3rd Panzer Army (Red Army)

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3rd Panzer Army

active May 1942 to 1960
Country Soviet Union 1923Soviet Union Soviet Union
Armed forces Soviet Union 1923Soviet Union Red Army
Armed forces Land Forces
Type army

The 3rd Panzer Army was a large armored unit of the Red Army in World War II . Deployed in 1942 from the 58th Army , she served in the Battle of Rzhev in the summer of 1942 and was then held in reserve for half a year. In early 1943 it was used in the Voronezh Front in Operation Ostrogoschsk-Rossosh , the Voronezh-Kastornoje Operation and the Third Battle of Kharkov . In April 1943 it was transformed back into the 57th Army , but was re-established as the 3rd Armored Guard Army in May . As such, they took in the summer of 1943 as part of the Bryansk Front on the Operation Kutuzov part, then as part of the Voronezh Front in the Chernigov-Poltava operation , the Battle of the Dnieper and the Battle of Kiev . As part of the 1st Ukrainian Front , she took part in the Dnepr-Carpathian operation and the Lviv-Sandomierz operation in 1944. In 1945 she was involved in the Vistula-Oder Operation , the Lower Silesian Operation , the Battle of Berlin and the Prague Operation .

After the war it was part of the group of the Soviet Armed Forces in Germany with headquarters in Eberswalde , was renamed the 3rd Mechanized Guards Army in 1946 and the 18th Guards Army in 1960 . The latter was withdrawn from Germany in the summer of 1964 and relocated to the Turkmenistan military district.

history

Second World War

The 3rd Panzer Army was set up by order of the High Command on May 25 and 26, 1942 in the Moscow Military District using the headquarters of the 58th Army and assembled in the Tula / Yefremov area by July . From late July to late August it was used as part of the Western Front in the First Rzhev Sychovka Operation . Here she competed against the German 2nd Panzer Army under Rudolf Schmidt in the Koselsk area . On September 9, the High Command issued an order to withdraw the army to the Kaluga area and transfer it to the Stawka Reserve.

From January 13 to 27, 1943, the army took part as part of the Voronezh Front in the Ostrogoschsk-Rossosh operation, in which, in cooperation with the 40th Army, the Hungarian 2nd Army was encircled and largely destroyed. From February 2, the participation in the offensive on Kharkov followed , while the army advanced in a westerly direction via Kupyansk - Waluiki on Kharkov . The battle for Kharkov ended, however, with a defeat of the Red Army, the 3rd Panzer Army had to evacuate the already occupied city in March. It then became part of the Southwest Front and was disbanded in April and its headquarters used to reorganize the 57th Army . In mid-May 1943, it was ordered to be re-erected until June 5, and it was re-established under the name of the 3rd Armored Guard Army in the area of ​​the Brjansk Front .

Structure on July 1, 1943
12th Panzer Corps Major General Mitrofan Ivanovich Sinkovich 30th, 97th and 106th tank brigade
15th Panzer Corps Major General Filip Nikitiowitsch Rudkin 88th, 113th and 195th tank brigades
2nd Mechanized Corps Lieutenant General Ivan Petrovich Korchagin 18th, 34th and 43rd mechanized brigades and 33rd and 57th tank regiments

From July 12th to August 18th, 1943, the 3rd Armored Guard Army took part in the major offensive in the Oryol area, the city of Oryol was retaken on August 5th. Their corps were also given guard status for the successful battles near Orjol: from July 26th, the 12th and 15th Panzer Corps were divided into 6th and 7th Guard Panzer Corps and the 2nd mechan. Corps renamed 7th Guards Mechanized Corps. In mid-August the army was transferred to the reserve in the Kursk area . At the beginning of September the order was issued to concentrate the army in the Sumy area by September 15 . From here she took part in the advance of the Voronezh Front into Priluki at the end of September . From the beginning of November 1943 she was part of the 1st Ukrainian Front (ex-Voronezh Front) in the battle for Kiev .

From the end of December 1943 to mid-January 1944, he participated in the Zhitomir-Berditschewer Operation , the prelude to the Dnepr-Carpathian Operation . In March 1944 the army took part in the Proskurov-Chernivtsi operation . From the end of March to the beginning of July there was a period of rest for the army in the reserve of the 1st Ukrainian Front. In the summer of 1944 the next combat mission followed in the Lviv-Sandomierz operation , in which the army advanced as far as the Vistula .

The year 1945 began for the army with the Vistula-Oder operation , in which from mid-January it advanced in an arc over Radomsko and the Warta to the upper reaches of the Oder south of Opole . In the Lower Silesian Operation , which began in the second week of February , she reached the Neisse . During March it was held in the second season of the 1st Ukrainian Front and then carried out the main strike in the Berlin operation in the second half of April with the tank armies of the 1st Belarusian Front .

From April 16, 1945 she took part in the Cottbus-Potsdamer operation of the 1st Ukrainian Front, in which she was involved with the 4th Guards Armored Army in closing the Halbe pocket . During the storming of Berlin, she advanced via Mariendorf in a northerly direction towards Baruth and Zossen , fought her way through the Grunewald forest after she was not allowed to participate in the storm on the city center and reached Charlottenburg . The army was withdrawn to the south after the surrender of Berlin and advanced through Dresden as part of the Prague operation on Prague , which was reached on the morning of May 9th.

post war period

From May 1945 the army belonged to the Central Army Group, which emerged from the 1st Ukrainian Front. Their headquarters were in Eberswalde , from 1946 temporarily in Pardubice , Czechoslovakia, and from 1947 in Jüterbog . It was renamed the 3rd Mechanized Army Guards in 1946 and the 18th Guards Army in 1960 . In 1964 he withdrew from the GDR and moved to Alma-Ata in the Turkestan military district.

Commander in World War II

3rd Panzer Army

3rd Guards Armored Army

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