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Rzhev ’42 – Designer Notes Table of Contents I. Design Notes A. Introduction B. German Order of Battle C. Soviet Order of Battle D. Weather E. Making the Scenarios II. The Scenarios A. Scenario List B. Scenario Overviews III. Operation Mars Revisited – by David Glantz Endnotes IV. German Military Abbreviations and Terms V. Bibliography A. Operational Books B. Order of Battle, and Organizational Books C. Unit Histories D. Map Books E. Archival Records Design Notes A. Introduction After reading David Glantz’s book "Zhukov’s Greatest Defeat", I became intrigued with this unknown, but major operation. According to Col Glantz, the Soviet forces used for Operation Mars, were substantially larger then the more well known Operation Uranus, the counterattack at Stalingrad. Two Soviet fronts, Kalinin and Western, seven Armies, consisting of 667,000 men and over 1900 tanks, attacked on 25 November 1942 with the goal of destroying the German 9th Army, pinching off the Rzhev salient, and eliminating the threat this salient posed to Moscow. By attacking in four directions, the Soviets planned on tying down what little mobile reserves the Germans had, and not allowing them to be deployed elsewhere. The battle was fought during blizzard-like snowstorms which, along with the poor terrain in the area, contributed mightily to the Soviet defeat. The Germans fought back hard, with a stubborn defense, their strong points holding out behind the Soviet lines, further complicating moving the second echelon offensive troops forward. Beside the two panzer divisions in reserve of 9.AOK (9th Army), the Germans were able to send three more panzer divisions, from Heersgruppe (Army Group) reserve, to halt the offensive and counterattack.
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