Hitler had insisted on holding back the 17th Panzer Division, but the 6th and 23rd Panzer divisions made good progress, catching the Soviets by surprise. Soviet units were forced to retreat to the northern bank of the Askai River, where they were ordered to hold at all costs. Yeremenko sent off a series of worried communiqués to Stalin, asking for assistance. His main concern was that the panzer spearheads would penetrate the rear areas of General Fedor I. Tolbukhin’s Fifty-seventh Army, which occupied the southwest sector of the Stalingrad pocket, and that Paulus would then launch a breakout attempt of his own to meet the advancing German armor.

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Stalin replied in no uncertain terms. The panzers must be stopped. He told Yeremenko that the Second Guards Army was on its way but, until it arrived, every available unit was to be thrown before the Germans. Yeremenko used the last of his reserves, the 235th Tank Brigade and the 87th Rifle Division, as well as a tank corps from the Stalingrad sector, to try to hold the Askai line. The Germans had already succeeded in establishing fairly strong bridgeheads on the northern bank, however, and were bringing more men and equipment across every hour.

For the next five days a desperate battle was fought in the hills and valleys between the Askai and Mishkova rivers. The seesaw affair broke down into individual unit combat actions. Soviet infantry companies, supported by dug-in T-34 tanks, lay in wait throughout the rugged countryside, and it was up to platoons and companies of panzergrenadiers to overcome them. Massed Soviet armor also assaulted the panzer divisions as they pushed forward. On December 14, Panzer Regiment 11 of the 6th Panzer Division reported that it had fought off an attack of some 80 Soviet tanks, destroying 43 of them in the process.

The battle finally swung in favor of the Germans when Hitler released the 17th Panzer Division. Under the weight of three German armored divisions, the Soviet defenses began to buckle. By December 18, Hoth’s tanks were advancing rapidly to the Mishkova River, fighting off enemy attacks from the flanks as they drove forward.

It was the 6th Panzer that took the lead, with the 23rd Panzer covering the right flank and the 17th Panzer covering the left. In the early hours of December 20, the 6th Panzer’s armored group, commanded by Colonel Walther von Hünersdorff, reached the Mishkova near the town of Gromoslavka. There, the Germans ran into lead elements of the Second Guards Army, which had been streaming south to stop the attack.

By then, Hünersdorff’s tanks were running low on fuel and were faced by a numerically superior enemy. Nevertheless, while waiting for his supply columns to arrive, he deployed his tanks to engage the Soviets. As the panzers blazed away at the Soviet tank and anti-tank positions, the 1st Battalion/Panzergrenadier Regiment 114, commanded by a Major Hauschildt, crossed the river and secured a bridgehead after a bitter fight. Hünersdorff immediately sent reinforcements across and was able to expand the German hold to a 3-kilometer perimeter. Stalingrad was now only 48 kilometers away.

That was later seen as the high-water mark of Winter Tempest. The battered panzer divisions ran into a stone wall in the form of the Second Guards Army after they crossed the Mishkova, and there were ominous signs that the Soviets were ready to open a new attack against Army Group Hollidt and the XLVIII Panzer Corps, which held the Chir River line.

It was time for Thunderclap to commence. If the Sixth Army could begin its breakout, it would certainly take pressure off the panzer divisions at the Mishkova River and possibly allow them to continue their offensive. However, confusion and indecision were rampant in the highest ranks of the entrapped army.

On the 18th Manstein had sent an officer from his staff, a Major Eismann, into the Stalingrad pocket to discuss Thunderclap with Paulus. In his memoirs, Manstein says that he gave the order for Thunderclap to begin on the 19th and that Paulus replied that he would need four to six days to initiate the breakout. Hitler, however, still demanded that Stalingrad be held, so Paulus had to decide whom to obey, Army Group Don or the Führer.

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