The February Revolution of 1917 destroyed not only the Russian Empire. The collapse of the imperial state machine led to the end of organized armed confrontation on the Eastern Front. In an instant, the Russian army, considered for a whole century the largest and most powerful armed force in the world, ceased to exist, the united front of the German-Austrian troops evaporated. In such conditions, the Russian state found itself absolutely defenseless in the face of a powerful and fierce enemy. Russia was saved from complete defeat by the October Bolshevik Revolution and the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, created in February 1918.
In the first months of its existence, the new armed force had neither a clear organizational structure nor a control system. The organization and formation of new formations took place already in a combat situation. With titanic efforts, the Bolsheviks were able to create a new, combat-ready mechanism in the shortest possible time. It was only later, during the period of civil confrontation, that the composition of the Red Army began to acquire the features of an organized force. The semi-legal detachments of the Red Guard were replaced by regular infantry regiments and divisions. The artillery of the Red Army became a separate branch of the military, and the first air detachments laid the foundation for the future Air Force of the Red Army.
Organization of the Red Army
The conditions in which the Russian state found itself in the winter of 1918 required immediate action aimed at creating a new armed force capable of resisting the external and internal enemies of the conquest of the revolution. The vast territory of the former empire instantly turned into the arena of a gigantic battle. Following the counter-revolutionary uprisings in Petrograd and Moscow, pockets of organized armed opposition to the Bolshevik regime began to appear in different regions. It was necessary not only to defeat the counter-revolution on the outskirts of the country, but also to hold the central regions of the country. Such titanic plans were only within the power of a tough military-political regime capable of organizing a new armed force.
Subsequent events were not long in coming. Already on January 15, 1918, the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars on the creation of the Red Army (Workers' and Peasants' Red Army) appeared, signed by its Chairman V.I. Ulyanov - Lenin. The new armed structure was supposed to become an effective tool in the hands of the new government, capable of resisting all aggressive manifestations both from external enemies and on the internal military-political front.
Initially, in accordance with the decree, service in the Red Army was carried out on a voluntary basis. The appearance of this decree was designed for the ideological consciousness of the citizens of the Republic, ready to come out in defense of their Motherland. Voluntary recruitment initially gave the desired result. By the spring of 1918, the number of personnel in all units of the Red Army was already about 200 thousand people. With such measures, it was possible not only to manage to form combat-ready units in the most threatening areas, but also to lay the foundation for subsequent steps towards the formation of full-fledged armed forces of a socialist state. The existence of a new combat-ready armed force in the Soviet Republic was announced on May 1, 1918, when the first parade of the Red Army took place on Red Square.
Subsequent events made it necessary to urgently increase the size of the Red Army. This was facilitated by the rebellion of the Czechoslovak Corps and the activation of Denikin’s Volunteer Army in the south of the country. The heavy losses of the Red Army, suffered by units in the first clashes with the forces of counter-revolution, led to the decision to introduce military conscription in the country. Thanks to the efforts of Leon Trotsky, the then People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, within 3-4 months the Red Army transformed from a loosely organized armed force into an army of half a million.
The number of regiments and divisions increased tenfold. However, the quantitative increase in the armed forces of the Republic could not quickly affect the increase in the combat effectiveness of the army. This was due to the lack of military discipline and the lack of proper training in combat units. There was a lack of experience in managing troops and logistics, and there was no training of specialists for staff work.
Initially, in order to maintain internal order in a huge mechanism, in the system of organizing military service and in command and control of troops, it was necessary to rely on old-style army regulations. The new Field Charter of the Red Army was approved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in December 1918. The new document was based on the field regulations of the tsarist army with some changes. The same was done when developing the regulations for guard, garrison and internal service. From that moment on, all old military ranks and positions were abolished. New military categories were introduced, on the basis of which the entire army hierarchy was built. The principle of unity of command, which had been abolished after the February Revolution, was restored in the leadership.
All command of the armed forces of the Republic was exercised through the highest governing body - the Central Office of the Red Army, which in turn included:
- Headquarters of the Red Army;
- Main Directorate of the Red Army;
- specialized departments subordinate to the Red Army weapons system;
- artillery and military engineering department.
After the adoption of the Field Regulations in the Red Army, there was a transition to a new organizational structure, which again almost completely repeated the model of the tsarist army. Instead of detachments and groups, companies appear, united into battalions and divisions. Instead of regiments, which were considered the largest structural military formation, divisions appear. In the Red Army, the division turned into a full-fledged independent armed force, which included rifle and cavalry units. The Red Army infantry, along with the cavalry, was the main striking force. Rifle units were supported on the battlefield by artillery battalions and armored detachments. The aircraft, due to their small numbers, were consolidated into aviation detachments subordinate to the front commander.
The lack of experienced commanders and military specialists led to the fact that during the Civil War, former officers of the tsarist army began to be drafted into the ranks of the Red Army. During the years of the Civil War, the number of people in the military profession (military experts) in the ranks of the Red Army amounted to more than 50 thousand.
The Red Army on the eve of the Great Patriotic War
Some of the author’s provisions, in particular about the repression of command personnel, set out in the article do not coincide with the views of the editors of Military Review. For example, see the article: “The myth of Stalin’s “beheading of the army””
The question of why the Red Army completely lost the border battles in Belarus, Ukraine (although exactly in the KOVO defense zone everything was not so clear) and in the Baltic States has long occupied the minds of both military historians and simply people interested in the history of the USSR and Russia. The main reasons are:
1. The general superiority of the forces and means of the invading army over the group of Soviet troops in the western military districts (which became overwhelming in the directions of the main attacks);
2. The Red Army met the beginning of the war in an unmobilized and underdeveloped form;
3. The enemy achieves tactical surprise of attack;
4. Extremely unsuccessful deployment of troops in the western military districts;
5. Reorganization and rearmament of the Red Army.
All this is true. But besides these reasons, which have been repeatedly examined from different angles and with varying degrees of detail, there are a number of other reasons that are often left out of the discussion of the reasons for the defeat of the Red Army in June-July 1941. Let's try to analyze them, because they actually played a big role in the tragic beginning of the Great Patriotic War for our people. And you, dear readers, decide for yourself how important these reasons were.
Usually, when assessing the troops of Germany and the USSR on the eve of the war, attention is first paid to their strength, the number of formations and the material supply of the main types of weapons and equipment. However, a purely quantitative comparison, divorced from the qualitative indicators of troops, does not provide an objective picture of the balance of forces and leads to incorrect conclusions. Moreover, they usually compare formations and units in their nominal strength, sometimes “forgetting” that the German troops had long been mobilized and deployed, and ours entered the war from a peacetime position.
But gaps in understanding the problems of the pre-war Red Army give rise to various stunning theories. But this article is not for fans of the youthful game of conspiracy theories according to the method of Rezun-Suvorov and his followers, this is an attempt to look in and figure out whether everything was so good in the Red Army on the eve of the Great War.
PERSONNEL
The development of military equipment and methods of warfare in the mid-twentieth century led to a sharp increase in literacy requirements for the personnel of the armed forces of any state. Moreover, this applied to both career military personnel and those in reserve. Skill in handling technology was especially important. By the end of the 19th century, Germany became the first country in the world with universal literacy. In this case, Bismarck was absolutely right when he said that the war with France was won by an ordinary Prussian schoolteacher, and not by Krupp’s guns. And in the USSR, according to the 1937 population census, there were almost 30 million (!) illiterate citizens over 15 years of age, or 18.5% of the total population. In 1939, only 7.7% of the USSR population had a 7th grade education or more, and only 0.7% had higher education. For men aged 16 to 59 years, these figures were noticeably higher - 15% and 1.7%, respectively, but were still unacceptably low.
According to German data, at the end of 1939, in Germany alone there were 1,416,000 passenger cars, and this does not take into account the fleet of annexed Austria, the Sudetenland, and Poland, that is, within the borders of 1937. And on June 1, 1941, there were only about 120,000 passenger cars in the USSR. Accordingly, in terms of population, in Germany there were 30 times more cars per 1000 citizens than in the USSR. In addition, there were more than half a million motorcycles in private ownership in Germany.
Two-thirds of the population of the USSR lived in rural areas before the Second World War, and the level of education and skills in handling equipment of conscripts from villages and villages in the vast majority of cases was depressingly low. Most of them had never even used a bicycle before joining the army, and some had never even heard of it! So there was no need to talk about the experience of driving a motorcycle or a car at all.
Thus, initially, only due to a more competent and technically trained soldier, the Wehrmacht had a significant advantage over the Red Army. The Soviet leadership was well aware of these problems and before the war, educational courses were organized, and soldiers, along with military affairs, were taught basic reading and writing. By the way, this was partly the reason for the extraordinary popularity of the Red Army among young people, who not only did not try to avoid military service, but were eager to serve! And the officers, and just the Red Army soldiers, were treated with great respect.
Despite the titanic efforts to eliminate illiteracy among the Red Army soldiers, the German army was still very far from achieving average literacy. German superiority also grew due to higher discipline, individual training and a well-thought-out training system, originating in the “army of professionals” - the Reichswehr.
This was aggravated by the fact that at first there were no junior commanders in the Red Army as a class. In other armies they were called non-commissioned officers, or sergeants (the Russian Tsarist Army was no exception). They were like the “backbone” of the army, the most disciplined, stable and combat-ready part of it. In the Red Army, they were completely no different from ordinary soldiers either in their education, training, or experience. It was necessary to attract officers to perform their functions. That is why the Soviet rifle division before the war had three times more officers than the German infantry division, and the latter had 16% more personnel on staff.
As a result, in the pre-war year a paradoxical situation developed in the Red Army: despite the large number of commanders (659 thousand people as of June 1941), the Red Army constantly experienced a large shortage of command personnel relative to the staff. For example, in 1939, there were 6 privates per commander in our army, 29 in the Wehrmacht, 15 in the British army, 22 in the French army, and 19 in the Japanese army.
In 1929, 81.6% of cadets admitted to military schools came there with only primary education of grades 2–4. In infantry schools, this percentage was even higher - 90.8%. Over time, the situation began to improve, but very slowly. In 1933, the proportion of cadets with primary education dropped to 68.5%, but in armored schools it remained 85%.
And this was explained not only by the low average level of education in the USSR, which, albeit slowly, but thanks to a consistent state program, continued to increase. The practice of providing advantages for admission “based on origin” played a negative role. The lower the social status (and therefore the level of education) the parents had, the more willingly their offspring were taken to the Red Army officer courses. As a result, illiterate cadets had to be taught basic things (reading, writing, addition and subtraction, etc.), spending on this the same time that the German cadet spent directly on military affairs.
The situation among the troops was no better. On the eve of the Second World War, only 7.1% of the command and control personnel of the Red Army could boast of a higher military education, 55.9% had secondary education, 24.6% had accelerated courses, and the remaining 12.4% did not receive any military education at all. In the “Act on the Reception of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR” to Comrade Timoshenko from Comrade. Voroshilov said:
“The quality of training for command personnel is low, especially at the company-platoon level, in which up to 68% have only short-term 6-month training for the junior lieutenant course.”
And of the 915,951 registered army and navy reserve commanders, 89.9% had only short-term courses under their belts or had no military education at all. Even among 1076 Soviet generals and admirals, only 566 received higher military education. Moreover, their average age was 43 years, which means they did not have much practical experience. Things were especially sad in aviation, where out of 117 generals, only 14 had a higher military education. None of the air corps and division commanders had it.
The first bell rang during the “Winter War”: during the Soviet-Finnish War, the mighty Red Army encountered unexpectedly stubborn resistance from the Finnish army, which could not be considered strong, neither in number, nor in equipment, nor in level of training. It was like a tub of cold water. Immediately, significant shortcomings in the organization of training of personnel of our army surfaced. The scourge of the pre-war Red Army remained mediocre discipline, constant separations of personnel from military training for economic and construction work, frequent regroupings of troops over vast distances, sometimes to unprepared and undeveloped deployment areas, a weak educational and material base and inexperienced command staff. Simplification and formalism of training, and even banal deception (as they called “fraud” then) flourished during inspections, exercises and live firing. But the worst thing is that all this came out already during the outbreak of the Second World War, when the Wehrmacht, in front of the eyes of the whole world, including the leadership of the USSR, defeated much stronger opponents than the Finns. Against the background of these victories, the results of the Finnish campaign, frankly speaking, looked very pale.
It seems that it was precisely as a result of the Soviet-Finnish war that big changes took place in the People's Commissariat of Defense. On May 14, 1940, the new People's Commissar S. Timoshenko issued order No. 120 “On combat and political training of troops during the summer period of the 1940 academic year.” This order clearly stated the identified shortcomings in the Red Army:
“The experience of the war in the Korelo-Finnish theater revealed major shortcomings in combat training and education of the army. Military discipline was not at the proper level...
The training of command personnel did not meet modern combat requirements.
The commanders did not command their units, did not hold their subordinates firmly in the hands, and were lost in the general mass of fighters.
The authority of command staff in the middle and junior ranks is low. The demands of the command staff are low. Commanders were sometimes criminally tolerant of violations of discipline, bickering among subordinates, and sometimes even outright failure to comply with orders.
The weakest link was the commanders of companies, platoons and squads, who, as a rule, did not have the necessary training, command skills and service experience.”
Tymoshenko was well aware that a big war was just around the corner, and emphasized: “Training of troops should be brought closer to the conditions of combat reality.” In Order No. 30 “On combat and political training of troops for the 1941 academic year” dated January 21, 1941, this formulation becomes extremely strict: “Teach troops only what is needed in war, and only in the way that is done in war.” But there was no longer enough time for such study. Our army had to comprehend the basics of military wisdom already under bombs, during a fierce struggle with a strong, skillful and ruthless enemy, who did not forgive the slightest mistake and severely punished for each of them.
COMBAT EXPERIENCE
Having combat experience is a critical component of the combat effectiveness of troops. Unfortunately, the only way to acquire, accumulate and consolidate it is through direct participation in hostilities. No exercise, even the most large-scale and close to a combat situation, can replace a real war.
Soldiers who are under fire know how to carry out their tasks under enemy fire, and commanders who are under fire know exactly what to expect from their soldiers and what tasks to assign to their units, and most importantly, they know how to quickly make the right decisions. The fresher the combat experience and the closer the conditions for obtaining it are to those in which combat operations will have to be conducted, the more valuable it is.
By the way, there is a very well-established myth about “outdated combat experience” and its harmfulness. Its essence lies in the fact that supposedly old military leaders have accumulated so much practical experience that they are no longer capable of perceiving new strategic and tactical decisions. This is wrong. One should not confuse inertia of thinking with combat experience - these are things of a different order. It is the inertia of thinking, the stereotyped choice of a solution from obviously known options that leads to helplessness in the conditions of new military realities. But combat experience is completely different. This is a special ability to adapt to any sudden changes, the ability to quickly and correctly make decisions, this is a deep understanding of the mechanisms of war and its mechanisms. Indeed, despite the movement of progress, the basic laws of war practically do not undergo revolutionary changes.
Many of the Soviet commanders who managed to fight before the start of the Second World War had the opportunity to do so during the Civil War, which was of a very unique nature. In it, combat operations were for the most part carried out using semi-guerrilla methods and were fundamentally different from the large-scale battles of millions of regular armies, saturated to the limit with a variety of military equipment. In terms of the number of officers - veterans of the First World War - the Wehrmacht exceeded the Red Army many times over. This is not surprising, given how many officers of the Imperial Russian Army fought against the Bolsheviks and were later forced to emigrate. First of all, this concerned officers who had a full pre-war education, in this they were head and shoulders above their much more numerous wartime colleagues. A small part of these “old school” officers nevertheless remained, went over to the side of the Bolsheviks, and were accepted into service in the Red Army. Such officers were called “military experts.” Most of them were fired from there during numerous “purges” and trials in the 1930s, many were shot as enemies of the people, and only a few managed to survive this time and remain in service.
If we look at the numbers, about a quarter of the tsarist officer corps made a choice in favor of the new government: out of 250 thousand “gold chasers”, 75 thousand went to serve in the Red Army. Moreover, they often held very responsible positions. Thus, about 600 former officers served as chiefs of staff of Red Army divisions during the Civil War. In the interwar period they were consistently “cleaned out”, and in 1937–38. 38 of the 63 former commanders who had survived by that time became victims of repression. As a result, out of 600 “military experts” who had combat experience as division chief of staff, by the beginning of the Second World War no more than 25 people remained in army service. Such sad arithmetic. At the same time, most of the “military experts” lost their positions not because of age or health, but only because of an “incorrect” application form. The continuity of the traditions of the Russian army was interrupted.
In Germany, army traditions and continuity were preserved.
Of course, the Red Army also had more recent combat experience. However, it could not be compared with the combat experience of the Wehrmacht in the European wars. The scale of the battles on the Chinese Eastern Railway, near Lake Khasan and the campaign in Poland was small. Only battles on the river. Khalkhin Gol and the Finnish campaign made it possible to “fire” at a number of Soviet commanders. But, let's face it, the experience gained in Finland was very, very ambiguous. Firstly, the battles were fought in very specific conditions of the northwestern theater of operations, and even in winter. Secondly, the nature of the main combat missions facing our troops was very different from what they had to face in 1941. Of course, the “Winter War” made a great impression on the Soviet military leadership, but the experience of breaking through the enemy’s fortified defenses did not come in handy soon, only at the final stage of the Second World War, when our army entered German territory with its pre-war stationary lines of fortifications. Many important points in the “Winter War” remained untested and had to be studied under German attacks. For example, the concept of using large mechanized formations remained completely untested, and it was the mechanized corps that were the main striking power of the Red Army. In 1941, we paid bitterly for this.
Even the experience that was gained by Soviet tank crews during the conflicts of 1939-1940 was largely lost. For example, all 8 tank brigades that participated in the battles with the Finns were disbanded and turned to the formation of mechanized corps. The same thing happened to nine combined tank regiments, and the same fate befell 38 tank battalions of rifle divisions. In addition, junior commanders and ordinary Red Army soldiers, veterans of the “Winter War” and Khalkhin Gol, were demobilized by June 1941 and were replaced by recruits. Therefore, even the units and formations that managed to fight lost their experience, training and cohesion. Yes, and there were few of them. Thus, on the eve of the war, the western military districts included only 42 formations with combat experience from Khalkhin Gol or the Finnish War, that is, less than 25%: LVO - 10 divisions (46.5% of all troops in the district), PribOVO - 4 (14.3 %), ZapOVO - 13 (28%), KOVO - 12 (19.5%), OdVO - 3 (20%).
By contrast, 82% of the Wehrmacht divisions assigned to Operation Barbarossa had actual combat experience in the battles of 1939–1941.
The scale of the hostilities in which the Germans happened to participate was much more significant than the scale of local conflicts in which the Red Army participated. Based on the above, we can say that the Wehrmacht was completely superior to the Red Army in terms of practical experience in conducting modern highly maneuverable warfare. And it was precisely this kind of war that the Wehrmacht imposed on our army from the very beginning.
REPRESSIONS IN THE RKKA
We have already touched on the topic of repression, but I would like to dwell on this topic in more detail. The most prominent Soviet theorists and practitioners of military affairs, who had the courage to defend their views, were declared enemies of the people and destroyed.
In order not to be unfounded, I will briefly cite the following figures from the report of the head of the Directorate for the commanding staff of the Red Army of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR E. A. Shchadenko “On the work for 1939” dated May 5, 1940. According to these data, in 1937, 18,658 people were dismissed from the army alone, not counting the Air Force and Navy, or 13.1% of its command personnel. Of these, 11,104 people were dismissed for political reasons, and 4,474 were arrested. In 1938, the number of dismissed people was 16,362 people, or 9.2%, of the payroll of the Red Army commanders. Of these, 7,718 people were dismissed for political reasons, and another 5,032 were arrested. In 1939, only 1,878 people were fired, or 0.7% of the payroll, and only 73 people were arrested. Thus, in three years, the ground forces alone lost 36,898 commanders, of which 19,106 were dismissed for political reasons, and another 9,579 people were arrested. That is, direct losses from repression in the ground forces alone amounted to 28,685 people, the reasons for the dismissal of another 4,048 people were drunkenness, moral decay and theft. Another 4,165 people were removed from the lists due to death, disability or illness.
There are axioms that have been tested for decades in all armies of the world: a platoon commander of average quality can be trained in 3–5 years; company commander - after 8–12 years; battalion commander - after 15–17 years; regiment commander - in 20–25 years. For generals and marshals in general, especially exceptional conditions.
The repressions of the 30s affected all officers of the Red Army. But most scary of all: they beheaded her. This is a very precise word - “beheaded”. From the word "head". The numbers of those repressed are simply shocking: 60% of marshals, 100% of 1st rank army commanders, 100% of 2nd rank army commanders, 88% of corps commanders (and if you consider that some of the newly appointed were also repressed - a total of 135%!) 83% of division commanders, 55 % brigade commanders.
In the fleet there was simply quiet horror: 100% of the 1st rank fleet flagships, 100% of the 2nd rank fleet flagships, 100% of the 1st rank flagships, 100% of the 2nd rank flagships...
The situation with command personnel in the Red Army became catastrophic. In 1938, the shortage of command personnel reached 34%! The regular army alone required 93 thousand commanders; the shortage of reservists was approaching 350 thousand people. Under these conditions, many of those dismissed “for politics” had to be returned to the army in 1937–39. 11,178 people were rehabilitated and reinstated in the army, of which 9,247 “politicians” were simply fired and another 1,457 were those who had already been arrested and their cases were being investigated.
Thus, the irretrievable losses of the command staff of the USSR ground forces over three years of peace amounted to 17,981 people, of which about 10 thousand people were shot.
Over two years, the USSR Armed Forces irretrievably lost 738 military leaders who held ranks corresponding to generals. Is this a lot or a little? For comparison: during the Second World War, 416 Soviet generals and admirals died for various reasons. Of these, 79 died from disease, 20 died in accidents and disasters, three committed suicide, and 18 were shot. Thus, purely combat losses caused the direct death of 296 representatives of our generals. In addition, 77 Soviet generals were captured, of which 23 died, but they were already taken into account in the previous figures. Consequently, the irretrievable combat losses of the USSR senior command staff amounted to 350 people. It turns out that in just two years of repression their “loss” was twice as large as in four years of the most terrible bloody meat grinder.
Those who were at hand, the so-called “promotes,” were appointed to the positions of the repressed. In fact, as Corporal N.V. Kuibyshev (commander of the Transcaucasian Military District) said at a meeting of the Military Council on November 21, 1937, this resulted in three divisions of his district being commanded by captains, one of whom had previously commanded a battery. One division was commanded by a major who had previously been a teacher at a military school. Another division was commanded by a major, who had previously been the head of the division's military and economic supplies. To a question from the audience: “Where did the commanders go?”, the corps commander briefly answered: “All the rest were transferred to the NKVD department without holding certain positions.” In modern language, they were simply arrested. The straightforward corps commander Nikolai Vladimirovich Kuibyshev, who blurted out THIS, was arrested on February 2, 1938 and shot six months later.
The repressions not only caused significant losses in the command cadres, but they also had an equally serious impact on the morale and discipline of the personnel. In the Red Army, a real orgy of “exposures” of senior commanders by junior commanders began: they denounced both for ideological reasons and for purely mercantile reasons (hoping to take the position of their superior). In turn, senior commanders reduced their demands on their subordinates, not unreasonably fearing their dissatisfaction. Which in turn led to an even greater decline in discipline. The most serious consequence of the wave of repression was the reluctance of many Soviet commanders of all ranks to take the initiative for fear of repressive consequences for its failure. No one wanted to be accused of “sabotage” and “voluntarism”, with all the ensuing consequences. It was much easier and safer to stupidly carry out orders issued from above and passively wait for new guidelines. This played a cruel joke on our army, especially at the initial stage of the Second World War. I, and no one else, can say whether the military leaders destroyed by Stalin could have even stopped the advance of the Wehrmacht. But they were strong at least because they had independence and were not afraid to express their opinions. Still, it seems that in any case it would have been possible to avoid tens of thousands of casualties and such a deafening defeat that the Red Army suffered in border battles. At the end of the 30s, Stalin knew that the army command was divided into supporters of Voroshilov and Tukhachevsky. To eliminate the split in the military leadership, Stalin had to make a choice between the personal loyalty of his old comrades and representatives of the “new military intelligentsia.”
LEVEL OF TRAINING OF TEAM STAFF
In connection with the reorganization and sharp increase in the number of the Armed Forces of the USSR, as well as in connection with the pre-war “purges”, the level of training of Soviet tactical commanders, and especially the level of operational training of the senior command staff of the Red Army, sharply decreased.
The rapid formation of new units and large formations of the Red Army led to the massive promotion to senior command positions of commanders and staff officers, whose career growth was rapid, but often poorly justified, as stated by the People's Commissar of Defense in directive No. 503138/op dated January 25, 1941: “1 . The experience of recent wars, campaigns, field trips and exercises has shown the low operational training of senior command personnel, military headquarters, army and front-line departments... The senior command staff...does not yet have sufficient knowledge of the method of correct and complete assessment of the situation and making decisions in accordance with the plan of the high command...Military headquarters, army and front-line departments...have only basic knowledge and a superficial understanding of the nature of the modern operation of the army and the front. It is clear that with such a level of operational training of senior command personnel and headquarters, one cannot count on decisive success in a modern operation. […] d) all army departments….by July 1, complete the study and training of an army offensive operation, and by November 1, a defensive operation.” [TsAMO F.344 Op.5554 D.9 L.1-9]
The situation was also worse with commanders at the operational-strategic level, who during major exercises NEVER acted as trainees, but only as leaders. This primarily applies to the newly appointed commanders of the border military districts, who were to face the fully deployed Wehrmacht in the summer of 1941.
KOVO (Kiev Special Military District) was headed for 12 years by I. Yakir, who was subsequently executed. Then the district was commanded by Timoshenko, Zhukov, and only from February 1941 - Colonel General M.P. Kirponos. Commanding the 70th SD during the Finnish campaign, he received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for the distinction of his division during the capture of Vyborg. Just a month after the end of the “Winter War” he commanded the corps, and six months later - the Leningrad Military District. And Mikhail Petrovich has completed instructor courses at the Oranienbaum Officer Rifle School, a military paramedic school, and service as a company paramedic on the front of the First World War. In the Red Army he was a battalion commander, chief of staff and regiment commander. In 1922 he graduated from the school of “red sergeants” in Kyiv, after which he became its head. In 1927 he graduated from the Military Academy of the Red Army named after. Frunze. He served as chief of staff of the 51st SD, and since 1934, head and military commissar of the Kazan Infantry School. Judging by his service record, Mikhail Petrovich, despite his undoubted personal courage, simply did not have experience in managing such a large unit of troops as a military district (by the way, the strongest in the USSR!)
You can compare Kirponos with his counterpart. Field Marshal Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt became a lieutenant in 1893, entered the military academy in 1902, served from 1907 to 1910 on the General Staff, and ended the First World War as a major, as chief of staff of the corps (at that time Kirponos was still commanding a battalion). In 1932, he received the rank of general of infantry and commanded the 1st Army Group (more than half of the Reichswehr personnel). During the Polish campaign, he led the GA “South”, consisting of three armies, which delivered the main blow. During the war in the west, he commanded GA “A”, consisting of four armies and a tank group, which played a key role in the victory of the Wehrmacht.
The post of commander of ZapOVO, which was once led by the executed I.P. Uborevich, was taken by Army General D.G. Pavlov in June 1940. Dmitry Grigorievich volunteered to go to the front in 1914, received the rank of senior non-commissioned officer, and was captured wounded in 1916. In the Red Army since 1919, platoon commander, squadron commander, assistant regiment commander. In 1920 he graduated from the Kostroma Infantry Courses, in 1922 - from the Omsk Higher Cavalry School, in 1931 - from the Academic Courses of the Military-Technical Academy of the Red Army named after. Dzerzhinsky, since 1934 - commander of the mechanized brigade. Participant in battles on the Chinese Eastern Railway and in Spain, where he earned the title of GSS. From August 1937 he worked at the ABTU of the Red Army, in November of the same year he became the head of the ABTU. During the Finnish campaign he inspected the NWF troops. With such baggage, the hero of the Spanish war was appointed commander of the Western Special Military District.
And he was opposed by Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, who became a lieutenant in 1898. In 1912, he graduated from the military academy, and with the outbreak of the First World War, he became the head of the operational department of the infantry corps, and in May 1915 he was transferred to the headquarters of the 11th Army. He ended the war as the head of the operations department of an army group with the rank of major. In 1929 - Major General, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, in 1931 head of the Stettin Military District. From 1935 he commanded the 3rd Army Group. In the war with Poland, he headed the GA "North" as part of two armies. In France - commander of GA "B", which included 2, and then 3 armies and a tank group.
Commander of PribOVO F.I. Kuznetsov. In 1916 he graduated from the school of warrant officers. Platoon commander, then head of a team of foot reconnaissance officers. In the Red Army since 1918, commander of a company, then a battalion and a regiment. In 1926 he graduated from the Military Academy of the Red Army named after. Frunze, and in 1930 - Improvement courses for senior management under her. From February 1933, he was the head of the Moscow, and later Tambov, infantry school. Since 1935, he headed the department of general tactics of the Military Academy. Frunze. From 1937, senior teacher of infantry tactics, and then head of the tactics department at the same academy. As deputy commander of the Baltic Fleet in September 1939, he took part in the “liberation” campaign in Western Belarus. From July 1940 - head of the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army, in August he was appointed commander of the North Caucasian Military District, and in December of the same year - commander of the PribOVO. Of all three commanders, it was Fyodor Isidorovich who had the best theoretical training, but he clearly lacked experience in practical leadership of troops.
His opponent, the commander of the GA North, Wilhelm Joseph Franz von Leeb, volunteered in the 4th Bavarian Regiment in 1895, and became a lieutenant in 1897. In 1900, he participated in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in China, after graduating from the military academy in 1909, he served on the General Staff, then commanded an artillery battery. From March 1915 - Chief of Staff of the 11th Bavarian Infantry Division. He ended the First World War as a major in the position of chief of logistics for an army group. In 1930 - Lieutenant General, commander of the 7th Infantry Division and at the same time commander of the Bavarian military district. In 1933, commander of the 2nd Army Group. Since 1938, commander of the 12th Army. Participated in the occupation of the Sudetenland. In the French campaign he commanded the GA "C".
The contrast in the level of training, qualifications, service and combat experience of the opposing commanders is, in my opinion, obvious. A useful school for the above-mentioned German military leaders was their consistent advancement through the ranks. They were able to fully practice the difficult art of planning combat operations and commanding troops in conditions of maneuverable modern warfare against a well-equipped enemy. Based on the results obtained in the battles, the Germans made important improvements to the structure of their units, units and formations, to combat regulations and methods of training troops.
Our commanders, who were elevated overnight from division commanders to leaders of huge masses of troops, clearly felt insecure in these highest positions. The example of their unsuccessful predecessors constantly hung over them like the sword of Domocles. They blindly followed the instructions of I.V. Stalin, and the timid attempts of some of them to show independence in resolving issues of increasing the readiness of troops for an attack by the Germans were suppressed “from above.”
This article is in no way aimed at denigrating the Red Army. There is simply an opinion that the pre-war Red Army was powerful and strong, everything was good in it: there were a lot of tanks, airplanes, and rifles with cannons. However, this obscured the most serious problems in the pre-war Red Army, where quantity, unfortunately, never turned into quality. It took two and a half years of intense and bloody struggle with the strongest army in the world for our Armed Forces to become what we know them in the victorious 1945!
Sources:
"The population of Russia in the twentieth century: historical essays." T 2. 1940 - 1959. M. ROSSPEN 2001 BR Mitchell ‛International Historical Statistics. Europe 1750 - 1993. Exeter, UK. A. Smirnov “Great Maneuvers” Rodina No. 4, 2000. News of the CPSU Central Committee No. 1, M. Pravda 1990. O. Suvenirov “Resistance of the Red Army personnel to the party-state extermination of military personnel (1937 - June 1941).” VIA No. 11 2007 O. Suvenirov “Tragedy of the Red Army 1937-1938.” M. TERRA 1998 “Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century. Losses of the armed forces" edited by G. F. Krivosheev M. OLMA-PRESS 2001 "Military Council under the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, November 1937. Documents and materials." M. ROSSPEN 2006 N. Cherushev “There are no innocent people...” M. Veche 2004 All-Union Population Census of 1937: general results. Collection of documents and materials. M. ROSSPEN 2007 “Russian Archive: The Great Patriotic War” Vol.13. “Orders of NKO 1937 - June 21, 1941.” M. TERRA 1994 “Command and command staff of the Red Army in 1940 - 1941. Structure and personnel of the central apparatus of NPOs of the USSR, military districts and combined arms armies. Documents and materials." M. Summer Garden. 2004 K. Kalashnikov, V. Feskov, A. Chmykhalo, V. Golikov. "The Red Army in June 1941 (statistical collection)." Novosibirsk, Siberian Chronograph 2003
Insignia, emblems and military ranks of the Red Army
At first, on the battlefields of the Civil War, there was complete chaos in the symbolism and insignia of the warring sides. For ideological reasons, all the old army paraphernalia was completely discarded. The fighters of the red detachments and their commanders changed their shoulder straps and cockades to red bows and cuffs on red caps. In individual regiments and detachments, special sleeve chevrons and red fabric stars appeared.
Their opponents represented various military-political organizations and movements, and therefore wore a wide variety of emblems and insignia. The majority of officers continued to wear shoulder straps and royal cockades. A number of other military units and units had their own special insignia. As for military ranks, the old system of military ranks has mainly been preserved in army units.
Officially, the first emblem of the Red Army was a red star, in the center of which was a hammer and sickle - worker and peasant symbols. Since the summer of 1918, the red star began to appear on the headdresses of the command staff of the Red Army. As for military ranks, they initially decided to abandon this relic of tsarism. Non-commissioned officers and warrant officers are history. The place of the soldier was taken by a Red Army soldier, and the lieutenants and staff captains were replaced by kraskoms - red commanders.
Only after the All-Russian Central Executive Committee approved the Internal Service Charter, the Garrison Service Charter and the Field Regulations of the Red Army in November–December 1918, military positions and new ranks appeared in the army. Instead of the Red Army soldier, the Red Army soldier became the main combat unit. Military categories were introduced, according to which, instead of colonels and generals, the leadership of regiments, divisions and corps was carried out by regimental commanders, brigade commanders and division commanders. The armies were commanded by army commanders, but the overall leadership of the army was carried out through the interaction of the army headquarters and the Revolutionary Military Council of the Army. In the Red Army Air Force, pilots were simply called “red pilot” or military pilot. These categories existed for quite a long time, until the outbreak of World War II.
At first there were no shoulder straps or uniform military uniforms in the Red Army. It was allowed to use military uniforms and old-style uniforms, and to dress in civilian clothes. The commanding staff had more or less standardized uniforms. Leather jackets and English military service jackets became bright and distinctive of the red commanders on the battlefields of the Civil War.
Even earlier, in April 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee initiated the creation of a commission to develop military uniforms for Red Army soldiers and commanding officers. It was decided to use the old-style military field uniform. By order of the Council of People's Commissars in April 1919, a uniform model was introduced, which consisted of:
- overcoat for infantry and cavalry with breast stripes made of colored cloth;
- summer shirt - tunic with fabric breast stripes in a row;
- leather bast shoes.
The only difference was the appearance of a new type of headdress - a hero instead of a cap with a visor. Such helmets began to be supplied to rifle units in the spring of 1919 and were first called “Frunzenkas”. After such uniforms began to be supplied to the cavalry units of the First Cavalry Army - budenovkas.
Leather bast shoes, although they were the main type of military footwear, were often replaced by leather shoes and boots. Considering the instability of the supply of military uniforms, a significant share in the uniforms of the Red Army soldiers was captured clothing. The chest patches had different colors, indicating that the soldier or commander belonged to a particular branch of the military. Military pilots and armored car crew commanders wore leather jackets and caps. A similar style of dress also extended to political workers who were part of the command staff of military units.
Also in the winter of 1919, in the Red Army, the Table of Insignia introduced a system of military categories for commanding personnel. Instead of shoulder straps, the commanding staff of the Red Army wore a red cloth star with a black border, triangles and diamonds on their left sleeve. Year after year, the equipment and uniforms of the Red Army became unified. Not only military positions and categories began to be clearly distinguished, but also the affiliation of a military person to one or another branch of the military.
New, standardized uniforms and insignia in the Red Army appeared only in January 1922. For commanding officers, buttonholes were introduced, which were sewn on the upper edge of the collar - a stand-up collar. For each branch of the military, a specific color of buttonholes was established:
- black buttonholes were worn by members of the engineering corps;
- The infantry had crimson buttonholes;
- cavalrymen had blue buttonholes;
- military pilots wore uniforms with blue buttonholes;
- orange and green buttonholes – artillery and border troops, respectively.
The stars on the headdresses, chest stripes and piping on the cuffs of the sleeves and on the collar were of a similar color. From the same year, ceremonial military uniforms were introduced for soldiers and commanding officers of the Red Army.
Treason of 1941 (part 2)
Continued, started here
Were Moscow's directives implemented?
The very first major capture of Soviet troops is famous for the 3rd and 10th armies of the Western Front, located in the Bialystok ledge. Here, as part of the 10th Army, the 6th Mechanized Corps of General Khatskilevich, the most powerful in terms of the number and quality of tanks, was located, well equipped with vehicles. The armies were located in border fortified areas, in particular the 10th Army relied on the Osovets UR. In 1915, Russian troops in the Osovets fortress glorified themselves with their long heroic defense. It was as if history itself was calling for the retention of this place.
And the main attacks of the Germans missed these armies. Guderian's Panzer Group moved through Brest and the location of the 4th Army, Hoth's Panzer Group moved through the location of the 11th Army to Vilnius with a turn to Minsk. On June 25, when the 4th Army failed to stop the enemy near Slutsk, the interception of the road from the Bialystok ledge to the east through Baranovichi became a reality. Exactly on this day, the 3rd and 10th armies receive PERMISSION from the command of the Western Front to leave the fortified areas and retreat to the east. Exactly when it’s too late to retreat. West of Minsk, these armies, most of whose troops were moving in marching columns, are intercepted. They are subjected to severe destruction by aviation and artillery on the roads in marching columns. And it is here that the situation of the first mass captivity of Soviet troops arises.
Meanwhile, before June 25 there were still June 22, 23 and 24. On the afternoon of June 22, Directive No. 3 was sent from Moscow to front headquarters, which ordered concentrated attacks on the enemy in adjacent territory by mechanized forces and the capture of the cities of Suwalki and Lublin.
Lublin was approximately 80 km from the locations of the 4th and 15th mechanized corps of the most powerful 6th Army of the Southwestern Front. God knows what, the tanks of the mechanized corps were driven over much greater distances in other directions. But still, 80 km is not too little. But with Suwalki everything is much more interesting.
Suwalki is a dead-end railway station in a swampy, wooded, bearish corner of northeastern Poland. The Suwałki region wedged into the territory of the USSR north of the Bialystok bulge. And the railway went to Suwalki, the only one along which it was possible to supply the Hoth tank wedge. From the border and from the locations of the 3rd Army to the railway to Suwalki along the inter-lake defile is only 20 km. By road from Augustow – 26 km. The long-range artillery of the 3rd Army had the ability to support its own advancing troops right up to the cutting of this railway, without moving from its territory. Conventional artillery, without moving away from the warehouses, could provide support for the offensive until the middle of this path. The shells needed for powerful artillery support of the offensive do not need to be transported far. They are right here - in the warehouses of the fortified area. And we remember that the reserves on which the 5th Army relied in the Korosten UR were sufficient for more than a month of effective combat against the enemy.
The attack of the 3rd Army, supported by a mechanized corps, in the direction of the railway made the position of Hoth's 3rd Panzer Group on Soviet territory hopeless. No fuel, no shells, no food.
And there was this order to attack Suwalki. A specific order with a precisely specified target for the strike. And even with a clearly defined meaning. The enemy, who threw his troops into a deep breakthrough, exposed his rear. Which is what needs to be struck. This is the wording of the directive and is not subject to any other interpretation. The troops, who threw all their strength forward, exposed their rear to defeat.
Meanwhile, the command of the Western Front, led by Pavlov and the chief of staff of the Klimovskys, instead of following the instructions of the directive, decides not to advance across the border to the railway, located 20 km away, but to move the 6th mechanized corps and cavalry along its territory towards Grodno, which is significant further, and the tanks obviously could not be provided with fuel on this route using available refueling equipment.
Let’s just point this out right away. What is written about the attack on Grodno cannot be taken as a fact. This is what is written about him. The Germans did not record the strike itself. Their reconnaissance did not detect large tank forces on the Bialystok ledge. The road, littered with broken Soviet equipment, did not go northeast to Grodno. And to the east - to Slonim. But this is another question.
For now, it is important for us that the completely realistic target of a short attack - Suwalki - as a result of the attack on which Hoth's tank group remained on foreign soil without supplies - was ignored by the headquarters of the Western Front without justification for such ignoring. The mobile troops were ordered to move across their territory. In the event of an attack on the railway to Suwalki, the 3rd Army did not break away from its supply base in the Osovets UR, making the financial situation of one of the largest attacking enemy groups hopeless. Instead, mobile formations are sent to travel across their territory in isolation from the combined arms army, from the supply base.
Mistakes happen. But there are no identical mistakes on two fronts. The Southwestern Front, exactly on the same day, as we remember, sent mechanized corps to reel hundreds of kilometers on tracks. He ignores the directive calling for an attack on Lublin. Instead, they are organizing a strike on their territory in Berestechko-Dubny. Moreover, as was noted, on June 27 the mechanized corps advances against an enemy it does not see. It simply isn't there in front of him. Although it should have been at least a day. The mechanized corps was a day late in concentrating on the attack line. I had to trudge too far.
Let us note that Zhukov, who arrived from Moscow, was involved in this decision to change the task of striking on the Southwestern Front.
Maybe the directive was such an obvious gamble that the front commanders and personally the Chief of the General Staff Zhukov considered it possible to ignore it? But no. The German Chief of the General Staff Halder noted in his diary that the actions in the south were unsuccessful (we already know about the failure of the superior German forces near Przemysl, where the 99th Red Banner Division successfully kicked them out of Soviet territory), it would be necessary to provide assistance, but as luck would have it, not a single one there is no reserve infantry division, and a small tank reserve cannot be sent to help due to the disgusting quality of the roads in Eastern Poland, which are also clogged with convoys.
The Germans have no reserves. And all the roads on the other side of the border are clogged with convoys supplying the units thrown forward. The Soviet mechanized corps, having crossed the border, would not have had any forces in front of it capable of stopping it - and would only crush with caterpillar tracks, shoot and capture material resources, without which the German troops thrown into Soviet territory would be helpless. We already know that German tanks stopped in front of Kiev, which was then unprotected by Soviet troops, due to the cessation of combat supplies due to attacks by Potapov’s 5th Army.
But Directive No. 3 of June 22 was not implemented by the command of the two most important fronts - Western and Southwestern - and by the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army Zhukov, who made the decision on a counterattack together with the command of the Southwestern Front.
The Germans' rush headlong forward - with the poor condition of the roads in the rear, in the absence of reserves to cover vital rear communications - was, from the point of view of the military capabilities of only the border Soviet armies, a gamble. From the very beginning.
But he was not an adventurer. For the Germans knew that they were allowed any stupidity. Allowed by a conspiracy of part of the Red Army generals, who will not carry out orders from Moscow. Which will destroy the combat capabilities of its own troops - for example, by destroying the motor resources of tanks in meaningless multi-hundred-kilometer marches.
A small note.
The engine life of the Tiger tank was only 60 km. The first use of the tank near Leningrad in the second half of 1942 was unsuccessful because most of the tanks simply did not reach the battlefield from the unloading station.
Tanks of the Soviet mechanized corps of the Southwestern Front covered 1,200-1,400 kilometers under their own power in June and early July 1941. The orders did not leave time to inspect the tank and find out the fact that the tank had stopped due to a loose nut that had to be put in its place. But before that, we have to open hatches for several hours, rummage through the iron, look for...
Well, when the “thundering armor, shining steel” corps were gone, it was the turn of the infantry. It was also torn away from supply bases and taken out onto the roads in marching columns. Where it was captured by enemy mechanized formations that were now superior in mobility and armament.
But to understand this, our historians and analysts lack a primitive thing: the recognition that the generals of the two fronts grossly violated discipline - they did not comply with the direct instructions of the country’s top military leadership - Directive No. 3. And the enemy, who opportunistically exposed his rear to a natural, completely logical strike, the order for which was issued and sent to the front headquarters, knew that this strike would not happen. He knew that the front headquarters would not carry out the order.
Not incompetently, but exceptionally competently. The 8th Mechanized Corps will be taken away from the honest commander of Army 26, General Kostenko, who, only in the interests of the army entrusted to his command, would not allow Lvov to be taken with a short and powerful blow of the mechanized corps against the enemy troops threatening his flank. And then the wooded Lviv region with two large warehouse centers in Lviv and Stryi, based on the difficult to overcome Carpathians from the south, on fortified areas along the border, hanging over the German supply routes through Lublin and along the highway to Kiev, would turn into a second thorn on a scale of 5- oh army. Even with complete isolation. Or even more significant. In the Carpathians there are not Ukrainian nationalists of Westernism, but friendly Ruthenian people. Beyond the Carpathians is a territory that belonged to Hungary, but was historically connected with Slovakia. And Slovaks are not Czechs. Slovaks are the Slovak National Uprising of 1944. Slovaks are requests to join the USSR in the 60s. This is Colonel Ludwig Svoboda, commander of the Czechoslovak brigade that, together with the Red Army, took the Carpathian passes in 1944. The Slovak units allied to the Germans, unlike the Romanians and Hungarians, did not leave a bad memory on Soviet territory.
But that's not all. For information: in the south of the Lviv region there is an oil-bearing area. Romania provided production of 7 million tons of oil per year. The Lviv region gave Hitler 4 million tons. Every third ton is from the oil on which the engines of the Reich ran! The quick departure of the Red Army from the Lviv region did not significantly destroy the infrastructure of the region. - We didn’t have time. Oil production was quickly established. For the sake of oil, the Germans here did not even exterminate the Jews, in whose hands there was control of the oil fields.
Briefly speaking. There was an alternative to the disaster of 1941. Real. It did not just exist in itself as an opportunity, which the descendants, strong in hindsight, understood. It was understood and expressed with specific instructions on what to do - in the form of Stalin's Directive No. 3 of June 22, 1941. In the middle of the first day of the war, the question of the complete and unconditional defeat of the aggressor was actually resolved. "With little blood, with a mighty blow." Or at least about depriving him of the opportunity to wage a long war.
And this unique opportunity was killed by the headquarters of the two main fronts - Western and Southwestern. There were a lot of people at the headquarters. But in each of them there were three people, without the signature of each of whom not a single order of the headquarters had legal force: the commander, the chief of staff, the Member of the Military Council. On the Southwestern Front, Purkaev was the chief of staff, and Nikishev was a member of the Military Council. During the period when Purkaev commanded the Kalinin Front, the problem of hunger in the armies of the front arose. Several dozen starvation deaths. A commission arrived, Purkaev was removed, it turned out that there was enough food for the front, but there was a problem of distribution. After Purkaev was removed, this problem resolved. There is such an episode.
Directive No. 3 is a probe with which we manage to penetrate into the ins and outs of the 1941 disaster. The principles of army organization do not allow for non-compliance with the directives of the higher command. Even if you think you understand the situation better. Even if you think the decision of your superiors is stupid. It is the boss. And, who knows, maybe a stupid order is not really stupid. You are being sacrificed for the sake of a plan that is unknown to you. People must die while carrying out an obviously impossible order because a thousand kilometers away from them an operation is being carried out, for the sake of the success of which it really makes sense to die in a seemingly meaningless diversionary operation. War is cruel.
On the Western and Southwestern fronts, two front headquarters simultaneously canceled the meaning of the directive from the higher command and changed the goals and directions of the counterattack. Contrary to military discipline. Contrary to strategy, contrary to common sense. At the same time, the subordination of the troops was changed. In the Southwestern Front, 8 microns were withdrawn from subordination to the 26th Army. On the Western Front, 6 Mk of the 10th Army was withdrawn from the subordination of this very 10th Army. And, by the way, they were also driven along the roads of Belarus. The commander of the 7th Panzer Division of this corps will report in a subsequent report that the corps, by orders from the front headquarters, was thrown from direction to direction without a clear goal. They never met an enemy who deserved action from the corps against him. But they overcame the anti-tank lines prepared by the Germans on our territory 4 times. As you can see, the handwriting is well recognized.
By the way, the death surrounded by the 13th Army is also interesting. She is taken out of the Minsk UR - to the Lida region - by order of the front headquarters. And the arriving troops of the Second Strategic Echelon simply do not have time to take up positions in the Minsk UR. The 13th Army itself was sent deep into the future cauldron from its positions near the important political and industrial center of the city of Minsk - in conditions where there is already a threat from the northern flank. The directive from the front headquarters for the withdrawal of the army near Lida directly speaks of ensuring against the threat from Vilnius. But the army is not being withdrawn to the Vilnius-Minsk highway, but is being taken much further west - into the space between the supply bases of the fortified areas of the old and new state borders. Going nowhere. Into the forests. The army is dying for no reason whatsoever. Subsequently, an army with the same number was recreated on the basis of the divisions of the 4th Army again.
And to defend Minsk, freshly arrived troops rush into the empty fortified area, who do not even have time to occupy the fortified area. Hoth's tanks advanced too quickly through Vilnius from the north. Soviet divisions entered the battle on the move. There could be no talk of any establishment of interaction with the forces of the fortified area, nor of any normal use of reserves in the warehouses of the SD.
Well, just a small touch to the picture of a conspiracy in the Red Army. Among the memories of the soldiers, a certificate caught my eye. The soldiers arrived at the front near Polotsk. On the outskirts of a village they had breakfast in the morning. Lieutenant Bardin, whom the soldiers knew, lined them up without weapons (the weapons remained in the pyramids) and led them to the village. The Germans were already there. Bardin stopped the formation and told the soldiers that the war was over for them. Like this.
Vlasov.
In the described episodes, the figure of General Vlasov emerged, through the positions of whose mechanized corps the Germans broke through to the outskirts of Lvov. Without really bothering yourself.
And the last episode of Vlasov’s military biography as part of the Red Army was the command of the 2nd Shock Army of the Volkhov Front. It is known that the army found itself in a difficult situation and died. And Vlasov gave up. But it is almost not known that the army died due to Vlasov’s failure to comply with the order of the General Staff. The General Staff realized that the army’s offensive had stalled, and now it found itself in a dangerous position. And they ordered Vlasov to withdraw the army to safe lines. The withdrawal of troops was ordered to be carried out before May 15, 1942. Vlasov referred to the poor condition of the roads and the occupation of these roads by cavalry units. And he announced the date when he could begin withdrawing the army - May 23. The German offensive began on May 22. The army was trapped in its entirety.
If you do not look closely at the events of the first days of the war near Lvov, then one could consider this a fatal coincidence of circumstances, and Vlasov as a person who, in 1942, had a revolution in his worldview due to the mistakes Stalin made in the first year of the war. But there were events near Lvov. Vlasov is directly involved in them. Both roads along which the Germans could get to Sknilov passed literally along the edge of the forest where the 31st tank division of his corps stood awaiting orders. The remaining troops of the corps were also not far away. They directly covered the direction along which the enemy’s mechanized forces broke through, occupying the eastern bank of the Vereshitsa River.
We can definitely conclude that Vlasov was an important participant in the military conspiracy in 1941. Moreover, the subsequent fate of Vlasov as the creator of the ROA itself becomes evidence of a conspiracy with the Germans of those who led the headquarters of at least two fronts and individual armies of these fronts in 1941.
But this can only be understood by carefully studying the events of the initial period of the war.
And you definitely need to see behind the “toy soldiers games” - the most important result of these games. Troops were withdrawn from areas where gigantic material reserves were concentrated in warehouses within both the new and old state borders. The conspirators deprived the Red Army of the means of warfare accumulated over several years of work in the defense industry.
And vice versa, they supplied the enemy with these means. Gasoline, shells for guns abandoned by the Germans, aerial bombs, food, spare parts for equipment that was abandoned due to minor breakdowns, medicines, explosives, wires, rails, sleepers, tires for cars, fodder for horses. Interesting detail. In preparation for war with the USSR, the Germans reduced orders for the production of ammunition. They definitely knew that the Red Army would soon face a shortage of shells.
Vyazemsky boiler.
I am not ready today to talk about every problem of 1941. Not everything is feasible. It is difficult to talk about what happened near Kiev.
But we managed to clarify a lot of important things about the Vyazemsky cauldron.
For me, the most surprising thing was the deployment of ten divisions of the Moscow People's Militia (DNO) - strictly against the direction of the main attacks of the Germans in Operation Typhoon. Five personnel armies of the Reserve Front in the middle. And in the obvious directions of a possible enemy offensive - along the main highways - there was just a division of militia.
The militias are placed in the most dangerous directions. Well, just logically: among the dense forests of Smolensk-Vyazma there are two highways. Minskoe and Warsaw. Well, the advancing Germans cannot make their way through forests and swamps. — Along the roads. And on both roads, 10 divisions of the Moscow people's militia were the first to meet the blow of Operation Typhoon. Most of the people's militia divisions arrived at the front on September 20. Literally 10 days before the start of the German offensive. And they received sections of the front where an enemy attack was most likely.
Over-provided with everything that the servicemen might need, the 5 armies of the Reserve Front disappeared as a result of Operation Typhoon - as if they never existed.
But the Moscow militias do not disappear. The defeated 8th DNO is depicted on October 16 on the Borodino field. Later, a fighter of this DNO, Emmanuel Kozakevich, became the author of the well-known story “STAR”, on which the film of the same name was based.
Three bottoms of the southern direction of the German breakthrough one way or another overtake the Germans - and stop them in Naro-Fominsk, near Tarutino, near Belev.
It's more difficult in the northern section. The 2nd DNO, at the cost of heavy losses, breaks through the encirclement of the Reserve Front near the village of Bogoroditskoye. And he is surprised to discover that the armies of the front do not want to leave the encirclement through a ready-made passage, made by thousands of sacrificed lives. The bloodless 2nd DNO was disbanded in December 1941.
Another Moscow DNO, after a long retreat, after breaking out of encirclement, took up defense on the Pyatnitskoye Highway between the divisions of Panfilov and Beloborodov. It became the 11th Guards Division. Panfilov's division became the 8th Guards. The division of the Moscow people's militia, thrown into battle without preparation, became the 11th Guards.
And five - not divisions, but armies of the Reserve Front - did not particularly show themselves militarily, and at the same time provided the Germans with hundreds of thousands of prisoners. How can this be?
There are recollections of the division commander of the 2nd militia division that on the first day of the German offensive he received an order from the command of the army to which he was subordinate to retreat. Following this, liaison officers from the 19th Army of General Lukin arrived to him - and gave the order not to retreat, but to take such and such a line of defense - and ensure passage through the positions of the division of this army. The paradox of the situation is that the division commander carried out exactly this order. - Order from someone else's commander. Why?
And the division broke through the corridor from the Vyazemsky cauldron, also on Lukin’s orders. But the surrender of the army took place after Lukin was wounded.
It is known about the 19th Army itself that literally before transferring it under the command of Lukin, former Army Commander Konev compiled a long list of army headquarters officers whom he suspected of treason. And there are memoirs of a military doctor who watched as Lukin lined up about 300 army headquarters officers and called for volunteers to command three breakthrough companies. There were no volunteers. Company commanders were appointed by Lukin. However, they did not cope with the task of a breakthrough.
It seems that fragments of the terrible truth of the initial period of the war have surfaced. The extent of the officers' conspiracy was so significant that honest officers and generals had to take it into account constantly. And, it seems, to use methods of identifying “our own.”
But that's another question. Important. And extremely relevant for today's Russia.
Conclusion.
The main thing is that there was a conspiracy, the most important episodes of which and the style of its implementation we have identified. The information that allowed him to be identified has surfaced. And we managed to take in them with our gaze. Identify contradictions and patterns in the chaos of what was happening.
What brought the Soviet country to the brink of collapse was not the power of the German divisions, not the unprofessionalism of our soldiers and officers in 1941, but precisely treason, carefully prepared, thought out, and planned. Treason, which was taken into account by the Germans when developing completely adventurous, if judged objectively, offensive plans.
The Great Patriotic War was not a fight between Russians and Germans, or even between Russians and Europeans. Russian officers and generals helped the enemy. It was not a clash between imperialism and socialism. The enemy was helped by generals and officers who were raised to the top by Soviet power. She was not a clash of professionalism and stupidity. They were helped by officers and generals who were considered the best and who, based on the results of their service in peacetime, were elevated to the elite of the Red Army. And vice versa, where the officers and generals of the Red Army did not betray, the German military genius showed his own helplessness. The 5th Army of the Southwestern Front is the clearest example of this. And then there were Tula, Voronezh, Stalingrad. Stalingrad is difficult to erase from history. There was the hero city of Tula, which was attacked by the workers of the Tula factories as part of the Workers' Regiment and the Tula residents, the paramilitary guards of the factories, as part of the NKVD regiment. There is no parade in Tula in 2010. They don't like Tula.
And they don’t like Voronezh either. Although Voronezh in the defensive phase was the second Stalingrad.
After the revelation of the problem of treason in 1941, the question of who fought with whom becomes much more relevant than it still appears. And this is an internal question. Who fought whom in our own country? He fought in such a way that the craters from that war are not equal to this day. Do mental wounds affect not only veterans, but also their grandchildren? — In contrast to the no less cruel World War, which was no less cruel in terms of events at the front, which for Russia is “forgotten.” The Great Patriotic War turned out to be more terrible, but more meaningful
This will have to be dealt with. So that there is no “end of history”, which has recently become too often mentioned.
We have to figure it out so that a person has a future.
Final note.
The proposed article takes into account the current state of mind. I did not make it scientific - with links and citations. And the current reader is disgusted, and yet everything can be found on the Internet. Everything is still easy to find using keywords. Just in case (substitutions in the texts - and we are not immune from this), in the near future I will try to provide the article with citations and the texts of operational reports, combat orders, quotes from memoirs - in separate Appendices.
But for now I’m in a hurry to lay out exactly the considerations that I outlined and move on to equally important tasks. There are a lot of them now. So many.
And they also need to be dealt with urgently - so that the “end of history” does not come.
The Red Army at the stage of building a socialist state
With the end of the Civil War and the formation of the Soviet Union, the role of the Red Army in the life of the Soviet state increased significantly. Military units and formations that went through the crucible of the Civil War received honorary names and battle banners. Belonging to such a military unit was indicated on insignia. Crossed rifles appear on the buttonholes of rifle units. Cavalrymen began to wear buttonholes with crossed swords. Military personnel who served in the Red Army for more than one year wore insignia trimmed with silver tinsel.
Not only the appearance of the Red Army soldiers, the style of uniforms and equipment of the soldiers changed. The training of the Red Army underwent significant changes, and the army structure began to change.
In 1922, infantry and cavalry units, which were the basis of the Workers' and Peasants' Army, made up 2/3 of the payroll of the armed forces. Military-technical branches accounted for only 10-15% of the total number of military formations. Despite its large numbers, the Red Army did not have sufficient technical resources. Machine guns and other automatic small arms were available in insufficient quantities. Motor transport was almost completely absent from the troops. The artillery of the RRKA at that time was entirely horse-drawn. The post-war devastation and deep economic crisis did not allow talking about the mechanization of army units.
The process of deep modernization of the Red Army began with the advent of the first five-year plans. The existing army command structures have changed. In addition to the old departments, intelligence, logistics and military-technical support departments appeared. At the end of the 20s, a plan was outlined to transform the Red Army into a powerful and full-fledged army of the modern type. Instead of the numerous cavalry that dominated the fields of the Civil War, the first regular armored units appeared. The Red Air Force became a serious and formidable fighting force. Old captured biplanes from the First World War were replaced by new and modern combat aircraft, fighters and bombers.
Almost all branches of the Red Army troops had their own combat regulations regulating the order, features of formation and conduct of combat operations. In just three years, 1924, 25 and 1929, three Charters of the armored forces of the Red Army were adopted. The RKKA rifle corps and cavalry units lived and operated according to the 1927 Battle Regulations. In 1929, the first combat manual of the Red Army Air Force appeared.
Based on the directives of senior military leadership and combat manuals, concepts for interaction of troops on the battlefield were developed. For the first time, the organized use of tanks in cooperation with infantry and the real possibilities of combat use of artillery and aviation became apparent. The strategic and operational-tactical command of units and subunits of the Red Army was under the authority of the Headquarters of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, which in 1935 was transformed into the General Staff of the Red Army - the main and main governing body of the army and navy of the Soviet State.
By the early 1930s, Soviet industry, in the shortest possible time and at the cost of titanic efforts, managed to organize the production of many types of infantry weapons, small arms and artillery ammunition. The emergence of new types of artillery pieces and the modernization of old artillery systems made the artillery of the Red Army the main striking force on the battlefield. In addition to field artillery divisions, breakthrough artillery divisions and regiments equipped with heavy guns are being created.
With the restoration of the industrial base in the USSR, its own design school became more active. Design bureaus and departments involved in the development of military equipment began to appear in the country on the basis of the main enterprises of the mechanical engineering industry. A tank building school was organized practically from scratch. The captured French Renault tanks were replaced by machine-gun and cannon armored vehicles of the BA series, MS-1 and T-12 tanks. If back in 1929 there were mechanized troops in the structure of the Red Army, then already in 1936, armored forces were formed in their place. Red Army T-26 and BT tanks have become some of the best vehicles in the world. In terms of the number of tanks, the Soviet Union was the undisputed leader. Along with the organization of serial production of combat-ready armored vehicles in the USSR, military schools were created on the basis of cavalry and infantry courses. Their task was to educate and train commanders of armored vehicles.
The tank brigades created in the mid-30s became the basis for the subsequent reform of this type of troops. On the basis of the brigades, tank divisions of the Red Army were created, which were part of mechanized corps and larger military formations.
The development of Soviet combat aviation followed a similar path. The USSR created its own pilot training school, which was based on the domestic aircraft building school. Biplane fighters I-5, I-15 and I-153 are beginning to be supplied to the Red Air Force. Heavy bomber squadrons equipped with SB and TB-3 bombers become the striking force of the Air Force. In 1939, instead of a brigade organization in the Air Force of the Red Army, they switched to a regimental and divisional organization. Right up until the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Air Force was considered the most numerous and combat-ready in the world.
Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated June 5, 1941 to the composition of the active army
of the fronts
and command and control bodies of the fleets that directed the preparation and conduct of operations
were included formations, formations, units
(ships), rear and other units and institutions that were part of these fronts and fleets while they were performing tasks within the rear border of the active front and the operating zone of the fleet (including on the shore at a distance of up to 100 km from water edge).
Air defense troops
,
formations and long-range aviation units
that were not part of the active fronts were classified as active army only during the period of their direct participation in hostilities and performing combat support tasks within the rear boundaries of the active fronts.
The size and combat composition of the active army changed depending on the scale of the armed struggle, the intensity of military operations, the military-economic capabilities of the state and a number of other factors. Its greatest numbers were reached in July - September 1943 ( 6816
thousand people).
The decisive role in the course and outcome of military operations belonged to the operational-strategic formations of the Red Army and Red Fleet - fronts and fleets
.
With the beginning of the war, 5 front-line formations were created on the basis of border military districts. They were intended to solve strategic and operational-strategic tasks in certain strategic and operational areas by conducting strategic and front-line offensive and defensive operations.
In connection with the growing tension of the armed struggle, the increase in the number of operational directions and the general strategic situation on the Soviet-German front, a number of new front-line formations were created. , 37 fronts of various names were formed during the war.
, 25 of them had one formation each, 12 had 2, one (Bryansky) had 3. The formation of front-line formations, as a rule, was regulated by directives and orders of the Headquarters, orders of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR.
Military and political leadership of the troops of the fronts (armies) was entrusted to military councils
(military councils were not created in the air armies) - collegial bodies, which included the commander of the troops (chairman), a representative of political bodies (sometimes called the 1st member of the Military Council), the chief of staff, the 1st deputy commander and other responsible persons. The military councils were fully responsible to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Soviet government for the condition and actions of the troops entrusted to them.
Front field control system
(army) included command, headquarters, political department (department), commanders (chiefs) of military branches, special troops and services with the corresponding headquarters (directorates, departments), chief of logistics with headquarters and logistics services, personnel department (department), financial authority, military prosecutor's office and tribunal.
The most common form of strategic action during the war was the operation of a group of fronts
(strategic operation).
As a rule, in accordance with the plans of the Supreme Command Headquarters, the front carried out operational and strategic tasks in the operation of a group of fronts. During the Lvov-Sandomierz strategic offensive operation of 1944, the 1st Ukrainian Front independently solved the strategic problem.
Combat composition of the front
was determined depending on the tasks assigned to him, the importance and operational capacity of the areas in which he acted and other conditions.
The front included
several army formations, aviation, individual combined arms formations, formations and units of various branches of the military and special forces, as well as units and institutions of the front rear. In addition, the front could be reinforced by various formations and reserve units of the Supreme High Command.
During the war, in addition to the fronts (armies), the active army included other formations of an operational (operational-strategic) scale: the Moscow defense zone, the Crimean troops, the Volkhov and Leningrad groups of forces of the Leningrad Front, the Zemland group of forces, the Courland group of forces of the Leningrad Front
and others. The Moscow Defense Zone occupies a special place among them in terms of its significance for the outcome of the armed struggle and the duration of its existence.
During the war years, new organizational units of the country's air defense forces were created and successfully tested. The largest of them are air defense fronts.
These operational-strategic formations were intended to protect large administrative and political centers, the most important industrial areas, communications and other strategic objects in the deep rear and in the theater of military operations from enemy air attacks.
During the Great Patriotic War, 8 front-line air defense formations were created, 5 of them were part of the active army. The formation of the first such association (the Moscow Air Defense Front) in the spring of 1942 was caused by the need to increase the effectiveness of the fight of the Soviet air defense forces against the air enemy in conditions unfavorable for the Red Army.
The disaggregation of the Air Defense Forces of the country in 1943 - the creation of the Western and Eastern Air Defense Fronts - was dictated, on the one hand, by the tasks of air defense of objects in the liberated territory and front-line communications, on the other, by the need to maintain high combat readiness of the Air Defense Forces in the deep rear.
Reorganization of the Air Defense Forces
territory of the country in 1944 (the creation of new air defense fronts) made it possible to timely organize air defense of large administrative, political and industrial centers in the liberated territory, increase the degree of efficiency in managing air defense formations and ensure their close interaction with the advancing troops.
The Navy made a great contribution to achieving Victory
During the Great Patriotic War, the active army included three operational-strategic formations of the Navy: the
Northern, Red Banner Baltic and Black Sea fleets.
The branches of the naval forces included: surface ships, submarines, naval aviation, marines and coastal defense.
During the war, the Navy conducted active and decisive combat operations to destroy enemy fleet forces and transports, assisted the coastal groups of the Red Army in defensive and offensive operations, defended naval bases and major ports, covered the sea flanks of ground forces, landed troops, and blocked from the sea and contributed to the destruction of encircled enemy groups, reliably guarded military and national economic transportation, and, in contact with the Allied naval forces, provided external communications connecting the northern and Far Eastern ports of the USSR with their ports.
Operational formations
during the war years there were combined arms, tank, sapper, air armies and air defense armies. The combined arms formations bore the brunt of the hostilities.
Combined arms armies
(main operational formations) were intended to carry out operational tasks as part of the fronts or independently. They included several formations and individual units of various types of troops and special forces. The organization and combat composition of combined arms armies underwent a number of changes during the war. At the beginning, they consisted of corps (rifle, mechanized, cavalry) and divisions (rifle, tank and mixed aviation). In 1941, due to the difficulty of managing cumbersome army formations and large losses, a transition was made to small armies (5-6 divisions each) without corps directorates. In 1942-1943. In connection with the gradual saturation of the armies with various weapons and military equipment, the increase in the number of individual units and formations, which became difficult to manage without intermediate links, the corps control link was restored. At the same time, cannon, anti-tank fighter, anti-aircraft artillery and mortar regiments were introduced into the staff of the combined arms army.
In 1944, a cannon artillery brigade and a separate tank regiment were included in the army's combat strength. From the second half of the war, the composition of the combined arms army became more stable and usually included 3-4 rifle corps (7-12 divisions), 3-4 artillery and mortar regiments or an artillery brigade, a separate tank regiment, and special forces units.
Each combined arms army
had its own number or name. The most powerful combined arms armies in terms of their combat composition were called shock armies. They were intended to attack in the direction of the main attack of the front. For the courage shown and massive heroism of the personnel of 11 combined arms armies they became guards.
On June 27, 1941, by a joint decision of the Military Council of the Leningrad Front and the Leningrad City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Leningrad People's Militia Army was created (commanded by Major General A.I. Subbotin). Its Military Council and headquarters were entrusted with the formation and training of irregular formations and units. Until the end of September, the army gave the front 10 divisions of the people's militia, 7 of which were subsequently transformed into rifle divisions of the regular army. During the war, the active army included 80 army formations (1st - 11th Guards; 1st - 5th Shock; 3rd - 14th; 16th; 18th - 24th; 26th - 34th; 37th - 44th; 46th - 70th; Primorsky and reserve Southern Front Army). Many of them had more than one formation.
The main means of developing success
In the offensive operations of the front forces during the Great Patriotic War, tank armies were used. They first began to be created in 1942. The 3rd and 5th armies were formed in May-June, and the 1st and 4th mixed armies were formed in July. The approximate typical composition of the formation was as follows: 3 tank corps, a separate tank brigade, 1-2 rifle divisions and a number of separate units. The actual composition of each army was determined by the Headquarters directive on its formation, taking into account the specific situation. The experience of the combat use of mixed tank armies showed that the inclusion of rifle and tank formations with various maneuver capabilities made it difficult to use armies in combat and control troops. Therefore, in January 1943 - January 1944. 6 tank armies of homogeneous composition were formed, usually consisting of 1-2 tank and 1 mechanized corps, a separate tank and 1-2 self-propelled artillery brigades, a number of artillery, anti-aircraft artillery, engineering and other formations and units. According to the state, the tank army had about 800 tanks and self-propelled artillery units and up to 740 guns, mortars and rocket artillery combat vehicles.
Being a powerful means of the Supreme Command Headquarters, tank armies were included in the fronts that operated in the most important directions and solved the main tasks in the operations of front groups. In most offensive operations, they formed mobile front groups and usually operated in isolation from combined arms armies at a distance of 10 to 80 km or more.
In defense, tank armies were used to carry out counterattacks and hold important lines, both independently and in cooperation with combined arms armies (rifle formations).
Tank armies
participated in all the most important strategic and front-line operations. Their actions deserved high praise from the Supreme High Command. All six tank formations ended the war as guards.
For the purpose of centralized and advance construction of strategic rear defensive lines and contours of large cities on the expected directions of enemy attack during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. operational associations of engineering troops of the Red Army - sapper armies - were created.
The basis for their formation was the GKO decree of October 13, 1941.
In November-December, 10 sapper armies were formed, subordinate to the chief of the engineering troops of the Red Army. As a rule, they included 2-4 sapper brigades.
In addition to the construction of defensive lines, many sapper brigades of the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 7th and 8th armies, which came under direct subordination to the active fronts (February 1942), were involved in engineering support for military operations of the troops: installing mine-explosive barriers, making passages, demining areas, construction of column tracks, roads and bridges, establishing crossings.
At the same time, engineering associations were the main base for training engineering units for the active army. In addition, they served as one of the sources of recruitment for newly formed rifle formations.
Sapper armies
successfully completed the tasks assigned to them. At the same time, their construction and positional profile did not contribute to effective active defense. For this reason, as well as due to the need to replenish the rifle troops, the sapper armies were disbanded in August 1942, their departments were reorganized into departments for the defensive construction of fronts.
In May-November 1942, 17 operational formations of the Air Force - air armies - were created on the basis of the aviation of the fronts and combined arms armies. They were intended for massive support of the actions of front troops in the main operational directions and for conducting air operations.
The armies were part of the fronts and were subordinate to their commanders, and in a special regard and when participating in air operations, to the commander of the Red Army Air Force.
Into the air armies
included fighter, attack, bomber, mixed aviation divisions and separate aviation regiments.
The combat composition of the associations was not constant. Depending on the nature and importance of the tasks performed, the air army could have from 3-4 air divisions to 8-9 air corps, 10 separate air divisions and several air regiments and number from 200-1000 aircraft in 1942-1943. up to 1500 (in individual operations 2500-3000) in 1944-1945.
The air armies of the fronts operated mainly together with ground forces.
At the end of 1944, the 18th Air Army was formed on the basis of long-range aviation control and formations.
She was subordinate to the commander of the Red Army Air Force.
The creation of air defense armies during the Great Patriotic War was due to the increased role of air defense in the strategic actions of the Red Army, the large spatial scope of the fight against the air enemy, the increase in the number of formations, air defense units and the need that arose in connection with this to ensure reliable control of air defense forces and means in operational scale, better organization and implementation of interaction with combined arms formations.
Air Defense Army
were intended to provide cover from air strikes for large administrative-political and industrial-economic centers (regions), important communications and military installations, as well as troop groups.
During the war, 7 air defense armies were formed, 4 of them were part of the active army. The basis for the creation of the first two air defense armies (Leningrad and Baku) was the GKO decree of April 5, 1942. The timing of formation, composition, operational boundaries and tasks of the associations were determined by orders of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR and directives of the General Staff of the Red Army.
During the Great Patriotic War, in addition to the fleets, the Navy included sea, river and lake military flotillas.
These operational formations were intended to carry out tasks in one of the operational directions independently or in cooperation with formations of the Navy and formations of ground forces.
Naval flotillas
were both independent and part of fleets. They consisted of several formations and units of the same or different surface ships, submarines, aviation, marine and coastal artillery units, as well as various support services.
The river and lake flotillas included formations of river ships of various classes, aviation, artillery and marine units, as well as support and maintenance services. River and lake flotillas assisted ground forces in conducting combat operations in river basins and lake areas, destroying enemy ships, providing military transportation and performing other tasks.
Source: Institute of Military History of the Russian Defense Ministry. “Fronts, fleets, armies, flotillas of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945,” Directory. Moscow, Kuchkovo Pole Publishing House. 2003
Long story
The history of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army is an eventful entire period in the history of the Soviet state. Despite its rather young age, the Red Army is an organized armed force, rich in its traditions and glorious history. There were moments in her full of tragedy and despair. Political repressions in the Red Army of 1936-39, which covered all army structures from the very bottom to the very top, caused significant damage to the country's combat capability.
Despite this, the Red Army was able to withstand with honor and dignity the tests of fire and sword that befell it during the harsh years of World War II. Formally, the history of the Red Army ended on February 25, 1946, when, by order of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army was reorganized into the Soviet Army, which became the successor to the armed forces of the world's first socialist state.
Dark days of the 34th Army
The counterattack of Soviet troops near Staraya Russa in the Novgorod region on August 12–25, 1941 is well known to domestic history buffs. The struggle for this ancient Russian city was extremely dramatic. Did the Red Army have a chance of success in this battle?
The setting of Staraya Russa and the score of the Soviet symphony
By the beginning of August 1941, the Staraya Russa area was defended by the 11th Army of Vasily Ivanovich Morozov, which was part of the North-Western Front. At this moment, south of Lake Ilmen, the following situation developed. Christian Hansen's X Army Corps advanced east. His divisions were pushing back the seriously battered units of V. I. Morozov’s 11th Army and were ready to capture Staraya Russa. The II Army Corps operated further south, near the town of Kholm. Between these two corps of the 16th Army, a gap almost 65 km wide opened, into which the 368th Infantry Regiment from the security division was deployed.
X Army Corps commander Christian Hansen
On August 9, attacks by the X Army Corps forced Soviet troops to abandon Staraya Russa, which was a major success for the enemy. At this point, the corps consisted of two full-strength infantry divisions. The 30th Infantry Division of Kurt von Tippelskirch was located to the east and in the area of Staraya Russa itself. To the south, Theodor von Wrede's 290th Infantry Division operated. By the beginning of the Soviet counterattack, the corps still included the 126th Infantry Division of General Paul Laux (only two regiments, artillery, etc.). The main task of the X Corps was to push back the troops of the Northwestern Front to the east, across the Lovat River.
Already on August 10, Ernst Busch's 16th Army began to actively operate in three divergent directions. The XXVIII and I Army Corps subordinate to him began to break through the defenses of the 48th Army of the North-Western Front. But soon the German command began to notice more and more obvious signs of the impending Soviet offensive.
Indeed, a brilliant plan was born in the depths of Soviet headquarters. It was assumed that the troops of the Northwestern Front would be able to strike in converging directions and ultimately destroy the enemy. The 48th and 11th armies were also supposed to participate in the counterattack. The main part in the planned symphony was to be played by the 34th Army of Major General Kuzma Maksimovich Kachanov.
Unfortunately, the deployment and offensive of the new army was poorly prepared. Intelligence was unable to identify the composition of the German group or the exact location of enemy units. For Soviet commanders, the battlefield was hidden by the “fog of war.” Intelligence seriously made a mistake in identifying enemy forces. Another problem was the training of personnel. The army divisions were formed in such a way that many officers who served in various structures of the NKVD ended up in command positions, and the division commanders of the 34th Army themselves came from the depths of this People's Commissariat. The army was relatively well equipped with personnel (more than 50,000 people in four rifle divisions), vehicles, and had a fairly large number of automatic weapons: light and heavy machine guns, but the situation with anti-aircraft artillery was not good.
Despite all the numerous shortcomings, the leadership of the front and the armies themselves were demanded to attack as quickly as possible. The 11th and 34th armies played the main role in the counterattack that began. The headquarters of the 48th Army lost control of the situation, and the Germans quickly developed a breakthrough to the north, towards Novgorod and Leningrad.
The position of the 11th Army troops east of Staraya Russa. pamyat-naroda.ru
The beginning of the counterattack and mistakes on both sides
The offensive of the 34th Army began on August 12. German intelligence discovered the appearance of Soviet forces. Despite this, the troops of the X Corps continued to move east and crossed the Redya River south of Staraya Russa. The Germans pushed back the troops of Morozov's 11th Army, partially encircling them.
The offensive continued the next day. The 11th Army suffered another defeat, and the Germans reached the Lovat River east of Staraya Russa. On this day, the enemy command was surprised to discover that the southern flank of the corps was under attack. The 34th Army moved in practically empty space and struck right at the junction of two German corps, and its left flank did not meet the enemy at all. The troops advanced for almost two days, practically without firing. However, command and control of the army's troops was extremely difficult from the very beginning: there was an acute lack of communications equipment. Kachanov assumed that he would be able to get behind enemy lines west of Staraya Russa. But at the same time, neither he nor the higher command had any idea what forces the enemy had concentrated and where exactly. They understood no better where and how their own troops operated.
The Germans, quickly realizing what was happening, began to cover their open flank in every possible way. German units were thrown into battle from the march, and the Dno-Staraya Russa railway had to be defended by combined combat groups. But, if we take into account that the Soviet commanders lacked tactical skills, but had problems with the supply of ammunition, the enemy could create a strong defense here with relatively small units. And here Ernst Busch himself made a mistake. He did not fully understand what forces the Soviet command had accumulated.
Report card of the headquarters of the North-Western Front. The position of the 11th and 34th armies before the start of the counterattack. pamyat-naroda.ru
On August 14, the Soviet command suddenly found itself, if not two steps away, then very close to success: on this day, the advancing Soviet units cut the railway west of Staraya Russa. Hansen immediately reported to the headquarters of the 16th Army that he feared encirclement. It cannot be said that the Germans were at a loss in this situation. Very quickly, two regiments of the 126th Infantry Division were thrown into battle, stopping the advance of the Soviet forces. In addition, the offensive of the 290th division seriously battered the units of Morozov’s army that fell under it.
The Soviet command did not appreciate the scale of the opportunities opening up to it. The “fog of war” turned out to be too thick. It was unable to turn all the mistakes it made against its enemy.
German superiority...
On the afternoon of August 15, the command of the X Corps assessed the condition of its troops as rather unimportant and decided to withdraw the corps across the Polist River. Only on this day did the enemy appreciate the scope of the Soviet offensive. By evening, it was decided to transfer the LVI motorized corps to the same area south of Lake Ilmen. Initially, there was talk of transferring also a tank division, but in reality the Germans made do with two motorized divisions here.
General position of the troops of Army Group North at the beginning of the Soviet counterattack. From the NARA collection
By this time, there was already a plan to attack Soviet troops in converging directions, from the north and south. The troops of the 34th Army advancing to the south were being drawn into a trap. Kachanov’s headquarters had already lost control of the troops, which began to be subjected to massive bombing. The headquarters tried to force the headquarters of the North-Western Front to improve control, but this was impossible: the Germans had already concentrated the main forces of the X Corps in such a way that they were able to cover the road to Staraya Russa, for which they had to retreat beyond Polist on the night of 15-16 August. Units of the 30th Infantry Division, transferred in time to the west, to the Gorki station, allowed the Germans to save the situation. Although the Soviet troops even managed to take this station, the 46th Infantry Regiment, which arrived after a grueling march, drove them out of there and liberated the railway.
Superiority in maneuver and control was on the enemy's side. The Germans also surpassed the Soviet units in firepower: in addition to the “flying artillery” of the VIII Air Corps, the X Army Corps received two regiments of rocket mortars.
...and German successes
Fighting continued for several days. The headquarters of the 16th Army was waiting for the concentration of Erich von Manstein's LVI Corps, which was to go on the offensive on August 19. In the meantime, on August 18, the strongest blows of the Red Army fell on units of the 126th and 290th infantry divisions. According to German estimates, the Soviet side attacked rather erratically. Meanwhile, the plan for the German counterattack had already been approved. It was supposed to begin by destroying the troops of the 34th Army south of the railway. Strikes in converging directions were to be carried out by the 30th Infantry Division and the SS Division "Totenkopf". However, due to the start of the Soviet offensive, this plan failed. The German defense was broken through at Vyachkovo, and corps headquarters began to pull additional forces there.
German soldiers are photographed on the armor of a Soviet KV-1 tank destroyed near Staraya Russa. waralbum.ru
Perhaps the 34th Army lost its last small chance for success on August 19. On this day, its units occupied the area of Tuleblya station. But at that moment the hammer fell on the anvil: Manstein’s corps began to attack. The 3rd Motorized Division achieved the greatest success. By August 20, Manstein's troops reached the Polist River. Troop control in the 34th Army simply fell apart, and accurate data on the position of forces stopped flowing to headquarters. Meanwhile, the Germans were advancing and had already begun to turn to the northeast, entering the flank of the troops of the 34th Army.
On August 20, when Manstein’s corps had advanced quite far to the east and had already reached Polisti, Kachanov’s army was still trying to advance. The next day, Hansen’s corps also went on the offensive. Its parts were crushed by Soviet troops, caught between a rock and a hard place. By August 23, German troops reached the Lovat River. The enemy headquarters believed that they were able to destroy most of the 34th Army. Permission for her departure was received too late, and it happened in an extremely disorganized manner. The divisions suffered heavy losses and were essentially simply destroyed. Even before this, Pavel Alekseevich Kurochkin arrived on the Northwestern Front, who, after the failure of the 34th Army, replaced Pyotr Petrovich Sobennikov as front commander.
A German view of the course of the battles at Staraya Russa. From the NARA collection
For the enemy, the battle for Staraya Russa ended on August 24. The X Army Corps reported taking 6,000 prisoners between 12 and 23 August. By August 26, all that was left of the 34th Army was literally horns and legs. Its divisions barely numbered two or three thousand people.
It must be admitted that the task assigned to the Soviet troops on the eve of the counterattack did not correspond to the current situation from the very beginning. More precisely, in order to carry out this large-scale plan, it was necessary to have much more combat-ready troops on hand. Yes, the fact of the transfer of the 3rd motorized division took place, and this affected the enemy’s plans for Leningrad: the advance of German tanks was suspended. But at the same time, the transfer of the new XXXIX Corps accelerated, and the appearance of troops of the 3rd Panzer Group near Leningrad turned out to be simply fatal.
Vyacheslav Mosunov
/
Crisis on Volkhov
Strike by infantry formations on off-road and water obstacles: crossing of German troops across the Volkhov River in October 1941
- WWII
- USSR
- Germany
Vyacheslav Mosunov
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Unsuccessful push to Novgorod
The end of the blitzkrieg in the northwestern direction: the offensive of the German LVI motorized corps and the Soviet counterattack near Soltsy in mid-July 1941
- WWII
- USSR
- Germany
Vyacheslav Mosunov
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Small victory at Voybokalo
The collapse of the German operation "Ladoga": one of the episodes of the bloody battle for Leningrad in November - December 1941
- WWII
- USSR
- Germany
Sources and literature:
- Documents of the 34th Army from the collection of the People's Memory website.
- Documents of Army Group North, 16th Army and X Army Corps from the NARA collection.
- Mamonov, O.V. Stopped blitzkrieg / O.V. Mamonov. — Veliky Novgorod, 2011.
