By and large, these conclusions were made back in the 60-70s, but due to the political slander and falsification of history that have flooded society since the mid-80s from the perestroika-liberal media, historians, politicians and politicians, these conclusions are so and did not reach the mass society.

For a start, as one particular example of what happened in the first days and months of the Great Patriotic War, we can cite excerpts from one front-line document:

"FROM THE REPORT OF THE ASSISTANT COMMANDER OF THE SOUTH-WESTERN FRONT FOR TANK TROOPS
ABOUT FAULTS IN MANAGEMENT OF COMBAT ACTIONS OF MECHANIZED CASES
8 AUGUST 1941
OWL. SECRET
TO THE DEPUTY PEOPLE'S COMMISSAR OF DEFENSE OF THE UNION OF THE SSR
Lieutenant General of the Tank Troops FEDORENKO
3. The headquarters of the armies completely forgot that the material part has certain engine hours, that it requires inspection, minor repairs, additional replenishment of fuel and ammunition, and the technical staff and the heads of the armored departments of the armies did not tell them this, and instead of withdrawing after completing the task the mechanized corps, having given it the time necessary for this purpose, the combined arms commanders demanded only “come on” and nothing more.
12. The training of crews in matters of preserving the material part is exceptionally bad: there were cases when crews left vehicles with ammunition; there were isolated cases when the crews left the cars and left themselves.
13. In all units and formations, there were no evacuation means, and the available ones could provide mechanized corps and tank divisions only in offensive operations.
14. Personnel new technology he didn’t master, especially “KV” and “T-34” and was completely unlearned to make repairs in the field. The repair facilities of the tank divisions were unable to provide repairs in such a type of battle as a withdrawal.
Assistant commander of the troops of the Southwestern Front for tank issues
Major General of Tank Troops VOLSKY
Head of the Armored Directorate of the Southwestern Front
Major General of Tank Troops MORGUNOV
Military Commissar of the Armored Directorate of the Southwestern Front
CHUCHUKALO"

In addition to the above, the new Soviet tanks T-34 and KV (1 and 2) had big problems in providing ammunition for their tank guns of 76 mm and 152 mm (for KV-2) caliber.

Generally speaking, the Soviet leadership foresaw that the new war that had been approaching the USSR since the late 1930s would be in many ways a war of motors. And they did everything possible to provide the army with these motors.

So in reality it turned out - tank formations became the main striking force of the German army during the attack on the USSR. However, it is known that on the eve of the war there were several times more tanks in the Soviet troops than in the German one. Based on this, many build various conspiracy theories about why this huge Soviet tank armada could not stop the aggressor. In fact, all these versions are only the fruit of the violent imagination of their authors.

To begin with, it is necessary to bring the numerical ratio of the parties to the moment the war began.

Germany (together with Romania and Finland):
total strength in border groups - 5.000.000 human
tanks and self-propelled guns - 4300 PCS.
planes - 4500 PCS.

THE USSR:
the total number in the border districts - 2.900.000 human
tanks - 16.000 PCS. (including internal districts - Moscow, Orlovsky, Kharkov)
planes - 8500 PCS.

p.s.: The total strength of the German army is 8.5 million people, the total strength of the USSR army is 5.5 million people.

And now about the main striking force - about tanks.

Pz.II
gun caliber - 20 mm
frontal armor - 30 mm

BT-7
gun caliber - 45 mm
frontal armor - 13-22 mm

Pz.38
gun caliber - 37 mm
frontal armor - 25-50 mm

T-26
gun caliber - 45 mm
frontal armor - 15-20 mm

The BT-7 and T-26 tanks formed the basis of the Soviet tank forces, while in the German army the Pz.III tanks already formed the basis.

Pz.III
gun caliber - 50 mm
frontal armor - 50 mm

T-34
gun caliber - 76 mm
frontal armor - 45 mm

Pz.IV
gun caliber - 75 mm
frontal armor - 40-60 mm

KV-1
gun caliber - 76 mm
frontal armor - 75 mm

Thus, for tanks, the following conclusions can be drawn:
1) The BT-7 and T-26 tanks had more powerful weapons, but weak armor compared to their German "classmates" Pz.II and Pz.38, while there were about 2500 German vehicles of these types, while the Soviet troops several times more.
2) On the whole, the T-34 and KV-1 tanks were somewhat superior to their "classmates" Pz.III and Pz.IV, but there were few of ours (1300 units against 2000 units).

In many ways, these relationships predetermined the outcome of the border battles and the overall situation on the Soviet-German front in 1941. In addition, the German troops advanced in concentric strikes, while the defense of the Soviet troops was carried out in fact linearly. And, among other things, it was weakened by the almost complete air supremacy of the German Luftwaffe, which, having destroyed Soviet airfields in the very first hours of the attack, received an almost unhindered opportunity to bomb cities, bridges, railway junctions, fuel and ammunition depots, etc. Well, actually, the troops themselves. And anti-aircraft artillery in the Soviet troops was then very poorly developed.

Was it possible to prevent such a rout, which the Red Army suffered in 1941?

The order to bring the troops of the border districts to combat readiness came only 3-4 hours before the actual start of the war. Did not have time. Here it is necessary to take into account the scheme for building command and control in the troops. It was as follows: General Staff - District - Army - Corps - Division - Regiment. The transfer of the order was carried out by wired telephone and telegraph method, and each stage of data transfer required a certain time. So, the transfer of the order to the district level was completed only at 1 am on June 22.

The troops did not have enough means for rear maneuvering: the length of roads and railways, tractors for artillery, tankers ....

The army was in the process of modernization. In order to achieve it, a powerful developed industry was needed. The need for massive industrialization in the USSR was announced only in 1929, but in fact it began already in the early 30s, 10 years before the war. Even despite the fact that it was done in an emergency manner and under constant strict control, they still didn’t manage to do much. And here a reasonable question arises: what did the Soviet leadership, the Soviet government, do in the previous whole decade - in the 20s? Yes, a massive electrification of the country was carried out - the famous GOELRO plan. In fact, this is the only thing that was done for industrial development in that decade. But after all, the industry was actively developing even before the revolution. And electricity in the then "tsarist" Russia already existed. In those years, this was also not enough, as the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War showed. But only in the First World War the Germans did not reach either Petrograd, or Moscow, or the Caucasus with the Volga. The front then passed approximately along the old Soviet border of the model until 1939. And only the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks at the end of 1917 finally destroyed the army and public administration and allowed the German army to approach Petrograd and occupy almost all of Little Russia with Novorossia and Belarus. And then, provoked by the usurpation of power by the Bolsheviks, the civil war finished off what had been done in Russia in the pre-war times, discarding industrial development country to the level of the second half of the 19th century. But the West did not stand still in the 1920s. Even Germany, having fallen under the terms of surrender at Versailles, was able to quickly restore its economic potential than the USSR did during Stalin's industrialization. Due to the higher base.

However, later it still did not help her. Despite the technical superiority of the German army at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the stubborn resistance offered by the Soviet troops made it possible to evacuate hundreds of enterprises from Ukraine, Belarus and the western regions of the RSFSR to the east of the country, which, in as soon as possible were able to establish mass production of equipment and ammunition in a new place.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

federal state budgetary educational institution

higher professional education

"Kuban State University"

(FGBOU VPO "KubGU")

THESIS

CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF MILITARY DISASTERS OF THE RED ARMY IN 1941

The work was done by A.P. Lutsenko

Group "A", Faculty of History, Sociology and international relations,

specialty 030401 - History

Norm controller V. N. Cherkashina

Introduction.

The tragedy of the Air Force of the Red Army.

1 Qualitative and quantitative composition of the Air Force of the belligerents.

2 The level of military training of the flight personnel.

3 Combat operations of aviation opponents of the first days of the war.

The defeat of the tank troops of the Red Army.

2 Supply and training level of personnel

3 Military operations and conclusions from the catastrophe of the tank forces of the Red Army in the summer of 1941.

Deployment of the Red Army and Wehrmacht troops in June 1941. Reasons for the defeat of the Red Army.

1 Plans and deployment of the Red Army troops.

2 Planning of military operations against the USSR by the German General Staff.

Consequences of military disasters of the Red Army

1 Border battle in 1941, the defeat of the Western Front, the consequences.

2 Loss of strategic initiative

Conclusion.

Sources.

Literature and research.

Introduction

June 1941 remains one of the most significant dates in the history of our country. On this day, the troops of Nazi Germany, without declaring war, invaded the territory of our country along the entire western border of the USSR. In the first months of the war, the Red Army suffered a series of catastrophic defeats, which allowed the Wehrmacht to reach the outskirts of Moscow in October 1941. In the light of pre-war propaganda, these events came as a complete and tragic surprise not only for the people, but also for the leadership of the Soviet Union.

Historians have not yet found a rational explanation for these events. The huge Red Army, praised for decades by official communist propaganda as "invincible", suffered one terrible defeat after another for several months, until it rolled back to Moscow. The German army captured millions of prisoners, thousands of tanks, guns, aircraft, tens of thousands of tons of ammunition. Hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of territory were occupied, where 70 million Soviet citizens lived before the war. How did this even become possible? Over the decades since that memorable day, hundreds of politicians, generals, historians and publicists have put forward their versions, sometimes diametrically opposed, "explaining" the reasons for these defeats.

The object of study of this work is the Red Army of June 1941, its qualitative and quantitative composition, weapons at the time of the attack of Nazi Germany, as well as its readiness for war.

In order to understand what were the reasons for the defeat of the Red Army in 1941, we will try to find out by comparison - whose army was stronger.

The combat capability, combat power of the army is characterized by many components, the main of which are:

) combat and strength of the army;

) the quantity and quality of weapons and military equipment in service with the troops;

) the existence and quality of organizational structures that ensure the use of the combat capabilities of the army in war;

) the quality of command personnel;

In addition, having the necessary combat experience is of great importance. And also, more importantly, the degree of awareness of the state of the enemy forces, or, simply put, effective military intelligence. There are other factors, but they, within the framework of this work, cannot be covered objectively. After completing these tasks, it will be possible to solve the main task of this work, to draw a reasonable conclusion - why the events in 1941 went the way they did and not otherwise.

The territorial and geographical scope of this work is extensive and includes the entire western theater of operations.

The chronological boundaries of the study include the events from June to October 1941, the period of the greatest losses of the Red Army.

During the Soviet era, official historiography gave practically the only explanation for the catastrophes of the summer of 1941 - the unpreparedness of the Red Army and the surprise attack of enemy troops. In the post-Soviet period, many historical works and previously unknown documents have appeared that refute the generally accepted reasons for the defeats of the Red Army. It should be noted that in the coverage and assessments of the war there is often a juggling and fitting of facts to certain ideological and political constructions. If in Soviet historiography the emphasis was on the leading role of the CPSU, the vanguard role of communists in the fight against aggressors, the heroism and courage of the Soviet people, then in Lately in many scientific works and textbooks, the mistakes and miscalculations of the political and military leadership of the USSR are excessively emphasized. Judging by the number of published and continuing publications on this topic, as well as by the different polarity of the conclusions of the authors, the relevance of this topic, as well as interest in it, is only steadily increasing.

At first sight this topic seems to be exhaustively studied, since there are a huge number of different sources, such as memoirs of participants in hostilities, memoirs, documents, as well as many studies, various historical works and literature. All sources and literature can be divided into two parts - each of the warring parties. Domestic sources, and especially literature, are very accessible and available in huge quantities. Let's look at the sources first. Military memoirs are of some interest, but the events and facts are interpreted by the authors in a favorable light, since memoirists are mainly former military leaders and commanders, on whom the course of hostilities partially depended and they tend to shift many failures to others without creating objective picture of events. The same applies to the memoirs of authors from the camp of the former enemy. Much more interesting are the memories of ordinary soldiers of the warring parties. They often contain information that bypasses or distorts in official sources. Complementing the picture are various documents of the war period - orders, orders, directives. Other, no less important sources are various reference books and studies on military equipment and equipment of the armies of the warring parties. Moreover, working with these sources, especially with research on military equipment, is very time-consuming and requires care, since the same data can be presented one-sidedly, again in a favorable position for the authors.

Several different sources and scientific papers have been selected for this work. Moreover, memoirs, as a rule, are always grouped according to the types of troops, which is quite natural. Therefore, in this work, sources and literature are also distributed according to the types of troops, since this is the most appropriate.

It is logical to start the review of sources and literature with those dedicated to the Air Force, since it was the aviation of the Red Army, according to generally accepted facts, that suffered the heaviest losses on the first day of the war, which largely predetermined the growth of a military catastrophe for all branches of the Red Army.

From domestic sources, valuable material on the state and actions of the Red Army aviation in the initial period of the war is given by the memoirs of a participant in the war, fighter pilot Lashkevich A.I. - “In air battles. Baltic sky. This is a frank story about the combat work of Soviet fighters in the skies of the Baltic, about battles with Finnish and German aircraft. In his memoirs, the pilot gives valuable information about the pre-war training of the Air Force, the condition and quality of the materiel Soviet aviation, moreover, running counter to the generally accepted dogma about the superiority of German aviation over the obsolete material part of our Air Force.

Also very interesting are the memoirs of the commander of the 303rd Fighter Aviation Division, Major General of Aviation Zakharov Georgy Nefedovich, a veteran of the Spanish War, who from the first minutes of the Great Patriotic War took a direct part in the hostilities of the Soviet fighter aviation. His book "I am a fighter" covers in detail the entire catastrophe of Soviet aviation in the early days of the war. Many facts, such as the level of training and material equipment of the Soviet Air Force, set out in it, refute the accepted official version about the unpreparedness of Soviet pilots for war and insufficient training of the flight personnel.

A lot of valuable information about the initial period of the war is given by A. Drabkin's book “I fought in a fighter. Those who took the first blow." The work represents the memoirs of fighter pilots, and without ideological overtones and from an evaluative position. At dawn on June 22, 1941, fighter pilots were among the first to give battle to the aces of the Luftwaffe. The memoirs of the pilots very well restore the picture of the first days of the war, as well as the catastrophe that befell the Soviet Air Force. Some of them managed to make their first sorties, someone ran to the airfield to find their broken plane on it. The first blows were followed by a chaotic retreat, reorganization and the way to the front, where they were expected to fight with outnumbered fighters and bombers, attack the advancing enemy, and escort attack aircraft. In these battles of the first months of the war, the personnel of the Air Force with pre-war training was almost completely knocked out, but the few who survived formed the backbone of the Air Force fighter aircraft. In this book, they tell how, having gained experience, rearmed, mastered modern aircraft, they were able to turn the tide in the air over the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. The book also contains orders and orders of the command of the Soviet Air Force in June 1941.

From historical research, the monograph-research of M. Solonin "On peacefully sleeping airfields ... June 22, 1941" is of great interest. Was Soviet aviation defeated at the very beginning of the war? What lies behind the reports of "absolute air supremacy" of German aircraft? The author analyzes these and many other questions simultaneously from the positions of an aeronautical engineer and a scrupulous historian-researcher. But even this work is not without many shortcomings. The author, having put "at the forefront" of his book the idea of ​​the catastrophic redeployment of Soviet fighter aircraft in the first days of the war, bypasses or one-sidedly interprets the sequence and, as a result, the effectiveness of the strikes of the German Luftwaffe on the first day of the war. However, this work provides extensive information about the tactical and technical features of combat aircraft of the opposing sides, refuting the technical imperfection of Soviet aviation and proving in the course of the study the organizational power of Soviet aviation as a whole, which was expressed in the constantly growing number of combat aircraft, despite losses.

A lot of information for analysis is provided by M. Maslov's monograph "Fighter I-16". Using archival data, the author tells in detail about the most massive fighter of the Soviet Air Force on June 22, 1941 - the fighter designer Polikarpov I-16. The author refutes the generally accepted theory about the inability of these fighters to fight German aircraft on an equal footing. Despite the suddenness of the attack and heavy losses on the ground, the pilots of these aircraft provided the most severe resistance to German aviation already on the first day of the summer disaster.

From foreign sources, of some interest are the memoirs of Luftwaffe ace Hans Ulrich Rudel - "Pilot" Stuka ". Rudel is one of the best attack pilots, made 2530 sorties, more than any other pilot in the world, the only holder of the Knight's Iron Cross in the Third Reich with oak leaves, swords and diamonds in gold. The historian is always interested in the views of the participants in the war of a foreign, hostile ideology. And although Rudel's memoirs contain too many of his own, subjective, assessments of what is happening, they still contain interesting facts combat operations of the initial period of the war and the degree of training of German pilots.

Also a very significant work on the military operations of aviation is the book of the German General Walter Schwabedissen - "Stalin's Falcons: An Analysis of the Actions of Soviet Aviation in 1941-1945." It is an analytical study of the state and actions of Soviet aviation during the years of the German-Soviet war. The book is based on a large factual material collected by the Luftwaffe intelligence, and also summarizes the opinions of the pilots - participants in the battles. The author showed the real state of affairs in the Red Army Air Force on the eve of the war and during it. He analyzed the actions of all types of Soviet aviation in different periods of the war, gave an assessment of the flight and command personnel, tactics and strategy, aviation equipment and other components of the Air Force. The author was a direct participant in the hostilities. At the beginning of the war, Major General Walter Schwabedissen commanded the anti-aircraft artillery corps, the 2nd Fighter Aviation Division of the 12th Aviation Corps, and later became the commander of the German troops in the Netherlands. At the end of 1944, Schwabedissen headed the personnel department of the Hungarian Air Force and led it until the end of the war. But, as in the case of domestic, ideological, works, the book of the German general is, in many respects, biased in relation to Soviet aviation. The work of V. Schwabedissen is replete with mutually exclusive statements - both because of its insufficient editing, and due to the frequent substitution of analysis for the mechanical addition of opposing assessments. Declaring, for example, that "Russian ground attack aviation has fully demonstrated what heights it could reach by this time," the German general immediately states that "inexperience and the lack of the proper number of trained crews did not allow the attack aircraft to demonstrate their full potential."

Of interest to the historian is the collection "Luftwaffe: working height of 4000 meters", authored by Caius Becker, the son of a fighter pilot. The collection contains the memoirs of eyewitnesses and participants in the war, a description of the military operations of various units of the Luftwaffe. But, like all sources of this kind, it contains a clear bias towards the success of German aviation operations.

The next group of sources and literature is devoted to the main strike force of the ground troops - tank troops.

Some data on the volume and quality of military equipment and ammunition produced by 1941 were taken by me from the work “The Weapon of Victory”, edited by V.N. Novikov. In this work, the quantity and quality of military equipment delivered to the Red Army by the summer of 1941 is very well presented, and its lack is refuted.

For the period under review, the most meaningful and significant is the monograph by M. Svirin “Stalin's Armor Shield. History of the Soviet tank 1937 - 1943. The author, making extensive use of the archival database and documents of those years, tells how the very tanks that became a symbol of the past war were born, reveals the causes of the massive tank disasters of 1941, proving the inevitability of tank defeats of the Red Army in the summer of 1941.

Rich material on tank battles in the initial period of the war is provided by the work of a team of authors, the military-historical essay "Soviet Tank Forces 1941-1945". The work covers in detail the tragic and unsuccessful battles of the summer of 1941, but does not provide a detailed number and composition of the tank forces of the Red Army, there is no analysis of the situation in these troops in June 1941, which to some extent creates the incompleteness of this work.

From foreign sources, the work of the former commander of the 3rd tank group of German troops on the Soviet-German front, Hermann Goth, “Tank Operations”, is interesting. The book is written on the basis of some archival materials and personal memoirs of the author. Most of the book is devoted to describing the preparation of the Nazi command for an attack on the Soviet Union and military operations on the Eastern Front during the summer-autumn campaign of 1941. Summarizing the experience of using tank formations in the last war, the author sets out his views on the use of tank formations, but at the same time, he justifies some of the failures of the German troops solely by off-road and weather conditions, and not by the resistance of the Red Army, which, in principle, is understandable. Many memoirists tend to shift responsibility for the unsuccessful outcome of battles to any factors other than their own mistakes and the stubbornness of the enemy.

No less interesting, from the standpoint of a historian, is the diary of the chief of the German General Staff, F. Halder. It gives a general, but daily chronicle of the combat operations of the parties, and also provides assessments of the leadership of the Red Army. But this source provides only general facts, moreover, in the author's biased attitude towards them.

This work also uses the studies of various historians who comprehensively assess the state and combat readiness of the opposing armies.

Of the works devoted to the tragic beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Oganesyan K.'s study “The Truth about the Great Patriotic War. The Red Army is the strongest of all!” The work is very informative, informative and, what is very important, not burdened by either Soviet or pro-Western ideology. The author, regardless of political views, objectively examines the reasons for the defeat of the Red Army in the summer of 1941 and draws different, but weighty and reasonable conclusions.

In the historical work of A. Shirokorad “The Genius of Soviet Artillery”, not only the scientific work of artillery designer V. Grabin was studied, but an analysis of the artillery systems in service with both the Red Army and the Wehrmacht was carried out, which complements the overall picture of the equipment and combat effectiveness of the armies.

Of great interest for studying the causes of the defeats of the Red Army, as well as analyzing the consequences of the defeat, are the works of A. V. Isaev: the study "Boilers of the 41st" and the work "From Dubno to Rostov", in which the author analyzes in detail the situation that developed in 1941 on the western border USSR and the ensuing battles between the two armies. In his works, the author used German documents, memoirs and research, as well as a number of declassified military documents and works previously marked "for official use only".

It seems that in the framework of this work, this number of sources and literature will be enough to author's analysis and, to some extent, the solution of the problem.

1. The tragedy of the Air Force of the Red Army

1 Qualitative and quantitative composition of the air forces of the belligerents

Soviet historiography traditionally explains the failures of the Red Army Air Force in the first period of the war by the surprise of the attack, the attack on 66 border airfields and, as a result, the loss of 1200 aircraft by noon on June 22 (800 of them on the ground), as well as the obsolescence of the Air Force fighter fleet and a small number of new types of fighters, adding that the new planes were not well mastered. Why are fighters important in determining the country's defense capability? First of all, because a fighter is a type of combat aircraft that is designed for confrontation in the airspace, it is these aircraft that provide cover for ground troops from enemy air strikes, fighters provide cover for other attack aircraft when they perform combat missions - attack aircraft and bombers that act directly on enemy troops.

Let us first consider the quantitative composition of the fighter aircraft of the belligerents. By the beginning of the war, the Soviet Air Force, as part of five western districts, excluding fleet aviation and without aviation of the 6th Air Defense Corps, had 903 MiG-3 aircraft of the latest design (163 aircraft in the Leningrad Military District, 139 aircraft in the Baltic Special Military District, 237 aircraft in the Western Special Military District, 185 aircraft in the Kiev Special Military District and 179 aircraft in the Odessa Military District). In addition to the MiG-3 fighters, 102 of the latest Yak-1 fighters were in service in the western districts (20 aircraft in the 158th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Leningrad Military District, 20 aircraft in the 123rd Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Western Special Military District, 56 aircraft in the 20th Fighter Air regiment and 6 aircraft in the 91st Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Kiev Special Military District).

By June 22, 1941, the German command concentrated 920 Bf-109 fighters designed by W. Messerschmitt on the western border of the USSR (of which 420 aircraft of the E series and 500 aircraft of the latest F series). The number of fighters includes 90 twin-engine multi-purpose Bf-110s. Thus, the number of only the latest Soviet fighters was practically equal to all German fighters concentrated on the border of the USSR.

But still, the most mastered and already discontinued I-16 fighter remained the main fighter aircraft of the Soviet Air Force and Navy. By the beginning of the war, there were (including naval aviation) about 2000 I-16s in the theater. All of them had various modifications, from "type 10" to "type 29". Taking into account the fact that in 1939-1941. 2427 I-16s were produced with powerful M-62 \ M-63 engines (type 17, 27, 28, with cannon armament and type 18, 24, 29 with machine gun armament), it can be assumed that these types of aircraft made up the majority. In addition, three dozen fighter regiments were armed with technically obsolete Chaikas (I-153). There were at least 1500 I-153 aircraft. As of June 22, 1941, the Air Force of the Western Border Districts consisted of 4226 fighter aircraft. There were 1,635 I-16 fighters of all types along the border line in good, combat-ready condition. Judging by these official figures from the USSR Ministry of Defense, I-16s accounted for 26% of other types of fighters.

The given data allow us to conclude that the I-16 was the main fighter of all the Air Forces of the Soviet Union. The important fact that the I-16 fighters were perfectly mastered in military units, unlike the new Yak, LAGG, MIG machines, made the I-16 the main defense of the country in the event of hostilities.

But all Soviet historians unanimously classify the I-16 fighter as obsolete, not capable of conducting air combat on an equal footing with the enemy, referring to the fact that this aircraft was discontinued and had a lower maximum speed than enemy fighters. But a fighter is not a racing aircraft, and air battles are not conducted at maximum speeds, since the speed at which the aircraft most quickly and accurately performs aerobatic maneuvers (the so-called combat speed) is much lower than the maximum. So, tests of the German Bf-109E-3 fighter, which in June 1941 accounted for almost 50 percent of all German fighters (420 units out of 980), at the Air Force Research Institute showed that the German fighter exhibits sufficient maneuverability and controllability only at speeds up to 350 km / h , and the high efficiency of the ailerons - only at speeds up to 280 - 300 km / h. The Soviet "outdated" I-16 had a maximum speed of 467 to 490 km / h, and thanks to the excellent power supply (light weight and powerful engine) and almost equal to the maximum combat speed. Survivability in combat (resistance to damage) of the Soviet I-16 was much higher. The air-cooled motor, which is not afraid of even holes in the cylinders, protected fiber fuel tanks, which, unlike metal ones, do not give notches that prevent the tread from tightening holes, and phenomenal maneuverability made the I-16 a dangerous enemy for German aircraft. It is not for nothing that this aircraft, even from Spain, received the nickname "rata" from German pilots - a rat. The German Bf-109 fighter had a water-cooled engine (like the Soviet Yak-1 and MiG-3), to which any hole in the radiator or in the water jacket threatened with an accident.

But the pilots who fought on them in 1941 speak even better about the quality of the “outdated” I-16s: “Rarely does anyone fly at maximum speed in a maneuverable battle, more precisely, rarely does anyone succeed. I-16, in principle, easily and quickly did up to 500 km / h, "E" flew faster, but not by much, in battle there was practically no difference in their speed. The acceleration dynamics of the I-16 was amazing, especially with the M-63. This is its second unique quality after horizontal maneuverability. In terms of dynamics, it surpassed all the then domestic fighters, even new types ”(memoirs of fighter pilot Golodnikov N. G.)

Thus, in reality, German fighter aviation was much weaker than the Soviet one, if we take only the technical side of this issue. This was shown by the first, albeit tragic in general, day of the war. Already at 3:30 am, I-16s of the 33rd IAP of the Western OVO, based in Pruzhany, shot down the first German aircraft over Brest. After about an hour, five more enemy vehicles attacking the airfield of this regiment fall to the ground. In the Baltic Military District, under similar circumstances, I-16s of the 21st IAP destroyed 9 Germans, the same number of victories in the 15th IAP and 7 shot down in the 10th IAP. In the Odessa military district, the 55th IAP, based in Balti, by the end of the day had 10 victories, the 67th IAP in Belgrade had even more victories - 15. In general, the first day of the war was not so simple for the German Air Force - on that day they lost 300 aircraft. On June 22, 1941, German aces met with Soviet pilots. The first day of the war was not the most successful for the Soviet Air Force. And, nevertheless, already on June 22, the biography of the commander of the fighter squadron JG-27 Schellmann, a veteran of the Spanish and all subsequent campaigns, ended forever. On the same day, another experienced Luftwaffe ace was shot down - the commander of the fighter group II / JG-53 Bretnunz (Bretnunz) (he died from his wounds four days later). In a headquarters Ju-88 shot down over the Baltic states from the headquarters of the bomber squadron KG-77, Colonel Reithl was seriously wounded. On the same first day of the war, the commander of the bomber group I / KG-3 Heinze (Heinze) was wounded, the next day the commander of the dive group I / StG-2 Hitchholm, the commander of the fighter group II / JG-51 Feso, were shot down by Soviet fighters (the last two remained alive and were found by the advancing German troops) Thus, Major Gunther Rall writes that before the start of hostilities, information about Soviet fighter aircraft was very vague, and data on the types and numbers of aircraft were completely absent. Therefore, the collision with Soviet fighters, which had a huge numerical advantage, was an unpleasant surprise for the Luftwaffe.

Thus, the fighter aircraft of the Red Army turned out to be a worthy opponent of the Luftwaffe, and the defeat of the first days of the war was due not to its weakness and obsolete aircraft designs, but to completely different reasons, which will be shown at the end of the chapter.

But the main strike force of aviation are bombers. It is these aircraft that are designed for combat impact on enemy ground forces. It is the bombers that destroy enemy communications, disrupt the interaction of troops, interfere with the supply necessary materials, violate the supply of ammunition, demoralize the enemy troops, destroy transport hubs. Therefore, in the Soviet Air Force main task fighters were fighting enemy bombers and ensuring the actions of their attack aircraft.

The Luftwaffe grouping on the Eastern Front was armed with 520 of the latest Junkers Ju-88 bombers, 300 He-111 bombers, 130 obsolete Do-17s, about 300 dive Ju-87s and 100 Bf-110 fighter-bombers (in two SKG air groups). In total, the Luftwaffe strike force consisted of about 1,300 combat-ready aircraft. The group of Soviet aviation (including long-range bomber aviation and naval aviation) included 1,300 long-range DB-3f bombers, 1,750 obsolete but combat-ready SBs, 195 light Su-2s, 50 light Yak-2/4s, 205 newest high-speed Pe-2s and 140 latest Ar-2s. A total of about 3,500 combat-ready strike aircraft. The superiority in bombers was almost threefold, which was confirmed in the first days of the war: “at 4.30 we were alerted. - Like what? At about 5 o'clock they give the task: to bomb the Germans who are forcing the Neman River in the Tilsit region. The operational report of the headquarters of the Baltic Military District No. 03, signed at 22.00 on June 23, reports that " air Force during the day they fought against enemy aircraft, operated at the airfields of Insterburg, Koenigsberg, Priekule, Memel, Tilsit. Moreover, Soviet aviation acted boldly and aggressively.

1.2 The level of military training of the flight personnel

combat red army war

Many Soviet military leaders, and behind them historians, explain the reasons for the defeat of aviation by the insufficient level of training of pilots, a small flight of training hours. But upon closer examination of the sources, this version seems doubtful. “The sky over the airfield trembled with the roar of engines. It seemed that this rumble did not have time to subside in the evening. In addition to three regiments of I-16s and a regiment of "Seagulls" in the division, which I was entrusted with command, there were many training aircraft, communications aircraft - more than three hundred aircraft in total. And all this buzzed, took off, shot, sat down from morning to evening every day, ”G.N. recalls. Zakharov pre-war everyday life in his book "I am a fighter".

Fighter pilot Nikolai Gerasimovich Golodnikov also reports on a large number of flights and training firing in his memoirs: “The fact that they did not know how to shoot at air targets is not true. We shot quite a lot in our school. They fired at the cones. My release on air targets had 15 firing and somewhere around 20-25 on ground targets. True, it must be said that before the war itself, in the year 41, there was a release of pilots who fired a little, somewhere they had 5 firing at air targets (the same cones) and 5 firing at ground targets. But this "crash course" consisted of pilots with fairly good flight training, mostly former flying club instructors. They were not taught, they were retrained, so their training period was shortened.”

1.3 Fighting aviation opponents of the first days of the war. conclusions

Despite the fact that the Luftwaffe tried to destroy Soviet aircraft with the first strikes, this did not happen for several reasons. Firstly, because even an attack on 66 border airfields could not solve this problem in principle: in total, there were 477 airfields (95 permanent and 382 operational) for 116 air regiments of the Air Force of the border military districts. Secondly, because the Soviet pilots put up stubborn resistance to the enemy. “On July 4, the 163rd regiment shot down 21 enemy aircraft. We were not always able to shoot down such a number of combat vehicles even with the entire division in the second half of the war, when with the same "Junkers" and "Messerschmitts" we fought not on "Seagulls" and "donkeys", but on "Lavochkins" and "yaks" . The sky was black from Nazi aircraft, and no matter what task we set for the pilots, everything, in essence, came down to one thing: shoot down! - recalled Zakharov G.N.

Of the 250 thousand sorties carried out by Soviet aviation in the first 3 months. wars, 47% were carried out against enemy tank and motorized columns, enemy troops on the battlefield. 250 thousand sorties in three months were made by the "defeated" aviation!

Moreover, if we trace the pattern of the defeat of Soviet aviation in the summer of 1941, we can see that it suffered the greatest losses in aircraft in the places of the greatest advancement of enemy ground forces, since the lack of leadership and the general chaos of the mass rollback of the Red Army troops forced the pilots to simply throw serviceable aircraft at airfields, without fuel and tankers. “On one of the last days of June, a group of regiment aircraft delivered a powerful bombing strike on the tank units of the fascist troops in the Grodno region. At the same time, the second group, which included my crew, bombed the airfield, captured by the Germans along with our equipment. It was hard to bomb our planes around the airfield, especially the SB. They were very light, maneuverable and reliable machines…”

For example, in the Odessa military district, with a stable front in the first month of the war, aviation suffered minimal losses. As soon as the front was broken through to a great depth and there was a threat of encirclement, almost all aviation of the Odessa Military District was lost, again not from the impact of enemy aircraft, but due to the capture of airfields by enemy troops and loss of control. Or, for example, the pilots of the 13th Fighter Aviation Regiment, located on the Hanko Peninsula, the Baltic Sea, constantly being shelled by Finnish artillery, fought on the "obsolete" I-16 until the beginning of 1943, successfully completing all combat missions. The 13th IAP was then renamed the 4th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment and re-equipped with more modern La-5s.

The conclusion that follows from this chapter is the following: the aviation of the Western Theater of Operations was not destroyed as a result of attacks on airfields in the first days of the war and gave a worthy rebuff to the German Luftwaffe. German aviation had neither qualitative nor, moreover, quantitative superiority. The catastrophe of Soviet aviation was due only to the successful actions of the ground forces of the German army, deep strategic breakthroughs in the very first days of the war, and the impossibility of an organized retreat. Most of the aircraft were lost not as a result of bombing attacks and air battles, but abandoned at airfields as a result of the loss of control of troops by the leadership of the Red Army. “However, it is necessary to pay attention to one fact that the German command did not attach due importance to then: under the circumstances, Soviet losses in manpower were much less than the losses in equipment. This partly explains the fact that the Russians were able to quickly restore the combat power of their air force.

The losses of the flight personnel of the Red Army were minimal, which made it possible to quickly restore the Soviet Air Force, which by 1942 had again become equal in number with the Luftwaffe. So, for example, the Gorky aircraft plant could produce up to 14 aircraft per day.

The training of the flight personnel took much more time, and also required huge organizational costs, in connection with which, after a year of the war, the lack of trained flight personnel began to be acutely felt in the Luftwaffe.

2. The defeat of the tank troops of the Red Army

1 Quantitative and qualitative composition of the tank troops of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht

In Soviet historiography, traditionally, the number of tanks in the Red Army is indicated without taking into account tanks that have been discontinued, but are still in service.

Almost all military historians of the Great Patriotic War, counting the tank fleet of the Red Army by the summer of 1941, operated only 1861 tanks of new types, of which 1475 units were in the Western districts, which is compared with the German ones (the entire tank fleet of the Wehrmacht was 5164 tanks and 952 tanks of Czechoslovakia) left a significant advantage for the enemy. The rest of the tanks of the Red Army were traditionally discounted by the argument "there are also many obsolete light tanks and tanks that have exhausted their motor resources." But in the post-perestroika period, it turned out that approximately 22,600 tanks were in service in the Red Army by the beginning of the war. Moreover, it is believed that 29% of tanks needed major repairs, on average 44% of tanks of old models needed repairs. Serviceable vehicles accounted for no more than 27% of the total, from which it was concluded that the number of combat-ready vehicles in the Red Army was 6200 tanks, of which 3800 units out of 14200 tanks were in the Western districts. Thus, at present, many pro-Western historians (I. Drogovoz, V. Beshanov) have concluded that the tank troops overwhelmingly outnumbered the Wehrmacht (especially since the tactical and technical data of obsolete Soviet tanks were superior or equal to all, even the latest German tanks) , and the summer defeat of the Red Army is associated solely with the mediocrity of the Soviet command. But a careful analysis of the state of the tank forces of the Red Army leads to a completely opposite conclusion, which will be discussed in the final part of the chapter.

2.2 Supply and training level of personnel

In assessing the number of tanks, such a criterion as "combat capability" plays a role in the first place. This is a generally accepted fact. The military historian M. Svirin came up with a clear definition of this concept: “A serviceable one, filled with fuel and equipped with ammunition and spare parts, having a trained crew, having passed coordination as part of a tank unit, which is ready to start as part of a tank unit to perform any combat mission, is considered combat-ready.” Based on this definition, the author points out, on the basis of archival data and direct conversations with veterans, that the personnel could not even properly master the new materiel, and the development of the interaction of tanks in the units was not carried out at all. The situation with new vehicles (T-34, KV-1, KV-2) was also complicated by the fact that the old tanks (T-26, T-28, T-35, T-37, T-38 and T-40) were supplied with fuels and lubricants for carburetor engines, used 45mm rounds, and new tanks with diesel engines they used completely different fuels and oils, other (76.2 mm rounds of increased ballistics) ammunition, and from the spring of 1941 it was almost impossible to establish a supply.

The order of February 1941 on the formation of 20 mechanized corps played a large negative role. This process was due to the disbandment of all previously knocked together and trained tank brigades and individual tank battalions. They dissolved into a mass of new formations and could only become combat-ready formations again much later, due to the lack of training in interaction. The new mechanized corps were bulky and difficult to manage, the supply of new formations was not at all debugged. Moreover, to staff the mechanized corps, about 20,000 tank officers were required, while in January 1941 there were only 6,000 people available. The total staffing of the mechanized corps by the command and command staff by the summer of 1941 was different connections from 22 to 40%. The commanders and personnel, who came from rifle and cavalry units and formations, did not have any practical experience on the combat use of armored forces (highlighted by Lutsenko). For example, on May 30, 1941, the command of the 8th mechanized corps once again turned to the district command with a request to hastily allocate the required amount diesel fuel and practical projectiles for carrying out planned combat exercises for coordinating tank platoons and companies. (Lutsenko highlighted) Coordination exercises are just the same exercises during which disparate tanks turn into units, and units learn to interact as part of units.

Only by the summer of 1941 there was absolutely no coherence, because the tank troops of the Red Army had just been born again. The simultaneous reorganization of all armored forces urgently required a large number of trained personnel, military equipment, weapons, transport and other materiel, to meet the needs that our industry and the economy as a whole could not earlier than five years.

Thus, in the Red Army, no more than 20-22% of all serviceable tanks were combat-ready in the full sense, amounting to about 3800 units in the western districts or, in specific figures, about 800-850 tanks, (according to the degree of officer staffing and training ), but all of them together could not resist on an equal footing the Panzerwaffe, who concentrated up to 3500 fully equipped and combat-ready tanks on the border in the summer of 1941. It was impossible to prevent the catastrophe of the summer of 1941.

2.3 Military operations and conclusions from the catastrophe of the tank forces of the Red Army

The hostilities of the tank troops of the Wehrmacht began successfully and the German troops immediately seized the initiative. “The battle formations of the enemy were not tactically adapted for defense; His troops in the border zone were scattered over a vast territory and tied to their quartering areas. The security of the border itself was generally weak. Tactical surprise led to the fact that the resistance of the enemy in the border zone turned out to be weak and disorganized, as a result of which we easily managed to capture bridges across water barriers everywhere and break through the border fortifications to the full depth (field-type fortifications) "- recalled the Chief of the General Staff ground forces Wehrmacht F. Halder.

From the very beginning of hostilities, the command of the Red Army lost control of many army units and did not control the current situation. This led to ridiculous and deliberately incorrect orders for counterattacks instead of a systematic exit from the strike in order to organize a defense and delay the enemy.

“Without a doubt, on the side of the enemy there were cases of tactical withdrawal, albeit disorderly. There are no signs of operational withdrawal. It is likely that the possibility of organizing such a withdrawal was simply excluded. A number of enemy command authorities, such as, for example, in Bialystok (the headquarters of the 10th Army), were completely unaware of the situation, and therefore, in a number of sectors of the front, there was almost no leadership in the actions of the troops from the higher headquarters, ”this is how F. Halder assessed the control of the Red Army troops in the beginning of the war.

This is also confirmed by the authors of the historical essay “Soviet Tank Forces 1941-1945”: Tank divisions (23rd and 28th) of the 12th mechanized corps of General N. M. Shestopalov were to attack the enemy from the area northwest of Siauliai in the southern direction, and the formations of the 3rd mechanized corps under the command of General A.V. Kurkin - from the Kedaipyä area in a western direction. The preparation of the counterattack was carried out in a limited time, hastily, with extremely scarce information about the enemy; it was not possible to organize proper interaction between formations, combat missions were brought to the troops with a great delay, since communication was very unstable.

To organize a counterattack on the scale of a mechanized corps and several divisions in a day was simply an adventure of the leadership, which was confirmed right there: “The counterattack began on June 23. Having left the concentration area, the 28th tank division of Colonel I. D. Chernyakhovsky reached the deployment line by 10 o’clock (50 km southwest of Siauliai), but it could not immediately go on the offensive, since almost all the fuel was used up. Until 15:00, the division was forced to stand at this line and wait for vehicles with fuel and lubricants. During the advance, parts of the division were hit by enemy aircraft four times and suffered losses. On the second day of the war, all the shortcomings in the supply had an effect, which became a mass phenomenon.

But, nevertheless, the soldiers of the Red Army fought heroically even in the conditions of encirclement and complete confusion in the leadership, which is also confirmed by German sources: “Information from the front confirms that the Russians are fighting everywhere to the last man.” Moreover, in these difficult conditions, the tank forces of the Red Army, while suffering huge losses, nevertheless delivered sensitive blows to the enemy. The offensive of the 8th mechanized corps, which began on June 27, developed successfully. The 34th Panzer Division under the command of Colonel I.V. Vasilyev was especially energetic. With decisive attacks, the tankers inflicted serious damage on units of the 16th Panzer Division of the enemy. Having advanced 30-35 km, the formations of the corps reached Dubno and ended up in the rear of the enemy's 3rd motorized corps, which was forced to suspend the offensive to the east and regroup forces. This was a major success of the 8th Mechanized Corps, achieved by the heroic and daring actions of the personnel of the tank units, who skillfully used the high combat qualities of the KV and T-34. The actions of the 8th mechanized corps caused great concern to the fascist command. But, no matter how the command of the Red Army tried to rectify the situation on the fronts, the Wehrmacht troops, by perfectly coordinated actions, neutralized the partial successes of the Red Army, achieved due to huge losses in manpower and equipment. “On the right flank of the 1st Panzer Group, the 8th Russian Panzer Corps wedged deep into our position and entered the rear of the 11th Panzer Division. This penetration of the enemy obviously caused a great deal of confusion in our rear in the area between Brody and Dubno. The enemy threatens Dubno from the southwest, which, given the large stocks of weapons and property in Dubno, is extremely undesirable, ”F. Halder wrote in his diary about the strike of the 8th mechanized corps of the Red Army. Subjected to air strikes and having no connection with other corps, the formations of the 8th mechanized corps were forced to gain a foothold on the line reached and repel the attacks of the Nazi troops.

“The German command was freed from one concern that worried the OKH before the war: the enemy did not think about how he could leave “into the boundless Russian expanses.” With his counterattacks, he stopped our advance, with stubborn resistance he prevented the envelopment or fought to the last. The decisive battle has yet to take place. True, Army Group Center managed to conduct one of those battles of annihilation, which were rarely seen in the history of wars. At least twenty enemy divisions were surrounded by our troops in the area of ​​Bialystok, Novogrudok. Thanks to the victory in the battle near Bialystok and Minsk, the entire Army Group "Center" received complete freedom of operational maneuver, "- this is how the commander of the 3rd Panzer Group of German troops on the Soviet-German front German Goth assessed the actions of the Red Army troops. It was the haste in launching counterattacks, their gross mistake, the refusal to promptly retreat, that played a fatal role in the defeat of the western front. “The formations of the 14th mechanized corps were dispersed over a large area. The 22nd Panzer Division of General V.P. Puganov, located until June 22 east of Brest, in the immediate vicinity of the state border, suffered heavy losses from enemy air strikes in the first hours of the war and was forced to retreat eastward. Other formations of the corps were located in areas of deployment at a considerable distance from the state border. The conditions for the formations of the 14th mechanized corps to enter the battle were extremely difficult. The counterattack did not work. In general, the attempt by the command of the 3rd and 4th armies to carry out counterattacks with the forces of their second echelons - the 11th and 14th mechanized corps and restore the situation on the state border ended in failure. By the evening of June 22, there was a threat of deep coverage by enemy tank formations of both flanks of the troops of the Western Front. - so hastily issued orders for counterattacks led to the defeat of the tank forces of the Red Army. Due to the huge losses of material and due to the impossibility of managing such large formations, the tank forces of the Red Army were again reorganized. But this reorganization made it possible for the leadership of the Red Army to learn the interaction of formations. In July - August 1941, the corps, and then the tank divisions, were disbanded. released Combat vehicles and weapons were transferred to the newly created separate tank brigades and battalions.

Thus, we can draw the following conclusions for the chapter: the main, most important reason for the catastrophe of the tank forces was the hasty formation of tank corps in February 1941, as a result of which the management of such cumbersome formations was not worked out, there was no established supply on such a gigantic scale, interaction was not worked out between tank formations, which devalued their power and turned the counterattacks of the corps into a disorderly series of attacks on well-organized battle formations of the German troops. This led to huge losses and could not stop the enemy advance in any way. In addition, the lack of proper supplies led to material losses even without enemy action, since most of the tanks were abandoned due to breakdowns and due to a lack of fuel and lubricants.

The result of the defeat of the tank troops was the general defeat of the Red Army on the entire front, since the armored forces were the main striking force of the armies and, with appropriate personnel and infantry cover, were an "irresistible force" in World War II.

3. Deployment of the troops of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht in June 1941. Reasons for the defeat of the Red Army

1 Plans and deployment of the Red Army troops

Back in 1940, the Soviet leadership and the General Staff, anticipating the inevitability of war with Germany, developed a number of military plans for 1940 - "Considerations on the fundamentals of the strategic deployment of the armed forces of the Soviet Union." The result of B.M. Shaposhnikov over the new border profile was reflected in a document dated August 19, 1940. In his opinion, planning should have been built around the following theses: “Considering that the main attack of the Germans will be directed north of the mouth of the San River, it is also necessary to have the main forces of the Red Army deployed north of Polissya. In the South, Western Ukraine and Bessarabia should be covered by active defense, and perhaps the largest part of the German army should be shackled. The main task of our troops is to defeat the German forces concentrating in East Prussia and in the Warsaw region: to defeat the enemy grouping in the Ivangorod, Lublin, Grubeshov, Tomashev region with an auxiliary strike.

In fact, the main idea of ​​the plan is to reproduce the actions of the Russian army in 1914, the assault on the citadel of East Prussia with strikes from the northwest and bypassing the Masurian lakes. But after the change in the leadership of the General Staff, the Soviet military plans are also undergoing changes. K.A. Meretskov by that time already had the sad experience of storming the Mannerheim Line in the winter of 1939-1940, and storming the more advanced German fortifications in East Prussia was considered unpromising tasks. The center of gravity of Soviet military plans began to shift south. The next option appears on September 18, 1940. The main tasks of the troops are outlined in it in the following words: “The main forces of the Red Army in the West, depending on the situation, can be deployed either south of Brest-Litovsk so that a powerful blow in the directions of Lublin and Krakow and further to Breslau (Bratislav) in the first stage of the war, cut off Germany from the Balkan countries, deprive her of the most important economic bases and decisively influence the Balkan countries in matters of their participation in the war; or north of Brest-Litovsk with the task of defeating the main forces of the German army within East Prussia and capturing the latter. The final decision on deployment will depend on the political situation that will develop by the beginning of the war, but in peacetime I consider it necessary to have both options developed. In total, according to the “southern” deployment option, the South-Western Front was supposed to have “70 rifle divisions; 9 tank divisions; 4 motorized rifle divisions; 1 cavalry division; 5 tank brigades; 81 Aviation Regiment. As part of the Western and Northwestern, respectively, “55 rifle divisions; 7 tank divisions; 3 motorized rifle divisions; 3 cavalry divisions; 6 tank brigades; 1 airborne brigade; 59 aviation regiments.

Thus, in September 1940, dualism is still observed, an attempt to draw up two plans. One option was to develop the ideas of B.M. Shaposhnikov, the second gave the first operation of the Soviet troops a fundamentally different form, shifting the center of concentration to the territory of Ukraine. But already in 1941, a plan based on the ideas of K. A. Meretskov was finally adopted, shifting the center of the main concentration of troops to Ukraine. In the “Considerations on the Basics of Strategic Deployment” dated May 15, 1941, the form of the operation in the Southwestern Front did not undergo fundamental changes: “The Southwestern Front - eight armies, consisting of 74 rifle, 28 tank, 15 motorized and 5 cavalry divisions , and a total of 122 divisions and 91 aviation regiments, with the immediate tasks: a) by a concentric attack by the armies of the right wing of the front, encircle and destroy the main enemy grouping east of the river. the Vistula in the Lublin region; b) at the same time, with a blow from the front of Seniava, Przemysl, Lutowisk, defeat the enemy forces in the Krakow and Sandomierz-sko-Kielce directions and seize the regions of Krakow, Katowice, Kielce, meaning to further advance from this area in a northern or north-western direction to defeat the large forces of the northern flank of the enemy front and capture the territory of former Poland and East Prussia; c) firmly defend the state border with Hungary and Romania and be ready to launch concentric attacks against Romania from the Chernivtsi and Chisinau regions, with the immediate goal of defeating the northern wing of the Romanian army and reaching the line of the river. Moldova, Iasi.

The document was written by A.M. Vasilevsky, and amended by G.K. Zhukov, who only intended to strengthen the strike of the Southwestern Front by the actions of the Western Front from the southern face of the Bialystok ledge, changing the direction of the strike from Warsaw to Radom.

But in order to implement these plans in practice, it was necessary to carry out the so-called mobilization deployment. For example, according to the peacetime staff, the field administration of the army should have consisted of 268 people, of which 225 people were commanding officers. In the event of a wartime deployment, the size of the administrative apparatus of the army increased to 1,530 people, of which 550 were commanding officers. With the announcement of mobilization, within a few days, the divisions from incomplete ones turned into full-fledged army formations. Reservists arrived within 1-3 days. Further, the units were knocked together, battalion and regimental exercises were carried out, and the finished army unit was sent to the front.

The same changes were undergone by the mechanisms of driving troops, army and corps administrations, rear services, communications, etc. The principle was the same: in peacetime the minimum necessary for training, in wartime - the organizational structure optimal for combat operations. This system was common for various states, the differences were not of a fundamental nature.

If we take the army as a whole, then according to MP-41 (the mobilization plan of February 1941), out of 303 rifle, motorized rifle, tank and motorized divisions of the Red Army, 172 divisions had terms of full readiness on the 2nd-4th day of mobilization, 60 divisions - on 4 -5th day, and the rest - on the 6-10th day.

The leadership of the USSR faced an intractable task: the choice between escalating the political conflict by declaring mobilization or entering the war with an unmobilized army. The declaration of mobilization, as the events of the First World War showed, was tantamount to a declaration of war.

Covert mobilization measures were also laid down in Soviet plans for the deployment of troops: “The mobilization plan of 1941 provides for mobilization according to two options:

a) the first option provides for the mobilization of individual military districts, individual units and formations established by a special decision of the Council of People's Commissars USSR- in a hidden order, in the order of Big Training Camps (BUS). In this case, the call-up of military reserve, as well as the delivery of vehicles and horses assigned to parts, are made by personal summonses, without announcing orders from NGOs.

b) the second option provides for a general mobilization of all the Armed Forces of the USSR or individual military districts in an open manner, i.e. when mobilization is announced by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Naturally, all these mechanisms were put into action in 1941. In April-May 1941, the People's Commissariat of Defense and the General Staff decided to carry out a covert mobilization of the conscripted reserves under the cover of "Large Training Camps" (BUS). In total, over 802 thousand people were called up for training camps before the declaration of war, which was 24% of the assigned personnel according to the MP-41 mobilization plan, which was clearly not enough.

This made it possible to reinforce half of all rifle divisions of the Red Army (99 out of 198) located in the western districts, or divisions of the internal districts intended for transfer to the west. At the same time, the composition of the rifle divisions of the border districts, with a staffing strength of 14,483 people, was increased: 21 divisions - up to 14 thousand people, 72 divisions - up to 12 thousand people and 6 rifle divisions - up to 11 thousand people. For the Southwestern Front, which numbered 764,941 people on the list as of June 22, 1941, the "Large training camp" meant an increase of 142,105 people. Only 51,094 people were added to the Odessa Military District, which formed the 9th Army upon mobilization, with payroll troops of the district 113,577 people. The Kharkov Military District received 72,949 men under the BUS, in addition to the district's troop strength of 159,196. At the same time, 26,620 horses were delivered from the national economy to the army within the framework of the BUS. This is a small figure, given that according to the MP-41, "the need for horses to complete units up to wartime states is 671,770 horses." But, there was no announcement of mobilization until the start of hostilities on June 22, 1941, thereby significantly reducing the possibility of manning divisions with vehicles, horses and soldiers of rear units. Withdrawal from the economy of a significant amount Vehicle was too noticeable and large-scale event to hide it from prying eyes, and the Soviet leadership did not lose hope for a political resolution of the conflict until the very moment of the invasion of German troops.

The only example of a German way of starting a war, without a period of concentration and deployment, was Poland. There was no period of sluggish skirmishes on the border in the process of mobilization and deployment. The Wehrmacht immediately began operations with all the necessary forces, Poland, on the contrary, found itself in the face of an invasion with an unmobilized and underdeployed army.

Georgy Samoylovich Isserson, head of the department of operational art at the Academy of the General Staff, wrote about the war in Poland: “At the same time, the old tradition is discarded, according to which it is necessary to warn about it before striking. War is not declared at all. It simply begins with pre-deployed military forces. Mobilization and concentration do not belong to the period after the onset of the state of war, as it was in 1914, but imperceptibly, gradually carried out long before that.

A.M. Vasilevsky, in an interview given in 1965, says the following: “Based on the development of the plan, it would seem from the correct position that modern wars are not declared, but they simply begin with an enemy already prepared for hostilities, which was especially characteristically demonstrated by the fascist leadership of Germany in the first period of the Second World War, the leadership of our armed forces and the General Staff did not draw the appropriate correct conclusions from this situation for themselves and did not make any amendments to the operational plan in this regard. On the contrary, the old-fashioned plan provided for the so-called initial period of the war lasting 15-20 days from the start of hostilities to the entry into action of the main troops of the country, (Lutsenko singled out) during which the troops of the echelons of cover from the border military districts deployed along the borders, with their combat operations were supposed to cover the mobilization, concentration and deployment of the main forces of our troops. At the same time, the opposite side, i.e. fascist Germany, with its fully mobilized and already at war army, was placed in terms of the time required for its concentration and deployment against us, in the same conditions as our Armed Forces.

But, firstly, it is simply impossible to do without a period of mobilization and deployment. One way or another, the army must be mobilized, and its formations must be transferred by rail or on foot to the frontier. At the same time, the moment of the beginning of these events can be shifted to the pre-war period. Mobilization can be carried out covertly, at the expense of "Large Training Camps". The movement of troops can also begin and actually began before one of the parties started hostilities. Secondly, the moment from which the countdown to the first strikes begins is still chosen not by the military, but by the political leadership of the country. Accordingly, it is the country's political leadership that assesses the danger or necessity of using force.

So, Lieutenant General P.S. Klenov, chief of staff of the Baltic Special Military District, at a meeting of the top leadership of the Red Army in December 1940, said the following: “I recently looked through Isserson's book New Forms of Struggle. Hasty conclusions are given there, based on the war of the Germans with Poland, that there will be no initial period of war, that the war today is resolved simply - by the invasion of ready forces, as was done by the Germans in Poland, deploying one and a half million people. I consider such a conclusion to be premature. It can be allowed for a state like Poland, which, arrogant, lost all vigilance and which had no intelligence of what the Germans were doing during the months of concentration of troops. Every self-respecting state, of course, will try to use this initial period in its own interests in order to find out what the enemy is doing, how he is grouping, what his intentions are, and to prevent him from doing this.

The leaders of our country, of course, received different, often contradictory intelligence. Accordingly, it was assumed that the concentration of enemy troops would be revealed by reconnaissance and it would be possible to begin preparatory measures, which in one phase or another would develop into a war. At the same time, the preparatory period may be absent, or it may safely remain. It all depends on the moment of the official start of the conflict. Border incidents can escalate into an armed clash at any phase of mobilization and deployment. In addition, there are political signs of a brewing war, a period of diplomatic negotiations of varying degrees of ultimatum and political tension in relations. For example, Germany had been making political demands on the Polish government since 1938. Probing the political ground in Finland was also begun by the Soviet leadership in 1938. This was followed by almost a year of negotiations in increasingly elevated tones, and only after that the guns rumbled. In 1941, none of this happened. Germany did not make any political demands on the USSR; it was difficult to guess that the Third Reich planned to invade the USSR in the name of intimidating England. The war with the USSR, in the opinion of the Soviet leadership (and this opinion turned out to be correct), was too large-scale and time-consuming undertaking to solve such an auxiliary task as forcing England to peace. Other motives were not visible at first glance. Moreover, the novelty applied in relation to the USSR was the deathly silence of the German diplomatic authorities.

3.2 Planning of military operations against the USSR by the German General Staff

In September 1940, Halder entrusted the development of a war plan against the USSR to another prominent commander of the Third Reich, Major General Friedrich Paulus, who had just been appointed First Quartermaster of the General Staff. It was his developments that ultimately formed the basis of the Barbarossa plan. The first considerations were reported to Halder on September 17, then, under the leadership of Paulus, a series of card games were held to clarify the details. The plan was named "Otto". The main blow was supposed to be delivered north of the Pripyat marshes due to favorable road conditions and the possibility of a direct attack on Moscow and the Baltic states. By the eighth day of the operation, it was supposed to reach the areas between the Dniester and the Bug, the cities of Mogilev-Podolsky, Lvov, Baranovichi and Kaunas.

On the twentieth day of the war, “after heavy border battles in Western Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states, the German army will succeed in capturing territory and reaching the line: the Dnieper to the area south of Kyiv, Mozyr, Rogachev, Orsha, Vitebsk, Velikiye Luki, south of Pskov, south of Pyarnu and thus reach the line, which can become the starting line for the offensive in the direction of Moscow. Not later than the fortieth day of the war, it was planned to carry out an operation against Moscow, covering Soviet troops west of Bryansk and Vyazma. The command of the ground forces believed that in the battle near Moscow the last reserves of the Red Army, which the Soviet command would put up for the defense of the capital, would be defeated, and the war would end before the onset of autumn. Despite the fact that the development of F. Paulus was not completed (part of the headquarters games were planned to be held in mid-December 1940), the plan was reported on December 5, 1940 by Halder to Hitler.

An entry in Halder's diary dated December 5, 1940 testifies to the degree of confidence and the development of an advance plan for military operations: "The experience of previous military campaigns shows that the offensive should begin at the appropriate favorable moment. The choice of a favorable time depends not only on the weather, but also on the balance of forces sides, weapons, etc. The Russians are inferior to us in weapons to the same extent as the French. big amount modern field artillery batteries. Everything else is a modernized old materiel; our T-III tank with a 50-mm cannon (there will be 1500 of them in the spring), as it seems to us, is clearly superior to the Russian tank. The bulk of Russian tanks have poor armor. Russian people are inferior. The army has no real commanders. Whether they have recently been able to seriously introduce the correct principles of military leadership in the army is more than doubtful. The reorganization of the Russian army that has begun by spring will not make it any better. In the spring, we will have a clear superiority in command, materiel, and troops. The Russians will undoubtedly have all this of a lower quality. If a powerful blow is struck against such an army, its defeat is inevitable. When conducting an offensive against the Russian army, one should not push it in front of you, as this is dangerous. From the very beginning, our offensive should be such as to split the Russian army into separate groups and strangle them in "sacks". The grouping of our troops in the initial position must be such that they can carry out extensive enveloping operations. If the Russians suffer defeat as a result of a series of our strikes, then from a certain point, as it was in Poland, transport, communications, etc. will fail and complete disorganization will occur.

After some coordination, on December 21, the directive was approved. Hitler gave her the name "Barbarossa". The general plan of the operation was formulated as follows: “The main forces of the Russian ground forces located in western Russia must be destroyed in bold operations by deep, rapid advancement of tank wedges. The retreat of combat-ready enemy troops to the wide expanses of Russian territory must be prevented ”(Directive No. 21 of the Wehrmacht High Command).

Conclusions: The army and the German General Staff did not need to mobilize the army, since the Wehrmacht was already mobilized for the war with Poland. It only remained to develop a plan of attack on the USSR and replenish the troops with equipment, which, in the presence of already mobilized manpower, was an easier task, since the army remained fully combat-ready.

In the Red Army of the USSR, everything was exactly the opposite: the mass of new and old equipment with an overwhelming shortage of personnel and, especially, command personnel, which was an insoluble problem for at least one or two years. The leadership missed the initial phase of the concentration of the Wehrmacht under the guise of a version of the invasion of England, and in June 1941 the start of the Soviet deployment was already belated. The mobilized and deployed Wehrmacht struck at the unmobilized and underdeployed army of the next “blitzkrieg” object. Thus, all Soviet military planning lost its meaning. The plans could be defensive, offensive, it no longer mattered in the conditions of an underdeployed army. Political isolation of the USSR and hostility Western countries allowed the German army to defeat the Red Army in the summer of 1941.

4. Consequences of military disasters of the Red Army

1 The battles of 1941, the defeat of the Western Front, the consequences

Having begun hostilities according to a well-developed scheme, the German troops immediately found themselves in the most advantageous position due to the free concentration of troops in the directions necessary for strikes.

Soviet Western Special Military District<#"justify">4.2 Loss of strategic initiative

By August 1941, the USSR had lost most of what was created by the hard work of the whole country before the war. Three advancing German army groups overcame both lines of fortifications - both the newest "Molotov line" and the "Stalin line" built in the 30s - almost along their entire length. According to Wilhelm Keitel, “At the end of July, Hitler believed that not only the field Red Army had been defeated, but the military power of [the USSR] itself had been undermined so much that no restoration of it, due to incredible losses in equipment, could no longer save Russia from destruction. ".

Moreover, the Red Army actually lost the scale of a tank division as a class of independent mechanized formations. The mechanized corps were disbanded. Instead of tank divisions, tank brigades began to form, which were organizational structures for direct support of the infantry. This meant a fundamental difference in the capabilities of conducting operations by the Red Army and the Wehrmacht. The German army had a tool for developing a breakthrough in depth - tank and motorized divisions, combined into motorized corps. The Red Army was deprived of large mobile formations, which were the most effective means of parrying such breakthroughs. But, at the same time, it was the tank brigades that became the basis on which the formation of the armored forces took place, as a class that decided the outcome of the war in the future.

The German General Staff assessed the consequences of the summer disasters of the Red Army from the point of view of the changed strategy of the Red Army: F. Halder described the state and plans of the Soviet troops in his diary: “Recently, serious changes have occurred or have already occurred in the position of the enemy. Although there is not a single sign that the enemy has weakened his troops or withdrawn them to the rear, it is nevertheless quite obvious that he is regrouping with all the forces at his disposal to take up defense along the line Lake Ilmen - Rzhev - Vyazma, Bryansk, for in order, just as the French acted in the second stage of our campaign in the West, to create heavily fortified centers of defense (a large number of divisions under the command of one army headquarters), which will be the main core of resistance on the new defensive line. Such actions mean a complete rejection of the methods of the previous leadership of the enemy troops, when the main goal was to push our troops back.

The Wehrmacht in the summer of 1941 had a kind of "wonder weapon". These were large independent mechanized formations - motorized army corps. The Red Army did not have a symmetrical response to this means of combat, since the mechanized corps of the Red Army had only begun to form in February 1941, which did not allow time to make them combat-ready. And, if in the Border Battle of June 1941 the Red Army could oppose less effective, but at least somehow capable of maneuvering mechanized corps, then by August they were destroyed.

German tank troops also suffered significant losses, but they did not lose their main quality - mobility. This concerned both the possibility of breaking through into the depths of the defense and closing the “pincers” behind the backs of armies and entire fronts, and the possibilities quick creation shock groups. A motorized corps could move several hundred kilometers under its own power and appear as if from nothing on a previously calm sector of the front, crushing everything in its path. At the same time, the defending Soviet armies and fronts did not have their own large mechanized formation, which would conduct a march and enter into a duel with a corps that arose from the abyss. So, the 39th motorized corps suddenly appeared near Chudovo, and its formations ensured a tight blockade of Leningrad. So, most of the formations of the 1st tank group of Kleist moved to the Kremenchug bridgehead and launched an offensive towards the 2nd tank group of Guderian, which closed the Kyiv "boiler". So, the 4th tank group made a march and struck at Vyazma where it was not expected in the initial phase of the Typhoon operation. But the most important consequence, militarily, was the fact that in the summer and autumn of 1941 the Wehrmacht had a strategic initiative. This meant that the Soviet command did not have the technical capabilities to carry out offensive operations capable of endangering any large enemy formations. Accordingly, the German General Staff was free to move large forces to the chosen directions of offensives without fear for other sectors.

Thus, in August - October 1941, there was no threat of a major offensive from the side of the Red Army, capable of bringing down the front of any army group. The motorized and aviation corps of the Wehrmacht could move along the front, creating an overwhelming advantage at the right point, without any fear. So, the motorized corps of the 3rd tank group and the 8th air corps were thrown against the troops of the North-Western direction in August 1941. Thus, the forces of the 1st and 2nd tank groups were concentrated against the troops of the South-Western direction. At the same time, the troops of the Western direction could practically prevent the creation of a quantitative and qualitative superiority against the troops of the other two directions on the flanks of the Soviet-German front. Before the start of Typhoon, motorized corps and squadrons of bombers and fighters were again returned to the Moscow direction and created overwhelming superiority on the ground and in the air in the directions of the main strikes of the new offensive operation.

Conclusions from chapter 4: The loss of the strategic initiative on the part of the Red Army was one of the main consequences of the defeat in the summer of 1941 in the Battle of the Border and predetermined further losses of troops and territories. The Red Army has lost the ability to conduct military operations of strategic importance. And only the winter counteroffensive near Moscow, carried out almost without reserves, made it possible to partially restore the freedom of operational maneuver to the Red Army.

Conclusion

Some paradoxical conclusions can be drawn from the material of this work. The unexpected attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR did not play the role that many historians attribute. In the current foreign policy situation, the country's leadership could not mobilize the army, as this would be regarded as preparation for aggression. The holding of the Great Training Camps (BUS) in the spring of 1941 made it possible to replenish the Red Army with manpower, but did not solve the main problem: the German Wehrmacht was a wartime army, fully equipped, mobilized and in almost full combat strength near the borders of the USSR, after the defeat of Poland. The Red Army had a completeness according to peacetime states, possessing a large amount of military equipment and weapons, but not having the number of personnel necessary for waging war.

Soviet aviation was not defeated in the first days of the war and put up decent resistance to the German Luftwaffe, despite the losses. The crisis in the actions of aviation is due to the defeat of the ground forces of the Red Army, and not vice versa, as is customary in Soviet history. The vast majority of combat aircraft, especially fighters, were simply abandoned at captured airfields. This, in turn, predetermined the heavy losses of the bombers, left without air cover, and practically annulled the effectiveness of their impact on the German troops.

The defeat of numerous tank troops of the Red Army is also not a consequence of the surprise attack, but miscalculations by the top leadership of the USSR in the organizational structure of the Red Army. Due to the formation of mechanized corps that began in February 1941, the former formations were disbanded, the supply structure and, especially, the repair base were disrupted. Due to the large amount of equipment, there was an overwhelming shortage of officers in the armored forces, which made them unfit for combat. Of the total, huge, number of tanks, there were no more than eight hundred to eight hundred and fifty tanks that were truly combat-ready, equipped with trained crews, a repair base and undergoing combat coordination in large formations, and they could not resist the Panzerwaffe on an equal footing. A hasty decision in a difficult political situation to form the mechanized corps of the Red Army in February 1941 deprived the armored forces of combat capability, since it was impossible to reorganize the troops on such a large scale in six months. Thus, if fascist Germany had officially declared war even a week before the invasion, the course of hostilities in the summer of 1941 could not have been different. The suddenness of the attack brought the Wehrmacht only tactical success, and the mass catastrophes of 1941 were predetermined by the degree of mobilization of the warring parties, as well as by the organizational structure of the Red Army, which, of course, could not be recognized by the leadership of the USSR even in the post-war period, since this discredited it. And only after the reorganization of the tank troops from corps and divisions into brigades and separate battalions, the management of the Red Army improved, but did not solve the problem of the lack of large strike formations. This manifested itself already in the battle of Moscow, where the German army was defeated for the first time on a frontal scale.

It is reasonable to note that by this period, not only the Red Army had gained experience (as many historians explain the beginning of victories), the German army also constantly updated and improved tactics and strategy, it could not be otherwise in the context of the ongoing war. Consequently, the Red Army began to win victories thanks to the reorganization of its structure, and even in the conditions of the most severe "time pressure" of wartime, having managed to create new strike formations.

The main consequences of the military defeats of the Red Army in 1941 were the loss of strike formations capable of withstanding the German tank corps, the loss of strategic initiative and, as a result, the seizure of large territories by the German army. The loss of strike formations by the Red Army allowed the Wehrmacht to operate freely with its troops, choosing the time, place and strength of the strike, which put the Red Army in the most difficult conditions. It should be noted that during this period, not a single army in the world had ways to deal with mobile shock tank formations. And only at the cost of heavy losses in the summer - autumn of 1941, it was possible to stop the main "instrument" of the blitzkrieg of the German army - tank corps on the outskirts of Moscow, to re-create their strike formations, which already in 1944 will surprise the whole world with the scope of brilliant offensive operations.

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Back in 1940, the Soviet leadership and the General Staff, anticipating the inevitability of war with Germany, developed a number of military plans for 1940 - "Considerations on the fundamentals of the strategic deployment of the armed forces of the Soviet Union." The result of B.M. Shaposhnikov over the new border profile was reflected in a document dated August 19, 1940. In his opinion, planning should have been built around the following theses: “Considering that the main attack of the Germans will be directed north of the mouth of the San River, it is also necessary to have the main forces of the Red Army deployed north of Polissya. In the South, Western Ukraine and Bessarabia should be covered by active defense, and perhaps the largest part of the German army should be fettered. The main task of our troops is to defeat the German forces concentrating in East Prussia and in the Warsaw region: to defeat the enemy grouping in the Ivangorod, Lublin, Grubeshov, Tomashev region with an auxiliary strike. Isaev A. V. From Dubno to Rostov. - M.: AST; Transitbook, 2004. p. twenty.

In fact, the main idea of ​​the plan is to reproduce the actions of the Russian army in 1914, the assault on the citadel of East Prussia with strikes from the northwest and bypassing the Masurian Lakes Ibid., p. 21. But after the change in the leadership of the General Staff, the Soviet military plans also undergo changes. K.A. Meretskov by that time already had the sad experience of storming the Mannerheim Line in the winter of 1939-1940, and storming the more advanced German fortifications in East Prussia was considered unpromising tasks. The center of gravity of Soviet military plans began to shift south. The next option appears on September 18, 1940. The main tasks of the troops are outlined in it in the following words: “The main forces of the Red Army in the West, depending on the situation, can be deployed either south of Brest-Litovsk so that a powerful blow in the directions of Lublin and Krakow and further to Breslau (Bratislav) in the first stage of the war, cut off Germany from the Balkan countries, deprive her of the most important economic bases and decisively influence the Balkan countries in matters of their participation in the war; or north of Brest-Litovsk with the task of defeating the main forces of the German army within East Prussia and capturing the latter. The final decision on deployment will depend on the political situation that will develop by the beginning of the war, but in peacetime I consider it necessary to have both options developed. In total, according to the “southern” deployment option, the South-Western Front was supposed to have “70 rifle divisions; 9 tank divisions; 4 motorized rifle divisions; 1 cavalry division; 5 tank brigades; 81 Aviation Regiment. As part of the Western and Northwestern, respectively, “55 rifle divisions; 7 tank divisions; 3 motorized rifle divisions; 3 cavalry divisions; 6 tank brigades; 1 airborne brigade; 59 aviation regiments ”Isaev A.V. From Dubno to Rostov. - M.: AST; Transitbook, 2004. p.22.

Thus, in September 1940, dualism is still observed, an attempt to draw up two plans. One option was to develop the ideas of B.M. Shaposhnikov, the second gave the first operation of the Soviet troops a fundamentally different form, shifting the center of concentration to the territory of Ukraine. But already in 1941, a plan based on the ideas of K. A. Meretskov was finally adopted, shifting the center of the main concentration of troops to Ukraine. In the “Considerations on the Basics of Strategic Deployment” dated May 15, 1941, the form of the operation in the Southwestern Front did not undergo fundamental changes: “The Southwestern Front has eight armies, consisting of 74 rifle, 28 tank, 15 motorized and 5 cavalry divisions, and a total of 122 divisions and 91 aviation regiments, with the immediate tasks: a) by a concentric attack by the armies of the right wing of the front, encircle and destroy the main enemy grouping east of the river. the Vistula in the Lublin region; b) at the same time, with a blow from the front of Seniava, Przemysl, Lutowisk, defeat the enemy forces in the Krakow and Sandomierz-sko-Kielce directions and seize the regions of Krakow, Katowice, Kielce, meaning to further advance from this area in a northern or north-western direction to defeat the large forces of the northern flank of the enemy front and capture the territory of former Poland and East Prussia; c) firmly defend the state border with Hungary and Romania and be ready to launch concentric attacks against Romania from the Chernivtsi and Chisinau regions, with the immediate goal of defeating the northern wing of the Romanian army and reaching the line of the river. Moldova, Iasi.

The document was written by A.M. Vasilevsky, and amended by G.K. Zhukov, who only intended to strengthen the strike of the Southwestern Front by the actions of the Western Front from the southern face of the Bialystok ledge, changing the direction of the strike from Warsaw to Radom Isaev A.V. From Dubno to Rostov. - M.: AST; Transitbook, 2004. pp. 23-24.

But in order to implement these plans in practice, it was necessary to carry out the so-called mobilization deployment. For example, according to the peacetime staff, the field administration of the army should have consisted of 268 people, of which 225 were commanding officers. In the case of deployment in wartime, the number of the administrative apparatus of the army increased to 1530 people, of which 550 commanding staff K. Oganesyan, The Truth about the Great Patriotic War. The Red Army is the strongest of all! - M.: Yauza, Eksmo, 2008. p. 87. When mobilization was announced, within a few days, divisions from incomplete ones turned into full-fledged army formations. Reservists arrived within 1-3 days. Further, the units were knocked together, battalion and regimental exercises were carried out, and the finished army unit was sent to the front.

The same changes were undergone by the mechanisms of driving troops, army and corps administrations, rear services, communications, etc. The principle was the same: in peacetime, the minimum necessary for training, in wartime, the organizational structure that was optimal for combat operations. This system was common for various states, the differences were not of a fundamental nature.

If we take the army as a whole, then according to MP-41 (the mobilization plan of February 1941), out of 303 rifle, motorized rifle, tank and motorized divisions of the Red Army, 172 divisions had terms of full readiness on the 2-4th day of mobilization, 60 divisions - on 4-5th day, and the rest - on the 6-10th day. Isaev A.V. From Dubno to Rostov. - M.: AST; Transitbook, 2004. p. 32

The leadership of the USSR faced an intractable task: the choice between escalating the political conflict by declaring mobilization or entering the war with an unmobilized army. The declaration of mobilization, as the events of the First World War showed, was tantamount to a declaration of war.

Covert mobilization measures were also laid down in Soviet plans for the deployment of troops: “The mobilization plan of 1941 provides for mobilization according to two options:

a) the first option provides for the mobilization of individual military districts, individual units and formations established by a special decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR - in a hidden order, in the order of Big Training Camps (BUS). In this case, the call for military reserve, as well as the supply of parts of vehicles and horses are made by personal summonses, without announcing orders from NGOs.

b) the second option provides for a general mobilization of all the Armed Forces of the USSR or individual military districts in an open manner, i.e. when mobilization is announced by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Naturally, all these mechanisms were put into action in 1941. In April-May 1941, the People's Commissariat of Defense and the General Staff decided to carry out a covert mobilization of the military reserve under the cover of "Large training camps" (BUS). In total, over 802 thousand people were called up for training camps before the declaration of war, which accounted for 24% of assigned personnel according to the MP-41 mobilization plan, which was clearly not enough K. Oganesyan, The Truth about the Great Patriotic War. The Red Army is the strongest of all! - M.: Yauza, Eksmo, 2008. p. 264.

This made it possible to reinforce half of all rifle divisions of the Red Army (99 out of 198) located in the western districts, or divisions of the internal districts intended for transfer to the west. At the same time, the composition of the rifle divisions of the border districts, with a staffing strength of 14,483 people, was increased: 21 divisions - up to 14 thousand people, 72 divisions - up to 12 thousand people and 6 rifle divisions - up to 11 thousand people. For the Southwestern Front, which numbered 764,941 people on the list as of June 22, 1941, the "Large training camp" meant an increase of 142,105 people. Only 51,094 people were added to the Odessa Military District, which formed the 9th Army upon mobilization, with the list of troops of the district 113,577 people. The Kharkov Military District received 72,949 men under the BUS, in addition to the district's troop strength of 159,196. At the same time, 26,620 horses were delivered from the national economy to the army within the framework of the BUS. This is a small figure, given that according to the MP-41, "the need for horses to complete units up to wartime states is 671,770 horses." Isaev A.V. From Dubno to Rostov. - M.: AST; Transitbook, 2004. p. 34 However, there was no announcement of mobilization until the start of hostilities on June 22, 1941, thereby significantly reducing the possibility of manning divisions with vehicles, horses and soldiers of rear units. The withdrawal of a significant number of vehicles from the economy was too noticeable and large-scale an event to hide it from prying eyes, and the Soviet leadership did not lose hope for a political resolution of the conflict until the very moment of the invasion of German troops.

The only example of a German way of starting a war, without a period of concentration and deployment, was Poland. There was no period of sluggish skirmishes on the border in the process of mobilization and deployment. The Wehrmacht immediately began operations with all the necessary forces, Poland, on the contrary, found itself in the face of an invasion with an unmobilized and underdeployed army.

Georgy Samoylovich Isserson, head of the department of operational art at the Academy of the General Staff, wrote about the war in Poland: “At the same time, the old tradition is discarded, according to which it is necessary to warn about it before striking. War is not declared at all. It simply begins with pre-deployed military forces. Mobilization and concentration do not belong to the period after the onset of the state of war, as it was in 1914, but imperceptibly, gradually carried out long before that ”Isaev A.V. From Dubno to Rostov. - M.: AST; Transitbook, 2004. p. 43.

A.M. Vasilevsky, in an interview given in 1965, says the following: “Based on the development of the plan, it would seem from the correct position that modern wars are not declared, but they simply begin with an enemy already prepared for hostilities, which was especially characteristically demonstrated by the fascist leadership of Germany in the first period of the Second World War, the leadership of our armed forces and the General Staff did not draw the appropriate correct conclusions from this situation for themselves and did not make any amendments to the operational plan in this regard. On the contrary, the old-fashioned plan provided for the so-called initial period of the war lasting 15-20 days from the start of hostilities to the entry into action of the main troops of the country, (Lutsenko singled out) during which the troops of the echelons of cover from the border military districts deployed along the borders, with their combat operations were supposed to cover the mobilization, concentration and deployment of the main forces of our troops. At the same time, the opposite side, i.e. fascist Germany, with its fully mobilized and already at war army, was placed in terms of the time required for its concentration and deployment against us, in the same conditions as our Armed Forces ”Ibid., p. 44.

But, firstly, it is simply impossible to do without a period of mobilization and deployment. One way or another, the army must be mobilized, and its formations must be transferred by rail or on foot to the frontier. At the same time, the moment of the beginning of these events can be shifted to the pre-war period. Mobilization can be carried out covertly, at the expense of "Large Training Camps". The movement of troops can also begin and actually began before one of the parties started hostilities. Secondly, the moment from which the countdown to the first strikes begins is still chosen not by the military, but by the political leadership of the country. Accordingly, it is the political leadership of the country that assesses the danger or the need to use force. Isaev AV From Dubno to Rostov. - M.: AST; Transitbook, 2004. p. 46.

So, Lieutenant General P.S. Klenov, chief of staff of the Baltic Special Military District, at a meeting of the top leadership of the Red Army in December 1940, said the following: “I recently looked through Isserson's book New Forms of Struggle. Hasty conclusions are given there, based on the war of the Germans with Poland, that there will be no initial period of war, that the war for today is resolved simply by an invasion of ready forces, as was done by the Germans in Poland, deploying one and a half million people. I consider such a conclusion to be premature. It can be allowed for a state like Poland, which, arrogant, lost all vigilance and which had no intelligence of what the Germans were doing during the months of concentration of troops. Every self-respecting state, of course, will try to use this initial period in its own interests in order to find out what the enemy is doing, how he is grouping, what his intentions are, and to prevent him from doing this. 44-45.

The leaders of our country, of course, received different, often contradictory intelligence. Accordingly, it was assumed that the concentration of enemy troops would be revealed by reconnaissance and it would be possible to begin preparatory measures, which in one phase or another would develop into a war. At the same time, the preparatory period may be absent, or it may safely remain. It all depends on the moment of the official start of the conflict. Border incidents can escalate into an armed clash at any phase of mobilization and deployment. In addition, there are political signs of a brewing war, a period of diplomatic negotiations of varying degrees of ultimatum and political tension in relations. For example, Germany had been making political demands on the Polish government since 1938. Probing the political ground in Finland was also begun by the Soviet leadership in 1938. This was followed by almost a year of negotiations in increasingly elevated tones, and only after that the guns rumbled. In 1941, none of this happened. Germany did not make any political demands on the USSR; it was difficult to guess that the Third Reich planned to invade the USSR in the name of intimidating England. The war with the USSR, in the opinion of the Soviet leadership (and this opinion turned out to be correct), was too large-scale and time-consuming undertaking to solve such an auxiliary task as forcing England to peace. Other motives were not visible at first glance. Moreover, the novelty applied in relation to the USSR was the deathly silence of the German diplomatic authorities. Isaev A.V. From Dubno to Rostov. - M.: AST; Transitbook, 2004. p. 46

Why was Germany able to "get ahead?"

A huge number of books have been published on this topic and hundreds of blog entries have been made, but to this day, the issue of the defeat of the Soviet mechanized corps in 1941 is one of the most confusing issues. I am not an expert in this area, but I, as a citizen, as a historian, of course, wanted to understand it. As I understood, I outlined in this material.
In general, if you want to understand some issue in which you have little knowledge, then the easiest way is to read the work of an authoritative specialist in an equally authoritative publication. For many years, such a publication for me was the Military Historical Journal published by the Russian Ministry of Defense. I was interested in questions that are probably important for any Russian or former Soviet person. The questions are simple: if the Red Army had such a huge number of tanks, why weren't they used? Or, if they were used, why didn't it work?
In short, I began to read magazine No. 5 for 2006. In an article by Major General A.I. Mirenkov “The military-economic factor in the battle of Moscow” says: “Yes, it is a fact that as a result of the mistakes made, out of the 22.6 thousand tanks available in the Red Army on June 22, 1941, 2100 remained by the end of the year ...” That is , according to the Major General of the Reserve, the Red Army lost 20,500 tanks in a few months! The figure seemed so huge to me that I became interested: how many tanks did the Soviet industry produce before the war? Nikolai Simonov's book "The Military-Industrial Complex of the USSR in the 1920s-1950s" helped me with this. The book contains tables of tank production by years.

The numbers are:

1930 -170
1931 -740
1932 - 3038
1933 - 3509
1934 - 3565
1935 - 3055
1936 - 4804
1937 - 1559
1938 - 2271
1939 - 2985
1940 - 2790
1941 (two quarters) - 2413
Total: 30899 tanks!

What happens? Of the 30,899 tanks produced by the Soviet industry over 10 and a half years, the USSR had 8,299 tanks by June 22, 1941. Where did they go? I don't have the exact layout. Perhaps a part of them dropped out due to the fighting in the Soviet-Finnish war (Mannerheim wrote that only his army destroyed more than 500 Soviet tanks), several hundred tanks were sent to help the Republican Spaniards, as well as the Chinese, some tanks were lost in conflicts with the Japanese. Probably, part of the tanks failed due to wear, accidents, marriage, because the Red Army conducted exercises every year, and some tanks generally served as training vehicles. How many tanks were training - I don’t know, I didn’t find the numbers, but given the number of tankers that was required to train annually for the 22,000th armada, there should be a lot of them.
When I calculated all this, I had a desire to compare these data with the German production of tanks. I did not find any special literature on this issue. So I had to use Wikipedia. There are the following numbers:

Before 1934 tank production not in Germany.
From 1934 to 1937 - 1876
1938 - 804
1939 - 743
1940 - 1559
1941 (all year) - 3153
In total - 8096 tanks.

And now let's try to analyze the numbers in this plane. Many folk history writers keep saying that Stalin wanted to attack Germany, but Hitler got ahead of him. They write that the USSR hatched plans for the enslavement of Europe and the export of the revolution ... Stop. Let's think about it: by the beginning of 1934, not a single tank had been built in Germany. 7457 of them were built in the USSR! If Stalin wanted to enslave Europe, then why didn't he do it in 1934? The authoritarian leader of a totalitarian country... Why and why did he wait for the Nazis to come to power in Germany, build tanks and get ahead of him? After all, according to the logic of things, he, less than anyone else, should have sought to delay the start of the war ...

Where did the Red Army tanks disappear to?

In particular, Rezun claimed that the USSR itself was preparing to attack Germany, but did not have time. And since he was preparing for an offensive war, and not for a defensive one, he suffered such crushing defeats. The idea was picked up and developed by numerous grant-eating historians, publicists, politicians...
Why Rezun concluded that the USSR intended to wage an offensive war. There are several reasons, he says:
1. The USSR built high-speed tanks capable of moving at high speed on rollers with the tracks removed (According to Rezun, because there are many highways in Europe).
2. The USSR built carbureted tanks, not diesel ones (According to Rezun, because there are a lot of car columns in Europe)
3. Covering armies stood close to the border (According to Rezun, this indicates an intention to strike).
In short, the USSR built this entire tank armada, drove it to the border, but did not strike, did not have time. Why Rezun did not have time does not explain. Surprisingly, even serious historians ignore this issue. They say: "The USSR did not have time to prepare for war" and that's it.
And the fact that Stalin "wanted" to enslave Europe does not raise any doubts among them. After all, the Comintern created, talked about the world revolution. The fact that Stalin constantly defended the idea of ​​the possibility of building socialism in one single country is of no interest to them.
The liberal historians themselves, having counted a tank armada from the USSR, refuted the thesis about the intention of the USSR to export the revolution to European countries!
But the flaws of liberal logic do not end there. I diligently searched, but did not find a single intelligible explanation of where exactly the more than 20 thousand tanks lost by the Red Army in the first six months of the war had gone. The version that they could have been hit should be rejected immediately.
Those German memoirists that I happened to read do not recall any heavy tank battles on the border. Neither Manstein, advancing into the Baltic states, nor Guderian, moving past Bialystok to Minsk, did not meet large tank formations of the Red Army. He comes across the first thirty-fours already near Minsk. But it was in Bialystok that one of the largest formations armed with the latest tanks was located. And Soviet memoirists almost never mention them. That is, the tanks were supposed to go to the Germans in large numbers and almost or completely intact.
However, the Germans do not use them. By the time of the battle near Moscow, the tanks of the Wehrmacht were running out of resources. Mud and snow disable the last units of armored vehicles with which the Germans started the war. The attack fizzles out. German generals who do not have heavy tanks when meeting with some dozen T-34s begin to get pretty nervous. Nor does the Wehrmacht use the hundreds of whole T-34s that are captured in the first month. Imagine for a moment: the Germans take a couple of hundred T-34s, fill them with captured diesel fuel, supply ammunition from the captured warehouses and advance on Moscow. The Germans had already seen her through binoculars. This pair of hundreds of T-34s could easily decide the fate of the entire company! But thousands of Soviet tanks are idle, and the Germans, having lost armored vehicles in battles, are forced to retreat from Moscow. Do you believe that the Germans are such idiots?
It turns out a paradoxical thing: there were no large-scale tank battles, there were no thousands of captured tanks either .... They evaporated! Tanks of the Red Army - this is a gopher from the movie "DMB".
-Do you see the gopher?
- No, I see.
-I don't see it either. And he is!
Another myth of liberal historians is crumbling. What I want to draw the attention of all readers to: by some strange coincidence, not a single military historian for some reason wrote a single notable work on the use of captured Soviet equipment in the Wehrmacht. And if they did, then this work remained in the circle of specialists. Information did not reach the general public.
A funny thing: liberal historians write that Stalin wanted to attack, but did not have time, but no one explains what exactly he did not have time to do. Liberal historians write that the USSR lost tens of thousands of tanks, but they don’t write where they went.

Why did the Germans write off six times more tanks than the USSR?

Let me remind you that I am not looking for new figures - I use those given by official historians and which are generally shared by all authors of the folk history genre. Since no one disputes these figures, we will start from them.
From 1934 to June 1941, the USSR produced 23,442 tanks. Anyone who believes that the topic has already been studied from and to, and for complete happiness, it remains to read Rezun and Corned beef - try to remember this figure! By June 1941, the Red Army was armed with 22,600 tanks. That is, if we assume that only units produced after 1933 are in service, then the difference in produced and in service will be only 842 tanks. I think the calculation is simple.
Now we look at the German production. In total, German industry produced approximately 6,500 tanks before the attack on the USSR. By the time of the attack on the USSR, Germany had only 5639 tanks. Of these - 600 Czech tanks and a number of French and Polish. That is, by June 1941, out of the total number of tanks produced by the German industry, no more than 5,000 units remained in service. The difference in produced and in service will be about 1500 tanks.
Now attention: the Germans have written off (lost) every fourth tank since 1934, the Red Army has written off only every 26th! After that, you can talk as much as you like about the percentage of units that require or do not require repair, everything is obvious: tank junk was simply not scrapped. That is why the Germans could not use this scrap metal for its intended purpose!
In this case, you should also look at the losses. I do not have exact data on the combat losses of the Germans in Poland and France, but they were insignificant. But the losses of the Red Army in tanks (according to the Finns) were huge - 500 pieces. In addition, the USSR delivered several hundred tanks to Spain, some were transferred to China, and lost in border conflicts with the Japanese. It turns out that the Red Army did not decommission tanks at all!

What were the mechanized corps blinded from?

In 1986, Voenizdat published a book of memoirs of the Hero of the Soviet Union, Major General K.A. Malygin, with a circulation of 65,000 copies. For us, this book is valuable because in June 1941 Malygin K.A. He was chief of staff of the 41st Panzer Division of the 22nd Mechanized Corps. Here is how he writes about it: “In 1941, large mobile formations were rapidly formed in the Red Army, however, as you know, this task was not fully completed, since the time was insufficient. On the basis of our and the 36th tank brigade, the 41st tank division was formed according to the peacetime staff.
Let's interrupt Malygin's story and see how this process is described by G.K. Zhukov, Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, in his memoirs. He writes: “In 1940, the formation of new mechanized corps, tank and mechanized divisions began. 9 mechanized corps were created. In February 1941, the General Staff developed an even broader plan for the creation of armored formations than was envisaged by government decisions in 1940.
Taking into account the number of armored troops in the German army, the people's commissar and I asked to use the existing tank brigades and even cavalry formations in the formation of mechanized corps as the closest to tank troops in their "maneuvering spirit".
I.V. Stalin, apparently, at that time did not yet have a definite opinion on this issue and hesitated. Time passed, and only in March 1941 was it decided to form the 20 mechanized corps that we requested.
However, we did not calculate the objective possibilities of our tank industry. To fully equip the new mechanized corps, 16.6 thousand tanks of only new types were required, and in total about 32 thousand tanks. There was practically no place to take such a number of cars for one year, there was also a lack of technical, command personnel.
Slightly deviating from the topic, I will express a subjective point of view. The generals often reproach Stalin for not listening to their opinion. And he did not tolerate strong personalities around him. I see this as the complete opposite. Stalin always sympathized with people who were decisive and capable of taking responsibility. This, in particular, can explain the career rise of Zhukov and the frank braggart Eremenko. I am not saying that they are bad military leaders. I have a claim to their human qualities.
It is possible that a different vision of the prospects for the creation of mechanized corps served as an excuse for Stalin to replace Meretskov with Zhukov as chief of the General Staff. Here is how Meretskov himself describes the discussion of the issue of mechanized corps with Stalin: “I. V. Stalin summoned me to his office three days after Zhukov was appointed chief of the General Staff. Molotov was in the study. Stalin greeted him and said angrily:
- What is it, my brother, you became deputy people's commissar again and stopped reporting current affairs to me?
- On my own, Comrade Stalin, I have not come here before. You called me - I came.
- Why don't you bring the plan for the creation of mechanized corps for viewing?
- The draft of this plan with your amendments, Comrade Stalin, has been reprinted. Zhukov said that he himself would report it to you.
- We have already talked with Zhukov. He wants twice as many mechanized corps as planned there.
-You know my point of view, Comrade Stalin. I didn't back down from her. Now we have few new tanks. By the summer of this year, the planned buildings will not be ready: Previously, their creation should have begun. According to the project presented by us, the corps will be commissioned in the spring of 1942. Zhukov's idea of ​​doubling is excellent, only material possibilities are lacking. If there is a material base, his proposal will be implemented by 1943.
What follows from this? One thing follows: Meretskov claims that the plans for creating mechanized corps are not realistic, and Zhukov inspires Stalin that they can be created in the right quantity. Stalin believes Zhukov and does it in vain. Subsequently, Zhukov himself admits: "... we did not calculate the objective possibilities of our tank industry." What's next? Further, the next thing is that in order to obtain the required number of mechanized corps, tanks cease to be scrapped, and everything that even remotely resembles a tank is entered on the lists as a combat unit. The tank strength of the Red Army is inflated. Another small snippet to illustrate:. Zhukov writes: “In April 1941, a wartime staff was introduced for rifle troops. The rifle division - the main combined arms formation of the Red Army - included three rifle and two artillery regiments, anti-tank and anti-aircraft divisions, reconnaissance and engineer battalions, a communications battalion, rear units and institutions. According to the wartime staff, the division was to have about 14 and a half thousand people, 78 field guns, 54 anti-tank 45-mm guns, 12 anti-aircraft guns, 66 mortars of 82-120 mm caliber, 16 light tanks, 13 armored vehicles, more than three thousand horses. Fully equipped divisions could be a fairly mobile and formidable combat unit.
We read: "16 light tanks!" But in reality there were no tanks in the rifle divisions. They were all taken to the mechanized corps.

How did the strongest tanks in the world behave in battle?

But back to the memoirs of General Malygin. He writes: “The 81st Tank Regiment was created from the 38th Tank Brigade. It was headed by the former commander of the training battalion, Major V.G. Kovalev, a strong-willed and experienced tanker. From the 36th tank brigade, we formed under the command of Major A.S. Sunin 82nd Tank Regiment. The 41st motorized rifle regiment was created anew. Personnel, weapons and equipment for him began to arrive in early May. The vast majority of Red Army soldiers were recruits who had never held a rifle in their hands. By that time, the 41st howitzer artillery regiment had already received people and guns, but did not have a single tractor.
Let's break again... The mechanized corps does not consist of tanks alone. Even if you bring in a lot of not just tank junk, as it was in reality, but new tanks, then this is still not a mechanized corps. Howitzers without tractors. This means that in reality (it was) the howitzers had to be towed by two-turreted T-26 machine-gun tanks.
Further, Malygin paints an even sadder picture: "In the 41st anti-aircraft artillery division there were three batteries of personnel, but only one had four 37-mm anti-aircraft guns."
And one more thing: “We immediately began recruiting small units, since their structure had changed significantly: the platoon now had not three tanks, but five, the company had sixteen. In addition, almost forty percent of newcomers and tankers from other units joined the previous crews.
And now remember what liberal historians write: the tanks were excellent, the troops were able to launch an offensive in two weeks, the tankers were prepared ... Millions of people in Russia live and think that it was exactly as liberals tell them about it!

Let's go to Wikipedia for the "truth"?

For interest, compare with what Malygin describes with an article on the 41st Panzer Division from Wikipedia:
“The 41st Panzer Division was formed in the Kiev Special Military District on the basis of the 36th and 38th Tank Brigades in March 1941.
In the active army from March 1941 to September 9, 1941.
On June 22, 1941, it was stationed in Vladimir-Volynsky, having 415 tanks (342 T-26, 31 KV-2, 41 chemical and one T-37). At 4 o'clock on June 22, 1941, the 41st Panzer Division was fired upon by long-range artillery fire. On the same day, he makes a march from the concentration area to Lublinets, the Ljubljana collective farm, Budishche into the forests south of Tupala (Kovel region). On the way, the division got into a swampy area, some of the tanks got stuck, the division did not reach the designated area, and in the period from June 22 to June 29, 1941, parts of the division were transferred to other units, were used to search for saboteurs, guard headquarters, etc.
By June 29, 1941, the 41st Panzer Division withdrew in an organized manner to the line of the Stokhid River, where it went on the defensive. She successfully participated in the entire counteroffensive near Dubno, which reached limited goals, destroying up to three enemy infantry battalions, 10 anti-tank guns and 2 artillery batteries.
On July 2, 1941, the 41st Panzer Division began to withdraw to the line of the Sluch River, and from July 10 to 14, 1941, the 41st Panzer Division took part in counterattacks in the Novograd-Volyn direction. From July 23 to August 5, 1941, the 41st Panzer Division fought actively in the area of ​​​​the Korosten fortified area, and until August 20, 1941, it held down large enemy forces there.
On July 19, 1941, one tank remained in the division; on August 14, 1941, only 583 people remained. On August 20, 1941, she began to withdraw beyond the Dnieper, participated in the battles near Chernobyl.
On September 9, 1941, the 143rd Tank Brigade was formed on the basis of the remnants of the 41st Panzer Division.
.As you can see, the compilers of Wikipedia counted 31 KV-2 tanks in the division. And here is how Malygin writes about it:
“On the evening of June 17, a train with KV-2 tanks arrived at the Vladimir-Volynsk station for a battalion of heavy tanks. There were 18 vehicles - for three companies, five in each and three for the command platoon. Wikipedia counted almost twice as many KV-2s as Malygin. I have no idea what caused this discrepancy, but it is characteristic.
And a very important detail: heavy tanks arrived four days before the start of the war! As the division commander states in Malygin's memoirs: “I warn you that our repairmen do not know tanks (KV-2 - approx. A.G.). The crews were picked up from the T-26, and tomorrow the battalion will start mastering the new equipment.”
The battalion will have only two days to master it! I think most of my readers have the skills to drive a car. Will you be able, will you be able to confidently work in difficult, extreme conditions on a BelAZ car after an hour of training?
And the most important thing. The KV-2 tanks arrived, but there were no shells for them. Therefore, the KV-2 tanks of the 41st Panzer Division did not take part in the battles in the first days of the war! But why are we only looking at the KV-2. The T-26 tank is also for 1941 - the weapon is quite strong. But the T-26 was produced in different modifications and had a different service life. Part of the tanks of the division had a very long service life, they were double-turret machine guns, as well as flamethrower ...

How was it in reality?

With the outbreak of hostilities, parts of the division began to move to the assembly area, which was indicated in the envelope. The column was immediately attacked by enemy aircraft. Malygin writes: “I led the convoy to the assembly area. Enemy aircraft flew over us and units preparing for a counterattack, pouring lead over them and bombarding them. One bomb hit the KV-2 tank. He caught fire. The second one got stuck in a swamp. When the Nazis began to surround him, the crew blew up the car.
In addition, it is not often that researchers pay attention to German infantry anti-tank weapons. Here is a fragment: “By evening it became known that the Germans had been driven out of Vladimir-Volnysk, but at a high price. Of the 50 T-26 tanks of the battalion of the 82nd Tank Regiment, about 30 burned down. They burned from the fire of heavy machine guns, anti-tank rifles, and artillery. Major A.S. Sunin, smearing sweat and blood on his face (he was wounded), showed us a bazooka anti-tank rifle. What a pity that our infantrymen did not have such weapons.
By the way, the description of the course of the battles and their chronology in Wikipedia and Malygin's absolutely do not match.
In particular, Malygin writes that on June 28, the division, which had 150 tanks, 100 dismounted tankers (used as infantry and armed with revolvers and tank machine guns without bipods) and 24 howitzers, as well as anti-aircraft artillery divisions and four anti-aircraft machine gun installations, launched an offensive (Wikipedia does not contain this offensive), which did not achieve its intended goal ...
I think it's enough...
What do we end up with? We only have that from March 1941 to June 22, 1941, Zhukov G.K. pulled all kinds of tank junk to the border in order to report to Stalin I.V. about doubling the number of mechanized corps, which he announced in his plan. Everything that even remotely resembled a tank was included in the lists, and almost all of this junk was recognized as combat-ready!
The divisions looked like scrap yards!
There was no defeat of the tank armadas of the Red Army. Because there were no armadas. The Germans could not use captured tanks on a mass scale because they got mostly not tanks, but scrap metal. The USSR could not be the first to attack Germany either in June, or in July, or in August. There was nothing and no one.
For me in this story, almost everything is clear!

Does Hitler need tanks?

And finally, one more touch. It turns out that the Third Reich did not just produce tanks less than the Soviet Union. He did not consider it necessary to produce more of them.
I propose to make an interesting comparison: West German historians calculated that in the period 1935 - 1939 the volume of military production (in billions of dollars in 1944 prices) of the United States was 1.5, England - 2.5, the USSR - 8.0 and Germany as much as 12 ,0. Those. the Germans produced weapons worth much MORE than the USSR produced! But what did they produce? It is very interesting. For example, in 1939, the average monthly production in Germany in 1941/42 prices was as follows: ammunition for 253 million Reichsmarks, aircraft - for 260 million Reichsmarks, various ships - for 10.3 million Reichsmarks, half-track tractors - for 7 .7 million Reichsmarks, and ATTENTION - tanks were produced for 2.1 million Reichsmarks! Compare: 260 million for aviation and 2.1 million for armored vehicles! In 1940, the proportions are still fantastic: 345 million Reichsmarks worth of aircraft and 14.3 million Reichsmarks of tanks. In pieces in 1940, Germany produced 2200 light, medium tanks and armored cars. The Soviet Union produced 2,790 tanks in 1940 (not counting armored cars) and still has not fulfilled the plan. As subsequent years showed, Germany could easily significantly i.e. significantly increase the production of tanks, but did not do this consciously. The Germans saw no need for this. I will assume: they probably did not consider tanks the superweapon into which they turned into in the public opinion of modern historians of the folk history genre. The Germans believed that 2200 pieces, including the PZ-I, were enough. Beginning General Staff of the Red Army G.K. Zhukov, as you know, believed that he only needed 16 thousand new tanks in 1941, and only 32 thousand units. As a result, all the tank stuff was collected and dragged to the border without providing new formations with either artillery, or ammunition, or fuel, or air defense systems, or engineering services ...
Of course, the question is important: could Germany produce more tanks? Maybe the Germans wanted to, but they did not succeed? Here is what Hans Kerel writes about this: “Neither the power of the armed forces, nor the productivity of the military industry were brought to the highest possible level, and the time lost then could no longer be made up. Soviet Union we entered in June 1941 with only 2,500 tanks. This figure corresponded to the monthly production of 1944. In 1942, the fate of the most decisive battles in the East depended on the presence or shortage of only some five or six hundred tanks, that is, such an amount that in 1943-1944 was produced within one week.
In 1941, Germany, in its main production capabilities surpassed the USSR in two or three times. But she did not consider it necessary to sharply increase the production of tanks. This opinion is confirmed by West German historians. They believe that the military industry really started working only after the defeat of the Wehrmacht near Moscow in the winter of 1941-1942. During the publicized "battle for England" the Germans reduced military production. As can be seen from the above figures, they were still spent on aviation - on armored vehicles - the funds were allocated to a minimum. They began loading production at the end of 1941. And they switched to total mobilization of the economy only in 1943. Germany, I repeat, did not consider it necessary to produce more weapons. The Germans believed that those tank production volumes were quite enough for them for a war with the USSR.