In mid-October, Marshal
S. K. Timoshenko, the
STAVKA coordinator for the Northwestern Front's operations, began planning another offensive to cut the German corridor; in part, this was intended as a diversion from the upcoming
Operation Mars. The attack was to involve the 11th Army from the north and the
1st Shock Army from the south, to commence on October 22. However, as with Mars, this operation was postponed several times, mainly due to adverse weather. When the operation finally began on the night of November 23/24, the 11th Army consisted of ten rifle divisions, including the 43rd Guards, plus five rifle brigades, one tank brigade and three battalions, and 26 artillery regiments. It faced elements of the
8th Jäger,
290th and
81st Infantry Divisions, giving it an advantage of about 3:1 in infantry and 5:1 in armor, although the rough and roadless terrain and miserable weather hampered supplies and negated much of the numerical advantage. On November 27, after probing attacks by the
202nd Rifle Division in the direction of Pustynia, which gained little ground over several days, Timoshenko ordered the two armies to commit their main forces in an attempt to break the stalemate. While the 202nd was finally able to gain its objective, overall, the attackers seized only pitifully small footholds in the German defenses at the cost of heavy losses. While the
STAVKA soon recognized the offensive had failed, it insisted on December 8 that it continue, and several equally fruitless efforts were made into mid-January 1943. Meanwhile, on December 30, General Veikin was effectively demoted to command of the 14th Guards Rifle Regiment of the
7th Guards Rifle Division. The next day, he was succeeded in command of the division by Col. (Detlav Karlovich Brantkaln), who would be promoted to the rank of major general on January 29. Early in February, it was transferred to the
27th Army of the same Front, which was located closer to the mouth of the Ramushevo corridor. In the wake of
Operation Iskra, which broke the German land blockade of Leningrad in January, Marshal
Georgy Zhukov conceived a plan to encircle and destroy Army Group North:
Operation Polar Star. The first phase of the overall operation would be yet another attempt to cut off and eliminate the Demyansk salient. Zhukov finalized his plan during the week preceding the planned attack date of February 15, and the 11th and 27th Armies together had nine rifle divisions, including the 43rd Guards, plus 150 tanks, massed between Penno and Ramushevo against the
5th Jäger Division. However, in light of the encirclement and upcoming surrender of the
6th Army at Stalingrad, on January 31, Hitler had authorized the evacuation of II Corps. Operation Ziethen began on February 17 before the delayed Soviet attack could get fully underway, and effectively short-circuited Zhukov's entire plan; the 27th Army would still be redeploying as late as the 21st. Demyansk was abandoned on February 21, and by February 26, most of the corridor was evacuated as well.
Into western Russia Ziethen freed up sufficient German forces to reinforce their positions at
Staraya Russa and along the
Lovat River. The town of Kholm had
held out under siege until May, and while Velikiye Luki had been liberated by the
3rd Shock Army in January, there were several German strongpoints, most notably
Novosokolniki, that continued to block further Soviet advances to the west. During the remainder of the year, the 43rd Guards was one of the units of the Northwestern Front responsible for keeping guarding these garrisons and engaging in local battles to improve positions and gain intelligence. During this time, the division came under several commands. In April, it left the 27th Army and joined the
68th Army. During May, it was moved to the Front reserves, where it remained into June. In July, it was assigned as a separate division in the
34th Army. In August, it came under the command of the
12th Guards Rifle Corps with the 7th Guards and
26th Rifle Divisions, back in the Front reserves, and remained there into October. During that month, it was reassigned as a separate division to the 22nd Army in the new 2nd Baltic Front, and would remain under those commands for most of the rest of the war. At the beginning of January 1944, the 43rd Guards had 8,127 personnel on strength, which was considerably more than most rifle divisions at this period of the war. Given the large percentage of well-motivated Communist Party members, the unit gained the unofficial status of an assault division. It was armed with 3,489 rifles and carbines, 2,709 sub-machineguns, 308 light machine guns, 142 heavy machine guns, 105 82mm and 24 120mm mortars, 169 antitank rifles, 12 122mm howitzers, 36 76mm cannons, 29 45mm antitank guns, 12 light antiaircraft guns, and 165 trucks.
Leningrad–Novgorod Offensive When the Leningrad–Novgorod Offensive began on January 14, the 2nd Baltic Front was assigned a mostly diversionary role in tying down German reserves. At this time, Lt. Col. (Yan Ludvigovich Rainberg) was the deputy commander of the 125th Guards Rifle Regiment, who had earlier distinguished himself in the fighting near Ramushevo. Overnight, he led an assault force consisting of two ski battalions, one from his own division and another from the
33rd Rifle Division, into action north of Novosokolniki. The ski troops broke through the German defenses at the village of Fedoruhnovo and raided into the rear, cutting the Novosokolniki -
Dno railway and seizing the village of Monakovo, where they captured the headquarters of an engineer battalion with 25 soldiers and one officer. The raid provoked a strong response, and over the next 12 hours, Rainbergs' detachment was forced to fight off 11 counterattacks by infantry and tanks, gradually running short of antitank ammunition and grenades. German armor eventually advanced to within 30–40 m of the Soviet positions, and Colonel Rainbergs was killed in action. Despite this, his men were able to hold out until relieved by the division's main forces and officially accounted for up to nine tanks and three battalions of infantry. On June 4, Rainbergs would posthumously be made a
Hero of the Soviet Union. As part of the same fighting, on January 16, Cpt. Mihails Orlovs (Mikhail Ivanovich Orlov, born 1918 in
Krāslava Parish), commander of the 4th Company of the 125th Guards Regiment, was forced to take command of the 2nd Battalion from Major Gubanov and lead it into an attack on German positions near the village of Borsuchka. The battalion succeeded in occupying several trenches and bunkers and killed or captured 60 officers and men. For his actions, Orlovs was awarded the
Order of the Red Banner. ==Baltic offensives==