The situation around Voronezh soon became a stalemate as the German mobile forces were required to push eastward toward Stalingrad. As of the beginning of August 6 Army was part of the newly formed Voronezh Front. On August 19 Colonel Anashkin was moved to command of the
159th (later
61st Guards) Rifle Division; he would eventually reach the rank of lieutenant general, would command several rifle corps and be made a
Hero of the Soviet Union before his retirement in 1946. He was replaced the next day by Col. Mikhail Petrovich Seryugin who had been serving as the deputy commander of the 212th Rifle Division. At the start of December, after the German
6th Army had been encircled at Stalingrad, the 160th was still under the same commands in much the same area along the Don. The planning for Operation Saturn, which had begun in late November, had included the Soviet 6th Army of Voronezh Front operating jointly with Southwestern Front to penetrate the defenses of the
Italian 8th Army, reach the
Kantemirovka region, and protect the right flank of that Front's forces. 6th Army now contained five rifle divisions, including the rebuilt 160th, two tank corps plus a tank brigade and two tank regiments, one tank destroyer brigade, the
8th Artillery Division and additional artillery assets, and was supported by the entire
2nd Air Army. As the situation evolved during early December, particularly with the commitment of
2nd Guards Army to counter the German
attempt to relieve the Stalingrad pocket, Operation Saturn became Operation Little Saturn, but the role of 6th Army remained much the same. The offensive began on December 16. 6th Army faced four Italian divisions dug in on the west bank of the hard-frozen Don. Shock groups deployed on the Army's left (south) wing and
1st Guards Army's right (north) wing were to attack southward and southeastward into the Italian Army's deep rear with the goal of linking up with
3rd Guards Army behind Army Detachment Hollidt and the remnants of the
3rd Romanian Army. The shock groups of both the 6th and 1st Guards Armies were concentrated on a narrow sector in the
Verkhny Mamon region opposite the
3rd Infantry Division Ravenna and
5th Infantry Division Cosseria, reinforced by the German 318th Security Regiment. The shock group of 6th Army (
15th Rifle and
17th Tank Corps) did not include the 160th, which would play a supporting role. Soviet artillery struck the Italian positions before dawn at which time the attack began; however, the artillery was hindered in its spotting by heavy fog along the ice-covered river and in the first 24 hours the Italian forces did a creditable job in limiting the attackers to penetrations of little more than 3 km. 6th Army regrouped its divisions and resumed its offensive the next day with armor thoroughly integrated with the infantry, leading to a complete rout of the Axis forces throughout its main attack sector. The 17th Tank Corps was committed late in the afternoon at the boundary of the 3rd and 5th Italian Divisions and reached 20 km into the Italians' rear area by the end of the day. By the end of December 18 the Soviet armor had broken into the clear, 17th Tanks was halfway to Kantemirovka, and the Italian infantry divisions had simply disintegrated from fear and exhaustion. 6th Army was transferred to Southwestern Front on the morning of December 19. By now it was clear that the Axis forces of
Army Group B lacked the resources to halt Little Saturn and began a fighting withdrawal to the west and south, although sizeable groupings were being encircled in several towns and villages. By December 24 the Soviet mobile corps had remarkably exploited as much as 200 km into the Army Group's rear. During the last days of the year the 6th Army protected the Kantemirovka region as planned while 1st Guards Army besieged Axis forces pocketed at and around Gartmashevka Station,
Chertkovo and
Millerovo.
Ostrogozhsk–Rossosh Offensive After regrouping its southern forces in the first days of 1943 the
STAVKA was determined to defeat the Axis forces (primarily the
2nd Hungarian Army and remnants of Italian 8th Army) operating along the VoronezhKursk and
Kharkov axes. The first task was to crush the forces defending the area of
Ostrogozhsk and
Rossosh, which would primarily involve forces of Voronezh Front. In this offensive the role of 6th Army would be reversed; instead of being an army of Voronezh Front protecting the north flank of Southwestern Front it would be an army of the latter protecting the south flank of the former. It was facing the remnants of the II Italian Army Corps. The 160th was still operating as a separate division in 6th Army, which now had only five rifle divisions and one rifle brigade on strength. The new offensive began on January 13. The immediate objective of 6th Army was
Pokrovskoye. 3rd Tank Army had been transferred to Voronezh Front and took up positions north of 6th Army between
Novaya Kalitva and Kantimirovka; it would launch the main attack to envelop the Axis group of forces. That Front had also deployed the
18th Rifle Corps between 3rd Tank and 6th Armies to serve as a shock group. Its
270th Rifle Division was slated to launch a supporting attack on the third day from the area south of Pavlovsk in the general direction of Saprina in order to surround and destroy the Axis grouping along the sector from Belogore to Pasekovo in cooperation with 6th Army's 160th and 127th Rifle Divisions and the
180th Rifle Division of 3rd Tank. During the first day the 160th and 127th were to tie down enemy forces with artillery and small arms fire before going over to the attack on the second day. The two divisions were controlled by the 6th Army's deputy commander. During January 15 the Axis forces put up strong resistance along 3rd Tank Army's right flank where the 180th Division was attacking.
12th Tank Corps reached the town of Rossosh from the south with its main forces by day's end. With this development the units defending against the 160th and 127th began a disorderly withdrawal to the south and west. An Axis grouping consisting of units of the German
387th Infantry Division and the Italian Ravenna Division was attempting to hold the town of Mitrofanovka which drew the attention of the 180th Division and other elements of 3rd Tanks through the morning of January 16. Once this resistance was broken the remnants of this grouping fell back to the north, trying to reach the positions of the
Italian Alpine Corps east of Rossosh. The 160th took up the pursuit along with the 180th Division and the 37th Rifle Brigade and by the end of the day had reached Krinichnaya. On the same day as per
STAVKA VGK Directive No. 30017 the 160th and the 62nd Guards (former 127th Division) were transferred to Voronezh Front and came under command of 3rd Tank Army. The goal of 3rd Tanks' right flank rifle formations on January 17 was to eliminate the Axis forces still resisting southeast of Rossosh. The 62nd Guards and 160th attacked along the right (west) bank of the Don and captured a line from Staraya Kalitva to outside Shevchenko. By the end of the day the Axis grouping (German 387th and
385th Infantry, Italian Ravenna and
4th Alpine Division Cuneense) was reduced to one escape route to the north which was under attack by 18th Rifle Corps. The following day the two Soviet divisions reached Yevstratovskii and continued attacking to the north. The encirclement battle continued on January 19 as the 160th and 62nd Guards, in conjunction with the 180th, fought to destroy the Axis force in the Annovka area. The former two took up the pursuit to the north and by day's end the Axis divisions were reduced to small groups attempting to break out. Following this fighting the 160th and 62nd Guards were dispatched to the
Olkhovatka area with the mission of subsequently moving up to the
Oskol River to take up jumping-off positions for the Front's new offensive on the Kharkov axis. During this march the 160th continued mopping up refugees from the encirclement, including an attack on January 23 toward Podgornoe with the 62nd Guards and the
219th Rifle Division which effectively ended organized resistance of the encircled force.
Operation Star On January 25 the Red Army launched the Voronezh–Kastornoye Offensive, and while this mostly involved the northern forces of Voronezh Front plus Bryansk Front in an effort to encircle and destroy German 2nd Army, the 3rd Tank Army continued advancing to the west. It took a more leading role in Operation Star, which began on February 2 and had the objective of liberating Kharkov and Kursk. Hitler had declared the former a fortress, despite its lack of fortifications and the paucity of troops with which to hold it. The
SS Panzer Corps made several efforts to halt the offensive but by February 13 its north flank had been forced back to the outskirts of the city. By the end of February 15 it had evacuated Kharkov and fallen back to the
Uda River and 3rd Tank Army took control of the city. On February 18 Colonel Seryugin was wounded and hospitalized. He was replaced in command of the 160th by division deputy commander Col.
Aleksei Ivanovich Baksov, but would return to the division on 9 April. As of the beginning of March the 3rd Tank Army had been moved to Southwestern Front. The German counteroffensive began on February 19 with the
2nd SS Panzergrenadier Division Das Reich striking behind the advance guards of 1st Guards and 6th Armies east of
Dnepropetrovsk. Over the following days the remainder of the SS Corps joined the thrust northward. The offensive made significant gains and by February 26 had reached the south flank of Voronezh Front west of Kharkov. Starting on March 1 the 4th Panzer Army covered 80 km in five days despite the onset of the spring thaw; east of
Krasnograd it trapped and badly damaged three rifle divisions (including the 160th) and three tank brigades of 3rd Tank Army. The SS Corps retook Kharkov on March 13 after three days of street fighting. The remnants of the division fell back to the east, coming under the command of
69th Army in Voronezh Front. Despite its losses in this counteroffensive the 160th had distinguished itself in the previous breakthrough and exploitation operations under miserable winter conditions so that, on April 18, it was redesignated as the 89th Guards Rifle Division. ==References==