@sas~crazyflak
@ben_wh
Mr. Göring ordered 15 Me323 gigants from the Messerschmitt factories at Regensburg-Obertraubling for Stalingrad
supply missions. These were made ready in time (january 1943) but - like ben_wh said - conditions and events at Stalingrad were not suitable. Lack of airfields (i. e. solid runways, length of runways), ground organisation and bad weather conditions led to complete cancelling of planned missions. The only suitable airfield inside the pocket
was Pitomnik, it was overrun by the russians on 16th of january 1943. At this time the missions were planned.
The remaining airfields
Bassargino, Stalingradski and Gumrak were to small for such huge transports.
There are always some rumours saying the Gigant served at Stalingrad. There's even a pic showing a gigant, described 'taken at Tazinskaya airfield' but this important supply base for Stalingrad was already attacked and taken by russian tanks on december 24th 1943 - christmas. Lot's of supplies fell into russian hands and over
70 transport planes were destroyed. The russians destroyed all important supply structures there and as the germans reconquered the airfield later it couldn't be used again as a base for transports.
Regarding the Me321 first order for Stalingrad supplies were given on the 16th of january 1943 - the day
Pitomnik fell to the russians. Missions were planned from Woroschilowgrad with 10 He111Z but due to many difficulties and bad conditions
only 1 He111Z (GSkommando 2) finally managed to take off on 24th of january (a week before the 6th army
surrendered) but only reached Makejewka, which is located near Stalino. Stalino is 488 km/303 miles away from Stalingrad. All further scheduled missions were cancelled due to events.
BTW the very most of all Me321 missions were 'one way' missions, meaning the gliders crashed when landing and couldn't be used again.
ATB
Armin