For the Soviet-German battlefield of World War II, the German army used to use pincer offensive to obtain the fruitful results brought by rapid movement of armor, and even Manstein liked to use this style of play to seize the battlefield advantage. However, during the first Battle of Rostov in November 1941, Kleist, the commander of the 1st Armored Group, who was good at pincer play, lost rostov because of the pincer play, and almost let the Soviet army wrap dumplings.
If we carefully analyze the situation on the Soviet-German battlefield, we will find that although the German army used a three-way approach in the blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union, the strategic support that ultimately played a decisive role was not the three important cities of Leningrad, Moscow and Kiev. In accordance with the order of operations, Smolensk, Lezhev, Stalingrad, Kharkov and Rostov became the most important strongholds of the Eastern Front, and the large and small battlefields after the Battle of Moscow were also deployed with these strategic supports.
Therefore, it will be found that when the German army won the siege of Kiev, although the German army used 3 armored groups and 4 armies as many as 1.8 million troops at a time to attack Moscow, it did not send the 1st panzer group to support, because the strategic support of the occupation of Rostov was of equal importance to the occupation of Moscow.
Precisely because the Germans concentrated the main forces of the 6th, 17th and 1st Panzer Groups, trying to occupy Rostov and march to the Caucasus, the Soviet high command also strengthened the operational deployment of the southern front, letting Marshal Timoshenko personally command the southern front and defend Rostov with the strong strength of the 7 armies, the reason is that the loss of Rostov is equivalent to the opening of the gateway to the Caucasus, and the strategic and energy base of the Soviet army will be seriously threatened.
Therefore, in the history of the Soviet-German war, the scramble around Rostov has been fought several times, and it has always been the focus of attention between the Soviet union and Germany, who occupies Rostov, who gets the key to enter the Caucasus, and even directly affects the fate of the battlefield on the southern front.
Regarding the importance of the First Battle of Rostov, the Soviets claimed to have broken the German armored and fast-moving pincer offensive and retaken the city from Kleist; for the Germans, it was a watermelon-picking operation, because the Battle of Moscow not only lost confidence in blitzkrieg, but also overthrew the entire wave of the Barbarossa plan.
In fact, when the German high command suspended the attack on Moscow in mid-August and sent Guderian to command the 2nd Panzer Group to reinforce the Siege of Kiev, the German Army Chief of The General Staff Halder had clearly pointed out the importance of concentrating forces to occupy Rostov, and pointed out that the occupation of the Caucasus was far more important than the occupation of Moscow, but unfortunately his proposal was not taken seriously by the high command, and in the eyes of the German army, the political significance of occupying Moscow was far greater than the energy resources of the Caucasus.
Therefore, it will be found that when the 1.8 million German troops concentrated on Moscow and surrounded Vyazma and Bryansk with 570,000 Soviet troops in October, the Soviet high command still did not give up the reinforcement of Rostov, and Marshal Timoshenko not only concentrated his forces to prevent Army Group South from passing through Rostov, but also avenged the siege of Kiev.
However, the Soviets faced a very difficult problem, that is, the early losses were too large, the reserves could not come in time for reinforcements, and only the 57th Army and other troops defended Rostov with less than 200,000 troops. Kleist also saw the opportunity that the Soviet defenses were not ready, quickly concentrated two-thirds of his tanks to break through the defenses of 4 Soviet infantry divisions on the northern front, and occupied Rostov on November 20.
It can be said that before this battle, Kleist had won many battles in the Siege of Uman and the Siege of Kiev, and was familiar with the pincer play, while the focus of the German high command was on the Moscow battlefield on the central line, and they did not realize that Timoshenko would hit a counter-hook punch, and finally recovered Rostov.
From this level, after Kleist occupied Rostov, there was still the idea of a light enemy, and from the command level, the German high command believed that the strength of the Soviet army on the southern front after the Battle of Kiev was greatly reduced, and did not take the Soviet counter-offensive seriously.
As a good commander on the Soviet-German battlefield, Kleist had always been responsible for the armored offensive of the southern front, but after the capture of Rostov, why did he not find that the Soviet army cut off his retreat?
On the one hand, when Kleist concentrated two-thirds of his tanks to attack the northern front, Timoshenko had already discovered the loopholes in the German rear, originally the 1st Panzer Group had lost a lot in the previous months of combat, and by the time of the attack on Rostov, the 3 armored divisions added up to less than 250 tanks, equivalent to losing two-thirds, although the Germans occupied Rostov on the 20th, the Soviets slowly moved the main force to the south, which was equivalent to copying Kleist's rear road, and by the 26th, the German army lost its rear supplies. Had to abandon Rostov and quickly retreated backwards.
On the other hand, the Soviet Independent 56th Army vowed revenge, and the Germans could not stop it. After the Germans occupied Rostov, Timoshenko ordered the 56th Army to drag Kleist on the northern front and could not return to the southern front, and let the 57th Army cut the German rear road on the southern front, and the North and South attacked, and the Soviet army launched a large pincer offensive, and Kleist instead became the object of the Soviet encirclement.
What Kleist did not expect was that the operational environment on the southern front was not ideal, the muddy climate in November was no better than the Moscow battlefield, and the hilly highland environment on the southern front made it more difficult for the German armored march. Moreover, the officers and men of the Soviet Independent 56th Army did not pay attention to the German tanks at all, they drank vodka oath wine, arm in arm in a long line to advance towards Rostov, daring to fight the momentum of victory made the German army retreat without a fight.
From the above analysis, it can be seen that in the Battle of Rostov, Kleist was too dependent on the pincer play, and the German army's supply did not keep up. Due to the difference in railway gauge, the 724 trains that should have been transported were actually only 195 trains, resulting in a serious shortage of fuel on the German front, the armor could not be opened, and the ammunition was insufficient. Timoshenko, on the other hand, continued to increase the number of reserves while consuming a large amount of German combat resources, and finally recaptured Rostov at a cost of 30,000 people, and also made Kleist pay the price of more than 20,000 people, and retreated 80 kilometers.
The Battle of Rostov not only relieved the commander of Army Group South, Rondestedt, but also prevented the German army on the southern front from sending a single soldier to reinforce the Moscow battlefield, and it also became the second victory in the counterattack since the beginning of the Soviet-German War, which was of great significance.
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