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178-593: Second phase The Nikopol–Krivoi Rog offensive (Russian: Никопольско-Криворожская наступательная операция ) was an offensive by the Red Army 's 3rd Ukrainian Front and elements of the 4th Ukrainian Front against the German 6th Army in the area of Nikopol and Krivoi Rog in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in central Ukraine between 30 January and 29 February 1944 . It took place on

356-405: A German helmet appear on the horizon, abandoning their artillery, convoys and all war material to the triumphantly advancing enemy. The Red Guard units are brushed aside like flies. We have no power to stay the enemy; only an immediate signing of the peace treaty will save us from destruction." The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) can be divided into three periods: At the start of the civil war,

534-439: A mechanized corps . It was supported by one breakthrough artillery division and four anti-aircraft artillery divisions , among others. The elements of the 4th Ukrainian Front that fought in the operation fielded seventeen additional infantry divisions and a mechanized corps, supported by two breakthrough artillery divisions and an anti-aircraft artillery division. They numbered 115,537 men and 2,925 guns on 1 February, not including

712-587: A 224-gun artillery salute was fired in Moscow. A special 37th Army detachment prevented the German demolition of the power stations in the city and the Saksahan dams. After the capture of Krivoi Rog, the 37th Army advanced to the Inhulets west of the city, and the 46th Army to the Inhulets south of the city. On 25 February the 8th Guards and 6th Armies resumed the advance to the Inhulets. The 5th Shock Army resumed

890-462: A 30-minute artillery preparation. Blizzard conditions made the advance difficult and grounded Soviet aviation, but in the first two days the two armies advanced between 5 and 12 kilometers (3.1 and 7.5 mi) in heavy fighting in mud and snow. Against German counterattacks, the 37th Army's 82nd Rifle Corps reached the city outskirts from the northeast on 21 February. At the same time, the 46th Army's 6th Guards Rifle Corps and 34th Rifle Corps reached

1068-527: A breakdown of their losses. Finally, the losses of the flak units, which were operating in the rear area of the 6th Army but were under subordination of the Luftflotte 4 , are not counted either- the biggest unit among these was the 15th Flak Division. Thus, based on the aforementioned factors, the total losses of the 6th Army, plus Luftwaffe anti-aircraft units and paramilitary organizations attached to it, were close to 30,000. Another indication of this are

1246-404: A bridgehead northwest of Malaya Lepetikha . For the next several days, the advance paused as ammunition and artillery were brought up, awaiting the resumption of the attack on Krivoi Rog. During this lull in the fighting, the German 6th Army reorganized its forces due to the heavy losses suffered. In addition to the disbandment of the 125th, two regiments of the 302nd were combined into one, while

1424-551: A collective committee of Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko , Pavel Dybenko , and Nikolai Krylenko . At the same time, Nikolay Dukhonin was acting as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief after Alexander Kerensky fled from Russia. On 12 November 1917 the Soviet government appointed Krylenko as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, and because of an "accident" during the forceful displacement of the commander-in-chief, Dukhonin

1602-565: A common border between Japanese controlled areas and the Soviet Far East and Mongolia . The Soviets and Japanese, including their respective client states of the Mongolian People's Republic and Manchukuo , disputed the boundaries and accused the other side of border violations. This resulted in a series of escalating border skirmishes and punitive expeditions , including the 1938 Battle of Lake Khasan , and culminated in

1780-418: A further 1,836,000 returned from German captivity. Thus the grand total of losses amounted to 8,668,400. This is the official total dead , but other estimates give the number of total dead up to almost 11 million men, including 7.7 million killed or missing in action and 2.6 million prisoners of war (POW) dead (out of 5.2 million total POWs), plus 400,000 paramilitary and Soviet partisan losses. Officials at

1958-503: A hundred times as many tanks . The Red Army, however, had been hindered by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin 's Great Purge of 1937, reducing the army's morale and efficiency shortly before the outbreak of the fighting. With over 30,000 of its army officers executed or imprisoned, most of whom were from the highest ranks, the Red Army in 1939 had many inexperienced senior officers. Because of these factors, and high commitment and morale in

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2136-430: A limited extent, the panzer regiments are worn-out, and most of them are currently without operational tanks. The divisions have thus lost their character and value as panzer divisions. The losses in armoured vehicles were not even remotely compensated for by the reassignments or the corresponding supply of spare parts. [...] 8.) The mood and attitude of the troops were often depressed by the high number of casualties and

2314-413: A line east of Kamenka, but this was abandoned after Schörner reported that such an action would lead to the loss of most of the vehicles. Continuing the attack in the spring rasputitsa , which made roads impassable, the 46th Army's 4th and 34th Guards Rifle Divisions reached the key rail junction of Apostolovo, the German 6th Army's main supply base, on the evening of 4 February. There, the remnants of

2492-454: A major reshuffling took place in the Soviet military administration. On 13 March 1918, the Soviet government accepted the official resignation of Krylenko and the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief was liquidated. On 14 March 1918, Leon Trotsky replaced Podvoisky as the Narkom of War Affairs. On 16 March 1918, Pavel Dybenko was relieved from the office of Narkom of Marine Affairs. On 8 May 1918,

2670-475: A pair of one-lane pontoon bridges at the far southern end of the bridgehead at Velikaya (Bolshaya) Lepetikha . The remainder of the 6th Army sector, facing north and slightly east, stretched between positions 18 miles (29 km) north of Krivoi Rog and 30 miles (48 km) north of Apostolovo, where the sole rail line supplying the army branched north and towards Nikopol. The positions ran across open steppe divided at right angles by numerous ravines and

2848-532: A reconsideration of the operational plans for the 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts. He concluded that a German withdrawal from the Nikopol bridgehead was likely and thus advocated a renewed attack to begin between 10 and 12 January 1944. Stavka approved his plan, and after preparations between 10 and 12 January, the 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts began the attack. The former's 8th Guards and 46th Armies advanced towards Apostolovo against XXX Army Corps on 10 January, and

3026-420: A result, the bridgehead was heavily fortified, with three lines of trenches in its first defensive line, strengthened by barbed wire belts and minefields. All heights and settlements immediately behind the front were turned into fortified strongpoints. These positions were what remained of the fortified German Dnieper line. Despite Hitler's obsession with the bridgehead, the mining of manganese ore ceased during

3204-510: A significant impact on the mood. Just how badly depleted the units were can be shown by the example of the 16th Panzergrenadier Division and 9th Panzer Division . As of 21 February 1944, both divisions were rated as having Kampfwert IV (Combat Value 4), meaning that they were fit for limited defensive operations only. The combat strength of their infantry battalions were the following. One month later, on 25 March 1944, remnants of these divisions were ordered to pull out from Ukraine and move to

3382-545: A stable nucleus. By 1925, this system provided 46 of the 77 infantry divisions and one of the eleven cavalry divisions. The remainder consisted of regular officers and enlisted personnel serving two-year terms. The territorial system was finally abolished, with all remaining formations converted to the other cadre divisions, in 1937–1938. The Soviet military received ample funding and was innovative in its technology. An American journalist wrote in 1941: Even in American terms

3560-521: A surrender the following day although some Japanese units continued to fight for several more days. A proposed Soviet invasion of Hokkaido , the second largest Japanese island, was originally planned to be part of the territory to be taken but it was cancelled. Military administration after the October Revolution was taken over by the People's Commissariat of War and Marine affairs headed by

3738-485: A temporary Soviet pause in order to prepare for the advance against Krivoi Rog, in the northwest portion of the salient. Two armies of the 3rd Ukrainian Front began the advance towards that city on 17 February, and captured it on 22 February. Other armies from the front then resumed the advance and captured several bridgeheads over the Inhulets river, which became the next German defensive line. Fighting in

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3916-750: A total of 15,368. According to its reports in the German Federal Military Archive , the army lost 13,240 men, including 8,390 wounded and 4,850 killed or missing, between 11 and 29 February. The 6th Army High Command report, completed on 13 March 1944, provides near-complete figures for the army losses in February 1944. According to it, casualties of the 6th Army divisions, together with the subordinated corps ( Korpstruppen ), army ( Armeetruppen ) and army group ( Heerestruppen ) general headquarters (GHQ) combat units, amounted to 3,302 killed, 11,707 wounded, 4,281 missing, and 5,588 sick for

4094-492: A total of 24,878 casualties. The total 6th Army losses, however, were somewhat higher than this number. The document explicitly states that losses of the 62nd and 123rd Infantry Divisions, 97th Jäger Division, 16th Panzergrenadier Division and 3rd Mountain Division are given only for the first half of February (1-15), the precise losses in the second half of the month were not possible to establish for these divisions. In addition,

4272-404: Is having a significant impact on combat effectiveness. Due to the increasing shortage of experienced officers and non-commissioned officers, the internal structure of the troops in the worn-out divisions will no longer be able to cope with greater stress at present. In order to increase the fighting and resistance power, a large number of fresh, energetic and capable officers must be brought in. It

4450-605: Is only one way to prevent the restoration of the police, and that is to create a people's militia and to fuse it with the army (the standing army to be replaced by the arming of the entire people)." At the time, the Imperial Russian Army had started to collapse. Approximately 23% (about 19 million) of the male population of the Russian Empire were mobilized; however, most of them were not equipped with any weapons and had support roles such as maintaining

4628-433: Is so weakened that it can no longer fulfill its most necessary tasks. The bulk of the bridge equipment is lost in the mud. Increased and rapid supply of replacements on an exceptional scale to speed up the refitting of the weakened units, if possible by air transport, is a particular requirement, with engineer replacements also a priority. 3.) The bulk of the army's divisions lost a large part of their weapons and equipment in

4806-573: Is urgently necessary to supply non-commissioned officers from unattacked fronts (Norway, Lapland, France, Balkans), whose personnel and combat situation allow for the training of non-commissioned officers to a particularly high degree, to the worn-out units of the Eastern Front. 2.) The state of personnel and materiel made it necessary to merge the two weakened divisional battle groups into divisional groups and integrate them into weak divisions to replenish them. Exhausting all means at its disposal,

4984-499: The RSO prime mover) and 1,100 motor vehicle trailers (both single-axe and double-axe). There's no similar report prepared about losses in artillery pieces, armoured vehicles and other weapons, but its clear that 6th Army divisions had significant shortfalls in all types of weapons by the start of March 1944, based on the reports of army commander and weekly divisional condition reports at the end of February- start of March 1944. Summarizing

5162-586: The 12th Army and deployed for the attack on the Aisne . When Operation Barbarossa , the German invasion of the Soviet Union, commenced on 22 June 1941, XVII Corps, supplemented by the 56th and 62nd Divisions, was positioned on the Northern wing of the 6th Army . After advancing into Russian territory they were also allocated the 44th Division for the attack on Kiev . In collaboration with XXIX Corps Kiev

5340-516: The 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts launched a series of unsuccessful assaults against the Nikopol bridgehead and the Krivoi Rog area, which formed a salient . The 3rd Ukrainian Front directed its assaults against the northern part of the salient, while the 4th Ukrainian Front moved against the southern part. Since its capture by the Germans in 1941, the rich deposits of manganese in

5518-522: The 4th Guards Cavalry Corps , operating against the Nikopol bridgehead. These elements of the front fielded 22 rifle divisions, three cavalry divisions, and two mechanized corps. They faced the IV and XXIX Army Corps in the Nikopol bridgehead. The 3rd Ukrainian Front and elements of the 4th Ukrainian Front were tasked in January with destroying the German forces in the area of Nikopol and Krivoi Rog, eliminating

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5696-588: The 8th Army . Subsequently, XVII Corps, bolstered by the 8th Jäger Division and the 3rd Mountain Division, was positioned to defend passes through the Carpathian Mountains . In late 1944, after the destruction of the 6th Army in the Jassy region, XVII corps had to undertake a fighting retreat to take up a defensive position in Hungary. In 1944 General Tiemann took command and the corps was made part of

5874-476: The 8th Guards , 6th , and 46th Armies , the 17th Air Army , and the 23rd Tank Corps . The front included only nineteen rifle divisions and a tank corps, and faced the German LVII Panzer , XXX, and XVII Army Corps . General armii Fyodor Tolbukhin 's 4th Ukrainian Front included the 3rd Guards , 5th Shock , and 28th Armies , the 8th Air Army , the 2nd and 4th Guards Mechanized Corps , and

6052-645: The Cheka secret police. Conscription began in June 1918, and opposition to it was violently suppressed. To control the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural Red Army soldiery, the Cheka operated special punitive brigades which suppressed anti-communists , deserters , and " enemies of the state ". The Red Army used special regiments for ethnic minorities, such as the Dungan Cavalry Regiment commanded by

6230-628: The Dungan Magaza Masanchi . It also co-operated with armed Bolshevik Party-oriented volunteer units, the Forces of Special Purpose from 1919 to 1925. The slogan "exhortation, organization, and reprisals" expressed the discipline and motivation which helped ensure the Red Army's tactical and strategic success. On campaign, the attached Cheka special punitive brigades conducted summary field court-martial and executions of deserters and slackers. Under Commissar Yan Karlovich Berzin ,

6408-757: The Eastern Front of World War II and was part of the wider Dnieper–Carpathian offensive , a Soviet attack against Army Group South to retake the rest of Ukraine that fell to Germany in 1941. Following the Soviet advance to the Dnieper in the Battle of the Dnieper during late 1943, German forces managed to hold to the Nikopol bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnieper, the area of manganese ore mines of crucial importance to German war production that Adolf Hitler insisted on holding. In November and December,

6586-543: The Gulag . During the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army conscripted 29,574,900 men in addition to the 4,826,907 in service at the beginning of the war. Of this total of 34,401,807 it lost 6,329,600 killed in action (KIA), 555,400 deaths by disease and 4,559,000 missing in action (MIA) (most captured). Of the 4.5 million missing, 939,700 rejoined the ranks in the subsequently liberated Soviet territory, and

6764-958: The Imperial Japanese Army ), the doctrine was not used. Only in the Second World War did deep operations come into play. The Red Army was involved in armed conflicts in the Republic of China during the Sino-Soviet conflict (1929) , the Soviet invasion of Xinjiang (1934), when it was assisted by White Russian forces, and the Islamic rebellion in Xinjiang (1937) in Northwestern China . The Red Army achieved its objectives; it maintained effective control over

6942-648: The OB West area for rebuilding- 9th Panzer Division moved to Carcassonne area near French Mediterranean coast, while the 16th Panzergrenadier Division moved to the area northwest of Paris. Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army , often shortened to the Red Army , was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union . The army was established in January 1918 by Leon Trotsky to oppose

7120-622: The Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine led by Nestor Makhno , the anti-White and anti-Red Green armies , efforts to restore the defeated Provisional Government, monarchists, but mainly the White Movement of several different anti-socialist military confederations. "Red Army Day", 23 February 1918, has a two-fold historical significance: it was the first day of conscription (in Petrograd and Moscow), and

7298-610: The Soviet invasion of Manchuria on 9 August 1945 (three days after the first atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the same day the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki , while also being exact three months after the surrender of Germany). It was the largest campaign of the Soviet–Japanese War , which resumed hostilities between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Empire of Japan after almost six years of peace following

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7476-964: The United States . In total, the U.S. deliveries to the USSR through Lend-Lease amounted to $ 11 billion in materials ($ 180 billion in the 2020 money value): over 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386 of which were M3 Lees and 4,102 M4 Shermans ); 14,015 aircraft (of which 4,719 were Bell P-39 Airacobras , 2,908 were Douglas A-20 Havocs and 2,400 were Bell P-63 Kingcobras ) and 1.75 million tons of food. Soviet soldiers committed mass rapes in occupied territories, especially in Germany . The wartime rapes were followed by decades of silence. According to historian Antony Beevor , whose books were banned in 2015 from some Russian schools and colleges, NKVD (Soviet secret police) files have revealed that

7654-575: The Wehrmacht in combat. The Axis's numeric superiority rendered the combatants' divisional strength approximately equal. A generation of Soviet commanders (notably Georgy Zhukov ) learned from the defeats, and Soviet victories in the Battle of Moscow , at Stalingrad , Kursk and later in Operation Bagration proved decisive. In 1941, the Soviet government raised the bloodied Red Army's esprit de corps with propaganda stressing

7832-502: The Wehrmacht was especially harsh. Per a 1941 Stalin directive , Red Army officers and soldiers were to "fight to the last" rather than surrender; Stalin stated: "There are no Soviet prisoners of war, only traitors". During and after World War II freed POWs went to special " filtration camps ". Of these, by 1944, more than 90% were cleared, and about 8% were arrested or condemned to serve in penal battalions . In 1944, they were sent directly to reserve military formations to be cleared by

8010-587: The brigade and regimental levels. The commissars also had the task of spying on commanders for political incorrectness . In August 1918, Trotsky authorized General Mikhail Tukhachevsky to place blocking units behind politically unreliable Red Army units, to shoot anyone who retreated without permission. In 1942, during the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) Joseph Stalin reintroduced the blocking policy and penal battalions with Order 227 . The Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919 occurred at

8188-483: The lines of communication and the base areas. The Tsarist general Nikolay Dukhonin estimated that there had been 2 million deserters, 1.8 million dead, 5 million wounded and 2 million prisoners. He estimated the remaining troops as numbering 10 million. While the Imperial Russian Army was being taken apart, "it became apparent that the rag-tag Red Guard units and elements of

8366-411: The watercourses of five major rivers. A single hard-surfaced road passed through the army's sector, designated Through Road IV, but it was unusable due to its proximity to the frontline, except for a small area at Krivoi Rog. Due to a total lack of suitable road building materials, the German forces were unable to construct hard-surfaced roads. As a result, when the roads turned to mud ( rasputitsa ) in

8544-683: The "Second Soviet-Finnish War") which was a conflict fought by Finland and Germany against the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1944. In accordance with the Soviet-Nazi Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 23 August 1939, the Red Army invaded Poland on 17 September 1939, after the Nazi invasion on 1 September 1939. On 30 November, the Red Army also attacked Finland, in the Winter War of 1939–1940. By autumn 1940, after conquering its portion of Poland, Nazi Germany shared an extensive border with

8722-412: The 123rd Infantry Division of XXX Corps and elements of the 9th Panzer Division were concentrated in an all-around defense with up to 3,000 men, 80 guns, and 30 tanks and assault guns. The 4th Guards attacked from the north and east, and the 34th Guards from the west and northwest. With the assistance of locals, the scouts from the 34th Guards Division found a gap in German defenses 4 kilometers northwest of

8900-466: The 1929 Field Regulations and became codified in the 1936 Provisional Field Regulations (PU-36). The Great Purge of 1937–1939 and the 1941 Red Army Purge removed many leading officers from the Red Army, including Tukhachevsky himself and many of his followers, and the doctrine was abandoned. Thus, at the Battle of Lake Khasan in 1938 and in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol in 1939 ( major border conflicts with

9078-542: The 1932–1939 Soviet–Japanese border conflicts . The Red Army, with support from Mongolian forces, overwhelmed the Japanese Kwantung Army and local Chinese forces supporting them. The Soviets advanced on the continent into the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo , Mengjiang (the northeast section of present-day Inner Mongolia which was part of another puppet state) and via an amphibious operation

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9256-485: The 23rd Panzer Division, which fielded around 60 tanks. The Soviet attack towards Sholokhovo threatened to cut off the supply route for the German troops in the Nikopol bridgehead. In the first days of the offensive, despite bad weather, Soviet aviation was active over the front. As a result of the Soviet attacks, on 2 February, the German 6th Army was transferred back to Army Group A, commanded by Generalfeldmarschall Ewald von Kleist . Schörner ordered his forces to evacuate

9434-416: The 2nd Guards Mechanized Corps and the front reserve artillery. The diversionary attacks of the Soviet 6th and 37th Armies began on the morning of 30 January. The latter's 82nd Rifle Corps with the 15th and 28th Guards and 188th Rifle Divisions achieved the most success, breaking through the German line, in an 8-kilometer sector and advancing 3–4 kilometers (1.9–2.5 mi) from Veselyye Terny against

9612-605: The 302nd Division and the remnants of the 9th Panzer Division and the units that had managed to make it out of the bridgehead from IV, XVII, and XXIX Army Corps. In order to secure the corridor, the retreat route for troops east of the Kamenka, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht , the German supreme command, projected an attack to attack the Soviet units in the flank by retaking Sholokhovo followed by an advance towards Kamenka, as well as recapturing Bolshaya Kostromka. The weakness of

9790-566: The 302nd Division rendered this broad offensive unfeasible, resulting in the additional commitment of the 17th, 9th, and 258th Infantry Divisions as well as the 97th Jäger Division of IV and XXIX Corps to a counterattack west against Bolshaya Kostromka, as well as a counterattack towards Apostolovo to restore communications to the west by reopening the Tok–Novosemyonovka railway line. The counterattack met with initial success, recapturing Nikolayevka and Novosemyonovka. Beginning on 8 February,

9968-414: The 302nd Infantry Division with a regiment each from the 17th and 302nd Divisions, supported by the 9th Infantry Division began its attack on Bolshaya Kostromka. The settlement was recaptured except for its eastern edge in fierce fighting, during which the German forces suffered heavy casualties. A 9 February 8 Guards Army tank-supported counterattack against Tok was stopped after nearly destroying elements of

10146-520: The 387th Infantry Division was merged into the 258th. Alarm units were scraped together from artillerymen who had lost their guns, rear personnel, and stragglers. In addition, the previous fighting had caused a lack of pioneers, bridging equipment, vehicles, guns, infantry ammunition, and tanks. The 17th and 294th Divisions had also suffered heavy losses in the attempt to clear the retreat route, though troops of IV and XVII Army Corps held their positions at Marinskoye. The 97th Jäger and 24th Panzer Divisions,

10324-405: The 3rd Guards and 28th Armies began supporting attacks to assist the 5th Shock Army. The 2nd Guards Mechanized Corps with around 30 tanks and self-propelled guns entered the breakthrough in 5th Shock's sector at 15:00 and advanced up to 11 kilometers (6.8 mi) by the end of the day against dogged German resistance, outpacing 5th Shock, which advanced up to 7 kilometers (4.3 mi). On 2 February

10502-479: The 3rd Guards, 5th Shock, and 28th Armies began the pursuit that day against German rearguard detachments, advancing between 4 and 14 kilometers. The last German unit to evacuate the northern portion of the bridgehead from IV Army Corps was the 302nd Infantry Division, whose pioneers blew up the bridge over the Dnieper at Nikopol at midnight on 6 February. The German pioneers also destroyed abandoned guns and vehicles as well as infrastructure in Nikopol. Velikaya Lepetikha

10680-435: The 3rd Guards, 5th Shock, and 28th Armies continued to attack, but only the 5th Shock was able to make small gains, though on 3 February the 4th Ukrainian Front advance reached a depth of 8 kilometers. The three Soviet armies continued their attacks along the previous routes on 4 February, but were again unsuccessful. Taking advantage of the German retreat from their main line of resistance in the Nikopol bridgehead on 5 February,

10858-458: The 3rd Mountain Division. To fully secure the retreat route, the 125th Infantry Division of XVII Corps was tasked with taking the eastern edge of Bolshaya Kostromka, launching its attack on 10 February with the support of the 302nd Division. The attack fully cleared the settlement and the 125th continued the advance towards Novosemyonovka and Apostolovo. The strong German counterattack towards Apostolovo by units of IV Army Corps, among others, struck

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11036-549: The 3rd Mountain managed to disable several Soviet armored vehicles near Perevizskiye, but the right flank of its pioneer battalion was turned on 6 February by a tank attack into the settlement. A counterattack supported by assault guns and a regiment of the 3rd Mountain retook the northern part of the settlement, enabling the establishment of a coherent German line east of the Basavluk. With the Soviet advance there briefly halted, 6th Army command planned to recapture Sholokovo and hold

11214-478: The 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts conducted multiple unsuccessful attacks against the bridgehead, a salient centered around the supply base and rail junction of Apostolovo , and German troops in the Krivoi Rog area. Following another failed attack in mid-January, the Nikopol–Krivoy Rog offensive was launched by the 3rd Ukrainian Front to the north of the salient on 30 January, and elements of

11392-555: The 46th Army a bridgehead north of Shyroke. Soviet documents in the Central Archives of the Russian Ministry of Defense estimated that they had captured 4,600 German military personnel during the offensive. For the month of February, in its casualty reports submitted to higher headquarters every ten days, the German 6th Army reported casualties of 2,905 killed, 10,018 wounded, and 2,445 missing, for

11570-495: The 46th Army advanced northwest of Apostolovo, the 8th Guards Army advanced to the southwest of that city, and the Soviet 6th Army entered the Novovorontsovka area. On 10 February, the 3rd Guards Army transferred to the 3rd Ukrainian Front, but was soon withdrawn to Stavka Reserve. The 5th Shock Army, also transferred to the 3rd Ukrainian, crossed the Dnieper in conditions worsened by floating ice on 10 February and captured

11748-539: The 4th Guards Mechanized Corps was withdrawn to the reserve in the Apostolovo area due to losses. During the next several days, the German troops held the Dnieper marshes and the Nikopol–Dudchino road, allowing elements of five infantry divisions, including several from XVII Corps, to retreat, although losing almost all their heavy equipment. Simultaneously, the 37th Army continued to fight south of Veselyye Terny,

11926-471: The 4th Guards Mechanized Corps with 120 tanks and assault guns was inserted into the Soviet breakthrough in the sector of the 8th Guards Army at 16:00 on 1 February. In its advance, the 4th Guards scattered retreating units of the 123rd Infantry Division of the XXX Army Corps and captured 85 soldiers, before reaching the northern outskirts of Kamenka and Sholokhovo by the end of the day and running into

12104-418: The 4th Ukrainian Front, supported by General-leytenant Timofey Khryukin 's 8th Air Army, were to destroy the German troops in the Nikopol bridgehead – the IV and XXIX Army Corps of Group Schörner, commanded by General der Infanterie Friedrich Mieth and General der Panzertruppe Erich Brandenberger , respectively. General-leytenant Karp Sviridov 's 2nd Guards Mechanized Corps was to be inserted into

12282-551: The 4th Ukrainian Front to the south of it joined in a day later. The Soviet troops broke through the 6th Army's lines, capturing Apostolovo on 5 February, splitting the army in half. Nikopol fell on 8 February, but despite heavy losses the troops in the bridgehead, including the German IV Army Corps , were able to retreat across the Dnieper. The IV Army Corps launched an unsuccessful counterattack against Apostolovo around this time, resulting in

12460-417: The 62nd Infantry Division of LVII Panzer Corps. Stubborn resistance and counterattacks slowed the Soviet advance, which devolved into what American historian Earl F. Ziemke described as a "series of uncoordinated skirmishes." The Soviet 6th Army attacked with its 60th Guards and 244th Rifle Divisions , managing to carve a small foothold in the defenses of XVII Army Corps northeast of Nikopol. Chuikov began

12638-431: The 6th Army were very high, especially in terms of motor vehicles. According to the army's Oberquartiermeister report, in February 1944, as a result of difficult retreats and breakouts in muddy conditions, the army lost a total of 8,200 trucks of all capacities and models, 2,900 passenger cars (ordinary and cross-country), 2,400 motorcycles (both solo and with sidecar), 650 artillery prime movers of all capacities (including

12816-646: The All-Russian Chief Headquarters was created, headed by Nikolai Stogov and later Alexander Svechin . On 2 September 1918, the Revolutionary Military Council (RMC) was established as the main military administration under Leon Trotsky, the Narkom of War Affairs. On 6 September 1918 alongside the chief headquarters, the Field Headquarters of RMC was created, initially headed by Nikolai Rattel . On

12994-636: The Bolshevik Revolution took place there were few machines in Russia. Marx said Communism must come in a highly industrialized society. The Bolsheviks identified their dreams of socialist happiness with machines which would multiply production and reduce hours of labour until everyone would have everything he needed and would work only as much as he wished. Somehow this has not come about, but the Russians still worship machines, and this helped make

13172-518: The Dnieper in order to link up with the 4th Ukrainian Front. The 8th Guards and 46th Armies were to attack on a 21-kilometer (13 mi), with a density of 140 guns and mortars and nine tanks and self-propelled guns per kilometer. General-leytenant Vladimir Sudets ' 17th Air Army provided air support for the 3rd Ukrainian Front. Meanwhile, General-leytenant Dmitry Lelyushenko 's 3rd Guards, General-leytenant Vyacheslav Tsvetayev 's 5th Shock, and General-leytenant Alexey Grechkin 's 28th Armies of

13350-427: The Dnieper to cut off the German troops around Nikopol, capturing Bolshaya Kostromka, Novosemyonovka, and Verkhnemikhailovka. The 4th Ukrainian Front began its attack on the Nikopol bridgehead on 31 January, with the 5th Shock Army's 50th Guards Rifle Division pushing the German troops back 1.5 kilometers (0.93 mi) in an attack beginning at 04:00. At 08:00 the 54th Guards Rifle Division began its attack. At noon

13528-451: The Eastern Front consisted of an estimated 3,604,800 KIA/MIA within the 1937 borders plus 900,000 ethnic Germans and Austrians outside the 1937 border (included in these numbers are men listed as missing in action or unaccounted for after the war) and 3,576,300 men reported captured (total 8,081,100); the losses of the German satellites on the Eastern Front approximated 668,163 KIA/MIA and 799,982 captured (total 1,468,145). Of these 9,549,245,

13706-640: The Finnish forces, Finland was able to resist the Soviet invasion for much longer than the Soviets expected. Finnish forces inflicted stunning losses on the Red Army for the first three months of the war while suffering very few losses themselves. Hostilities ceased in March 1940 with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty . Finland ceded 9% of its pre-war territory and 30% of its economic assets to

13884-423: The German 6th Army fielded twenty divisions (including three panzer) with an average combat strength of 2,500 and eight assault gun battalions, as well as a large number of artillery and pioneer units. Of these, eight infantry divisions (four each in IV and XXIX Army Corps) and three assault gun battalions formed part of Group Schörner in the Nikopol bridgehead. The German infantry units had been reinforced by scraping

14062-644: The German LVII Panzer Corps at Krivoi Rog and the XVII Army Corps of General der Gebirgstruppe Hans Kreysing at Nikopol, respectively. The main blow of the 3rd Ukrainian Front was planned to be delivered against the XXX Army Corps of General der Artillerie Maximilian Fretter-Pico by General-leytenant Vasily Glagolev 's 46th Army, General-polkovnik Vasily Chuikov 's 8th Guards Army, and General-leytenant Trofim Tanaschishin 's 4th Guards Mechanized Corps towards Apostolovo and

14240-426: The German troops began to withdraw, in accordance with Schörner's order, to the Dnieper crossings at Velikaya Lepetikha and Nikopol, which were under constant Soviet air attacks and shelling. These disrupted the German withdrawal, but despite heavy losses, Group Schörner was able to withdraw across the river, beginning with the 3rd Mountain Division at Nikopol. German resistance stymied the Soviet advance: on 2 February

14418-545: The Manchurian Chinese Eastern Railway , and successfully installed a pro-Soviet regime in Xinjiang . The Soviet–Japanese border conflicts , also known as the "Soviet–Japanese Border War" or the first "Soviet–Japanese War", was a series of minor and major conflicts fought between the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan from 1932 to 1939. Japan's expansion into Northeast China created

14596-520: The NKVD. Further, in 1945, about 100 filtration camps were set for repatriated POWs, and other displaced persons , which processed more than 4,000,000 people. By 1946, 80% civilians and 20% of POWs were freed, 5% of civilians, and 43% of POWs were re-drafted, 10% of civilians and 22% of POWs were sent to labor battalions, and 2% of civilians and 15% of the POWs (226,127 out of 1,539,475 total) were transferred to

14774-497: The Nikopol bridgehead over the Dnieper , the easternmost protrusion of a salient centred on the key rail junction of Apostolovo . On 3 November, these two corps were temporarily transferred to the 1st Panzer Army , and within weeks they became part of Group Schörner under the command of General der Gebirgstruppe Ferdinand Schörner along with the XVII Army Corps to the north. During November and December,

14952-482: The Nikopol bridgehead on the same day and retreat to a line beginning at the mouth of the Basavluk, 20 kilometers (12 mi) west of Nikopol, and ending at Dolinzevo, 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) east of Krivoi Rog, known as the Ursula position. Sholokhovo fell that morning, although the Soviet advance was temporarily halted to the south by the replacement battalions of the 258th and 302nd Divisions. In order to hold open

15130-579: The Nikopol bridgehead, and pushing the German troops back behind the line of the Inhulets and the Southern Bug . On 29 December 1943, Marshal Sovetskogo Soyuza Aleksandr Vasilevsky , the representative of the Soviet high command, Stavka , reported that the defeat of the German troops opposing the 1st Ukrainian Front in the Zhitomir–Berdichev offensive and the redirection of the 2nd Ukrainian Front towards an attack on Kirovograd forced

15308-620: The Red Army consisted of 299 infantry regiments . The civil war intensified after Lenin dissolved the Russian Constituent Assembly (5–6 January 1918) and the Soviet government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918), removing Russia from the First World War. Freed from international obligations, the Red Army confronted an internecine war against a variety of opposing anti-Bolshevik forces, including

15486-404: The Red Army during World War II, 8 million of which were non-Slavic minorities. Officially, the Red Army lost 6,329,600 killed in action (KIA), 555,400 deaths by disease and 4,559,000 missing in action (MIA) ( mostly captured ). The majority of the losses, excluding POWs, were ethnic Russians (5,756,000), followed by ethnic Ukrainians (1,377,400). Of the 4.5 million missing, 939,700 rejoined

15664-644: The Red Army finally achieving a Soviet-Mongolian victory over Japan and Manchukuo at the Battles of Khalkhin Gol in September 1939. The Soviet Union and Japan agreed to a ceasefire. Later the two sides signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact on 13 April 1941, which resolved the dispute and returned the borders to status quo ante bellum . The Winter War ( Finnish : talvisota , Swedish : finska vinterkriget , Russian: Зи́мняя война́ )

15842-558: The Red Army instituted amnesty weeks to prohibit punitive measures against desertion which encouraged the voluntary return of 98,000–132,000 deserters to the army. In September 1918, the Bolshevik militias consolidated under the supreme command of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic ( Russian : Революционный Военный Совет , romanized :  Revolyutsionny Voyenny Sovyet (Revvoyensoviet) ). The first chairman

16020-607: The Red Army numbered some 6.5 million men, many of whom the Army had difficulty supporting, around 581,000 in the two operational fronts, western and southwestern. Around 2.5 million men and women were mobilized in the interior as part of reserve armies. The XI Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (RCP (b)) adopted a resolution on the strengthening of the Red Army. It decided to establish strictly organized military, educational and economic conditions in

16198-478: The Red Army the most highly mechanized in the world, except perhaps the German Army now. Like Americans, the Russians admire size, bigness, large numbers. They took pride in building a vast army of tanks, some of them the largest in the world, armored cars, airplanes, motorized guns, and every variety of mechanical weapons. XVII Army Corps (Wehrmacht) XVII Army Corps ( German : XVII. Armeekorps )

16376-590: The Red Army's defeat of Pyotr Wrangel in the south in 1920 allowed the foundation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in December 1922. Historian John Erickson sees 1 February 1924, when Mikhail Frunze became head of the Red Army staff, as marking the ascent of the general staff , which came to dominate Soviet military planning and operations. By 1 October 1924 the Red Army's strength had diminished to 530,000. The list of Soviet divisions 1917–1945 details

16554-411: The Red Army's strength was 401 divisions. The Soviet forces were apparently unprepared despite numerous warnings from a variety of sources. They suffered much damage in the field because of mediocre officers, partial mobilization, and an incomplete reorganization. The hasty pre-war forces expansion and the over-promotion of inexperienced officers (owing to the purging of experienced officers) favored

16732-572: The Russian Central Defense Ministry Archive (CDMA) maintain that their database lists the names of roughly 14 million dead and missing service personnel. The majority of the losses, excluding POWs, were ethnic Russians (5,756,000), followed by ethnic Ukrainians (1,377,400). As many as 8 million of the 34 million mobilized were non-Slavic minority soldiers, and around 45 divisions formed from national minorities served from 1941 to 1943. The German losses on

16910-645: The Soviet Union made Red Army logistical support difficult because many depots (and most of the USSR's industrial manufacturing base) lay in the country's invaded western areas, obliging their re-establishment east of the Ural Mountains. Lend-Lease trucks and jeeps from the United States began appearing in large numbers in 1942. Until then, the Red Army was often required to improvise or go without weapons, vehicles, and other equipment. The 1941 decision to physically move their manufacturing capacity east of

17088-421: The Soviet Union. In June 1918, Leon Trotsky abolished workers' control over the Red Army, replacing the election of officers with traditional army hierarchies and criminalizing dissent with the death penalty . Simultaneously, Trotsky carried out a mass recruitment of officers from the old Imperial Russian Army , who were employed as military advisors ( voenspetsy ). The Bolsheviks occasionally enforced

17266-535: The Soviet Union. Soviet losses on the front were heavy, and the country's international reputation suffered. The Soviet forces did not accomplish their objective of the total conquest of Finland but did receive territory in Karelia , Petsamo , and Salla . The Finns retained their sovereignty and improved their international reputation, which bolstered their morale in the Continuation War (also known as

17444-404: The Soviet attack, the German 6th Army reported casualties of 1,339 killed, 4,865 wounded, and 446 missing. Casualties of 834 killed, 3,214 wounded, and 419 missing were reported in the next ten-day period between 21 and 31 January. On the day that the attacks concluded, Vasilevsky submitted a new plan to Stavka for an attack to begin on 30 January. The 3rd Ukrainian Front was given the main role in

17622-436: The Soviet defence budget was large. In 1940 it was the equivalent of $ 11,000,000,000, and represented one-third of the national expenditure. Measure this against the fact that the infinitely richer United States will approximate the expenditure of that much yearly only in 1942 after two years of its greatest defence effort. Most of the money spent on the Red Army and Air Force went for machines of war. Twenty-three years ago when

17800-509: The Soviet tanks after the latter outran their supporting infantry. Continued German counterattacks reduced the breach to about a mile by the end of the day. In four to five days of stubborn fighting, the Soviet troops were unable to make decisive gains. The 3rd Ukrainian Front wedged into the German line between 6 and 8 kilometers (3.7 and 5.0 mi) through preponderance in infantry, but could not break through due to German resistance, shortages of ammunition and its lack of tanks, which prevented

17978-490: The Soviets released 3,572,600 from captivity after the war, thus the grand total of the Axis losses came to an estimated 5,976,645. Regarding POWs, both sides captured large numbers and had many die in captivity – one recent British figure says 3.6 of 6 million Soviet POWs died in German camps, while 300,000 of 3 million German POWs died in Soviet hands. In 1941, the rapid progress of the initial German air and land attacks into

18156-675: The USSR, with whom it remained neutrally bound by their non-aggression pact and trade agreements . Another consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina , carried out by the Southern Front in June–July 1940 and Soviet occupation of the Baltic states . These conquests also added to the border the Soviet Union shared with Nazi-controlled areas. For Adolf Hitler ,

18334-422: The Ural Mountains kept the main Soviet support system out of German reach. In the later stages of the war, the Red Army fielded some excellent weaponry, especially artillery and tanks. The Red Army's heavy KV-1 and medium T-34 tanks outclassed most Wehrmacht armor, but in 1941 most Soviet tank units used older and inferior models. The Red Army was financially and materially assisted in its wartime effort by

18512-417: The above organizations." In the event of an entire unit wanting to join the Red Army, a "collective guarantee and the affirmative vote of all its members would be necessary." Because the Red Army was composed mainly of peasants, the families of those who served were guaranteed rations and assistance with farm work. Some peasants who remained at home yearned to join the Army; men, along with some women, flooded

18690-575: The area died down, but the Soviet gains paved the way for subsequent advances during the second phase of the Dnieper–Carpathian offensive. The offensive resulted in the loss of the German salient and at least 25,000 total casualties being inflicted on the units of 6th Army in the fighting. Due to heavy personnel and material losses, most of the divisions of the 6th Army were greatly reduced in their combat effectiveness after this offensive, being fit only for limited defensive operations. 6th Army

18868-634: The area of Nikopol had been used in Germany for the production of high-strength steel. Adolf Hitler repeatedly stressed the crucial importance of this area, telling his commanders that the "Loss of Nikopol would mean the end of the war." The Nikopol bridgehead also held operational significance because it could serve as a springboard for an assault to relieve German troops trapped in Crimea , and Hitler refused demands by Army Group South commander Generalfeldmarschall Erich von Manstein for its evacuation. As

19046-452: The army fielded 260,000 men, 6,420 guns and mortars, 480 tanks and assault guns, and 560 aircraft. However, a quarter of the tanks, assault guns, and artillery pieces were unserviceable. In addition, a shortage of anti-aircraft ammunition prevented the German ground forces from defending against Soviet air superiority, which Schörner described as "absolute" in a report to the 6th Army command. Soviet air attacks attacked supply lines and prevented

19224-438: The army formed numerous alarm units [Alarm-Einheiten] from artillerymen, personnel of supply trains, rear services and scattered troops, whose reliability is, as experience has shown, very limited, and integrated them into the weakened units. All human reserves are now exhausted. The replacements in no way cover the losses that have occurred. Due to the particularly high shortage of engineers in all divisions, this important weapon

19402-636: The army. However, it was recognized that an army of 1,600,000 would be burdensome. By the end of 1922, after the Congress, the Party Central Committee decided to reduce the Red Army to 800,000. This reduction necessitated the reorganization of the Red Army's structure. The supreme military unit became corps of two or three divisions. Divisions consisted of three regiments. Brigades as independent units were abolished. The formation of departments' rifle corps began. After four years of warfare,

19580-484: The attack southwest from a bridgehead on the Dnieper on 26 February and reached the line of Velikaya Aleksandrovka and Dudchino three days later. The Inhulets became the main German defensive line as a convenient natural barrier, although the 8th Guards Army's 35th and 57th Guards Rifle Divisions captured a bridgehead in the Shyroke area. Almost simultaneously, the 37th Army captured a bridgehead west of Krivoi Rog, and

19758-576: The beginning of its existence, the Red Army functioned as a voluntary formation, without ranks or insignia. Democratic elections selected the officers. However, a decree on 29 May 1918 imposed obligatory military service for men of ages 18 to 40. To service the massive draft, the Bolsheviks formed regional military commissariats ( voyennyy komissariat , abbr. voyenkomat ), which as of 2023 still exist in Russia in this function and under this name. Military commissariats, however, should not be confused with

19936-439: The breakthrough in the 5th Shock Army's sector. Over three nights between 16 and 18 January, the 8th Guards Army was concentrated by reducing its sector west of the Dnieper, and divisions from the Soviet 6th Army crossed the Dnieper to take over the former's previous positions. The 46th Army was concentrated on the flank of the 8th Guards Army, and the 37th Army moved forward on the 46th Army's right. The 4th Guards Mechanized Corps

20114-480: The brigades took hostages from the villages of deserters to compel their surrender; one in ten of those returning was executed. The same tactic also suppressed peasant rebellions in areas controlled by the Red Army, the biggest of these being the Tambov Rebellion . The Soviets enforced the loyalty of the various political, ethnic, and national groups in the Red Army through political commissars attached at

20292-467: The casualties were inflicted on the 5th Shock Army. German equipment losses in the evacuation of the bridgehead were heavy, with several divisions having lost their entire complement of heavy weapons. In the following days, fierce fighting took place over a narrow corridor held by German troops west of Nikopol, centered on a westward-facing defensive line composed of forces withdrawn from the bridgehead around Marinskoye and Perevizskiye, including elements of

20470-682: The circumstance was no dilemma, because the Drang nach Osten ("Drive towards the East") policy secretly remained in force, culminating on 18 December 1940 with Directive No. 21, Operation Barbarossa , approved on 3 February 1941, and scheduled for mid-May 1941. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, in Operation Barbarossa, the Red Army's ground forces had 303 divisions and 22 separate brigades (5.5 million soldiers) including 166 divisions and brigades (2.6 million) garrisoned in

20648-501: The city, and its 105th Guards Rifle Regiment penetrated the German position and captured the railway station early on the morning of 5 February. Around this time the rest of the two divisions launched the attack, and Apostolovo was captured by 8:00 that morning. The loss of Apostolovo split the German 6th Army in half, one part in the area of Krivoi Rog and the other in the area of Nikopol and Marganets , as LVII Panzer Corps around Krivoi Rog had thus lost contact with XXX Army Corps following

20826-527: The city, while the 4th Ukrainian Front's 3rd Guards Army attacked from the south after crossing the Dnieper. Its 266th Rifle Division and 5th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade were among the first into the city. The city was cleared of German troops by 8 February, after a night of heavy street fighting with elements of the retreating 302nd Division. Between 1 and 10 February, the 4th Ukrainian Front's 3rd Guards, 5th Shock, and 28th Armies suffered casualties of 1,725 killed, 4,960 wounded, and 94 missing. The majority of

21004-429: The city. The German counterattack ran out of steam due to Soviet air attacks on 12 February when the 125th was forced to retreat to its original positions; its losses in the fighting were so severe that it had to be disbanded in the following days. However, the 8th Guards Army was significantly weakened due to muddy road conditions causing its artillery and tanks to lag behind, as well as ammunition shortages. On 10 February

21182-399: The creation of a strong attack group. Hollidt briefly considered withdrawing the 24th Panzer Division from the Nikopol bridgehead to lead a counterattack against the Soviet gains in the north, but decided against it after the 4th Ukrainian Front began its attack against the bridgehead. The 4th Ukrainian Front suffered a similar lack of success and the attacks were halted by 17 January to allow

21360-620: The defense "of the Soviet authority, the creation of a basis for the transformation of the standing army into a force deriving its strength from a nation in arms, and, furthermore, the creation of a basis for the support of the coming Socialist Revolution in Europe." Enlistment was conditional upon "guarantees being given by a military or civil committee functioning within the territory of the Soviet Power, or by party or trade union committees or, in extreme cases, by two persons belonging to one of

21538-549: The defense of Motherland and nation, employing historic exemplars of Russian courage and bravery against foreign aggressors. The anti-Nazi Great Patriotic War was conflated with the Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon , and historical Russian military heroes, such as Alexander Nevsky and Mikhail Kutuzov , appeared. Repression of the Russian Orthodox Church temporarily ceased, and priests revived

21716-499: The depth of the enemy's ground forces, inducing catastrophic defensive failure. The deep-battle doctrine relies upon aviation and armor advances with the expectation that maneuver warfare offers quick, efficient, and decisive victory. Marshal Tukhachevsky said that aerial warfare must be "employed against targets beyond the range of infantry , artillery , and other arms. For maximum tactical effect aircraft should be employed en masse , concentrated in time and space, against targets of

21894-425: The eastern and southeastern outskirts of the city. The bulk of the German defenses were concentrated in the east, where it was anticipated that the main blow would come. Exploiting weak points discovered by Soviet reconnaissance, the 37th and 46th Armies moved into the city at dawn on 22 February from the northwest and southeast, respectively; it was cleared by 16:00 that day. In celebration of the capture of Krivoi Rog,

22072-465: The effective employment of German artillery by destroying communications, in addition to hindering the movement of reserve forces by disrupting command and control. The Soviet troops totaled 705,000 men, 8,048 guns and mortars, 390 tanks, and 1,200 combat aircraft, as well as 140 Polikarpov U-2 and Polikarpov R-5 reconnaissance aircraft. The 3rd Ukrainian Front fielded thirty infantry divisions, including one airborne fighting as infantry, in addition to

22250-717: The first day of combat against the occupying Imperial German Army . The Red Army controlled by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic also against independence movements, invading and annexing newly independent states of the former Russian Empire. This included three military campaigns against the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic , in January–February 1918, January–February 1919, and May–October 1920. Conquered nations were subsequently incorporated into

22428-417: The five divisions of the XVII Army Corps in the area of Marganets and Nikopol. In six days, the 3rd Ukrainian Front had broken through the German defenses and advanced between 45 and 60 kilometers (28 and 37 mi), inflicting heavy losses on the 6th Army. From Apostolovo, the 46th Army continued to advance west towards the Inhulets, while the 8th Guards Army and 4th Guards Mechanized Corps attempted to reach

22606-569: The formations of the Red Army in that time. In the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s, Soviet military theoreticians – led by Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky – developed the deep operation doctrine, a direct consequence of their experiences in the Polish–Soviet War and in the Russian Civil War. To achieve victory, deep operations envisage simultaneous corps - and army-size unit maneuvers of simultaneous parallel attacks throughout

22784-409: The heavy mental and physical strain. They will only be lifted again when the front is strengthened and refitting will begin. The contradiction between the shortage of weapons and especially of ammunition, which had been noticeable at the front for a long time, and the sufficient production of weapons and ammunition constantly mentioned in the propaganda, which is clearly recognizable to every soldier, has

22962-456: The highest tactical importance." "To the Red army, Stalin has dealt a fearful blow. As a result of the latest judicial frameup, it has fallen several cubits in stature. The interests of the Soviet defense have been sacrificed in the interests of the self-preservation of the ruling clique." Trotsky on the Red Army purges of 1937. Red Army deep operations found their first formal expression in

23140-612: The hundreds of thousands, and possibly as many as two million. While the Soviets considered the surrender of Germany to be the end of the "Great Patriotic War", at the earlier Yalta Conference the Soviet Union agreed to enter the Pacific Theater portion of World War II within three months of the end of the war in Europe . This promise was reaffirmed at the Potsdam Conference held in July 1945. The Red Army began

23318-543: The imperial army who had gone over the side of the Bolsheviks were quite inadequate to the task of defending the new government against external foes." Therefore, the Council of People's Commissars decided to form the Red Army on 28 January 1918. They envisioned a body "formed from the class-conscious and best elements of the working classes." All citizens of the Russian republic aged 18 or older were eligible. Its role being

23496-458: The infantry and tanks of the 8th Guards and 46th Armies jumped off at 09:15. Fierce fighting ensued as the Soviet troops broke through the defenses of the 46th and 123rd Infantry Divisions and the 16th Panzergrenadier Division, inflicting heavy losses and forcing them to retreat, leaving behind artillery, vehicles, and ammunition. The Soviet advance carried into the positions of the 9th Panzer Division. Closely cooperating with infantry and artillery,

23674-426: The institution of military political commissars . In the mid-1920s, the territorial principle of manning the Red Army was introduced. In each region, able-bodied men were called up for a limited period of active duty in territorial units, which constituted about half the army's strength, each year, for five years. The first call-up period was for three months, with one month a year thereafter. A regular cadre provided

23852-443: The junction of the 8th Guards and 46th Armies on 11 February. The few Soviet units in the area were forced to withdraw, and by the end of the day the German troops had gained 8 to 10 kilometers, threatening the recapture of Apostolovo. Malinovsky hastily rushed the 48th Guards Rifle Division and two anti-tank artillery regiments forward from the front reserve, and the 82nd Guards and 152nd Rifle Divisions were concentrated to defend

24030-643: The largest land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II , and its invasion of Manchuria assisted the unconditional surrender of Imperial Japan . During its operations on the Eastern Front , it accounted for 75–80% of the casualties that the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS suffered during the war, and ultimately captured the German capital, Berlin . Up to 34 million soldiers served in

24208-533: The last battles, in particular due to the impassable terrain caused by the early onset of the muddy period [Schlammperiode]. The number of vehicles lost is unusually high. Some divisions do not have a single anti-tank gun. The stock of communications equipment has become so low due to the high losses that command and control is extremely difficult; one corps no longer has any command and control equipment at all. Numerous supply facilities are without their specialized equipment. 4.) The panzer divisions are only mobile to

24386-580: The latter returned from its abortive march to the Korsun Pocket , attacked to the west of Bolshaya Kostromka on 15 February to link up with LVII Panzer Corps. Erasing a Soviet penetration, they reported the capture of 221 guns, 66 anti-tank guns, and 62 machine guns. This allowed for a relatively unharrassed 6th Army retreat towards the Inhulets. The attack on Krivoi Rog was conducted by the 37th and 46th Armies against five German infantry divisions and two Panzer divisions from LVII Panzer Corps. The former

24564-479: The latter's 3rd Guards, 5th Shock, and 28th Armies attacked the IV and XXIX Army Corps in the Nikopol bridgehead on 12 January. The attack of the 3rd Ukrainian Front on 10 January, spearheaded by what a German report estimated as 80 tanks, and preceded by an artillery barrage, included nine rifle divisions from both armies, advancing in two waves. It was stopped after gaining 3 miles (4.8 km) by two German panzer divisions, which claimed to have destroyed two-thirds of

24742-417: The leadership knew what was happening, but did little to stop it. It was often rear echelon units who committed the rapes. According to professor Oleg Rzheshevsky, "4,148 Red Army officers and many privates were punished for committing atrocities". The exact number of German women and girls raped by Soviet troops during the war and occupation is uncertain, but historians estimate their numbers are likely in

24920-423: The life of any soldier and (almost any) officer of the unit to which he was attached. In 1942, Stalin established the penal battalions composed of gulag inmates, Soviet PoWs, disgraced soldiers, and deserters, for hazardous front-line duty as tramplers clearing Nazi minefields, et cetera. Given the dangers, the maximum sentence was three months. Likewise, the Soviet treatment of Red Army personnel captured by

25098-495: The losses of Army Group A for February 1944. At the time, this army group consisted of the 6th Army in southern Ukraine and the 17th Army cut off in Crimea. The losses of the army group for February amounted to 40,500 killed, wounded, missing and sick in total. Since the 17th Army had a quiet month in Crimea and saw little fighting, the vast majority of these losses can be attributed to the 6th Army. The material losses of all sorts of

25276-405: The losses of the paramilitary 'Wehrmacht entourage' ( Wehrmacht Gefolge ), which were attached to the 6th Army and supported it (members of O.T. , RAD , Reichsbahn etc.) are not included. As the Red Army penetrated deep into the rear areas of the 6th Army during this offensive, where these organizations were located at, they sustained some losses as well, but there are no documents that give

25454-459: The loyalty of such recruits by holding their families as hostages. As a result of this initiative, in 1918 75% of the officers were former tsarists . By mid-August 1920 the Red Army's former tsarist personnel included 48,000 officers, 10,300 administrators, and 214,000 non-commissioned officers . When the civil war ended in 1922, ex-tsarists constituted 83% of the Red Army's divisional and corps commanders. In 1919, 612 "hardcore" deserters of

25632-422: The main attack on 31 January by having his troops conduct reconnaissance with one battalion from each first-echelon rifle division in order to retain surprise, instead of conducting reconnaissance with one to two battalions from each corps between one and three days preceding the operation, a tactic that later became known as the special echelon. At dawn, a 50-minute Soviet artillery and air bombardment commenced, and

25810-752: The military forces of the new nation's adversaries during the Russian Civil War , especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army . In February 1946, the Red Army (which embodied the main component of the Soviet Armed Forces alongside the Soviet Navy ) was renamed the " Soviet Army " – which in turn became the Russian Army on 7 May 1992, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Red Army provided

25988-650: The north of the Vistula via Pszczyna to Kraków . It then participated in the successful attack of the XVIII Corps on Lviv under General Eugen Beyer , which concluded the campaign. Between 11 and 13 November 1939, the Corps was transferred to France, and from January 1940 onwards it was placed under reserve in the 2nd Army . During the second phase of the Western campaign, XVII Corps was transferred in June 1940 to

26166-434: The northern part of the salient, Hollidt withdrew his three panzer divisions from the front to become an armored reserve for the former on 24 January. Within days, however, he had to transfer an infantry division to Crimea and two infantry division equivalents to the 8th Army . This was capped by the sending of the 24th Panzer Division, the army's best equipped panzer division, on a 310-kilometer (190 mi) march to reinforce

26344-654: The northern portion of Korea . Other Red Army operations included the Soviet invasion of South Sakhalin , which was the Japanese portion of Sakhalin Island (and Russia had lost to Japan in 1905 in the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War ), and the invasion of the Kuril Islands . Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan on 15 August. The commanding general of the Kwantung Army ordered

26522-407: The northernmost portion of Ukraine. Around this time, Manstein transferred the 1st Panzer Army to the northern sector, leaving a few of its infantry divisions behind in the Nikopol bridgehead; these joined the 6th Army. On 4 January 1944 , Manstein flew to Führer Headquarters expressly to persuade Hitler to allow a withdrawal from Nikopol and Crimea in order to shorten the front, but his request

26700-600: The operation, and was reinforced with the 37th Army from the 2nd Ukrainian Front with six rifle divisions, the 4th Guards Mechanized Corps from the 4th Ukrainian Front, and the 31st Guards Rifle Corps from Stavka Reserve with three rifle divisions. The front received 64 tanks, and was replenished with significant quantities of ammunition and fuel. The 4th Ukrainian Front also received more ammunition. Vasilevsky's plan stipulated that General-leytenant Mikhail Sharokhin 's 37th Army and General-leytenant Ivan Shlemin 's Soviet 6th Army were to launch diversionary attacks towards

26878-462: The personal commitment of all officers and draconian performance demands could the defense against the stubbornly fighting, constantly strengthening enemy be ensured. Nevertheless, individual divisions had to be dragged along to local attacks, often with bare weapons in the dark. The resulting demands given the fighting situation have been reported to higher authorities. I will only emphasize the most important points: 1.) The large shortage of officers

27056-500: The ranks in liberated Soviet territory, and a further 1,836,000 returned from German captivity. The official grand total of losses amounted to 8,668,400. This is the official total dead , but other estimates give the number of total dead up to almost 11 million. Officials at the Russian Central Defense Ministry Archive (CDMA) maintain that their database lists the names of roughly 14 million dead and missing service personnel. In September 1917, Vladimir Lenin wrote: "There

27234-510: The rear units for manpower, which enabled the 17th , 111th , and 258th Infantry Divisions and the 3rd Mountain Division to field 7,855 combat infantrymen by 16 January. Though the remainder of these were combat-experienced veterans, 5,500 were transferred from the rear units. The German 6th Army was nominally supported by the 1st Air Corps of Luftflotte 4 . At the beginning of the Nikopol–Krivoy Rog Offensive on 30 January,

27412-585: The recruitment centres. If they were turned away, they would collect scrap metal and prepare care-packages. In some cases, the money they earned would go towards tanks for the Army. The Council of People's Commissars appointed itself the supreme head of the Red Army, delegating command and administration of the army to the Commissariat for Military Affairs and the Special All-Russian College within this commissariat. Nikolai Krylenko

27590-456: The retreat of 9th Panzer Division from Apostolovo. In addition, attacks by Soviet assault aviation disrupted the movement of the 3rd Mountain Division at the Tok railroad station on the single rail line by destroying locomotives, preventing the evacuation of German wounded. Meanwhile, the 8th Guards Army and 4th Guards Mechanized Corps captured Kamenka and Perevizskiye, threatening the encirclement of

27768-401: The retreat route for units east of the Dnieper and secure the railway bridge over the Basavluk near Perevizskiye, the 3rd Mountain Division used its replacement and pioneer battalions in conjunction with 258th Division alarm units to counterattack elements of the 8th Guards Army and 4th Guards Mechanized Corps, but lost nearly half of their strength in the fighting. The tank-destroyer battalion of

27946-490: The right flank of the 1st Panzer Army on 28 January during the Battle of the Korsun–Cherkassy Pocket , significantly reducing the armored forces available to the German 6th Army. The latter was left with only the 9th Panzer Division for a reserve, which fielded only thirteen tanks – a third of its authorized strength – and had a much-reduced number of infantry and artillery. Following the transfers in late January,

28124-696: The same day the office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces was created, and initially assigned to Jukums Vācietis (and from July 1919 to Sergey Kamenev ). The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces existed until April 1924, the end of Russian Civil War . In November 1923, after the establishment of the Soviet Union, the Russian Narkom of War Affairs was transformed into the Soviet Narkom of War and Marine Affairs. At

28302-585: The same time as the general Soviet move into the areas abandoned by the Ober Ost garrisons that were being withdrawn to Germany in the aftermath of World War I . This merged into the 1919–1921 Polish–Soviet War , in which the Red Army invaded Poland, reaching the central part of the country in 1920, but then suffered a resounding defeat in Warsaw , which put an end to the war. During the Polish Campaign

28480-431: The three-week heavy defensive fighting and how badly it damaged the 6th Army, the army commander, Generaloberst Karl-Adolf Hollidt , reported on 20 February 1944: Due to the mental and physical overstraining of the troops in the heavy defensive battles of the last few weeks and the high personnel and material losses, most of the divisions of the army are now physically, numerically and materially worn-out. Only through

28658-465: The total 837,000 draft dodgers and deserters were executed following Trotsky's draconian measures. According to Figes, "a majority of deserters (most registered as "weak-willed") were handed back to the military authorities, and formed into units for transfer to one of the rear armies or directly to the front". Even those registered as "malicious" deserters were returned to the ranks when the demand for reinforcements became desperate". Forges also noted that

28836-475: The tradition of blessing arms before battle. To encourage the initiative of Red Army commanders, the CPSU temporarily abolished political commissars , reintroduced formal military ranks and decorations, and introduced the Guards unit concept. Exceptionally heroic or high-performing units earned the Guards title (for example 1st Guards Special Rifle Corps , 6th Guards Tank Army ), an elite designation denoting superior training, materiel, and pay. Punishment also

29014-419: The troops to consolidate their positions and to plan a more thorough offensive. Between 11 and 20 January, in the period which included these attacks, the 3rd Guards, 5th Shock, and 28th Armies of the 4th Ukrainian Front suffered total casualties of 3,191 killed and 9,938 wounded, with the 3rd Guards and 28th Armies bearing the brunt of the casualties. In the ten-day period between 11 and 20 January that included

29192-568: The western military districts. The Axis forces deployed on the Eastern Front consisted of 181 divisions and 18 brigades (3 million soldiers). Three Fronts, the Northwestern , Western , and Southwestern conducted the defense of the western borders of the USSR. In the first weeks of the Great Patriotic War (as it is known in Russia), the Wehrmacht defeated many Red Army units. The Red Army lost millions of men as prisoners and lost much of its pre-war matériel. Stalin increased mobilization, and by 1 August 1941, despite 46 divisions lost in combat,

29370-423: The wet winter weather, the railway and tracked vehicles were the sole reliable transportation method, which meant that if Soviet troops could capture Apostolovo they would have effectively cut off the German forces in the bridgehead. At the end of 1943, the 3rd Ukrainian Front, commanded by General armii Rodion Malinovsky , was entrenched on the line of Veselyye Terny , Tomakovka , and Belenkoye . It included

29548-402: The winter of 1943 and 1944 and the previously mined stocks "could not be moved" due to a lack of transport, according to 6th Army chief of staff Generalleutnant Max Bork . On 1 January, 6th Army was transferred from Army Group A , which held the southernmost part of Ukraine west of the Dnieper, to Army Group South, whose sector ran from north of Krivoi Rog to the Pripet marshes in

29726-402: Was Trotsky, and the first commander-in-chief was Jukums Vācietis of the Latvian Riflemen ; in July 1919 he was replaced by Sergey Kamenev . Soon afterwards Trotsky established the GRU (military intelligence) to provide political and military intelligence to Red Army commanders. Trotsky founded the Red Army with an initial Red Guard organization and a core soldiery of Red Guard militiamen and

29904-417: Was a corps in the German Army during World War II . The corps was formed in Vienna on 1 April 1938 after the Annexation of Austria . At the beginning of the war in September 1939, the Corps, under the leadership of General Werner Kienitz , was assigned to the 14th Army in south Poland with the 44th and 45th Infantry Division. Together with the VIII Army Corps , XVII corps advanced from the Teschen area to

30082-434: Was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland . It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland . The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union on 14 December 1939. The Soviet forces led by Semyon Timoshenko had three times as many soldiers as the Finns, thirty times as many aircraft, and

30260-401: Was captured by 20 September 1941. In the summer of 1942 the Corps participated in " Fall Blau " campaign as the left wing of the 6th Army . This was a campaign to strike south and capture Stalingrad and the oilfields of Baku . In late 1943 and early in 1944 the corps was forced to retreat through Bessarabia in northern Romania and were then transferred to the Bukovina region as part of

30438-444: Was captured on the morning of 8 February by the 5th Shock and 28th Armies, completing the elimination of the Nikopol bridgehead, after XXIX Army Corps evacuated the small bridgehead remaining there in spite of Hitler's orders to hold it at all costs. On the night of 7 to 8 February, the Soviet 6th Army of the 3rd Ukrainian Front entered Nikopol from the north and east. Its 203rd , 244th, and 333rd Rifle Divisions fought their way into

30616-425: Was denied. There were also formidable natural barriers in the area – the Kamenka River in the 3rd Ukrainian Front's sector, and the Dnieper in the 4th Ukrainian Front's sector. Behind the German front line in the Nikopol bridgehead was the marshy floodplain of the Dnieper, which rarely froze in the winter. The only exits from the bridgehead were a temporary bridge in the northern sector east of Nikopol and

30794-445: Was given little respite, as Soviets launched the Bereznegovatoye–Snigirevka offensive one week later and German Inhulets river front soon collapsed. Following the Soviet advance in the Battle of the Dnieper in late 1943, the German 6th Army , commanded by Generaloberst Karl-Adolf Hollidt , escaped a threatened Soviet encirclement and retreated to the Krivoi Rog area, with its IV and XXIX Army Corps clinging on to

30972-419: Was killed on 20 November 1917. Nikolai Podvoisky was appointed as the Narkom of War Affairs, leaving Dybenko in charge of the Narkom of Marine Affairs and Ovseyenko – the expeditionary forces to the Southern Russia on 28 November 1917. The Bolsheviks also sent out their own representatives to replace front commanders of the Russian Imperial Army . After the signing of Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918,

31150-409: Was shifted forward from south of the Dnieper to take positions reinforcing the intersection of the 8th Guards Army and the 46th Army. The concentration of the 3rd and 8th Guards and 37th Armies was picked up by German intelligence; however, the full extent of 8th Guards Army's concentration went undetected and the movement of the 4th Guards Mechanized Corps was missed entirely. Anticipating an attack on

31328-521: Was the supreme commander-in-chief, with Aleksandr Myasnikyan as deputy. Nikolai Podvoisky became the commissar for war, Pavel Dybenko , commissar for the fleet. Proshyan, Samoisky, Steinberg were also specified as people's commissars as well as Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich from the Bureau of Commissars. At a joint meeting of Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries , held on 22 February 1918, Krylenko remarked: "We have no army. The demoralized soldiers are fleeing, panic-stricken, as soon as they see

31506-483: Was to attack in a 10-kilometer (6.2 mi) sector northeast of the city and bypass the city from the north, while the latter was tasked with breaking through the center of the German line in a 16-kilometer (9.9 mi) sector and frontally assaulting the city from the southeast. In the breakthrough sectors of the armies, 40 to 50 guns and mortars were concentrated per kilometer. The attack began on 17 February: 37th Army jumped off at 05:00 and 46th Army at 10:00 following

31684-402: Was used; slackers, malingerers, those avoiding combat with self-inflicted wounds cowards, thieves, and deserters were disciplined with beatings, demotions, undesirable/dangerous duties, and summary execution by NKVD punitive detachments. At the same time, the osobist (NKVD military counter-intelligence officers) became a key Red Army figure with the power to condemn to death and to spare

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