Wiking was ordered to attack through the narrow Altar valley near Malgobek. The object was to reach Grozny or move south to force the entrenched Russians to retreat. Facing the SS were a collection of Soviet forces well dug in and supplied with artillery on the 300-600m (1000-2000ft) high hills surrounding the valley. The SS attack plan called for the infantry to clear the towering hills overlooking the valley, while its tanks and armoured troop-carrying halftracks raced through the narrow valley to overrun the Soviet infantry trenches and anti-tank gun pits. Steiner had strong reservations about attacking directly into the jaws of the Soviet defences.

Futility

The Waffen-SS men battled through sunflower fields and trench lines for a day, but could not reach the heights that formed the core of the Soviet defences. Heavy anti-tank gun fire stalled the Wiking panzers, and the Waffen-SS infantry soon faltered when they saw their tanks burning. The 13th Panzer Division was then sent into action, but to no avail. Steiner blamed the terrain and a bad plan for his troops being checked. Von Kleist was less than complimentary about the "lack of internal cohesiveness" of the Waffen-SS unit, because it contained so many half-trained non-Germans.

Wiking continued to battle against the Soviet defensive lines, and by 5 October it had taken Malgobek. Another 10 days of fierce fighting in the foothills of the Caucasus followed. Von Kleist asked Hitler for fresh panzers to smash through the Soviet lines, but the Führer said every spare panzer division on the Eastern Front was committed to the battle for Stalingrad. On 16 October, the Wiking Division went on the defensive in positions along the Terek River, less than 48km (30 miles) outside Grozny.

Wiking on the defensive

For almost two months the Wiking men fought a series of bloody skirmishes with Russian troops around Grozny. Steiner and his men received the honour of their division being retitled as a panzergrenadier formation in November (it had a strength of 15,928 men in December 1942). Supplies, particularly fuel and ammunition, were very short because of the long lines of communication down to the Caucasus and the demands of the huge battles in Stalingrad. The Wiking's panzer battalion had suffered almost 50 percent losses, having only 15 Panzer IIIs and 8 Panzer IVs operational on 18 November.

When the Soviet counteroffensive struck the German Sixth Army in late November, Army Group A in the Caucasus looked vulnerable. By the middle of December, the army group was in full retreat. After first issuing his usual no-retreat order, Hitler was persuaded by the commander of Army Group Don, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, to pull out the mobile divisions from the Caucasus to form a counterattack force to rescue the trapped troops inside the Stalingrad Pocket. The Wiking Division was ordered to pull out from the Grozny Front and move rapidly north towards Rostov.

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