Need help tracking the 5th Panzer Division

[H1nd]

I need help to track down the actions of 5th panzer division during the 27. - 30.6. around Borisov - Krupki area. I would like to build up a Rudimentary situation map to give me idea of locations for scenarios. I know that this information is extremely hard to come by and is subject to errors and misinformation. There are also plenty of scenarios in the making involving the 5th panzer since it was one of the few real combat effective units to put up any sort of resistance during this time frame and ultimately it was not surrounded and annihilated during the operation bagration.

My intention is to build up some semi historical scenarios with as realistic maps as possible. Something similar to the very good scenario "Studienka". I would also love to know if people have similar scenarios in the making so that we dont suddenly have overlaping scenarios, say like 2 or 3 versions of battle for krupki-station but nothing involving panzer grenadiers in Kosritsa etc etc. Also any information of the soviet troop movement would be golden in order to have even some rough idea.

My own limited research has identified three other actions in addition to the studienka episode.

1) Krupki station and following actions involving the 505. Heavy Panzer Battalion on the evening of 28.6.

-what units where involved here from 5th panzer?

-Some sources indicate that the battle was fought in the station area itself while some give a picture that the action took place as individual skirmishes north of the station with 505th spread out in small combat teams.

2) in one source there was a vague mention of 89th panzer-engineer battalion ambushing soviet armor moving towards Borisov (probably along the Smolensk-Minsk highway) but the location is total mystery and there is nothing solid that this even actualy happened.

3) There is also a mention of action between 31st PzGr Regiment and soviet motorized rifle infantry from 11th Guards Army in the town of Kosritsa. This the action I was going to focus next after I have finished my fictional Nemanitsa scenario. The German force cannot have been more than a battalion in my estimate but there is no indication if they where mechanized or motorized and what sort of AT-support they could have had. Stugs or just AT-guns?

In general it is very hard to figure out the actual armored assets available to the 5th panzer at those dates. According to most sources the divisions panzer regiment had not arrived yet on 29.-30. and took part in actions after the divisions elements withdrew over the beresina river. What is clear is that the divisions elements pretty much derailed straight into combat. Crazy stuff.

I would also apreciate any info of actual engagement involving any real resistance from KG von Gottberg. Some sources indicate that they pretty much just melted away without putting up any sort of a fight.

Following picture is to illustrate the above mentioned information:

Cheers!

-H1nd

[H1nd]

Closer look at the Kosritsa area with possible soviet routes of advance highlighted with red. After doing this process it became much easier to understand the importance of this town and the surrounding terrain. The Question remains: did the germans try to stops the soviets in the woods north of the town or by holding the hill 196 just south of the town. Or maybe they tried both.

[JasonC]

First, the components. The attached 505th Tigers arrived before the panzer regiment, which was one of the last elements to arrive. The other early arrives were the 5th recon battalion, the panzer pioneers (89th), and some but not all of the panzer grenadiers. The late arrivers included the artillery regiment, the panzer regiment, and the balance of the panzer grenadiers.

The Tigers fought 3rd Guard Tank Corps (equipped with M4A2 Shermans) on the evening of the 28th near Krupti station. The fight continued through the night and the Russians captured the station by 7 AM on the 29th, suffering considerable losses in the process.

Recon elements of 3rd GTC bypassed the strong Tiger force at the station while that was happening, and those ran into 89 Pioneer elements between the station and the Berezina crossings. The pioneers were preparing bridges for demolition, on the crossings over secondary rivers and such. That fight developed on the 29th.

Meanwhile, 5th recon had sent companies north of the highway, including the Studenka position, in a thin screen north of the highway and from the Berezina, east. They were trying to hold the highway route open for the rest of the division to deploy forward, and to allow other German units to retreat through the 5th Panzer blocking operation, give warning time for bridge demo work, and the like.

The Russian 29th Tank corps tried to bypass the bulk of that position, north of it, and it was elements of that corps that attacked the elements of 5th recon back at the Berezina crossings at Studenka. They did not manage to get a quick crossing vs the 5th recon and continued trying to extend to the north and northwest around them, looking for an unopposed crossing site through the Berezina meanders and swampy bottomlands.

The fight at Kostritsa, on the other hand, developed on the 29th between rifle elements of 11th Guards army and the 31st Panzer Grenadier regiment from 5th Panzer. The 31st fought them there on the 29th and withdrew into Borisov over the night 29th-30th.

On the 30th, 5th recon stopped another Berezina crossing attempt east of Zeblim by rifle elements of 11th Guards army. But by then, 29th Tank corps had made a crossing farther north, beyond the reach of the 5th Panzer's screen.

Meanwhile the river line south of Borisov was being screened by German police units, and other elements of 11th Guards forced a crossing against those on the 30th. That was south of the whole 5th Panzer position but helped to compromise their bridgehead east of the Berezina.

The attack straight down the main highway into Borisov continued on the 30th while those flanking moves were underway. 3rd Guards Tank corps was the unit driving down the road, and it was supported on either side of the road by 5th Guards rifle division. The German pioneers blew the main highway bridge after a few tanks pushed across it. The Germans fought for the town in the west bank as Russian units arrived from north and south, but abandoned it by the evening of the 30th.

Note that the Panzer regiment was still detraining back at Minsk as this was going on, and moves north of the city. By the 1st of July, the full panzer regiment is in action north and northwest of Minsk, along with the remainder of 505 Tigers, which fight 29th Tank corps and 3rd Guards mech corps near Pleshchenitsy. That was part of the right hook attempt that 29th Tank corps had been leading throughout the fight described, searching out the northern flank of the German screen and turning it, and then heading for Minsk, with 3rd Guards mech in its wake. Basically, the arriving Panzer regiment 31 deploys to the left of the previous German positions to "refuse" their northern flank, and thereby gets in front of that drive, in time to give it a bloody nose and block the northwest route into Minsk.

But meanwhile there is also a southern flanking effort, delivered by 2nd Guards tank corps, exploiting the crossings of the Berezina forced south of Borisov vs the German police screen, earlier. After penetrating that screen, 2nd Guards tank corps passed between captured Borisov to their north / right and German infantry still holding Berezino to their south / left, and reach Cherven, west of Minsk. They then drive through Smilovichi into Minsk proper. They are facing only light opposition and they make rapid progress.

5th Panzer survivors on the main highway (weakened when the Tigers pulled out to join 31st Panzer regiment, to the NW, blocking the Russian right hook), still held the direct route into Minsk from the northeast, at Zhodino. But by the 2nd of July they are out of touch with their heavier Panzer regiment 31 friends farther northwest. Both their flanks are then turned, with 11th Guards elements passing between them and the 31st Panzer regiment position (the Guards rifle formations are infiltrating through the woods between those, as the northern outflankers), while the 2nd Guards Tank corps drive already mentioned turns their southern flank. They therefore pull back to avoid being encircled.

After 2nd Guards Tank corps reaches downtown Minsk, the panzer heavy part of 5th Panzer withdraws westward well north of the city, chaotic street fighting occurs in the city itself, and more Russian units arrive one after another. Such defenses as it has rapidly collapse under that weight. By then, the 5th Panzer survivors are northwest of the city, and by 8 July they are down to 18 running tanks (none of them Tigers).

I hope this helps...

[H1nd]

Yes! This helps a lot! Thank you It will give me a chance to make some educated estimates of where the action might have taken place within some sort of plausibility (the cm maps, even with 4km x 4km, simply dissapear in the vastness of Soviet Union so there is still lot of leeway). I think I will try map out the Kosritsa town and the heights surrounding it. Should make a decent battle with fresh pzgrenadiers against soviet mot. infantry with (some?) tank support. The 89th pioneer against soviet recon elements could also make a nice scenario.

[H1nd]

Best thing about all of this is that there is a ton of interesting terrain in these locations and wihtout any precise coordinates there is lot's of possibilites for many "plausible scenarios" while in normandy theatre scenarios are either historical or pure fiction because the real fighting was well recorded with locations and all other data.

[JasonC]

Agree on good for scenarios. Agree of fresh Pz Gdrs. The attackers were rifle formation units from 11th Guards army. That might include some independent tank brigade tank support, to be sure, but it wouldn't be motor rifle specifically, and by how they got there, their ability to leg-move offroad through woods etc would be a strong suit. At this stage, this mobile and this deep, their fire support would likely be down to their organic mortars.

Of course, feel free to use poetic license, just saying...

[H1nd]

The heroic stamina of soviet infantry man. I never learn to apreciate it enough.