Faced with this large german heavy army group in the encirclement, which maintained great combat effectiveness, the Soviets also deployed powerful legions. On 1 December, 480,000 Red Army officers and men, armed with 465 tanks, 8,490 guns and mortars (excluding anti-aircraft guns and small-caliber mortars), surrounded 280,000 German troops. These Soviet units belonged to the Stalingrad Front, which encircled the eastern flank and the Don Front, which encircled the western flank.
But the two commanders, Yelyommenko and Rokossovsky, did not buy each other, and Vasilevsky, who stalin sent to coordinate, could not make the two men absolutely obedient.
At dawn on 2 December, Rokossovsky's Don Front attacked the western part of the encirclement. Two divisions of the 21st, 65th and 24th Armies were mobilized. In front of them were the German 14th Panzer Army and the 8th Army. On the same day, Yeliamenko's Stalingrad Front also launched an offensive, attacking the German 4th Army south of the encirclement with the 64th and 57th Armies. Inside Stalingrad, Trikov's 62nd Army (with only about 7,630 men in the city) also fought fiercely with the German 51st Army. Trikov's strength is weak, take the "northern cluster" under his jurisdiction as an example:
The strength of the "Northern Cluster" of the 62nd Group Army of the Soviet Union:
There were 1,936 men in Stalingrad; 403 in the West Bank; 1,534 rifles; 95 machine guns; 343 submachine guns; 2 122 guns; 14 "76" guns; 6 "45" guns; and 2 "37" guns.
But the scale of the offensive on this day was not very large. In fact, most of the attacks were carried out in battalion-level units. Because the power is too small, there is no progress. The Soviet 57th Army began to advance after 30 minutes of shelling, but was quickly stopped by heavy return fire from the German 4th Army. The Soviet 64th Army concentrated several infantry battalions and 40 tanks to attack the 297th Division of the German 4th Army (reinforced with 8 tanks and 3 strong artillery), but was met with heavy German fire and about 30 tanks were destroyed. However, the Soviets captured the eastern corner of the German position (Yerch).