XLVII Panzer Corps

The XLVII Panzer Corps under Lemelsen was Guderian's spearhead for the Bryansk encirclement, driving north from the Glukhov area in the first days of October 1941 to link up with the 2nd Army and seal two Soviet fronts in the Bryansk pocket. It then turned northeast toward Orel and Mtsensk, where in early October its advanced columns met some of the first T-34 tanks used in concentrated counterattacks. Held before Tula through late October and November, it ended the autumn exhausted at the end of lengthening supply lines. Its two panzer divisions lost half their tanks to breakdowns before meeting a single T-34, a measure of the logistical collapse behind Typhoon; the corps spent November screening the long Orel to Tula road while Soviet cavalry groups raided its supply columns in the forests. Lemelsen led the corps throughout the battle. The tracks recorded here are schematic headquarters-area positions, not surveyed front lines.