18th Army (Red Army)

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The Soviet 18th Army ( Russian 18-я армия ) was a major military unit of the Red Army during World War II , which was deployed on the southern section of the Eastern Front in 1941 . In the summer and autumn of 1942, their formations and units, which tried to stop the German advance of the enemy, fought along the Don , the Kuban and in front of the foothills of the Caucasus . In 1943 landings took place on the Crimean peninsula , in 1944 the 18th Army fought in the Eastern Carpathians and at the end of the war in 1945 in Eastern Slovakia .

history

1941

Before Operation Barbarossa broke out in June 1941, the 18th Army was formed on the basis of the Kiev Military District from the command of the Kharkov Special Military District . Lieutenant General A. K. Smirnov was taken over as commander, TL Nikolayev was appointed a member of the Military Council, and Major General W. Ja was the Army Chief of Staff. Kolpaktschi and head of the political department was regimental commissar PP Mirkin. When the situation at the Romanian border worsened, the command of the 12th Army, on the orders of the Military Council of the Special Military District of Kiev, transferred the 17th Rifle Corps, which was subordinate to it, to the state border on June 13. On June 23, the 18th Army was released from the Stawka reserve and placed under the newly activated southern front . The instructions from the headquarters of the Southern Front, which arrived in Vinnitsa on June 25, stated that the following formations were to be taken over by the 12th Army :

  • 17th Rifle Corps (General Galanin ) with the 96th and 60th Mountain Divisions and the 164th Rifle Division
  • 16th Mechanized Corps (General Sokolow ) with 15th and 39th Panzer and 240th Motorized Rifle Divisions
  • 64th mixed and 45th airborne divisions and 10th and 12th fortified space

The army command arrived on June 26th at daybreak in the forest 10 km northeast of Kamenez-Podolski .

  • At the end of June, the army also received the 55th Rifle Corps (General Korotejew ) with the 169th and 130th Rifle Divisions.

The 17th Rifle Corps in the front line was 75 km wide in the area southwest of Chernivtsi . The task was to prevent the enemy from reaching Kamenetz Podolski via Radautz on the Glybokaya - Chernivtsi railway line . The German-Romanian attack by the 11th Army in Operation Munich crossed the Prut sector at the beginning of July . At the end of July, the troops of the 18th Army were pushed back onto the Kolodistoye - Mogilny line and further along the southern Bug to Getmanowka . In the rear of the Soviet front, the troops of the German 17th Army managed to reach Golovanevsk, where parts of the mixed division of Major General ND Goltzew secured. These units had to retreat south and south-east of Golovanevsk into the woods and again took up the defense with a new front to the north and north-east. On July 31, General AK Smirnov ordered a counterattack against the German Golovanewskwer group, which had broken in between the 18th and 12th Armies. In order to accomplish this task, General Smirnov made the 169th Rifle Division of the 55th Rifle Corps available to the 17th Rifle Corps.

Until the end of July 1941, the 18th Army was engaged in defensive battles in the Vltava , in battles between the Prut and Dnieper rivers, and was pushed back to the left bank of the Dnieper until September. The breakthrough of German Panzer Group 1 in the Chernigovka area brought heavy losses to the army (212 tanks and 672 guns), and Lieutenant General AK Smirnow was also killed on October 8th in the course of the fighting. General Kolpaktschi took over the command, the 18th Army counted the following rifle divisions: 30th, 51st, 99th, 130th, 164th, 176th, 218th, 274th rifle divisions and the 96th mountain divisions. From October to December 1941, the 18th Army took part in the defense of the Donbass region and the successful Battle of Rostov (November 17 - December 2).

1942

A necessary regrouping of the 18th Army was completed by January 15, 1942, the new composition was reduced by one division and two regiments, which meant an increase in the sections of the remaining divisions. The 296th Rifle Division was withdrawn as a reserve in the second season. The neighboring 12th Army joined between Debaltseve and Olchowatka , and their front was extended by a further 17 kilometers. The troops of the 18th Army continued to defend the eastern Donbass areas in the spring of 1942 in order to secure the southern starting points for the Barvenkovo-Losovaya operation . The events that occurred in the Kharkov area particularly affected the 6th, 57th and 9th Armies , but also the right flank of the southern front, which was formed from the 12th and 18th Armies. Increased combat readiness was ordered for March 21 of the 18th Army. When German units tried to penetrate the front, they encountered strong resistance from the 15th Guards and 395th Rifle Divisions. At the end of June, the Germans attacked the Soviet 9th Army and the neighboring armies on the south-western front, forcing them to retreat further east to the border of the Seversky Donets river and its tributary Oskol , which covered the right wing of the southern front. The successfully initiated Don offensive of the German 1st Panzer Army against the right wing of the southern front also threatened the positions of the 18th and 12th Armies . At the beginning of July the 9th Army was driven back from the area east of Isjum and Krasny Liman to Shulginka on the other side of the Aidar River . In this situation it was necessary to withdraw the troops of the 12th and then the 18th Army. On July 10, the 18th Army received orders to hold on to the left flank and, on the night of July 11, to withdraw the right flank and center to the Nikitovka - Petrowskoye - Novopalovka line. To the right of this, the neighboring troops of the 12th Army withdrew from the area west of Kadijewka, which had forced the defense sector 30 km southwest of Voroshilovgrad by the morning of July 17 . Two German tank armies were already aiming to push open the gate to the Caucasus, Rostov. The troops of the 18th Army withdrew to the southeast via Rostov. Three rifle divisions defended themselves on the Don section in the first season, the 216th rifle division, which did not reach the army until the end of May, covered the trigger behind it.

On July 29, 1942, the 18th Army was transferred to the North Caucasus Front , as part of the coastal group, the army troops took part in the fighting for Armavir and Maikop from August 6 to 17 . The 18th Army comprised the 10th Guards and the 16th Rifle Corps, plus the 176th and 318th Rifle Divisions as well as the 5th Guards Tank Brigade and 2 artillery regiments from the Stawka reserve. The units of the 255th and 83rd Marine Brigades that landed south of Novorossiysk , as well as the 107th and 165th Rifle Brigades and the 31st Airborne Regiment, were brought in as a separate group by Major General AA Grechkin . From September 25th to December 20th, the 18th and 56th Armies fought successfully against attacks by the German 17th Army in the Battle of Tuapse .

1943

In the spring of 1943 the 18th Army took part in the Battle of Krasnodar (February 9th - March 16th), in which the reconquest of Krasnodar on February 12th succeeded. On the orders of the commander of the North Caucasus Front, the 18th Army was withdrawn in the coastal area of ​​Tuapse and on February 15th the reorganization into the 18th "Amphibious" Army began. The 10th Guards and 16th Rifle Corps with the 176th and 318th Rifle Divisions and the 5th Guards Panzer Brigade were assigned to this formation. For the landings on the coast in the south of Novorossiysk (April 1943) the army was assigned the 83rd and 255th Marine Rifle Brigade, the 107th and 165th Rifle Brigade and the 29th Panzer Regiment. In April 1943 the army in the Myschako bridgehead got its old name back.

In autumn 1943, the 18th Army took part in the Novorossiysk-Tamaner operation (September 9th - October 9th), during which the city of Novorossiysk was liberated on September 16, in cooperation with the troops of the Black Sea Fleet . As a result of the following Kersch-Eltigen operation (October 31 - December 11, 1943), the troops of the 18th Army crossed the Kerch Strait and landed south of Kerch near Eltigen on November 1 . On November 1st the 318th Rifle Division (Colonel WF Gladkow) and the 386th Marine Infantry Battalion landed and formed a small bridgehead that had to be defended for a full 40 days. On November 20, 1943, the 18th Army was transferred to the Kiev area as a Stawka Reserve , where it became part of the 1st Ukrainian Front on November 30th . In December 1943, the 18th Army was placed in the Lyutesch bridgehead, which had already been developed, and immediately took part in the defense against enemy attacks. In the Zhitomir-Berditschewer operation that began on December 24th, the 1st Panzer Army and the 18th and 3rd Guards Army successfully advanced west. On December 31, Zhitomir was liberated by the troops of the 1st Guard Army and the 18th Army, and street fighting broke out in Berdishev .

1944

The 18th Army took part in the Proskurov-Chernivtsi operation at the beginning of March and in the Lviv-Sandomierz operation from mid-July 1944 , the troops forced the crossing on the southern Bug and reached the Carpathian Mountains in the area west of Stanislau . The foremost line of defense ran along the line Losinetz - Korostiw - Osmoloda and was located 30–40 km northeast of the main Carpathian chain. On August 5, the 18th Army was transferred to the 4th Ukrainian Front , in whose association it remained until the end of the war. The 18th Army took part in the Battle of the Eastern Carpathians between September 8 and October 28, 1944 . The 95th Rifle Corps and 17th Guards Rifle Corps were supposed to cross the main ridge of the Eastern Carpathians and reach Mukachevo . On the German side, alongside the Hungarian 1st Army, the 100th and 101st Jäger Divisions were deployed to defend the mountain positions.

Army organization on September 10, 1944

  • 3rd Mountain Rifle Corps (128th Guards, 242nd and 318th Rifle Divisions)
  • 11th Rifle Corps (226th and 271st Rifle Divisions)
  • 95th Rifle Corps (66th Guards, 24th and 351st Rifle Divisions)

On October 24, 1944, the 30th Rifle Corps (Major General GS Lazko with the 141st and 155th Rifle Divisions) was transferred to the army from the front reserve in order to advance the breakthrough on Mukachevo. The task of the 18th Army was to penetrate the offensive simultaneously via Poroschkow and Pertschin, first on Mukachevo and then to the southeast on Uzhgorod .

1945

During the Western Carpathian Operation in January 1945, the following units were subordinate to the 18th Army:

11th Rifle Corps, Major General Mikhail Ivanovich Zaporozhchenko

  • 30th Rifle Division, Major General Jankowski
  • 226th Rifle Division, Major General Kropotin

95th Rifle Corps, Lieutenant General II Melinikov

  • 24th Rifle Division, Major General Prokhorov
  • 351st Rifle Division, Major General Dudarev

17th Guards Rifle Corps, Lieutenant General Nikifor V. Medvedev

  • 2nd Guards Rifle Division, Colonel Samokhvalov
  • 8th Rifle Division, Colonel Ugryumov
  • 138th Rifle Division
  • 237th Rifle Division

The Czechoslovak 1st Army Corps also fought from March to May 1945 during the Moravian-Ostrava operation as part of the 18th Army. The 18th Army was disbanded in May 1946.

guide

Commander

chief of staff

  • Major General WJ Kolpaktschi (June - October 1941)
  • Major General II Leonovich (October - December 1941 and January - April 1942)
  • Major General AM Baranov (December 1941 - January 1942)
  • Major General NP Ivanov (April - July 1942)
  • Colonel P. Tschirkow (August - October 1942)
  • Major General AG Yermolayev (October - November 1942)
  • Major General AA Kharitonov (November 1942 - January 1943)
  • Major General ON Pawlowski (February 1943 - March 1944)
  • Lieutenant General FP Oserow (March - September 1944)
  • Major General NG Brilew (September 1944 - May 1945)

Members of the Military Council

  • Corps Commissioner TL Nikolayev (June - August 1941)
  • Brigade Commissar A. Mironov (August - October 1941)
  • Division Commissioner I. Zhukov (October - November 1941)
  • Brigade Commissioner S. Kuzin (November 1941 - July 1942)
  • Colonel AP Kirilenko (November 1941 - April 1942)
  • Brigade Commissioner J. Goldsteijn (September 1942 - January 1943)
  • Colonel GA Komarov (January 1943 - March 1943)
  • Major General SJ Kolonin (April 1943 - May 1945)

Web links