In mid-July 1941, the situation at the front for Soviet army continued to be unfavorable. The fighting took place 120 km from Leningrad, in the Smolensk region and on the outskirts of Kyiv. The enemy has created a direct threat of the capture of these large administrative centers. Only in the north (Arctic and Karelia) and in the south (Moldova) the advance of the Nazi troops was insignificant.
The Soviet troops suffered serious losses, needed to be reorganized and replenished with people and weapons. In the meantime, it was becoming obvious that the industry, due to the beginning of the relocation of many enterprises from threatened areas, would not be able to satisfy the growing needs of the Armed Forces in the near future.
As part of the Soviet army in mid-July, there were 212 divisions and 3 rifle brigades ( IVI. Documents and materials, inv. No. 33, l. 82a.). Of these, only 90 were fully staffed.
The lack of military equipment and weapons, the formation of many reserve units and formations, as well as the highly maneuverable nature of military operations, made the Soviet command face the need to make major changes in organizational structure troops.
On July 15, the Headquarters, in a directive letter to the commanders-in-chief of the troops of strategic directions, commanders of fronts, armies and military districts, pointed out the need, at the first opportunity, gradually, without prejudice to current operations, to prepare a transition to a system of small armies "of five to a maximum of six divisions without corps directorates and with direct subordination of divisions to the commander of the army "( IVI. Documents and materials, inv. No. 77, l. 59.). The same letter outlined the decision to disband the mechanized corps and change the regular structure of rifle, cavalry and aviation formations and units.
According to the staff approved on July 29, the size of the rifle division was reduced by 30 percent, the number of artillery weapons in it - by 52 percent, vehicles - by 64 percent. The combat capabilities of a rifle division in terms of firepower and maneuverability were greatly reduced. Compared to the German infantry division, it now had 1.5 times less people, 1.4 times less small arms, 2.1 times less guns and mortars ( IVI. Documents and materials, inv. No. 5. ll. 242, 243, 704.). In fact, there were even fewer personnel and weapons in the rifle division.
The situation with tank, cavalry and aviation formations and artillery units was no better.
Mechanized corps, in order to restore and maintain their combat capability, required a large number of tanks, and the industry could not yet provide them. Therefore, these corps were disbanded. The lack of armored vehicles did not allow the preservation of individual tank divisions.
The main tactical formation of the armor tank troops the brigade became, and the cavalry - a division of about 3 thousand people. In aviation, three-regiment air divisions were replaced by two-regiment ones with a decrease in the number of aircraft in the regiments from 60 to 30, and then to 22.
Artillery also underwent serious organizational changes. The understaffing of the materiel of the anti-tank artillery forced the brigades to be disbanded and instead of them to create regiments, first of five batteries, and then of four batteries, 16 guns each. Cannon and howitzer regiments of the reserve of the High Command (RGK) were transferred to reduced staffing. In this regard, their fire capabilities decreased by 2 times.
The forced transition to the formation of units and formations with a reduced number of weapons, almost without mechanized vehicles, sharply reduced their combat power and maneuverability.
The lack of weapons and the resulting reorganization of the troops forced commanders of all levels to look for appropriate tactical methods of conducting combat operations, new forms and methods of using military branches and various kinds weapons. Thus, for the more expedient and centralized use of the limited aviation forces, reserve aviation groups began to be created in August, subordinate to the Supreme High Command. They solved combat missions on their own or were recruited to reinforce the air forces of the fronts. In order to more effective application Artillery in combat and operations, the assignment of tasks to artillery units and the responsibility for their fulfillment were assigned to artillery commanders, who were appointed deputies of combined arms commanders and commanders.
The reorganization of troops at the tactical and operational levels in accordance with the requirements of the directive letter from the Headquarters did not take place as a one-act event. In contrast to the restructuring of the highest military command and control bodies and the central apparatus, carried out in a relatively short time, it continued almost until the end of 1941.
In connection with the increased need for command personnel, the system of their training has changed significantly. The work of military schools was completely restructured. At military academies, schools, headquarters of the fronts and armies, a wide network of short-term courses was deployed. The system of training junior officers of the Soviet Army was expanded.
The need to make up for combat losses, recruiting a large number of new military formations for the front and creating reserves required the call-up of additional contingents of Soviet citizens. In August, the mobilization of those liable for military service in 1890-1904 was announced. and conscripts born before 1923. The size of the Armed Forces also grew due to the creation of a people's militia, which was a special expression of the patriotism of the Soviet people - a manifestation of a sense of high civic responsibility for the fate of the Motherland.
Despite the deep advance within the country, the Nazis in the initial period of the war, faced with the increasing day by day resistance of the Soviet troops, could not defeat the main forces of the Soviet Army in the western regions of the USSR, that is, solve the immediate task of the Barbarossa plan.
By mid-July, the enemy had 182 divisions on the Soviet-German front. Fourteen divisions were in the reserve of the high command of the German ground forces.
The fascist troops continued to carry out the tasks assigned to them in the directive on strategic concentration and deployment. The closest of them were: for the German army group "North" and the Finnish armies - the capture of Leningrad, for the army group "Center" - the defeat of Soviet troops in the Smolensk-Moscow direction and for the army group "South" - the capture of Kiev and the encirclement of Soviet troops on Pravoberezhnaya Ukraine. At the same time, Army Group Center was supposed to surround the armies of the Western Front with bilateral coverage and, having broken their "last organized resistance ... open their way to Moscow" ( F. Halder. Military diary, vol. 3, book. 1, page 101.).
Advancing with the main forces of Army Group Center on Moscow, the Nazis hoped, after mastering the interfluve of the Western Dvina and Dnieper, to send its mobile troops - the 3rd Panzer Group of General G. Goth - to help Army Group North or to the east to strike at Moscow , and the 2nd tank group of General G. Guderian - in the south or southeast direction to support the offensive of Army Group South.
The Finnish armies, which went on the offensive on July 10, were to advance on both sides of Lake Ladoga and assist the German troops in capturing Leningrad. At the same time, they were entrusted with the task of capturing Soviet Karelia.
The Soviet command, in order to prevent the further advance of the enemy inland, continued to take measures to stabilize the front and strengthen the army in the field. Having timely determined that the western direction was the decisive one, where the enemy was rushing through Smolensk to Moscow, it sent up to 80 percent of all troops advanced from the depths of the country there. Most of them, who arrived in the first half of July, were already fighting in the beginning of the battle of Smolensk.
By order of the Headquarters of July 14, 1941, to ensure the junction between the troops of the North-Western and Western directions from Staraya Russa to Olenino, the 29th and 30th armies were deployed, consisting of 10 divisions, and to the east - in the areas of Torzhok, Rzhev, Volokolamsk, Kalinin, Ruza, Mozhaisk, Maloyaroslavets, Naro-Fominsk, the formation of the 31st and 32nd armies was ending. Together with the troops of the previously advanced 24th and 28th armies, they united in the front of the reserve armies with the task of "taking the line Staraya Russa, Ostashkov, Bely, Istomino, Yelnya, Bryansk and prepare for a stubborn defense "( IVI. Documents and materials, inv. No. 77, ll. 55-57.). Here, to the east of the main defensive line, which ran along the Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers and had already been broken through by the enemy, a second line of defense was being created.
On July 18, the Headquarters decided to deploy another front on the distant approaches to Moscow - the front of the Mozhaisk line of defense under the command of General P. A. Artemyev. It included three armies, formed from divisions of the border and internal troops NKVD and the Moscow people's militia (33rd, 34th) and from the front of the reserve armies (32nd). The front received the task of preparing and defending the line west of the Volokolamsk, Mozhaisk, Kaluga line ( IVI. Documents and materials, inv. No. 77, ll. 65-66.).
Similar activities, although on a smaller scale, were carried out in the North-West and South-West strategic directions.
In the course of strategic defense, the Soviet Army had to wear down the enemy strike groupings, stop their advance and prepare for offensive operations. Soviet soldiers were determined to fulfill the order of the Motherland. The military councils of the fronts, armies, fleets and flotillas, commanders, political agencies, party and Komsomol organizations launched a great deal of work to improve the moral and political training of soldiers, their psychological stability and tenacity in defense. The advanced experience of troop combat activity was widely promoted and introduced into the practice of units and formations. Tank destroyer detachments were created from the most courageous and experienced fighters, commanders and political workers, 40-60 percent of the personnel of these detachments were communists and Komsomol members ( MO archive, f. 208, op. 2526, d. 46, l. 204.). In party political work, much attention was paid to familiarizing the newly arrived in the part of the replenishment with heroic deeds Soviet soldiers, with the nature of the enemy's actions, with his tactics, characteristic methods of using tanks, aircraft, automatic weapons; mobilization of young fighters for the fastest mastery of the most effective methods of fighting the enemy, strict implementation of the order of the Headquarters of July 14, 1941 on the preservation of weapons.
The Communist Party, using a variety of forms and methods of political work in the army and navy, strengthened the faith in soldiers and commanders in victory, in their ability to defeat the enemy. Military councils, commanders, commissars and political agencies explained to the personnel the just nature of the Patriotic War, exposed fascism, the aggressive aspirations of the aggressor and instilled in the soldiers hatred for him, readiness to overcome all difficulties in the name of victory. The educational work was based on the requirements of the GKO resolution of July 16, the order of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command of August 16 and the directives of the main political departments of the Soviet Army and Navy to strengthen discipline in the troops ( IVI. Documents and materials, inv. No. 5456, ll. 1-2; MO archive, f. 32, op. 795436, d. 1, ll. 191 - 192; op. 920265, d. 3, l. 200.). At party and Komsomol meetings of subdivisions and units, meetings of the party activists of formations, at meetings of the commanding staff, specific measures were discussed and outlined to ensure the vanguard role of communists and Komsomol members in the performance of combat missions, strengthening order, and fighting cowards and alarmists. These decisions were persistently implemented. On the pages of the military press, materials on loyalty to military duty and the Soviet Motherland were regularly published, and the requirements of the military oath and military regulations were explained.
Due to the fact that individual commanders and political workers replaced political and educational work with administration, the People's Commissar of Defense issued an order on October 4 in which he demanded a radical improvement in the education of soldiers, the strengthening of discipline by methods of persuasion, and the full deployment of agitation and propaganda work. Measures were taken to improve the training of propagandists, to replenish the ranks of agitators with experienced, politically literate soldiers.
The ranks of the army and navy communists were replenished through general civil and party mobilizations and the admission of the best fighters and commanders to the party. In accordance with the resolutions of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of June 27 and 29, 1941, eight party mobilizations were carried out in the first 2.5 months of the war, as a result of which the army and navy received about 94 thousand political fighters (60 percent of the communists and 40 percent Komsomol members). 58 thousand of them joined the active army, the rest were sent to newly formed units, to military courses and schools ( N. Kirsanov. Party mobilization to the front during the Great Patriotic War. M., 1972, pp. 39-41.). As the political department of the Western Front noted, the political fighters joined "in parts of the front in the most difficult moments of the fighting ... and were a great force in strengthening the stability of our troops" ( MO archive, f. 208, op. 2526, d. 25, ll. 282-283.).
In the active army, the influx of applications to party organizations for admission to the party increased. "We want to go into battle as communists," said many fighters and commanders.
By the end of 1941, compared with the beginning of the war, the ranks of communists in the active army more than doubled ( Story Communist Party Soviet Union, v. 5, book. 1, page 373.).
In mid-July, a new extremely difficult stage in the struggle of the Soviet Armed Forces to thwart Hitler's plans began. It lasted 2.5 months. During this period, the battles near Leningrad, in the regions of Smolensk, Kyiv, Odessa, as well as in the Far North and in Karelia, were especially tense.
In order to restore their prestige, to eliminate the confusion that had begun in the camp of their allies, the fascist rulers needed a major victory, and they did everything to achieve it at any cost. However, the Wehrmacht by that time was able to advance only in one strategic direction.
In order to overcome the military and political crisis, the rulers of Nazi Germany decided to conduct a total mobilization in the country and speed up the development of the military industry, a significant growth of which was provided at the expense of the resources of the occupied European countries. All these measures, which began in January 1943, gave definite results. The production of tanks, guns, and mortars in Nazi Germany more than doubled compared to the previous year, and combat aircraft, 1.7 times. Taking advantage of the absence of a second front in the West, the Nazi German government was able to direct a large share of industrial resources, as well as newly mobilized human contingents, to strengthen Eastern Front. By the summer of 1943, it not only made up for the losses suffered, but also supplied the existing ones with new, more advanced models of military equipment.
During 1943, the enemy was able to bring the total number of his armed forces up to 10,300 thousand people, that is, almost before. level, which was the summer of the city, when this number was greatest. Although after the defeat at Stalingrad, Hitler at a meeting at the headquarters of the Wehrmacht on February 1, 1943, was forced to declare that “the possibility of ending the war in the east through an offensive no longer exists,” the inevitability of the collapse pushed him to another adventure.
The main forces of the Wehrmacht were still concentrated on the Soviet-German front. By the beginning of the summer-autumn campaign of 1943, there were 196 German divisions, as well as 32 divisions and 8 brigades of German satellites.
The Kursk direction was chosen to conduct a major offensive operation, which received the code name "Citadel". Far advanced to the west, our Kursk ledge created, in the opinion of the German command, favorable prerequisites for the encirclement and subsequent defeat of the Soviet troops of the Central and Voronezh fronts occupying it. After that, it was supposed to strike at the rear of the Southwestern Front - to carry out the "Panther". Under Kursk, Hitler concentrated up to 50 of his best divisions, including 16 tank and motorized. He pinned great hopes on new military equipment: Tiger and Panther tanks, Ferdinand self-propelled guns, Heinkel-129, Focke-Wulf-190A aircraft.
When planning this offensive, the German command wanted to achieve a decisive military victory at any cost. Keitel, Chief of Staff of the German Armed Forces, spoke frankly about this: "We must attack for political reasons."
The plan for the upcoming offensive of the Nazi troops near Kursk is described in sufficient detail in Order No. 6, signed by Hitler on April 15, 1943.
Already in the spring of 1943, the Soviet Supreme High Command had information about the impending summer offensive of the Nazi troops in the area of the Kursk salient. Intelligence data came with exceptional speed and accuracy. The direction of the enemy's main attack was also accurately determined. It was in connection with this that the Stavka concentrated large strategic reserves in the rear of the Soviet troops east of the Kursk ledge at the line of Tula, Yelets, Stary Oskol, Rossosh. Formations and formations that participated in the battle of Stalingrad, in the battles near Leningrad, as well as in other sectors of the Soviet-German front, were withdrawn to these areas. At first, all these troops were united in the Reserve Front, which from April 15, 1943 became known as the Steppe Military District, and from July 10, 1943 - the Steppe Front, which I was entrusted with command.
The members of the Military Council were at first Lieutenant General Mekhlis, and then (from July 9, 1943) Lieutenant General of the Tank Forces I.Z. Susaykov and Major General I.S. Grushetsky, Lieutenant General M.V. became the chief of staff. Zakharov.
It should be noted that in the history of wars there was almost no case when such powerful strategic reserves would be created, united by a single front command.
In the course of the war before the Battle of Kursk, it happened that in the process of defensive and offensive operations, strategic reserves of considerable strength were brought into battle - several armies that were in the reserve of the Headquarters, but they were transferred to strengthen front-line formations. Their introduction, as a rule, was carried out one by one, dispersed in time and space. True, in the first period of the war on westbound at one time there was a Reserve, but it was weaker than the Steppe Front in composition, and a significant part of its forces was on the defensive in contact with the enemy. In the Battle of Kursk, several armies and separate tank corps were united by the front command, which gave the strategic reserve a completely different quality.
I remember well how, before leaving for a new destination, I was called to Headquarters. Supreme Commander I.V. Stalin, in the presence of the marshal and members of the State Defense Committee, said:
The steppe front must play an important role in the counteroffensive. And, turning to me, he continued:
Do you understand, Comrade Konev, what appointment you are receiving in connection with the situation that is developing on southbound? The enemy will apparently create very strong groupings in order to cut off the Kursk salient. Your front, located behind the Central and Voronezh fronts, should be ready if the enemy breaks through, repel his blows and prevent the development of a breakthrough in the eastern direction, both in the Orel and in the Belgorod direction. Therefore, the strip occupied by the front must be well prepared defensively, and in the rear, along the Voronezh and Don rivers, the state line of defense must be prepared.
As you know, in the Battle of Kursk Soviet troops created a powerful, deeply echeloned, well-organized defense with an advantageous balance of forces for us, since we were preparing for a deliberate defense. Nevertheless, the enemy managed to penetrate our defenses to a depth of 35 km in the Oboyan direction. And only thanks to the introduction into battle of two armies of the Steppe Front - the 5th Guards Tank Army P.A. Rotmistrov and the 5th Guards Army A.S. Zhadov - the enemy was finally stopped.
The creation of the Steppe Front played an equally important role in the rapid transition of the Soviet troops from defensive actions to a decisive offensive. The front formation, which was in the reserve of the Headquarters, by its entry into the line of active fronts, sharply changed the situation in favor of the most important south-western direction in the summer campaign of 1943.
Thus, the Soviet Supreme High Command adopted a fundamentally new decision to organize the consolidation of strategic reserves. The creation of the Steppe Front, which united the reserves of the Headquarters in the southwestern direction, is, of course, an achievement of Soviet military art.
By the beginning of the Nazi offensive, the troops of the front were in full combat readiness for the offensive and represented a large strike force capable of operating both in the Orel and in the Belgorod-Kharkov direction.
As you know, in the Battle of Kursk, Soviet troops created a powerful, deeply echeloned, well-organized defense with an advantageous balance of forces for us, since we were preparing for a deliberate defense. Nevertheless, the enemy managed to penetrate our defenses to a depth of 35 km in the Oboyan direction. And only thanks to the introduction into battle of two armies of the Steppe Front - the 5th Guards Tank Army P.A. Rotmistrov and the 5th Guards Army A.S. Zhadov - the enemy offensive was finally stopped.
Thus, the presence in the rear behind the defending fronts of large strategic reserves deployed in advance made it possible to very short term to disrupt the carefully prepared strategic offensive of the German army, on which the Nazi command placed all its hopes.
The creation of the Steppe Front played an equally important role in the rapid transition of the Soviet troops from defensive actions to a decisive offensive. The front formation, which was in the reserve of the Headquarters, by its entry into the line of active fronts, dramatically changed the situation in favor of the Red Army in the most important south-western direction in the summer campaign of 1943.
Based on the tasks and purpose of the Steppe Front, the selection of command personnel was carried out very carefully. At the direction of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, officers and generals were appointed to the positions of army commanders, as well as commanders of corps and divisions, who had not only great experience war, but also the experience of combat training and the formation of troops. This was due to the fact that the troops, being part of the Steppe Front, had to represent strong, combat-ready formations and formations, and undergo enhanced combat training.
The long operational pause established on the fronts from April to July favored the successful and high-quality completion of combat and political training according to a program specially developed by the front. great attention At the same time, it was given to mastering the experience gained by the troops in the battles near Moscow and Stalingrad.
Preparing for the upcoming offensive battles, the troops of the front also improved their preparation for defense. Far in the rear from the front, the state line was being intensively prepared.
A close connection at that time was established with local party and Soviet bodies. I want to express my deep gratitude to them and to the population of the regions, which at that time rendered great assistance in preparing this milestone. Thousands of people, mostly women and teenagers, tore trenches, built anti-tank barriers, roads, bridges, which could play a very important role in the event of a breakthrough by German troops.
Did the enemy know about the organization of a strong defense in the rear of our fronts? Knew. And it played a positive role. The enemy believed that we were only preparing for a defensive battle. Having a huge number of tanks and self-propelled guns of the latest models, the Nazis hoped that it would be impossible to keep them.
So, the enemy was preparing, and so were we. The main thing was to hide not the very fact of preparation, but the forces and means, the plan of the battle, the time of the transition to the offensive, the nature of our defense. Perhaps this is the only unprecedented case in military history, When forte, which had all the possibilities for the offensive, went on the defensive. The further course of events confirmed that in this case the most correct decision was made.
The Stavka instructed the Marshals of the Soviet Union G.K. to coordinate the preparation and action of the fronts in the Battle of Kursk. Zhukov and A.M. Vasilevsky.
From spring until the beginning of the Battle of Kursk, the troops carried out intensified preparations for the upcoming battle. Units and formations were staffed, replenished with military equipment, accumulated ammunition, fuel, engineering equipment, and combat training was underway.
On July 10, 1943, the Steppe Military District was renamed the Steppe Front. Its composition was defined by the following directive:
To the Commander of the Steppe Military District.
The Headquarters of the Supreme High Command orders:
2. Include the 5th Guards in the Steppe Front. 27th Army with 4th Guards. tank corps, the 53rd army with the 1st mech. corps, the 47th army with the 3rd guards. fur. Corps, 4th Guards. army with the 3rd Guards. Tank Corps, 52nd Army, 5th Guards Tank Army, 3rd, 5th, 7th Guards Cavalry Corps, 5th Air Army, all reinforcement units and rear units and institutions of the Steppe Military District.
3. Deploy the armies of the front according to oral instructions given by the General Staff.
4. Move troops only at night.
6. Report the progress of the regrouping daily in cipher.
Headquarters of the Supreme High Command
I. Stalin.
A. Antonov.
As can be seen from the above directive, there were a lot of troops in the front. But basically these associations and formations came from other fronts. The troops were poorly equipped with personnel and equipment, did not have stocks of materiel, and were tired in the battles. In a very short time it was necessary to replenish and strengthen them, equipping them with everything necessary for military operations, to put together a good combat-ready organism.
In those hot days, commanders and political workers, headquarters, political agencies and the economic apparatus worked with great effort to make the Steppe Front ready for offensive operations.
The preparation of the troops of the front for the upcoming battle consisted of a huge list of measures and required great physical exertion of all the soldiers - from the private to the general. The infantrymen improved their "fortresses" - trenches and shelters, put weapons and equipment on alert, learned to conduct an offensive battle, go on a counterattack.
The tankers carried out firing on the move and the combat cohesion of units. Artillerymen occupied the most advantageous firing positions, perfected gun trenches and observation posts, worked out interaction with infantry and tanks. The sappers did a great job, turning the multi-lane defense into a system of strong lines impregnable for enemy tanks. Work was also in full swing among signalmen, without whom it is impossible for a commander to control troops in modern warfare; all the rear services worked hard, and especially the supply artillerymen. They delivered more advanced military equipment to the troops, which we received in large quantities, and helped the commanders to master this equipment.
There was no such area of the combat life of the troops that would remain out of sight of the commanders and political workers. Their diversified and ebullient activity gave the troops high combat capability and moral cohesion. Political workers of the political department of the front, headed by General A.N. Tevchenkov, and the staff officers of the front, at my request, were constantly in units and subunits.
The victories won by the Red Army in the winter campaign of 1942/43 and the significant strengthening of units and formations with new military equipment and weapons instilled confidence in the fighters and commanders, contributed to maintaining a high morale and offensive impulse. All the soldiers were eager to go on the offensive as soon as possible and defeat the enemy.
For three months, our troops were intensively preparing to give a worthy rebuff to the enemy. The intensity of the work did not weaken day or night. By the beginning of the fighting, all units, including those in reserve, were buried in the ground, were buried in the ground and Combat vehicles. According to all the rules of military art, which was developed during the war, groupings of troops were created and fire systems were organized, especially anti-tank, all-round defense of villages, towns and cities, defensive lines were well prepared.
By the beginning of the defensive battle, the Central and Voronezh Fronts had up to 20,000 guns and mortars, up to 3,600 tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts, and 2,370 aircraft. Soviet troops outnumbered the enemy in men by 1.4 times, in guns and mortars - by 2 times, in tanks and self-propelled guns - by 1.3 times. Thus, the grouping of our troops, concentrated in the Kursk direction, really made it possible to solve not only defensive, but also offensive tasks.
During the preparation of the battle, as already mentioned, our intelligence provided the command with all the necessary information about the impending enemy offensive and about the steps that the German command was taking.
Konev I.S. Notes of the front commander;
Due to the critical situation on the outskirts of the capital, on October 20, Moscow was declared under a state of siege. The defense of the frontiers in 100-120 kilometers was assigned to the commander of the Western Front, Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, and on its near approaches, to the head of the Moscow garrison P.A. Artemyev.
Due to the critical situation on the outskirts of the capital, on October 20, Moscow was declared under a state of siege. The defense of the frontiers in 100-120 kilometers was assigned to the commander of the Western Front, Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, and on its near approaches, to the head of the Moscow garrison P.A. Artemyev. It was pointed out that it was necessary to strengthen the rear and to intensify the fight against the subversive actions of enemy agents.
The population of Moscow was actively involved in the construction of defensive structures around the capital and inside the city. In the shortest possible time, the city was surrounded by anti-tank ditches, hedgehogs, and forest blockages. Anti-tank guns were installed on dangerous areas. Muscovites were formed into divisions of the people's militia, tank destroyer battalions, combat squads, which, together with units of the regular army, participated in battles and in maintaining order in the city.
Enemy air raids on Moscow were successfully repelled. By the beginning of the battle near Moscow, the air defense of the capital had a coherent system based on the principle of all-round defense, taking into account the most dangerous directions - western and southwestern, as well as on the maximum use of the combat capabilities of fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft weapons, which closely interacted with each other.
Fighter aircraft fought against the air enemy on the distant approaches. Its airfields were located within a radius of 150-200 kilometers from Moscow, but as the Germans approached the capital, they moved closer and closer. In the daytime, the fighters operated throughout the entire depth of the defense, and at night - within the light searchlight fields.
On the immediate approaches to Moscow, German aircraft were fired upon and destroyed by anti-aircraft artillery, mostly of medium caliber. Its fire was controlled by sectors, each of which had one anti-aircraft artillery regiment. The regiments built battle formations in three lines, which had considerable depth. Parts and subunits of small-caliber anti-aircraft artillery and anti-aircraft machine guns were used to cover important objects inside the city from the air (the Kremlin, railway stations, power plants).
Retreating, the German bombers threw off their deadly cargo anywhere.
In October, the enemy made 31 raids on Moscow, 2018 aircraft participated in them, of which 278 were shot down. The air defense forces of Moscow waged a tense struggle with the air enemy and defended the capital from destruction.
The control of the forces and means of the air defense of Moscow was carried out centrally from the command post of the 1st air defense corps. General M. S. Gromadin commanded the Moscow air defense zone.
In October, fascist aviation carried out 31 raids on Moscow. About 2 thousand aircraft took part in them, but only 72 1 were able to break through to the bombing targets. When repelling raids in air battles and anti-aircraft artillery fire, 278 German aircraft 2 were shot down.
In the second half of October, it was possible to delay the advance of the Nazi troops in the zone of the Bryansk Front. This allowed the 3rd and 13th armies, which had been fighting hard behind enemy lines for almost three weeks, to break out of the encirclement on October 23 and, by order of the Headquarters, withdraw to the line east of Dubna, Plavsk, Verkhovye, Livny.
The actions of the front troops pinned down the 2nd Panzer Army in the Tula direction. She was able to resume attacks only at the end of October, when the offensive of the 4th Army of Army Group Center had already bogged down. By October 29, the enemy tank divisions advanced from Mtsensk to Tula, but were stopped here. “An attempt to capture the city on the move,” Guderian wrote after the war, “came up against a strong anti-tank and air defense and ended in failure, and we suffered significant losses in tanks and officers.” For three days, the Nazis fiercely attacked Tula, but the troops of the 50th Army and the Tula combat area, together with the militias, selflessly defended. Communists and Komsomol members of the city and region joined the ranks of the defenders. Their courage was amazing. Tulyaks turned their city into an impregnable fortress and did not surrender it to the enemy. An important role in organizing the struggle for Tula was played by the city defense committee headed by the first secretary of the regional party committee V. G. Zhavoronkov, who in those days was a member of the Military Council of the 50th Army.
The defense of Tula ensured the stability of the left wing of the Western Front on the far southern approaches to the capital. It also contributed to the stabilization of the situation on the Bryansk front.
Thus, the October offensive of the Nazi troops on Moscow failed. The enemy was forced to go on the defensive on the lines of Selizharovo, Kalinin, Tula, Novosil.
The most important condition for disrupting the enemy's intentions was the creation of reserves in a short time, most of which were brought into battle in the Western Front at the turn of the Mozhaisk line of defense.
A huge role in repelling the fierce onslaught of the Nazis, along with the ground forces, was played by the Soviet Air Force. In the first nine days of the enemy offensive on Moscow alone, the aviation of the Western Front, the 6th Air Defense Aviation Corps and units of the Air Defense Forces carried out 3,500 sorties, destroying a significant number of enemy aircraft, tanks and manpower. In total, from September 30 to October 31, the Air Force made 26,000 sorties, of which up to 80 percent were to support and cover troops.
The enemy also experienced the power of powerful blows Soviet tanks and artillery. Tank brigades blocked the path of the fascist troops in especially dangerous directions.
To disrupt the enemy offensive, anti-tank areas and strongholds, various engineering barriers were equipped.
Warriors of all branches of the military in the battles on the outskirts of Moscow showed examples of the performance of military duty and the invincible strength of morale, showed mass heroism. In these battles, units of rifle divisions distinguished themselves: 316th General I.V. Panfilov, 78th Colonel A.P. Beloborodov, 32nd Colonel V.I. Polosukhin, 50th General N.F. Lebedenko, 53rd Colonel A.F. Naumov, 239th Colonel G.O. Martirosyan, as well as the 1st Guards Motorized Rifle Division Colonel A.I. Lizyukov, the cavalry group of General L.M. Dovator, tank brigades led by M.E. Katukov, P. A. Rotmistrov, I. F. Kirichenko, M. T. Sakhno, and many other compounds.
The results of the October offensive did not please the Nazis. The main goals of Operation Typhoon - the destruction of the Soviet Army and the capture of Moscow - were not achieved. The outcome of the bloody battles was unexpected not only for the soldiers, but also for the generals of the Wehrmacht.
The stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops was the main reason for the hesitation that appeared among the command of the Wehrmacht, the divergence of opinions in determining the ways of further waging war against the Soviet Union. In early November, Franz Halder, then Chief of the German General Staff, wrote in his diary: “We must, by analyzing the current situation, accurately determine our capabilities for conducting subsequent operations. There are two extreme points view: some consider it necessary to gain a foothold on the achieved lines, others demand to actively continue the offensive.
But in fact, the Nazis had no choice. Winter was approaching, and the goals of the Barbarossa plan remained unfulfilled. The enemy was in a hurry, striving at all costs to capture the capital of the Soviet Union before the onset of winter.
The plan of the fascist German command to continue the offensive in November contained the same idea as in October: with two mobile groupings, simultaneously deliver crushing blows on the flanks of the Western Front and, rapidly outflanking Moscow from the north and south, close the encirclement to the east of the capital.
In the first half of November, the fascist German command regrouped its troops: from near Kalinin to the Volokolamsko-Klinskoe direction, it transferred the 3rd tank group, and replenished the 2nd tank army with more than a hundred tanks, concentrating its main forces on the right flank to bypass Tula .
By November 15, 1941, Army Group Center included three field, one tank armies and two tank groups, numbering 73 divisions (47 infantry, 1 cavalry, 14 tank, 8 motorized, 3 security) and 4 brigades.
The task of covering Moscow from the north (Operation Volga Reservoir) was assigned to the 3rd and 4th German tank groups, consisting of seven tank, three motorized and four infantry divisions, and from the south - to the 2nd tank army, consisting of four tank, three motorized and five infantry divisions. The 4th Army was to conduct a frontal offensive, pin down the main forces of the Western Front, and then destroy them west of Moscow. The 9th and 2nd armies, pinned down by the troops of the Kalinin and Southwestern fronts, were actually deprived of the opportunity to take part in the November offensive. In total, the fascist German command allocated 51 divisions directly for the capture of Moscow, including 13 tank and 7 motorized.
Assessing the current situation, the Soviet command clearly understood that the relative relaxation of tension on the front near Moscow was temporary, that although the enemy had suffered serious losses, he had not yet lost his offensive capabilities, retained the initiative and superiority in forces and means, and would persistently strive to capture Moscow. Therefore, all measures were taken to repel the expected offensive. At the same time, new armies were formed and deployed at the line of Vytegra, Rybinsk, Gorky, Saratov, Stalingrad, Astrakhan as strategic reserves.
The rate, having determined the intentions and capabilities of the enemy, decided
First of all, strengthen the most dangerous areas. She demanded
from the Western Front, in cooperation with the troops of the Kalinin and the right wing of the Southwestern Fronts, to prevent bypassing Moscow from the north
west and south. His armies were reinforced by anti-tank artillery and
guards mortar units. On Volokolamsk and Serpukhov
in the directions the reserves of the Headquarters were concentrated; 16th Army were
given three cavalry divisions; the 2nd cavalry corps (two divisions) arrived in the Podolsk, Mikhnevo region from the Southwestern Front, part
which additionally included infantry and tank divisions. For the first
half of November, the Western Front received a total of 100 thousand soldiers.
Kalinin Front - 30th Army.
The shock German groups were opposed by the 30th, 16th and partially 5th armies on the right and the 50th and 49th armies on the left wing of the Western Front.
The command of the Western Front, reinforcing the troops operating northwest and southwest of Moscow, organized counterattacks in the 16th Army zone on Volokolamsk and in the Skirmanovo area, as well as in the 49th Army zone in the Serpukhov direction. According to the recognition of the fascist command, the counterattack in the zone of the 49th Army did not allow the 4th German Army to go on the offensive here in the second half of November.
In total, the troops of the Western Front (including the 30th Army) by mid-November had 35 rifle, 3 motorized rifle, 3 tank, 12 cavalry divisions, 14 tank brigades .. As before, in terms of numbers, Soviet divisions were significantly inferior to German ones. Despite the strengthening of the troops of the Western Front, the fascist German armies in November continued to maintain their overall numerical superiority in men and military equipment near Moscow, especially in the directions of the main attacks. So, in the Klin direction, against 56 tanks and 210 guns and mortars, which the 30th Army had, the enemy had up to 300 tanks and 910 guns and mortars.
By concentrating about 1000 aircraft near Moscow (although there were many obsolete types among them), the Soviet command created a quantitative superiority in aviation over the enemy. In order to gain air supremacy, the Headquarters ordered the commander of the Air Force of the Soviet Army to carry out an operation from November 5 to 8 to destroy German aircraft at airfields. The air forces of the Kalinin, Western, Bryansk fronts, the 81st division of the DBA and aviation of the Moscow defense zone were involved in it. 28 enemy airfields were hit, and on November 12 and 15 another 19, where 88 aircraft were destroyed.
Much attention was paid to the engineering equipment of the area. The troops improved their positions, created zones of operational barriers. The intensive construction of defensive lines continued. Only on the outer boundary of the Moscow zone, by November 25, 1428 bunkers, 165 km of anti-tank ditches, 110 km of wire fences in three rows and other obstacles were built.
The air defense of the capital continued to be strengthened and improved. By decision of the State Defense Committee of November 9, 1941, the air defense zones of the country were removed from the subordination of the military councils of the districts and fronts and were subordinate to the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense for Air Defense, who actually became the commander of the country's Air Defense Forces as an independent branch of the Armed Forces of the USSR. At the same time, all air defense zones in the European part of the Soviet Union were transformed into divisional and corps air defense areas. The Moscow Air Defense Zone became the Moscow Air Defense Corps District.
In those hard days Soviet people celebrated the 24th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. The ceremonial meeting of the Moscow Council of Working People's Deputies on November 6, the parade of troops on Red Square on November 7 and the speeches of the Chairman of the State Defense Committee I. V. Stalin played an important role in strengthening the confidence of the people and the army that the enemy near Moscow would be stopped, that here, at the walls of the capital, the defeat of the Nazi invaders will begin.
Addressing the soldiers who were leaving Red Square for the front, I. V. Stalin said on behalf of the party and the people: “The whole world is looking at you as a force capable of destroying the predatory hordes of German invaders. The enslaved peoples of Europe, who fell under the yoke of the German invaders, are looking at you as their liberators.”
After a two-week pause, Army Group Center resumed its offensive against the Soviet capital. On the morning of November 15, powerful artillery and air preparation began, and then the 3rd Panzer Group dealt a strong blow to the 30th Army of General D. D. Lelyushenko. Part of the troops of this army, located north of the Volga reservoir, by order of the command on November 16, retreated to the northeastern bank of the Volga.
Stubborn resistance to the enemy was provided by formations defending south of the reservoir. Only in the second half of November 16, the enemy was able to force the Lama River, while losing up to 60 tanks and armored vehicles. By the end of November 17, he managed to reach the Novozavidovsky area. The situation at the junction of the Kalinin and Western fronts became extremely complicated. To eliminate the threat of an enemy breakthrough to Klin, the front command reinforced the 30th Army with two divisions and organized several air strikes against the advancing enemy troops in its zone.
On November 16, in the Volokolamsk direction, the German 4th Panzer Group (at least 400 tanks) went on the offensive against the 16th Army with massive air support. Its main blow fell at the junction of the 316th Infantry Division of General I.V. Panfilov and the group of troops of General L.M. Dovator. In decisive battles with the Nazis, the Panfilov heroes immortalized their names. In the area of the Dubosekovo junction, 28 Panfilov soldiers, having destroyed 18 tanks and dozens of fascists in four hours of an unequal battle, did not let the enemy through.
And on the same day, part of the forces of the 16th Army, with the support of aviation, launched a powerful counterattack on the enemy. The defenders of Moscow fought steadfastly in other sectors of the front as well. In the Istra direction, the 78th Rifle Division was especially stubbornly defending.
Events at the front from November 16 to 21 showed that the main forces of the 3rd and 4th Panzer Groups, which had the task of making quick operational breakthroughs and a swift bypass of Moscow, were drawn into protracted battles. The pace of the enemy offensive was continuously decreasing and did not exceed even for mobile troops 3-5 km per day. The Nazis had to overcome staunch defenses, while repelling counterattacks by infantry, tank and cavalry formations. Enemy attempts to encircle any division, as a rule, did not bring success. To master each subsequent line, he was forced to organize the offensive again.
Kalininsky actively helped the Western Front, whose troops firmly fettered the 9th German field army, preventing it from transferring a single division to the Moscow direction.
On November 19, the command of Army Group Center, having reinforced the 3rd Panzer Group with tank and motorized divisions, demanded that it capture Klin and Solnechnogorsk as soon as possible. To avoid encirclement, on November 23, Soviet troops left these cities after stubborn street fighting.
The onslaught of the enemy did not weaken in other sectors of the defense either. Particularly stubborn battles were waged by the troops of the 16th and partly of the 5th armies at the turn of the Istra River. The Soviet divisions held back the fierce attacks of the Nazis here for three days and inflicted heavy damage on them. However, on November 27, the 16th Army had to leave the city of Istra.
Despite significant losses, the enemy continued to rush towards Moscow, spending the last reserves. But he failed to cut the front of the defense of the Soviet troops.
The Soviet command assessed the resulting situation as very dangerous, but not in the least hopeless. It saw that the troops were determined to prevent the enemy from reaching Moscow and were fighting steadfastly and selflessly. Every day it became more obvious that the enemy's capabilities were not unlimited, and as his reserves were spent, his onslaught would inevitably weaken.
The assessment of the current situation given in those days by the leadership of the Wehrmacht can be judged by Halder's entry in his official diary: “Field Marshal von Bock personally directs the course of the battle near Moscow from his advanced command post. His ... energy drives the troops forward ... The troops are completely exhausted and incapable of attacking ... Von Bock compares the current situation with the situation in the battle of the Marne, indicating that a situation has arisen when the last battalion thrown into battle can decide the outcome battles." However, the calculations of the Nazis for each "last" battalion were not justified. The enemy suffered heavy losses, but could not break through to Moscow.
After the capture of Klin and Solnechnogorsk, the enemy made an attempt to develop his strike northwest of Moscow. On the night of November 28, he managed to cross with small forces to the eastern bank of the Moscow-Volga Canal in the Yakhroma area north of Iksha.
The Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and the command of the Western Front took urgent measures to eliminate the danger that had arisen. Reserve formations and troops from neighboring sectors were transferred to the Kryukovo, Khlebnikovo, and Yakhroma regions. Important role the timely advance from the reserve to the line of the Moscow-Volga canal between Dmitrov and Iksha of the 1st shock army under the command of General V.I. Kuznetsov played a role in changing the situation north of Moscow. Its advanced units pushed the enemy back to the western bank of the canal.
In late November and early December, the 1st Shock and the newly formed 20th Army, with active support aviation group General I.F. Petrov inflicted a number of counterattacks on the Nazi troops and, together with the 30th and 16th armies, finally stopped their further advance. The enemy was forced to go on the defensive. The threat of a breakthrough to Moscow from the northwest and north was eliminated.
Events on the left wing of the Western Front unfolded exceptionally sharply and tensely. Here the 2nd German Panzer Army was able to resume the offensive only on November 18th. After unsuccessful attempts to capture Tula from the south and northwest, the command of Army Group Center decided to launch an offensive in a northerly direction, bypassing the city from the east.
The strike force - the 2nd Tank Army, consisting of four tank, three motorized, five infantry divisions, supported by aviation, broke through the defenses of the 50th Army and, developing the offensive, captured Stalinogorsk (Novomoskovsk) on November 22. Her units rushed to Venev, Kashira. Fierce fighting broke out.
The front commander demanded that the 50th Army "under no circumstances allow the enemy to penetrate into the Venev area." This city and the approaches to it were defended by a combat group consisting of a regiment of the 173rd rifle division, the 11th and 32nd tank brigades (30 light tanks), a tank destroyer battalion formed from the local population. Without breaking the resistance of the group with frontal attacks, the 17th German Panzer Division bypassed the city from the east. On November 25, its advanced units were 10-15 km from Kashira.
Two other divisions of the 2nd Panzer Army were advancing on Mikhailov and Serebryanye Prudy. The Nazis sought to take Kashira as soon as possible and capture the crossings on the Oka.
In order to stop the advance of the enemy's southern strike force, the command of the Western Front on November 27 conducted a counterattack in the Kashira area with formations reinforced with tanks and rocket artillery of the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps. As a result of the counterattack, the corps, with the support of the aviation of the front and parts of the Moscow air defense, inflicted a heavy defeat on the 17th tank division of the enemy and by November 30 threw it back to the Mordves region.
Thus, the stubborn defense of Tula, the staunch resistance of the Soviet troops in the areas of Stalinogorsk and Venev thwarted the plans of the enemy. The 2nd Panzer Army was unable to capture the crossings across the Oka.
After this failure, the Nazis made desperate attempts to take control of Tula with a blow from the east and northeast. They believed that in the current situation it was impossible "to carry out further operations to the north or east ... without first mastering this important communications junction and the airfield."
On December 3, the enemy managed to cut the railway and highway north of Tula. At the same time, he increased pressure on the city from the west at the junction of the 49th and 50th armies. The fight has reached its peak. To eliminate the breakthrough north of Tula, the 50th Army of General I.V. Boldin launched a counterattack on the enemy in the area of Kostrovo, Revyakino, where it surrounded part of the forces of the 4th German Panzer Division.
The active operations of the troops of the left wing of the Western Front in early December forced the 2nd German Panzer Army to begin a retreat. At the critical moment of the battle in the areas of Kashira and Tula, she could not get help from her neighbor on the right - the 2nd field army, the main forces of which were involved in protracted battles with the troops of the 3rd and 13th armies of the Southwestern Front in the Yelets direction.
The enemy, having failed north and south of Moscow. December 1 tried to break through to the city in the center of the Western Front. He delivered strong blows in the Naro-Fominsk region and pushed the defending divisions back. The front command immediately responded to this with a counterattack, using the reserve of the 33rd and neighboring armies. The enemy was driven back across the Nara River with heavy losses. Thus, his last attempt to save Operation Typhoon failed. The Nazis also failed to carry out the plan for the destruction of Moscow by air strikes. Strengthening air defense has yielded results. In November, only a few planes broke through to the city. In total, during the period July - December 1941, the Moscow Air Defense Forces repelled 122 air raids, in which 7146 aircraft participated. Only 229 aircraft, or a little over 3 percent, were able to break through to the city.
The attempts of the Nazis to carry out extensive reconnaissance and sabotage, terrorist and other subversive activities were also unsuccessful. The state security organs neutralized about 200 fascist agents in the capital and its suburbs. In addition, over 75 spies and saboteurs were detained by the border units for the protection of the rear in the combat area of the Western Front, and several enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups were liquidated. In the Moscow direction, the enemy failed to commit a single sabotage in the rear of the Soviet troops, disrupt the work of industrial enterprises, transport, disrupt the supply of the army in the field. Using captured enemy agents who turned themselves in confession, Soviet counterintelligence officers, together with the military command, misinformed enemy intelligence about the location and redeployment of formations and formations of troops, their command posts, and about the work of the Moscow road junction. As a result, the Nazi command did not have reliable data on the advancement of reserves to the Moscow area.
The end of November - the beginning of December was a period of crisis of the Nazi offensive against Moscow. The plan to encircle and capture the Soviet capital was a complete failure. “The attack on Moscow failed. All the sacrifices and efforts of our valiant troops were in vain. We suffered a serious defeat,” Guderian wrote after the war. The enemy was finally exhausted, his reserves were exhausted. “The information that we had said that all the reserves that von Bock had were used and drawn into the battle,” said Marshal of the Soviet Union K.K. Rokossovsky. The failure of Operation Typhoon was a fait accompli.
In those difficult, decisive days of the battle for the capital, Pravda wrote: “We must by all means frustrate Hitler’s predatory plan ... This is what our whole country is waiting for ... The rout of the enemy must begin near Moscow!”.
Echelons with weapons and ammunition were going to the front in a continuous stream. Fresh reserves of the Headquarters were concentrated in the areas northeast and southeast of the capital. Moscow and Tula became the front-line arsenals of the fighting troops.
An important measure in disrupting the new onslaught of the enemy near Moscow was the counteroffensive organized by the Headquarters in mid-November near Tikhvin and Rostov-on-Don. The fascist German army groups "North" and "South", repelling the offensive of the Soviet troops, were deprived of the opportunity to provide assistance to the Army Group "Center" on decisive days. These were the first serious harbingers of great changes on the entire Soviet-German front.
So, the offensive of the Nazi troops on Moscow in November also ended in complete failure.
Army Group Center failed to achieve the goals of Operation Typhoon. Her troops were drained of blood and lost their offensive capabilities. During the fighting from November 16 to December 5, the Wehrmacht lost 155 thousand soldiers and officers, 777 tanks, hundreds of guns and mortars near Moscow. By means of aviation of the fronts and Moscow air defense, many aircraft were shot down in air battles and destroyed at airfields. During two months of defensive battles, the Soviet Air Force made more than 51,000 sorties, of which 14 percent were for the air cover of the capital. Here, in the Moscow direction, by December 1941, for the first time, they won operational air supremacy. The aviation guard was born in the sky near Moscow. The rank of guards received the 29th, 129th, 155th, 526th fighter, 215th assault and 31st bomber aviation regiments.
On December 4-5, 1941, the defensive period of the battle near Moscow ended. The Soviet Armed Forces defended the capital, stopping the advance of the fascist hordes.
Battle for Moscow. Moscow operation of the Western Front November 16, 1941 - January 31, 1942 Shaposhnikov Boris Mikhailovich
Chapter One Initial position and plans of the parties. The plan of the German attack on Moscow
Chapter first
Starting position and plans of the parties. The plan of the German attack on Moscow
In the first half of November, all types of reconnaissance began to note the pulling up and accumulation of enemy forces in front of the Western Front, the preparation of strike groups and the desire of the Nazi troops to take an advantageous starting position for resuming the offensive on a large scale. In the period from 1 to 11 November, according to our intelligence, the enemy forces in front of the Western Front increased by nine divisions. It became clear that in the near future we should expect a second attempt by the Germans to capture Moscow.
At the headquarters of the Western Front and in General Staff By the beginning of the second offensive of the Nazi troops on Moscow, the Red Army had, on the whole, correct information about the grouping of forces and about the possible intentions of the enemy.
As early as November 5, the head of the Operations Department of the headquarters of the Western Front, in a document drawn up by him (a diagram with a legend), defined the probable plan of action for the Germans as follows: the enemy, apparently, is preparing a strike on both flanks of the Western Front: 1) in the north - in the directions to Klin and Istra ; 2) in the south - in the direction of Podolsk and Lopasnya. But he will need a certain amount of time to bring up his reserves, put his troops and rear in order, rest and organize logistics. Enemy forces are currently located in several groups: a) the Volokolamsk grouping (five to six divisions, of which two are armored and one motorized), intended for probable actions from Volokolamsk to Klin, Dmitrov, bypassing Moscow from the north; part of the forces can be sent through Istra directly to Moscow; b) Dorokhovskaya (Mozhaisk) grouping (four to five divisions), located on the shortest routes to Moscow, with an axis of action along the Mozhaisk-Moscow highway; c) the Maloyaroslavets grouping (four to five divisions, one of them tank divisions), apparently aimed at Podolsk and further on Moscow from the south. To the west of Serpukhov, the concentration of forces (the Tarusa-Serpukhov group) was also determined, consisting of four to five divisions (one of them was tank) for possible actions in the direction of Serpukhov.
In the center, in the Naro-Fominsk region, the presence of weaker forces (about three infantry and one tank divisions) was assumed, intended for communication between the two active wings. The operational reserves were numbered in three or four divisions, with their location near Mozhaisk, Maloyaroslavets, east of Gzhatsk, near Kaluga. In total, according to available data, about 25–30 divisions and up to 350–400 aircraft were concentrated, based on forward airfields.
Subsequent data clarified and supplemented previously available information. The prisoner, captured on November 12 in front of the 33rd Army, showed that the preparations for the offensive were completed and the offensive could begin at night or in the morning of November 13; according to him, the regiment in which he was located would pin down, and other troops would bypass the defending units of the Red Army.
On November 14, the Military Council of the Western Front reported to Comrade Stalin about the situation on its left flank:
“Parts of the right flank of the 3rd Army of the Southwestern Front continue a non-stop retreat in a southeasterly direction towards Efremov. Every day the gap between the right flank of the 3rd Army of the Southwestern Front and the left flank of the 50th Army of the Western Front increases and by the end of November 13 it reached 60 km.
The enemy, having failed to capture the city of Tula from the south, having failed to break through to Tula from the north. - Western, while suffering heavy losses, taking advantage of the withdrawal of parts of the 3rd Army of the Southwestern Front, during 12 and 13.11 began to pull tank and infantry formations to the left flank of the 50th Army. The enemy continues with impunity to create a large grouping south of Dedilovo, Uzlovaya for a strike in the north. and sowing - east. direction around Tula from the east to the flank and rear of the 50th Army.
In the middle of November, our intelligence agencies in the center came to the conclusion that the strongest groupings of Germans were in the following areas: a) in the area of Volokolamsk, Dorohovo; b) at the junction of the Western and Southwestern fronts - in the Tula region (two tank corps - the 24th and 47th). The actions of the German command should be regarded as preparations for an offensive against the wings of the Western Front, bypassing Moscow (on the right wing in the direction of Klin, Dmitrov, on the left - in the direction of Tula, Kolomna) in combination with a frontal attack from the Naro-Fominsk region.
The number of concentrated infantry divisions in total approached the number of divisions with which the Germans went on the offensive on October 2, 1941 against the Western Front (twenty-six infantry divisions in the first line, two infantry divisions of the army reserve, about seven infantry divisions of the front reserve; about thirty in total five divisions). The number of tank formations (up to ten tank divisions, 800-900 tanks in total) allowed the enemy to start the operation with strikes from large mobile groups in the most important directions. The following spoke about the likelihood of such an attack by the enemy:
a) the desire of the German command (turning into a template) to use its usual, favorite technique in operations: acting in two flank strike groups (“wedges”), surround the intended object (on a scale from the vast “Cannes”, with the aim of encircling the entire enemy’s main forces, to "pincers" that broke off, surrounded and destroyed one of the private groupings or one of the parts of the enemy's operational formation). In this case, the initial encirclement was usually carried out by motorized troops (the so-called "tank encirclement"), and then the enemy sought to secure it with infantry divisions following him ("infantry encirclement"). In this case, such a course of action would allow the enemy to reach the flanks of our Moscow grouping, and subsequently encircle the capital and the main forces of the Western Front;
b) the difficulty of a frontal offensive for the Germans in this situation and their attempts to capture Moscow in the forehead;
c) local conditions; in particular, the ability to cover the left flank of the northern German strike group and the flanks of the southern group with water barriers (the Moscow Sea and the Volga reservoir in the north and the Oka River in the south);
d) the transfer of enemy troops that we noted in late October - early November: from Kalinin to the Volokolamsk region from October 30 to November 2 and in the direction of Orel, Mtsensk, Tula from October 25 to November 8.
During the first half of November, the armies of the Western Front continued to conduct battles, mainly of local importance, in order to improve their position, repelling enemy attempts to penetrate our location. More significant hostilities unfolded on both flanks of the Western Front: in the Volokolamsk direction, as well as in the area southeast of Aleksin, from where the enemy tried to reach the rear of Tula from the north.
Our troops strengthened defensive lines, carried out private regroupings, and were also understaffed with personnel and materiel. New military formations also arrived - rifle, tank, cavalry, as a result of which our forces increased. So, on November 12, five cavalry divisions were included in the 16th Army, which covered a very responsible direction to Moscow.
On November 10, the 2nd cavalry corps of General Belov arrived at the Serpukhov direction, which, after unloading, concentrated in the area northeast of Lopasnya. The next day, the 112th Panzer Division arrived in the Lopasni area.
The concentration of cavalry and tanks in the Klinsko-Volokolamsk and Serpukhov directions was carried out with the aim of breaking through on both wings to the rear of the enemy in order to disrupt his preparations for the offensive. A similar event of the Stavka is already planning an active defense for Western front, the results of which affected the subsequent period.
On November 15, the front line of our troops passed in the general direction from the western coast of the Moscow Sea to the south, east of Volokolamsk, east of Dorokhov (in the Mozhaisk direction), then to Naro-Fominsk, west of Serpukhov, further along the Oka River to Aleksin, west of Tula and west of the station Nodal. The troops of the Western Front (consisting of the 16th, 5th, 33rd, 43rd, 49th and 50th armies) repelled enemy infantry and tank attacks in the center of the 16th army and continued fighting on the front of the 49th army and the right flank of the 50th army, eliminating German attempts to surround Tula with actions from the northwest.
On the right flank of the Western Front, at the junction with the Kalinin Front south of the Moscow Sea, was the 16th Army, which grouped its main forces in the Volokolamsk direction. The 5th Army operated in the Mozhaisk direction; the Naro-Fominsk direction was covered by the 33rd Army. Further south was the front of the 43rd and 49th armies. The 50th Army, recently included in the Western Front, defended the Tula region.
Dividing line in the north, with the Kalinin Front: Verbilki, Reshetnikovo station, Knyazhi Gory, Sychevka (all inclusive for the Western Front); in the south, with the Southwestern Front: Spassk-Ryazansky, Mikhailov, Uzlovaya station, Krapivna, Belev, Dyatkovo (all inclusive for the Western Front). The total length of the front line (excluding small bends) on November 15 is about 330 km.
In total, there were on the Western Front (including the troops of the 30th Army): thirty-one rifle divisions, three motorized rifle divisions, nine cavalry divisions, fourteen tank brigades, two tank divisions, six aviation divisions. The combat and numerical composition of some formations was very small. In total, as of November 15, the troops of the Western Front had (see the table of the balance of forces) about 240,000 fighters, 1,200 field guns, 500 tanks, 180-200 combat aircraft (80 fighters, 80 bombers, 20 attack aircraft).
Note The figures for the combat composition and balance of forces of the parties are derived by comparing and studying data from several sources.
The opposing enemy forces included about twenty-four to twenty-six infantry divisions, four motorized divisions, eleven to thirteen tank divisions; only about forty divisions deployed in front of the Western Front (see table of the balance of power).
The combat composition of these troops was expressed in approximately 230,000 soldiers, about 1800 field guns, 1300 tanks, 600-800 aircraft. When comparing the balance of forces within the entire front, we get almost equality in infantry, superiority of the Germans in artillery, mortars, partly in aviation, and more than double superiority in tanks. Thus, the quantitative superiority in technology by the beginning of the second offensive was on the side of the Germans.
Along with the general balance of forces on the entire front great importance has a correlation of forces in the directions where decisive events are played out. As will be seen below, the Germans were able to concentrate their main mobile forces on both wings in accordance with the concept of the operation - since the initiative for action in the first half of November was on their side - and in the first period they achieved even more significant superiority in forces and in technology in the shock sectors . This question will be covered in detail in the description of the course of the operation.
The operational and strategic position of the enemy in the theater of operations and the quantitative superiority in tanks gave the Germans the opportunity to strike at Moscow in large mobile groups in the following directions:
a) Turginovo, Klin, Dmitrov (distance about 100 km) and further bypassing Moscow from the northeast;
b) Teryaeva Sloboda, then to Klin (or directly to Solnechnogorsk) and further to Moscow, directing the main blow along the Leningrad highway (distance about 120 km);
c) Volokolamsk, Novo-Petrovskoe, Istra and further to Moscow (distance about 110 km);
e) the Naro-Fominsk direction, using the Naro-Fominsk-Moscow highway as an axis (distance 70 km);
f) the Maloyaroslavets direction, with branchings to Podolsk or Krasnaya Pakhra and further to Moscow;
g) Serpukhov - for actions to Moscow from the south (distance 90 km) or bypassing Moscow from the southeast;
h) the Tula direction, with partial branches to Mikhailov, Zaraisk, Venev, Kashira, Serpukhov, and the enemy’s desire to bypass Tula from the southeast and surround it was already indicated.
All these areas were responsible, each of them had its own significance in the defense system of the Western Front, as a result of which it was necessary to reliably cover them in the situation of the enemy's impending offensive. The shortest routes to the capital passed through our center, but the mobile groupings of the Germans, according to available information, were concentrated against our wings.
The Supreme High Command of the Red Army took measures to repulse the enemy's impending offensive.
The plan of the Supreme High Command of the Red Army provided for:
1) the creation of powerful strategic reserves in the depths of the country (a large number of reserve formations, the formation of reserve armies, etc.);
2) the construction of a number of fortified lines and areas on the far and near approaches to Moscow, which were supposed to form a multi-lane defense system for the capital;
3) conducting a stubborn and active defense on the outskirts of Moscow from the west, the allocation of the forces necessary for this, based on fortified positions;
4) the concentration of operational-strategic reserves near Moscow and their location behind the flanks, outside the ring of a possible enemy tank encirclement;
5) exhausting the enemy with inflicting counterattacks and partial defeats on the outskirts of Moscow in order to exhaust and stop him;
6) the transition to a decisive counteroffensive at a convenient moment in order to defeat the enemy.
The main task of the troops of the Western Front in this situation was to reliably provide approaches to the capital, to exhaust and exhaust the enemy with active defense in the most important directions, to inflict partial defeats on him, to stop his advance, to delay him until favorable conditions are created. to launch a decisive counteroffensive.
In this position, the Western Front under the command of General of the Army Comrade. Zhukov took upon himself the blow of a huge mass of people and military equipment thrown by the Nazi command on November 15-16 in the second general offensive against Moscow.
As it became known later (already after the start of the second German offensive), by the beginning of December, the German command had concentrated and introduced 30-33 infantry, 13 tank and 4-5 motorized infantry divisions during the offensive against the Western Front, in total 47-51 divisions. These forces were deployed as follows:
a) against our right flank in the Klinsko-Solnechnogorsk direction - the 3rd and 4th tank groups of Generals Goth and Gepner, consisting of the 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 10th and 11th tank divisions, the 36th and 14th -th motorized infantry divisions, 23rd, 106th and 35th infantry divisions;
b) against the left flank, in the Tula-Kashirsko-Ryazan direction - the 2nd armored army of General Guderian, consisting of the 3rd, 4th, 17th and 18th tank divisions, the 10th and 29th motorized infantry divisions, the 167th infantry division ;
c) against our center - the 9th, 7th, 20th, 12th, 13th and 43rd army corps, the 19th and 20th tank divisions of the enemy.
These troops were part of the 9th and 4th armies, the 2nd tank army, the 3rd and 4th tank groups and were united by the Central Army Group (commander - General Bock; army group headquarters - Vyazma), operating on the Moscow strategic direction.
Hitler gave the order to capture Moscow at any cost in the near future. The aim of the German fascist leadership was to penetrate our Western Front's flanks by breaking through and making a deep detour, to break through the opposing Red Army troops, to surround and occupy Moscow. To do this, the enemy sought to: a) capture Klin, Solnechnogorsk, Rogachevo, Dmitrov, Yakhroma in the north; b) to occupy Tula, Kashira, Ryazan and Kolomna in the south; c) then strike at Moscow from three sides - from the north, west and south - and take it.
The German Information Bureau reported in early December:
"The German command will consider Moscow as its main goal even if Stalin tries to shift the center of gravity of military operations elsewhere."
Thus, the operational plan of the German command was reduced to a concentric offensive against Moscow with its mobile forces delivering the main blows on the setting wings (“wedges”); infantry formations in the center were to conduct an auxiliary offensive.
The northern German wing, having captured the Klin, Solnechnogorsk, Dmitrov region and advancing part of its forces on Moscow, developed a strike around the capital from the northeast and entered into communication with the troops of the southern wing east of Moscow. The main task of the southern German wing (the main core of which was the 2nd Panzer Army) was to carry out a quick breakthrough through our front in the direction of Tula and further across the line of the Oka River between Ryazan and Serpukhov, to capture important industrial regions with the cities of Tula, Stalinogorsk, Kashira, and then surround the capital from the southeast, closing the ring east of Moscow together with the northern group. The 24th Panzer Corps, according to the original plan, was to break through the Tula, to the crossings on the Oka River near Kashira and Serpukhov. The 47th Panzer Corps, building up the strike of the 24th Panzer Corps, was supposed to capture the Kolomna area and create bridgehead positions to ensure the crossing of troops across the Moscow River. Two army corps (43rd and 53rd) were attached to the 2nd Panzer Army for this operation.
The German center was to first pin down the troops of the Red Army on the shortest approaches to Moscow from the west with the help of its army corps, and then, with the development of the operation on the wings, striking through Zvenigorod and Naro-Fominsk, break through to the capital in order to split our front into isolated pieces and make it impossible for the further organized resistance of the Red Army near Moscow.
This operational plan was no worse and no better than other similar plans of the German command, the implementation of which in other cases gave success. In its conception and construction, this plan, at first glance, seemed to correspond to the level of development of military art and modern technology. Large forces were assembled for the offensive, they occupied an advantageous starting position, were concentrically aimed at the capital of the Soviet country. With a direct movement in front of them, they were supposed to go to the flank and rear of the troops of the Western Front and surround Moscow. It seemed to the fascist German leadership that there were all the prerequisites for delivering the last blow of tremendous force, which, even before the onset of winter, was to decide the fate of Moscow, the entire campaign and even the war. It was the plan of an experienced and skillful predator, seeking quick captures.
However, the conditions under which great battle near Moscow, there were already others, more favorable for the Red Army than at the beginning of the war. The results of the previous five-month struggle of the Red Army and the entire Soviet people under the wise leadership of Comrade Stalin against the fascist invaders began to show. In the new conditions of the struggle that developed on the Western Front in November - December 1941, with a favorable political and strategic situation for the Red Army, this operational plan of the German command no longer corresponded to the situation. It turned out to be lifeless, adventurous and led the Nazi troops to defeat near Moscow.
The start of the German offensive.
The procedure for describing the Moscow operation
On November 16, the second general offensive of the Nazi forces against Moscow began on the Western Front. The actions of the troops, which unfolded from the second half of November in a vast strip from the Moscow Sea to Tula, were united by a single operational plan and a common front command and represented one large and complex operation. At the same time, combat operations on the northern wing, in the center and on the southern wing, in the presence of unity and mutual connection of operational events within the framework of a front-line operation, also had their own regularity and a certain independence of development. They are rich in instructive factual material and are valuable in those operational-tactical conclusions that can be drawn within the framework of an army or several armies solving a common task (an army operation, an operation of an army group).
To understand correctly character traits and the specifics of actions in various operational areas in various periods of struggle (while not losing sight of the connection and interdependence of events), it is advisable to consider this grandiose epic in terms of major successive stages of the operation (the defensive battle near Moscow; the counteroffensive of the Red Army on the Western Front; further development offensive from the line of the rivers Lama, Ruza, Nara, Oka). Within each stage, first analyze the actions of the wings and the center separately, and then link them accordingly to each stage of the front operation and draw the necessary general conclusions and conclusions. In this order, further description of events will be conducted.
A number of major issues and measures of the Supreme High Command that cannot be fit into this framework (for example, the concentration of reserve armies, the role of the Moscow defense zone, the participation of the High Command aviation, etc.) will be singled out and considered separately. The defensive battle near Moscow covers the period from November 15–16 to December 5, 1941.
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August 23 in Russia is the Day of the defeat of the Nazi troops by the Soviet troops in the Battle of Kursk, which took place in 1943. It was the greatest tank battle of World War II.
The intensity of the struggle in the area of the Kursk Bulge was due to a number of political, economic and strategic factors. Great Patriotic War by the summer of 1943 had reached an important turning point. Under the blows of the Soviet Armed Forces, already in the battle near Moscow, the fascist plans for a "blitzkrieg" collapsed. A year later, the fascist German armies suffered a crushing defeat at Stalingrad. Our Armed Forces have gained versatile combat experience in the fight against a strong and experienced enemy, and every day their combat power has been growing. active army received more and more weapons and military equipment from the industry, reorganized on a war footing. In the summer of 1943, the Nazi army was still a powerful force capable of withstanding a long, intense struggle, and the political and military leadership of Germany was eager to take revenge for Stalingrad. In order to restore their prestige, to eliminate the confusion that had begun in the camp of their allies, the fascist rulers needed a major victory, and they did everything to achieve it at any cost. However, the Wehrmacht by that time was able to advance only in one strategic direction. The plan for the upcoming offensive of the Nazi troops near Kursk is described in sufficient detail in Order No. 6, signed by Hitler on April 15, 1943. According to this order, the task of the offensive was to destroy the Soviet troops in the area west of Kursk by means of a "concentric offensive" in order to encircle the Soviet fronts. One strike was planned to be delivered from the area south of Orel by the main forces of Army Group Center and the other from the area north of Kharkov by the main forces of Army Group South.
“This offensive,” Hitler's order said, “is given decisive importance. It must end with a quick and decisive success. The offensive should give us the initiative for the spring and summer of this year... The best formations, the best weapons, the best commanders and a large amount of ammunition should be used in the direction of the main attacks... The victory at Kursk should be a torch for the whole world. Already in the spring of 1943, the Soviet Supreme High Command had information about the impending summer offensive of the Nazi troops in the Kursk Bulge region. Intelligence data came with exceptional speed and accuracy. The direction of the enemy's main attack was also accurately determined. It was in connection with this that, in the rear of the Soviet troops east of the Kursk ledge at the turn of Tula, Yelets, Stary Oskol, Rossosh, the Headquarters concentrated large strategic reserves. Formations and formations that participated in the battle of Stalingrad, in the battles near Leningrad, as well as in other sectors of the Soviet-German front, were withdrawn to these areas. Initially, all these troops were united into the Reserve Front, which from April 15, 1943 became known as the Steppe Military District, and from July 10, 1943 it became the Steppe Front. There was almost no case in the history of wars when such powerful strategic reserves would be created, united by a single front command. By the beginning of the defensive battle, the Central and Voronezh Fronts had up to 20,000 guns and mortars, up to 3,600 tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts, and 2,370 aircraft. Soviet troops outnumbered the enemy in men by 1.4 times, in guns and mortars by 2 times, in tanks and self-propelled guns by 1.3 times. Thus, the grouping of our troops, concentrated in the Kursk direction, made it possible, indeed, to solve not only defensive, but also offensive tasks. During the preparation of the battle, intelligence provided the command with all the necessary information about the impending enemy offensive and about the steps that the German command was taking.
day after day(48.5MB)
On 1 July, Hitler announced the final decision to launch the offensive on 5 July. As at the beginning of the war, the fascist command counted on the surprise of the strike, which, according to Hitler, should have contributed big number new tanks and assault guns. These plans became known to the Soviet command. On July 2, the start of the operation was determined, about which the Headquarters immediately informed the commanders of the Central, Voronezh and Steppe Fronts. On the night of July 5, scouts captured German prisoners, who confirmed that the offensive was scheduled for 3 o'clock on July 5. The commanders of the Central and Voronezh fronts, with the participation of representatives of the Headquarters, decided to immediately conduct artillery counter-preparation. On the Voronezh Front, artillery counter-preparation was carried out twice: a five-minute fire raid on July 4 and July 5 from 03:00 to 03:30 - already during the artillery and aviation preparation of the enemy attack, which began at 02:30. On the Central Front, artillery counter-preparation was also carried out on July 5 twice - at 2 hours 20 minutes and at 4 hours 35 minutes - both times for 30 minutes. On both fronts, the first powerful fire strike was inflicted on the main means of attack. However, it was not possible to disrupt the enemy's offensive, although the interaction between the main forces and means of the enemy's first echelon was disrupted, and the strength of its initial strike was significantly weakened. With the enemy reaching the forward edge of the main line of defense of the 6th Guards Army, the position of the enemy troops was determined more precisely, and this required repeated counter-preparation. Air battles near Kursk went on continuously. Only on July 5, about 200 group and individual air battles took place. Our aviation was able to gain air supremacy, which had a very positive effect on the advancement and entry into battle of the troops of the Steppe Front.
Already the first hours of the offensive of the Nazi troops, which unfolded on July 5 at 5:30, showed that it was not proceeding as planned by the fascist command. The tank divisions of the enemy, thrown into a pre-prepared defense, suffered heavy losses, the pace of the offensive was low. Battle of Kursk lasted forty-nine days - from July 5 to August 23, 1943. The victory near Kursk marked the transition of the strategic initiative to the Red Army. By the time the front was stabilized, Soviet troops had reached their starting positions for an offensive on the Dnieper. After the end of the battle on the Kursk Bulge, the German command lost the opportunity to conduct strategic offensive operations. Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, who developed and conducted Operation Citadel, later wrote: “This battle was the last attempt to maintain our initiative in the East. With her failure, tantamount to failure, the initiative finally passed to the Soviet side. Therefore, Operation Citadel is a decisive turning point in the war on the Eastern Front.
