The siege of Sevastopol lasted some 250 days from October 30th, 1941 to July 4th, 1942. When Axis troops first entered the Crimean Peninsula they probably believed the war was nearly over. They could not have been more wrong. To the north, the German war machine overextended itself on a front measuring thousands of kilometres and proved it was indeed vulnerable. Stalled at the gates of Moscow, the Wehrmacht struggled to survive as the ground turned to mud and then froze under a blanket of snow.

The battle for the Crimean Peninsula took on new life in December of 1941 with Soviet landings on the Kerch Peninsula and Feodosiya. German and Romanian troops, marching through a blizzard, could not contain the invasion. The crisis was eventually contained but the battle raged on for another five months. The delay would not prevent the capture of Sevastopol, but did cost the Germans a great deal of time they could not afford to lose.

General Erich von Manstein - von Lewinski

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In May of 1942, with Soviet forces trapped around Kerch, General von Manstein of the German 11th Army was at long last able to assemble the men and material he would need for the final assault on Sevastopol. His task was not enviable. The last port of the Soviet Fleet on the Black Sea was considered by many to be impregnable. Fortifications surrounded the city to a depth of 10 kilometres including not only a belt of defensive works but also 14 giant, ultramodern fortresses with large calibre artillery pieces, subterranean communications and vast stocks of munitions and provisions. The highly uneven terrain provided the defender with excellent positions while offering the attacker little cover and poor sighting for heavy weapons.

The Soviet Coastal Army (partially supplied and reinforced despite a German naval blockade) consisted of 7 infantry divisions and 4 marine and 2 infantry brigades. Defenders had approximately 450 guns at their disposal including the coastal battery of 151 guns and the huge 305mm pieces of the Maxim-Gorky 1 fort. The battleship Parishkaya Kommuna and several smaller vessels provided additional firepower.

As an answer, the Germans assembled the highest concentration of guns ever achieved by the Wehrmacht. Among the 1300 artillery pieces were the 600mm heavy mortars “Thor” and “Karl” and the 800mm rail gun “Dora” which could fire 5 tonne HE shells or 9 tonne AP shells (“Dora” was credited with destroying an underground depot with a single hit. The shell bored through 90 feet of solid rock before exploding). Air support was provided by Fliegerkorps VIII which had almost 600 aircraft under its command. The attacking force was comprised of 3 corps: to the north the 54th Corps (initially the 22nd, 24th, 50th and 132nd Infantry Divisions but later including the Romanian 4th Mountain Division) on a 17 km front and to the south the 30th Corps (the 28th Light Division, 72nd and 170th Infantry Divisions) on an 8.5 km front. The Romanian Mountain Corps separated the two while the 18th Infantry Division and the 1st Mountain Division protected the flanks.

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