Official Historical Campaign "Ice Ring"

[BlackSix]

Ice Ring

This new historical campaign is dedicated to the Soviet ground attack aviation regiments during one of the most intense episodes of the Battle of Stalingrad in December 1942. During this time-frame, Soviet command had to simultaneously solve several problems: disrupt enemy airborne re-supply operations, contain 284,000 German and Romanian troops who have been encircled, and repel a very dangerous counter-strike by the German 4th Panzer Army from the area of Kotelnikovo (Operation "Winter Storm").

You are expected to search and destroy German transport planes in the air, to strike at airfields and troops inside the cauldron, and to conduct reconnaissance along the Stalingrad front. At the final stage of the campaign you will take part in the hardest battles on the Myshkova River, which determined the outcome of the entire German counter-offensive and sealed the fate of the German army trapped near Stalingrad.

Time frame: November 29th - December 25th, 1942
Unit: 505th ShAP 226th ShAD
Available aircraft: IL-2 AM-38 (model 1942)
Duration: 15 missions
Average playtime: 7 hours
Author: Alexander =BlackSix= Timoshkov

This campaign requires IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad.

  

  

Historical Background
The counter-offensive of the Red Army at Stalingrad began on November 19, 1942. By November 23, it had led to the encirclement of a 284,000-strong group consisting of the German 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army, as well as Romanian troops. However, further attempts by the Stalingrad and Don fronts to split and destroy the enemy group were less fruitful. At the same time, the Soviet command had to put in serious effort into the creation and maintaining of the outer encirclement ring.

The commander of the German 6th Army, Colonel-General Friedrich Paulus, received an order from Adolf Hitler that would later prove to be disastrous. The order was to hold the line and wait for the relieving strike. To ensure that the encircled group had the supplies required to keep on fighting, the decision was made to establish a cargo airlift by Luftwaffe transport and bombing units. The Tatsinskaya and Morozovskaya airfields were hastily prepared as the main supply bases, and all available forces began concentrating there. The Pitomnik, Basargino, Voroponovo, Bolshaya Rossoshka, and Gumrak airfields were used to receive cargo inside the encirclement. The task to meet and cover the aircraft landing and taking off was assigned to the Platzschutzstaffel Pitomnik, recruited from I./JG 3.

To step up the effort against German cargo aircraft, in the morning of November 29, the commander of the Soviet 8th Air Army ordered the redeployment of the regiments of the 235th Fighter Air Division to the Bolshiye Chapurniki, Beketovka, Trudolyubiye, and Raygorod airfields, as well as the organization of ambushes at the Buzinovka and Zety fields. To this same end, the headquarters of the 226th Ground-Attack Air Division was ordered to form a dedicated group of six seasoned crews under the command of Major Leonid Chumachenko and, by 09:00 on November 29, land it at the Bolshiye Chapurniki airfield, putting it under the command of the 235th Fighter Air Division.

  

  

A huge and detailed review of the campaign by ShamrockOneFive 

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