Operation Hippikon
Operation Hippikon, also known as the Syaran October Offensive, or the Kiskőrös Meat-Grinder, was a strategic offensive launched by Syara during the Zemplen War.
The operation was intended to link the two Syaran salients that had formed in September around Sarud in the Kunhegyes District and Borlynska in the Kiskőrös District, entrapping and subsequently annihilating the 5th Zalaegerzeg and 1st Debrecen Fronts in accordance with Syaran doctrine of Force Decimation. Ruvelkan resistance around Malavinsk and Vatuseve prevented the Syarans from linking up, and Ruvelkan counter attacks from the 11th Kiskőrös and 7th Mátészalka Fronts forced the Syarans to abandon their drive. The fighting during Hippikon reached an intensity not yet seen during the war and resulted in heavy losses to both sides. Syaran defeat led to the launching of Operation Kontos in November.
Background
Following the August Offensive, the Imperial Armed Forces of Ruvelka began mobilizing on the border in preparation to retake the disputed border regions and prevent further encroachments by the Syaran Commonality Armed Forces. Syara preempted Ruvelkan intentions by launching Operation Aspis to encircle and annihilate Ruvelkan forces amassed on the border, but with fighting now on Ruvelkan soil and against more prepared Ruvelkan forces the Syarans were unable to complete the encirclement of any major Ruvelkan forces. Despite capturing several major cities along the border, stiff resistance at the fortress cities of Albertirsa, Keszlis, Drahizyorsk, Vatuseve, and Pardukov stymied Syaran forces.
By October Syaran forces were arrayed in a disordered front line stretching from Pardukov in the north to Keszlis in the south. Army Group Alpha under the command of Field Marshal Nikodemos Cvetkov had captured the city of Sarud, but 2nd Army had been halted by Pardukov and 3rd Army faced stiff Ruvelkan resistance west of Malavinsk. The failure to capture the city of Vatuseve meant that there was a division between the forces of Army Group Alpha and Army Group Beta under Field Marshal Aleksandar Čorić. Army Group Beta was strung out along an extensive front line stretching from south of Vatuseve down south to Balatonalmádi. The expanse of the front line, much of it running across hundreds of miles of thick forests and built up urban areas, allowed for frequent Ruvelkan infiltration efforts and raids launched behind Syaran lines.
To Syaran Central Command in Zovahr, the positioning of the Syaran armies was less than desirable. In the north, Army Group Alpha had been constrained to a short, cramped frontage virtue of stiff Ruvelkan defenses around Pardukov and Malavisnk. Army Group Alpha's divisions were now crammed into a small area of operations, clogging roadways with extensive groupings of supply columns that made for tantalizing targets for the Ruvelkan Air Force. The Army Group's logistical issues were only hampered further by the Granika River, who's bridges were repeatedly struck by Ruvelkan air power, inhibiting transfers of troops and supplies from Syara into Ruvelka. With Army Group Gamma largely held up by Ruvelkan forces amid the Matra Mountains it left Army Group Beta in the center to contend with the full strength of Army Group Center largely unsupported.
In Debrecen the mood was mixed. The Ruvelkans had prevented a Syaran breakout into the Koryal Plain, which had been identified by Chief of Staff Áron Surány as a major threat which could upend the entirety of the Ruvelkan defensive stratagem. While the containment of Army Group Alpha by Army Group North was welcome, the situation in the center was more concerning. The Borlynska Salient formed by the Syaran 1st Army put the Syarans in position to strike Sagerejo, which if lost would split off the 1st Debrecen Front form the rest of Army Group Center and threaten to rupture the entire Ruvlekan defense in the Kiskőrös District. Surány was largely convinced that the Syarans of 1st Army would strike south in conjunction with the 4th and 6th Armies, battering and encircling the Székesfehérvár and Kiskőrös Fronts before linking up in Navapoyebsk.
AG Center's commander, Eliska Hanáková, disagreed and expressed the belief the main Syaran effort would fall against the 1st Debrecen Front, coupled with Syaran attacks against the Zalaegerszeg Front to alleviate pressure on Syara's AG Alpha. Surány wanted Hanáková to shift the Kiskőrös Front further south to reinforce the Kromta-Sagerejo-Navapoyebsk triangle, but Hanáková demurred, fearing that it would leave the 1st Debrecen Front unsupported in case of a Syaran attack in the direct of Urzivata. Hanáková's predictions proved accurate.
Planning
In the Syaran camp there also disagreements on how to proceed. Cvetkov wanted Army Group Alpha to push direct eastward, spearheaded by 7th Army and in the direction of Sepina, which would cut off the 9th Kunhegyes Front and leave the city of Kaposvár. But Syaran Central Command remained committed to the strategic goal of annihilating Ruvelkan forces in extensive encirclement, and Chief of Staff Vakhtang Avakian insisted on an offensive geared as destroying two or more Ruvelkan Fronts in one fell swoop. Wary of the increased pressure on his forces owing to their relatively constrained frontage, Cvetkov agreed and pushed for a drive south, led by 3rd Army to capture Malavinsk while 7th Army screened the 7th Mátészalka Front. Cvetkov intended for 7th Army to maintain its pressure on the 7th Front rather than attempt to push for Kunhegues, which Cvetkov deemed beyond the logistical capacity of 7th Army to achieve. Colonel General Simeon Karandzhulov however argued in favor of 7th Army joining 3rd Army, arguing that the two combined armies forming the northern pincer would increase the chances of fully encircling the 5th Zalaegerszeg Front by seizing Kunhegyes.
Similar disagreements arose in Army Group Beta. Field Marshal Čorić wished to pursue a general offensive against Army Group Center, which involved a sweeping offensive by 4th and 1st Army who would link up in Sarkeszi, while 6th Army pinned the Ruvelkans in place along the Kromta-Navapoyebsk-Vyerhnyast-Baramyel operational area. The plan was rejected by his army commanders as infeasible given the logistical demands it would place on the Army Group, but Čorić was reluctant to embrace the suggested plan of action by Avakian due to his concerns that 1st Army's commander, Colonel General Marko Kukolja, was ill-suited towards carrying out the operation as a defensively-inclined officer. Čorić instead opted to have 6th and 4th Army carry a diversionary attack against the 2nd Székesfehérvár Front to divert Ruvelkan reserves from the 1st Debrecen and 11th Kiskőrös Fronts. The fake operational objective for this diversion would be the city of Vyerhnyasty.
In order to deceive the Ruvelkans, the Syarans intentionally leaked indications that the intended target of Army Group Beta was Vyerhnyasty, but Hanáková was not convinced, especially when the leaks suggested that 1st Army would not be playing a major role. Although the Ruvelkans remained ignorant of Syaran concerns about 1st Army's offensive capabilities, Hanáková successfully convinced Péter Novák, commander of Army Group North, of the likelihood of a Syaran offensive against the 5th Zalaegerszeg and 1st Debrecen Fronts. In response, both Army Group North and Center shifted their reserves to reinforce the Malavinsk-Kunhegyes-Urzivata-Vatuseve operational area.
Course of the operation
The Syarans began Operation Hippikon on 2 October with a series of artillery barrages along the front lines of 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th Armies across central and northern Ruvelka, both to pave the way for the offensive while also disguising the actual intent. Celaeno fighter-bombers from the 1st and 2nd Air Divisions, along with Strix and Corvus ground-attack aircraft began bombing Ruvelkan positions along pre-designated air corridors. At 10:00 a.m on the same day ballistic missiles struck the Ruvelkan cities of Malavinsk, Vatuseve, Kunhegyes and Urzivata. The Ruvelkan Imperial Air Force retaliated with air strikes by AFSF-9 Folivori and AFSF-9 Martora strike fighters, hitting Syaran positions along expected avenues of attack.
Vladislav Ivov Kochanov's 3rd Army began its assault against the city of Malavinsk on 3 October with a force of nearly 1,000 tanks. XXI Corps spearheaded the assault north of the city, cutting across the Sarud-Malavinsk Highway to engage divisions of the Ruvlekan Eighth Army to seize control of the Malavinsk-Kunhegyes Highway. XXVII Corps pressed southward, moving east of Malavinsk in the direction of Vatuseve. Further north, Simeon Karandzhulov's 7th Army launched its own attack against the 7th Mátészalka Front, intent on pressing the Ruvelkans back towards the Sepina-Kuraktava Highway. Diversionary attacks by 6th Army in the direction of Kromta, and 4th Army towards Vyerhnyasty followed. 1st Army's attack against the 1st Debrecen Front, intended in the direction or Urzivata, quickly ran into difficulty.
General Hanáková's suspicions had led the 1st Debrecen Front to take deep defensive positions along the Borlynska-Sagerejo-Urzivata-Vatuseve operational area. General Krisztina Lakato, commanding the Debrecen Front, had correctly positioned the Twenty-Second and Ninth Armies within the avenues of advance that 1st Army had intended to take, and the Syarans of 1st Army found themselves facing well entrenched Ruvelkan defenders. After a week of intense fighting X Corps had scarcely made any progress in its sector, while VI Corps had been forced to halt its drive along the Borylnska-Urzivata Highway to avoid exposing its flanks against Ruvelkan counter-attacks. Frustrated with the slow progress, General Kukolja reinforced X Corps assault with fresh brigades from the reserve XXVIII Corps' 10th and 58th Mechanized Divisions. X Corps second reinforced attack succeeded in driving back the Twenty-Second Army some 20 kilometers in some sectors, but counter-strokes by Katalin Török's Ninth Army halted Syaran progress. By 10 October X Corps had lost more than 100 tanks destroyed or disabled.
Syaran setbacks grew in other sectors. 7th Army's attack against the 7th Mátészalka Front quickly devolved into an armored slugfest between Evelin Gulyás, the most aggressive armored commander of the Ruvelkan Imperial Army, and Karandzhulov's nearly 1,000 strong tank army. Despite outnumbering the Ruvelkans in armor and fighting on ground conducive the mass maneuver warfare the Syarans were generally more proficient in than their Ruvelkan counter-parts, Gulyás' forces were soon reinforced with more than 120 HH3 and HH1 gunships. Although the Ruvelkans lost ground in every sector of the Front, Gulyás succeeded in blunting the Syaran drive by focusing infiltration teams and Fusilier detachments on eliminating Syaran air defenses, allowing Ruvelkan attack helicopters to sweep in and target Syaran tanks free from the threat of anti-air. The ensuing armored battles that broke out across the Koryal Plain resulted in the loss of nearly 200 Syaran tanks in exchange for 150 Ruvelkan tanks.
Elsewhere the Syarans enjoyed more success. Despite outnumbering the Syaran 3rd Army, Kathryn Bolkvadze's 5th Zalaegerszeg Front found itself struggling to defend the numerous road networks leading out of Malavinsk. With the 7th Front fully engaged, Bolkvadze was unable to prevent XXI Corps from routing Eighth Army from the Malavinsk-Kunhegyes Highway, forcing the Ruvelkan commander to commit the under strength Seventeenth Army to stem the Syaran tide. Thirtieth Army, holding most of Malavinsk itself, was unable to effectively engage and delay the southward progress of XXVII Corps, which plastered the western districts of the city with heavy artillery fire before moving south in the direction of Vatuseve. Counter-strokes by the 363rd Hussar and 371st Dragoon Divisions from Thirty-Eighth Army succeeded in temporarily halting the progress of the Syaran advance, but by 10 October it was clear that the Syarans were about to seize control of the Malavinsk-Vatuseve Highway.
Such tactical successes however were unable to escape the fact that the Syaran plan was falling apart. By 13 October the Syarans had failed to make any significant progress in 1st Army's sector; the 1st Debrecen Front remained intact and Syaran efforts to dislodge the Front, much less corral it into a picket in the Kunhegyes-Malavinsk-Vatuseve-Urzivata operational area, had failed. 3rd Army's local success against the 5th Zalaegerszeg Front had amounted to little due to the failure of 7th Army to bring its forces to bear on the northern flank of the Front, thanks in large part to stiff resistance from the Mátészalka Front.
Frustrated with the lack of progress, Syaran Central Command amended the operational orders for the respective Syaran Armies; 7th Army was to pivot south-east directly for Kunhegyes in conjunction with 7th Army, while 1st Army would continue its attack in an effort to pin the 1st Debrecen Front and prevent it from hitting the southern flank of 3rd Army. Kukolja quickly protested to the plan, highlighting the exhaustion of his forces and the heavy losses suffered so far. Further attacks eastward forced his troops to engage the Ruvelkans in increasingly wooded terrain that favored the defender, while the diversionary attacks by 4th and 6th Army had failed to draw away Ruvelkan reserves. Kukolja's concerns were overruled with the justification that the drive towards Kunhegyes would force the Ruvelkans to dispatch reinforcements to shore up the battered Zalaegerszeg Front.
The Syarans began their pivot on 16 October. 7th Army was the first to move, II Corps moving east to screen the thrust and hold off the 7th Mátészalka Front while IX Corps moved south towards Kunhegyes. 3rd Army renewed its attack on Malavinsk, committing XXX Corps two mechanized divisions to skirting north of the city while the 41st, 80th, and 96th Motorized Divisions pinned the Thirtieth Army within Malavisnk itself. With XXVII Corps pivoting east the sudden threat of encirclement of Thirtieth Army became imminent, forcing Bolkvadze to order an emergency retreat from the city. The ensuing flight through secondary roadways to the south-east of the city was a chaotic night action as described by Colonel Mgrdoum Galstyan of the 951st Armored Brigade:
[Malavinsk] was already on fire and a continuous pyre that illuminated the horizon against the blackness of night. The constant thunder of corps artillery struck Ruvelkan columns as they withdrew, occasionally igniting a fuel truck that would send a pillar of flames sky-high. The [95th Armored] division surged forward to try to clamp down on the vital artery and link up with the 51st Mechanized along the main highway further north-east, but fanatical stands by Ruvelkan anti-tank platoons among shattered outskirts parried blow and blow all night. Most of them were overrun before dawn and when the sun finally rose we found nothing but badly burned corpses, both metal and flesh, amid craters and blackened scars where fires had burned.
Further south 1st Army's advance had run into predictably stiff Ruvelkan resistance, unable to make much progress amid heavily entrenched Ruvelkan defenders. Normally aggressive Syaran infantry struggled to close in and engage Ruvelkan forces, and incessant sniper fire often pinned down supporting infantry, leaving Syaran armor isolated and vulnerable to anti-tank guided missiles, and the occasional tree-top-level helicopter gunship. Struggling to make much progress, the Syarans increasingly resorted to shelling Ruvelkan positions along wood-lines for hours on end, slow creeping barrages intended to create forest fires and level entire wooded areas. The effects were nightmarish for many Ruvelkan soldiers on the receiving end, many of whom died to wooden shrapnel wounds, or suffocated or burned to death amid the mass fires created by Syaran high explosive shells. However the destruction that followed often ended up impeding the Syaran advance; roadways became covered with fallen trees, branches, and badly burned debris that was often too rough for tracked and wheeled vehicles to traverse safely.
Wary of the continued Syaran attacks, Hanáková ordered her forces to abandon the isolated city of Vatuseve, which had become dangerously exposed and separated from the Ruvelkan armies. The city was captured by a detachment from the 54th Motorized division without a fight. The Syaran forces of 1st Army and 3rd Army linked up east of the city on the 19th, completing the objective of forming a common front line between Army Group Alpha and Beta, but by this point in the operation it had become a minor victory. Further north, 7th Army's drive towards Kunhegyes had succeeded in forcing the 5th Zalaegerszeg Front to abandon Malavinsk, which fell to the Syarans on the 17th, but in doing so denied the Syarans the encirclement they were hoping for. Karandzhulov now proposed a new end goal: punch through the Zalaegerszeg Front at Kunhegyes then continue south towards Urzivata, hitting the 1st Debrecen Front in the rear. While not a complete encirclement, it would nevertheless deal significant damage to both formations.
Such hopes were however beyond Syaran capabilities at this point. On 19 October, Gulyás' 7th Mátészalka Front counter-attacked against 7th Army's screening II Corps, driving the Syarans back 20 kilometers in some sectors. 7th Army's rear echelon was now threatened, and could no longer assault Kunhegyes without leaving it exposed even further to the Mátészalka Front. Despite Karandzhulov's insistence that it was within the capacity of 7th Army to both defend their position and assault Kunhegyes, Field Marshal Cvetkov overrode his army commander and ordered Karandzhulov to peel back and defend his area of operations, and in particular defend Sarud from a potential Ruvelkan thrust in that direction. The decision left 3rd Army along to tackle the 5th Zalaegerszeg Front and Kunhegyes. Despite the battered shape of the Front 3rd Army itself was itself increasingly stretched out, still dealing with residual pockets around Malavinsk by Ruvelkan holdouts. With 1st Army's progress against the 1st Debrecen Front at a standstill, Cvetkov ordered Kochanov to halt his offensive. With Army Group Alpha no longer on the attack, 1st Army's efforts became pointless and a frustrated Kukolja ordered his forces to halt and take up defensive positions.
Aftermath
Although the Syarans had captured the cities of Malavinsk and Vatuseve, the original goals of the offensive, the encirclement and destruction of the Debrecen and Zalaegerszeg Fronts, had not been achieved. Apart from 3rd Army's success, both 1st and 7th Army had fallen short of expectations and suffered heavily in the process. Kukolja's failures nearly led to him being relieved from command, but Field Marshal Čorić demurred, shifting blame towards the failure of the diversionary attacks of 4th and 6th Army. Karandzhulov protested Cvetkov's decision to abandon 7th Army's drive towards Kunhegyes, but later relented and admitted the threat of a Ruvelkan drive towards Sarud had been too severe.
Hippikon had been exceptionally bloody, and at that point was the bloodiest battle in the war. Forced to launch attacks against heavily entrenched Ruvelkan defenders, the Syarans had suffered nearly 90,000 casualties, in addition to the loss of 573 tanks and more than 1,560 vehicles. Due to the heavy losses suffered by Thirtieth Army in its hasty and disorganized withdrawal, Ruvelkan losses were slightly higher at nearly 98,000, with 602 tanks and 1,211 other vehicles destroyed. Despite such losses, the battle was seen as a success for Ruvelka; Ruvelkan armored forces had successfully defeated Syaran tanks in open battle, and despite close calls around Malavinsk the defenses of the 1st Debrecen Front had held firm and made the Syarans pay dearly. Frustrated by their failures in Hippikon, the Syarans would shift their focus south for Operation Kontos, hoping for success in other areas of the front.