The turning point of the Great Patriotic War came with the surrounding of the Stalingrad pocket and the annihilation of the 6th German Army. For its accomplishments supporting the 21st Army, the 4th Tank Corps was renamed the 5th Guards Tank Corps.
The slow grinding down of the pocket also gave the corps time to repair damaged tanks. Indeed, the ill-fed and poorly armed soldiers became less and less common as Soviet industry, along with Lend-Lease equipment, now supplied the army in sufficient numbers to match the Germans.
After the German 6th Army was pocketed, the corps was deployed as part of Voronezh Front around Kharkov, which had become a center for German logistic support. On January 12th, 1943, Voronezh Front launched its "Ostrogorzhsk-Rossoh" operation, which was to consign the Hungarian 2nd Army to the same scrap heap that held the Rumanian armies. The 4th Tank Corps inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans, while to the south, the Hungarians and the remnants of the Italian 8th Army were surrounded. On the 24th of January, Voronezh Front was committed to the second stage of the operation.
