Rails to Perdition ETO (id:#66789)

(ASL 16 - Twilight of the Reich ID: 299)   [next]   [previous]

Budapest, Hungary 1945-01-14 (5 others)

Overview:

Integral to the reduction of the German and Hungarian forces on the Pest side of Budapest were the Romanian units of 7th Army Corp under Lieutenant-General Nicolae Sova. This corps consisted of the 2nd and 19th Infantry Divisions, 9th Cavalry Division, and several independent mortar and artillery assets. Positioned just to the north of the right flank of the Soviet 18th Guards Rifle Corps, the Romanians were tasked with clearing several key Axis defensive positions, including the Ferenc József Cavalry Barracks, portions of the Kerepesi Cemetery, and finally, their most challenging objective, the Keleti pályaudvar (Eastern Railway Station). The Keleti pályaudvar was a massive structure that had been heavily fortified by the Axis as a keystone in their defense of the eastern side of the Pest bridgehead, and its loss would represent a serious blow to the Axis ability to defend that side of the city. On the evening of 11 January, after having been slowed for days while trying to capture the cavalry barracks and wishing to avoid a bloodbath to with a frontal assault on the station area, General Sova reorganized his forces into two main task forces: mobile and blocking. The primary task of the "Blocking" force, comprised of the bulk of Brigadier-General Mihail Voicu's 2nd Infantry Division, and a stripped-down portion of Lieutenant-General Mihail Lacatusu's 19th Infantry Division, was to tie down the Hungarian and German units fronting the eastern side of the station, mostly the Hungarian 10th Infantry Division under the command of Sándor Andras (who would defect to the Soviets on the evening of 15 January). The "Mobile" group was composed of Colonel Dumitru Neferu's 9th Cavalry Division, reinforced with the 31st, 94th, and 95th Infantry Regiments. These later elements, reassigned from the 19th Infantry Division, were considered relatively combat worthy, give the bulk of the regiments' soldiers still consisted of an experienced cadre of Eastern Front veterans. Finally, Marshal Malinovsky had reassigned five batteries of 76mm ZiS-3 guns under the leadership of Lieutenant-Colonel Yakov Pavlik, from the Soviet 114th Guards Anti-tank Artillery Regiment to bolster the Romanians with anti-armor capacity. This Mobile group was initially charged with bypassing the reinforced Keleti station to the south and proceeding as quickly as possible toward the center of Pest. Events would necessitate a change in this strategy, however.

Defender: Axis ((Hungarian) 10th Infantry Division and 1st Assault Artillery Battalion and (German) Kompanie 3. SS-FlaK-Abteilung 22, SS-Freiwilligen-Kavallerie-Division 22 "Maria Theresia")  

Errata (source)