°31′E Result Decisive[1] Soviet victory Destruction o the German 6t Airmy Axis pouers lose strategic ineetiative on the Eastren Front[2]
Belligerents
Germany  Romanie  Italy  Hungary  Croatie	Soviet Union
Commanders an leaders
Friedrich Paulus  Erich von Manstein W.F. von Richthofen Petre Dumitrescu C. Constantinescu Italo Gariboldi Gusztáv Jány Viktor Pavičić †	Georgy Zhukov Nikolay Voronov A.M. Vasilevsky Andrey Yeryomenko Nikita Khrushchev K.K. Rokossovsky Nikolai Vatutin Vasily Chuikov
Units involved
Airmy Group B: 6t Airmy 4t Panzer Airmy Third Airmy Fowert Airmy Aicht Airmy Second Army Croatie Legion 36th Estonian Police Battalion	Stalingrad Front 28t Airmy 51st Airmy 57t Airmy 62nt Airmy 64t Airmy Don Front[Note 1] Sooth Wast Front[Note 2]
Strenth
Ineetial: 270,000 personnel 3,000 artillery pieces 500 tanks 600 aircraft, 1,600 bi mid-September (Luftflotte 4)[Note 3][3] At the time o the Soviet counteroffensive: c. 1,040,000 men (400,000+ Germans, 220,000 Italians, 143,296 Romanies, 200,000 Hungarians, 40,000 Hiwi)[4][5] 10,250 artillery pieces 500 tanks 732 (402 operational) aircraft[6]:p.225[7]:87	Ineetial: 187,000 personnel 2,200 artillery pieces 400 tanks 300 aircraft[3]:p.72 At the time o the Soviet coonteroffensive: 1,143,000[8] 13,451 artillery pieces 894 tanks[8] 1,115[6]:p.224 aircraft
Casualties an losses
734,000 killed, woondit an missin 108,000 capturt 900 aircraft 1,500 tanks 6,000 artillery pieces	478,741 killed and missin 650,878 woondit or sick 2,769 aircraft 4,341 tanks 15,728 artillery pieces
aOwer 10,000 Axis sodgers continued tae fecht till early Mairch 1943.[citation needit]
Location o Stalingrad (nou Volgograd) within modren Roushie

Merkit bi fierce close quarters combat an direct assauts on ceevilians in air raids, it is eften regairdit as the single lairgest (nearly 2.2 million personnel) an bluidiest (1.7–2 million killt, woundit or capturt) battle in the history o warfare.^[13] It wis an extremely dearthfu defeat for German forces, an the Airmy Heich Command haed tae widraw vast militar forces frae the Wast tae replace thair losses.^[1]

The German offensive tae captur Stalingrad begoud in August 1942, uisin the 6t Airmy an elements o the 4t Panzer Airmy. The attack wis supportit bi intensive Luftwaffe bombin that reduced muckle o the ceety tae grummel. The fechtin degeneratit intae hoose-tae-hoose fechtin; baith sides poored reinforcements intae the ceety. Bi mid-November 1942, the Germans haed pushed the Soviet defenders back at great cost intae narrae zones alang the wast bank o the Volga River.

On 19 November 1942, the Reid Airmy launched Operation Uranus, a twa-pronged attack targetin the waiker Romanie an Hungarian airmies pertectin the German 6t Airmy's flanks.^[14] The Axis forces on the flanks war owerrun an the 6t Airmy wis cut aff an surroondit in the Stalingrad aurie. Adolf Hitler ordered that the airmy stay in Stalingrad an mak na attempt tae brak oot; insteid, attempts war made tae supply the airmy bi air an tae brak the encirclement frae the ootside. Hivy fechtin conteena'd for anither twa month. Bi the beginnin o Februar 1943, the Axis forces in Stalingrad haed exhaustit thair ammuneetion an fuid. The remeenin units o the 6t Airmy surrendert.^[15]:932 The battle lastit five month, ane week an three days.

Notes

1. The Soviet front's composeetion an names chynged several times in the battle. The battle stairtit wi the Sooth Wastren Front. It wis later renamed Stalingrad Front, then haed the Don Front split off frae it.
2. The Front wis reformed frae reserve armies on 22 October 1942.
3. This force grew tae 1,600 in early September bi widrawin forces frae the Kuban region an Sooth Caucasus: Hayward (1998), p. 195.

References

1. Bellamy 2007
2. Andrews, Evan. "8 Things You Should Know About WWII's Eastern Front". HISTORY.com. Retrieved 19 November 2015.
3. Bergström 2007
4. Glantz 1995, p. 346
5. Anthony Tihamer Komjathy (1982). A Thousand Years of the Hungarian Art of War. Toronto: Rakoczi Foundation. pp. 144–45. ASIN B001PHB3N0. ISBN 978-0-8191-6524-4. ASIN is for the version cited. ISBN is for a different printing from a different publisher.
6. Hayward 1998
7. Bergstrom 2005
8. Glantz 1995, p. 134
9. McDougal Littell, (2006)
10. Roberts (2006: 143)
11. Biesinger (2006: 699): "On August 23, 1942, the Germans began their attack."
12. "Battle of Stalingrad". Encyclopædia Britannica. By the end of August, ... Gen. Friedrich Paulus, with 330,000 of the German Army's finest troops ... approached Stalingrad. On 23 August a German spearhead penetrated the city's northern suburbs, and the Luftwaffe rained incendiary bombs that destroyed most of the city's wooden housing.
13. Luhn, Alec (8 Juin 2014). "Stalingrad name may return to city in wave of second world war patriotism". theguardian.com. The Guardian. The Guardian. Retrieved 16 Februar 2015.
14. Beevor (1998: 239)
15. Shirer 1990

Citit soorces

• Beevor, Antony (1998). Stalingrad. London: Viking. ISBN 978-0-14-103240-5.
• Bellamy, Chris (2007). Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf & Random House. ISBN 978-0-375-41086-4.
• Bergström, Christer; Dikov, Andrey & Antipov Vladimir (2006). Black Cross Red Star: Air War Over the Eastern Front: Everything For Stalingrad, Volume 3. Eagle Editions. ISBN 978-0-9761034-4-8. Cite uses deprecated parameter |last-author-amp= (help)
• Glantz, David M. & House, Jonathan (1995), When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler, Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, ISBN 0-7006-0899-0
• Hayward, Joel S. A. (1998). Stopped at Stalingrad: The Luftwaffe and Hitler's Defeat in the East 1942–1943. Lawrence, KS, University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-0876-8.
• Shirer, William L. (1990) [1950]. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-449-21977-5.