40th Army (Soviet Union)
40th Army | |
---|---|
Combined Arms | |
Size | varied in size; usually several divisions |
Engagements | World War II
|
Commanders | |
Notable commanders | Boris Gromov |
The 40th Army (
First formation (World War II)
It was first formed, after
As part of a general winter offensive by the Red Army across the entire Eastern Front, on 1 January 1942 40th Army, by then based on six rifle divisions and two tank brigades, attacked German positions east of Tim. Off 40th Army's right flank the 13th Army had for several weeks been conducting offensive operations towards Orel, advancing some 50 kilometres to the west and retaking Elets and Kastornoye in the process. The advance of 40th Army was less rapid. By 3 January 40th Army, in conjunction with 21st Army further south, was involved in heavy fighting on the line of the Seym river as the two armies attempted to advance on Kursk and Oboyan respectively. 40th Army retook Tim and advanced to within 30 kilometres of Kursk before being stopped by determined German resistance in mid-January. Thereafter the frontline stabilised west of Tim through the rest of the winter and through the spring. On 3 April 40th Army and its sector of the frontline was assigned to the command of Bryansk Front. On 12 May 1942 Southwestern Front launched a major offensive to retake Kharkov by an encirclement from north and south. At the same time Bryansk Front was preparing an offensive of its own to retake Orel. However, by 16 May the offensive by Southwestern Front north of Kharkov had stalled and Bryansk Front was ordered to divert the bulk of its combat aircraft to 40th Army in the south and to launch an immediate offensive by 40th Army to support Southwestern Front's right wing. However, this hurriedly prepared offensive by 40th Army in the second half of May made little progress.
In June 1942,
On 12 January 1943 40th Army began offensive operations against the left flank of the Hungarian Second Army north of Liski. This offensive was coordinated with an attack by a Soviet tank army further south to surround Axis forces on the Liski - Novaya Kalitva sector of the Don front. By 18 January most of the Hungarian army and an Italian corps had been surrounded east of Alekseyevka. The advance of 40th Army had left the German Second Army in exposed positions at Voronezh and, in a hurriedly prepared offensive coordinated with three other Soviet armies further north, 40th Army struck north on 24 January to surround much of Second Army east of Kastornoye. Having barely completed this operation, on 2 February 40th Army was launched into an offensive on the Kharkov axis to the southwest. It took Novy Oskol on 5 February and reached Belgorod four days later. Continuing to the southwest, 40th Army had reached Akhtyrka northwest of Kharkov by 23 February, but by then a German counter-offensive on the Kharkov axis had developed and 40th Army was pushed back to defensive positions east of Sumy. These defensive positions, which were to form part of the southern face of the Kursk Salient, remained largely unchanged through April, May and June 1943.
In March 1943 6th Pontoon Bridge Brigade joined the army.
On 5 July 1943 Germany's last strategic offensive on the Eastern Front (Operation Citadel) opened with attacks on the northern and southern shoulders of the Kursk Salient. The objective was to envelop and destroy the defending Central and Voronezh Fronts north and south of Kursk. At that time 40th Army, occupying what was expected to be a relatively quiet sector of the frontline facing the left flank of the German Fourth Panzer Army, was based on seven rifle divisions with armoured support. During the
Commanders
- General-Major Kuzma Podlas 8.1941 – 2.1942
- General-Lieutenant Mikhail Parsegov 2.1942 – 6.1942
- General-Lieutenant Markian Popov 6.1942 – 10.1942
- General-Lieutenant Kirill Moskalenko 10.1942 – 10.1943
- General-Lieutenant Filipp Zhmachenko 10.1943 – 7.1945
- Colonel-General Vladimir Kolpakchi 1945 – 1946
Second formation (OKSVA)
The Army was re-created on December 16, 1979, in the
On December 8, 1979, a meeting between
The field headquarters of the army was deployed in the Turkestan MD, while its aviation support by the 34th Mixed Aviation Corps in the Turkestan MD. On December 24, 1979 Minister of Defense Ustinov officially announced about the adopted decision to invade Afghanistan and signed the directive #312/12/001. Next day there were deployed around 100 different units. Out of the reserves were drafted additional 50,000 people from the republics of
Divisions
- 5th Guards Motor Rifle Zimovniki Division in Kushka
- 101st Motor Rifle Regiment
- 12th Guard Motor Rifle Regiment (introduced in March 1985)
- 371st Guards Motor Rifle Berlin Regiment
- 373rd Guards Motor Rifle Regiment (transformed into 70th Separate Guard Motor Rifle Brigade in March 1980)
- 24th Guards Tank Paris Regiment (introduced in October 1986)
- 1060th Artillery Regiment
- 1008th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment (transformed into 1122nd Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment in February 1980)
- 1122nd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Sevastopol Regiment (introduced in October 1986)
- 108th Motor Rifle Nevel Division in Termez
- 177th Motor Rifle Dvina Regiment
- 180th Motor Rifle Regiment
- 181st Motor Rifle Regiment
- 186th Motor Rifle Vyborg Regiment (in March 1980 transformed into 66th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade)
- 285th Tank Uman-Warsaw Regiment (transferred from 201st Motor Rifle Gatchina Division, in March 1984 transformed into 682nd Motor Rifle Regiment)
- 682nd Motor Rifle Uman-Warsaw Regiment
- 1074th Lvov Artillery Regiment
- 1049th Flak Artillery Regiment (introduced in November 1981)
- 1415th Flak Missile Regiment (dropped in October 1986)
- 353rd Gun Artillery Brigade
- 2nd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade
- 56th Guards Air Assault Brigade
- 103rd Communications Regiment
- 28th Rocket Artillery Regiment
- 58th Motor Rifle Division (reserve)
- 103rd Guards Airborne Division
- 317th Airborne Regiment
- 350th Airborne Regiment
- 357th Airborne Regiment
- 1179th Artillery Regiment
- 345th Independent Guards Airborne Regiment
Turkestan MD Contingent
- 860th Motor-Rifle Regiment
- 186th Motor-Rifle Regiment (former 108th Motor-Rifle Division)
- 68th Motor-Rifle Division (reserve)
- 201st Motor Rifle Division(reserve)
Air Forces
Eleven fighter aviation regiments (IAP), seven fighter-bomber aviation regiments (IBAP), a separate reconnaissance aviation regiment, a separate reconnaissance and tactical aviation squadron (ortae), several assault aviation regiments, a separate assault aviation squadron (oshae), a separate mixed aviation regiment (osap), 4 separate helicopter aviation regiments (OVAP), 6 separate helicopter aviation squadrons (OVAE) rotated through supporting Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Among those units were:
- 136th Fighter-Bomber Aviation Regiment (Chirchik, Turkestan Military District.
- 217th Fighter-Bomber Aviation Regiment
- 115th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment
- 181st Helicopter Regiment
- 218th Helicopter Regiment
- 302nd Helicopter Squadron of the 5th Guard Motor-Rifle Division
The army entered Afghanistan (as part of the beginning of the
The Limited Contingent of Soviet Troops in Afghanistan was formed on the basis of the Army Headquarters. The Limited Contingent also included the 34th Aviation Corps (Russian: 34-го смешанного авиакорпуса),
Preparations for the Soviet force's withdrawal from Afghanistan (ru:вывод советских войск из Афганистана) were underway by 1988. But due to attempts by the Najibullah Afghan government to retain at least part of the 40th Army in Afghanistan, little withdrawals were made from September to December 1988.[7] The army's units continued to concentrate in the two largest garrisons (Kabul and Shindand), which were supposed to leave last, and along the highways along which it was supposed to withdraw troops (in the west, Shindand - Kushka, in the east, Kabul - Termez). After long negotiations between the Afghan and Soviet leaders, the requests to retain troops were rejected and on January 27, 1989, the withdrawal resumed. The 108th Motor Rifle Division served as the rearguard. The last Soviet units left Afghanistan in February 1989. Army commander Boris Gromov was the last Soviet soldier to cross back into the Soviet Union at Termez on 15 February 1989, covered by the reconnaissance battalion of the 201st Motor Rifle Division.
After the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, 40th Army was reduced to 59th Army Corps.
All veterans that participated in the Afghanistan campaign were known as the Warriors-Internationalists (воинов-интернационалистов).
Commanders of the 40th Army
- General-Lieutenant Yuri Tukharinov (Тухаринов Юрий Владимирович) 5.1979 – 23.9.1980
- General Lieutenant Boris Tkach (Ткач Борис Иванович) 23.9.1980 – 7.5.1982
- General-Lieutenant Viktor Ermakov (Ермаков Виктор Федорович) 7.5.1982 – 4.11.1983
- General-Lieutenant Leonid Generalov (Генерал-лейтенант Генералов Леонид Евстафьевич) 4.11.1983 – 19.4.1985
- General-Lieutenant Igor Rodionov 19.4.1985 – 30.4.1986
- General-Lieutenant Viktor Dubynin 30.4.1986 – 1.6.1987
- General-Lieutenant Boris Gromov 1.6.1987 – 15.2.1989
Third formation and transfer to Kazakhstan
The Army Headquarters was disbanded on 15 February 1989, but then reorganised as HQ 59th Army Corps (V/Ch 05865) at Samarkand on 1 March 1989.[13]
40th Army was again reformed on June 4, 1991, at
From September 1989 the Army commander was
Notes
- ^ Erickson 1975, p. 202.
- ^ Erickson 2003, pp. 207, 210.
- ^ Erickson 2003, pp. 356–8.
- ^ Walter S. Dunn Jr, Kursk: Hitler's Gamble 1943, Praeger Publishers, 1997 (Chapter 9: Cracking the Second Defensive Line)
- ^ Staskov 2003.
- ^ Aberjona Press, Slaughterhouse, 2005
- ^ a b c Volkov 2012.
- ^ (in Polish) December 1979, the last operation of the Soviet Army Airborne (Grudzień 1979 - ostatnia operacja powietrznodesantowa Armii Radzieckiej)
- ^ Holm. "136th Fighter-Bomber Aviation Regiment". Retrieved 2022-10-16.
- ^ Malashenko 2004.
- ^ http://278-odkbr.ru Archived 2011-09-17 at the Wayback Machine and https://www.soldat.ru/force/sssr/afganistan/perechen.html.
- ^ Feskov et al. 2013, p. 546.
- ^ Feskov et al. 2013, p. 547.
- ^ Michael Holm, 32nd Combined Arms Army, 2015.
- ^ Feskov et al. 2013, pp. 553, 554.
- ^ Feskov et al. 2013, p. 554.
- ^ БАРАНЕЦ, Виктор (2012-04-19). "Как российский спецназ выкрал у Казахстана ядерное оружие" [How Russian special forces stole Kazakhstan's nuclear weapons]. kp.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 2023-05-09.
Bibliography
- Erickson, John (1975). The Road to Stalingrad. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
- Erickson, John (2003). The Road to Stalingrad. (paperback edition)
- Feskov, V.I.; Golikov, V.I.; Kalashnikov, K.A.; Slugin, S.A. (2013). Вооруженные силы СССР после Второй Мировой войны: от Красной Армии к Советской [The Armed Forces of the USSR after World War II: From the Red Army to the Soviet: Part 1 Land Forces] (in Russian). Tomsk: Scientific and Technical Literature Publishing. ISBN 9785895035306.
- Malashenko, Ye. I. (2004). "Movement to contact and commitment to combat of reserve fronts". Military Thought. "Military Thought" is the military-theoretical journal of the Russian Ministry of Defence.
- Staskov, Nikolai Viktorovich (July 2003). "Dnepr airborne operation: lessons and conclusions". Military Thought. 12 (4).
- Volkov, A. (2012-01-06). "40-я Армия: история создания, состав, изменение структуры" [40th Army: history of establishment, composition, changes in structure]. Archived from the original on 2012-01-06. Retrieved 2022-10-16.
Further reading
- A fine study of the Soviet withdrawal, based on Soviet official documentation, has been written by the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office and is available at http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/Withdrawal.pdf.
- Lester Grau, The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan
External links
- http://samsv.narod.ru/Arm/a40/arm.html
- http://www.soldat.ru/force/sssr/afganistan/perechen.html (RU) – Russian language working list of all units that served in Afghanistan 1979–1989