2nd Shock Army

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2nd Shock Army
Active1941–1946
Country 
Andrei Vlasov

Ivan Fedyuninsky

The 2nd Shock Army (

Second World War. This type of formation was created in accordance with prewar doctrine that called for Shock Armies to overcome difficult defensive dispositions in order to create a tactical penetration of sufficient breadth and depth to permit the commitment of mobile formations for deeper exploitation.[1]
However, as the war went on, Shock Armies lost this specific role and reverted, in general, to ordinary frontline formations.

World War II

The 2nd Shock Army was formed from the Volkhov Front's 26th Army in December 1941 and initially consisted of the 327th Rifle Division and eight separate rifle brigades. In January 1942 the Volkhov Front commander, Meretskov, had to request that the Army’s commander, General Lieutenant Sokolov, a former NKVD commissar, be relieved, as he was absolutely incompetent. Command was handed over to the former commander of 52nd Army, General Lieutenant Klykov.[2] Later that same month the 2nd Shock Army was launched against Lyuban, but its offensive saw the Army isolated, under a new commander, General Lieutenant A. A. Vlasov.

On 7 January 1942, Vlasov's army had spearheaded the

Volkhov River, Vlasov's army was successful in breaking through the German 18th Army's lines and penetrated 70–74 km deep inside the German rear area.[3] The other armies (Volkhov Front's 4th, 52nd, and 59th Armies, 13th Cavalry Corps, and 4th and 6th Guards Rifle Corps), however, failed to provide the required support, and Vlasov's army became stranded. Permission to retreat was refused. With the counter-offensive in May 1942, the Second Shock Army was finally allowed to retreat, but by now, too weakened, it was virtually annihilated during the final breakout at Myasnoi Bor.[4]
Vlasov was taken prisoner by the Wehrmacht troops on 6 July 1942.[5] He later raised a legion of Russians who fought alongside the German forces.

Meeting of the 2nd Shock Army and the 67th Army in January 1943 during Operation Iskra
The terrain in which the 2nd Shock Army fought in the 1944 Battle of Narva.

2nd Shock Army again suffered severe losses during the Sinyavino operation from 19 August – 20 October 1942.[6] Again, the remnants were returned to the Front reserves for rebuilding.

In January 1943 it took part in the offensive which aimed to raise the

43rd Rifle Division, 90th Rifle Division, 131st, and 196th) along with 600 artillery pieces, a tank brigade, another tank regiment, two SPG regiments, and masses of ammunition and supplies.[7]

The 2nd Shock Army struggled to take Narva and German positions further west of the city until September 1944, when deep exploitation by Soviet forces in the

Stettin. In late March, the army helped capture Danzig.[8] On 1 May 1945, the 2nd Shock Army took Stralsund on the Baltic Coast, ending the war there and on the island of Rügen
.

Postwar

After the end of the war, the 2nd Shock Army remained in eastern Germany. In June the army was headquartered in

272nd rifle divisions) went to the Voronezh Region.[9]

Commanders

Sources and references

  1. ^ Keith Bonn (ed), Slaughterhouse, p.306
  2. ^ Erickson, Road to Stalingrad, 2003 Cassel edition, p.300
  3. ^ Meretskov, On the service of the nation, Ch.6
  4. ^ Erickson, Road to Stalingrad, 2003, p.352. See also p.381, where Erickson describes 2 Shock after this operation as 'an army brought back from the dead.'
  5. ^ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. Harper & Row Publ., New York (1973), p 252, 253.
  6. David Glantz
    , The Soviet-German War 1941-1945: Myths and Realities: A Survey Essay, p.40
  7. ^ John Erickson, The Road to Berlin, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1982, p.170
  8. ISBN 9781101175286
    .
  9. ^ "2nd Shock Army". www.ww2.dk. Retrieved 2021-09-15.
  • Keith E. Bonn, Slaughterhouse: The Handbook of the Eastern Front, Aberjona Press, Bedford, PA, 2005
  • Feskov, The Soviet Army in the Period of the Cold War, Tomsk, 2004
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