The junction between the armored troops of 21st and 51st Armies from Vatutin's and Eremenko's fronts completed the surrounding of Paulus's group of forces: two German armies among the most powerful in the Heer, 22 divisions and 150 separate regiments or battalions, and an enormous amount of materiel. Never before in the war were so many troops of the German army caught together. Such a feat was so unusual that the Stavka's own initial estimation of the encircled enemy force was only a quarter of its actual strength, because besides the fighting troops there was a huge number of extra personnel from various professions, engineer sections, Luftwaffe ground staff and others. Fighting continued on 23 November as the Germans attempted in vain to mount local counterattacks to break the encirclement. By this time Axis personnel inside the encirclement moved east towards Stalingrad to avoid Soviet tanks, while those that managed to escape the encirclement moved west toward German and other Axis forces.