part in the run up to the Battle of Moscow, taking Bryansk on 6 October. The division was then concentrated at Orel and advanced towards Tula, where it was engaged in a failed attempt to encircle the city. With the Soviet counterattack on 5 December, the division started retreating on the 8th, after having reached a point 120 km south east of Moscow. The division took defensive positions northeast of Orel, where it remained until the Summer of 1942. 1942 After the winter battles, the division was reconstituted near its front line positions in the early summer of 1942. It received approximately 50 tanks of the type Panzer III and Panzer IV. It was engaged in minor attacks north of Orel in September but then went into defensive positions again. The division was then held in Army Group Centre reserve near Bolkhov. At this stage, it only fielded 45 to 50 tanks of varying types (down from a nominal strength of around 200). In October 1942, when Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin took command of the division, it had only 30 operational tanks, and one-third of its trucks were unserviceable. After Operation Uranus, the Soviet counterattack at Stalingrad, the division was quickly transferred to Army Group B in the area of Millerovo. From there, it marched towards Kotelnikovo and joined the 4th Panzer Army for Operation Winter Storm, a relief operation aimed at linking up with the encircled 6th Army, together with the 6th Panzer Division and the 23rd Panzer Division. The operation failed however, and the division retreated at the end of December. Losses were so heavy that the command of the 63rd Panzer Grenadier Regiment laid in the hands of a lieutenant, its original commander having been killed in action. By Christmas Eve 1942, the division fielded only eight operational tanks and one anti-tank gun. 1943 The division continued its retreat towards the Don bridgehead at Rostov-on-Don, which it reached at the end of January. The 39th Panzer Regiment was re-equipped with 50 new Panzer IV tanks shortly after and the division took part in counterattacks between the Mius and the Donets rivers. By 27 February, the division had been reduced to less than 2,000 men, six tanks and ten anti-tank guns but avoided further destruction when the Soviet forces withdrew behind the Donets river. After this, it was engaged in tank battles near Belgorod until the end