Somewhere in the northern Ukraine, a couple of stukkas run their engines at regulr intervals to keep them from freezing up. A third needs major repairs on its engine, but because of the intense cold little can be done. During the previous November, the German 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army, which had been fighting their way into Stalingrad, were halted and surrounded by Soviet armies. In Operation Uranus, two Soviet fronts punched through the Romanians and converged at Kalach on 23 November, trapping 300,000 Axis troops behind them. The Germans rushed to transfer troops to Russia for a desperate attempt to relieve Stalingrad, but the offensive could not get going until 12 December, by which time the 6th Army in Stalingrad was starving and too weak to break out towards it. Three transferred Panzer divisions attempted to break through to the trapped 6th Army, but bogged down 65 km (40 miles) short of its goal. On 31 January 1943, the 90,000 survivors of the 300,000-man 6th Army surrendered. By that time the Hungarian 2nd Army had also been wiped out. The Soviets advanced from the Don 500 km (300 miles) to the west of Stalingrad, marching through Kursk (retaken on 8 February 1943) and Kharkov (retaken 16 February 1943). By abandoning the Rzhev salient, enough troops were freed for the Germans to stage a counteroffensive under Manstein, which made its way back to Kharkov by the third week of March. At that time, the spring thaw halted the German advance, leaving a large bulge in the front centered on Kursk. In the distance, a German convoy struggles through axle deep mud to reach elements of a specially trained SS Panzer Corps, equipped with Tiger tanks, which is supporting Manstein's forces somewhere near Kharkov. ********* Not an especially great picture, but some very fine models. Credits: Above history: more or less paraphrased from http://en.wikipedia.org. Stukkas: modeled and textured by ThundeRRenderS. Trucks: German Open-Cab Truck by adh3d. Artillery: Net freebie. Road: by Chris Oldfield and Judith Ward. Everything else (sky, blizzard, terrains, etc. by me. As always, thanks for dropping by and for any comments. Regards, Jeremy