Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front, 1941-1942: Schwerpunkt

Shestopalov’s corps had no modern tanks – BT-7s and T-26s – and it was dispersed across a 110km-wide area. Over 30 per cent of his tanks were non-operational.¹⁰ The 12th Mechanized Corps had most of its artillery, but less than half its authorized trucks or radios, which made a war of movement or command and control difficult. On the other hand, the 12th Mechanized Corps had a fairly well-trained cadre, including Colonel Ivan Chernyakhovsky, commander of the 28th Tank Division. The remainder of the Lithuanian border was defended by the 11th Army, which had eight rifle divisions and General-major Aleksei V. Kurkin’s 3rd Mechanized Corps. Kurkin’s command had 630 tanks, including fifty-one KV heavy tanks and fifty T-34 medium tanks, but its constituent divisions were dispersed across a wide area. Altogether, the Red Army had a total of 1,355 tanks defending the Lithuanian border, although the majority were T-26 and BT-7 light tanks. In addition, the Northern Front had another 1,431 tanks available as reinforcements, with the 1st Mechanized Corps stationed near Pskov and the 10th Mechanized Corps near Leningrad; however, these were second-echelon formations equipped primarily with older light tanks, including BT-2 and BT-5s. The Red Army’s armour force in the Baltic Special Military District was inadequate in quality and was poorly deployed from the start, but also enjoyed the advantage of terrain that favored the defender, with its numerous rivers, marshes and forests.

Soviet Armour Forces in the Northwest and Northern Fronts, 22 June 1941

Although the Red Army concentrated six mechanized corps with 2,200 tanks in the Western Front to defend the Bialystok salient, the only formation with any real combat capability was General-major Mikhail G. Khatskilevich’s 6th Mechanized Corps. Khatskilevich had nearly half the tanks in the Western Front under his command, including four heavy tank battalions with 114 KV heavy tanks and seven medium battalions with 238 T-34 tanks. In contrast, the 11th, 13th and 14th Mechanized Corps were at half strength or less and equipped primarily with T-26 light tanks. These four first-echelon corps – assigned to support the 3rd, 4th and 10th Armies – were arrayed in an arc from Grodno to Bialystok to Brest, and deployed 30–60km behind the border. Further back, between Baranovichi and Minsk, the Western Front had the 17th and 20th Mechanized Corps in second echelon, but these were both cadre formations with only 129 light tanks between them. General Dmitri Pavlov, who had been instrumental in guided Soviet tank developments in the late 1930s as head of the ABTU, was now in command of the Western Front and he had the four first echelon mechanized corps positioned to support his twelve front-line rifle divisions. Pavlov essentially committed all his armour to a positional infantry support role, leaving no room for maneuver options.

Soviet Armour Forces in the Western Front, 22 June 1941

The Kiev Military District, soon to become the Western Front under General-Polkovnik Mikhail P. Kirponos, had a total of eight mechanized corps with over 4,400 tanks deployed in the region. Kirponos deployed the five strongest of these mechanized corps in his first echelon near the border, between Lvov and Rovno; these corps had between 45 and 90 per cent of their equipment. Among these, General-major Andrey Vlasov’s¹¹ 4th Mechanized Corps was the best-equipped armoured formation in the Red Army of June 1941, with 101 KV heavy tanks and 313 T-34 tanks. On paper, Vlasov’s corps was as strong as any German Panzergruppe and, in addition to its new tanks, had a full complement of artillery and over 2,000 trucks. Strikingly, the thirty-nine-year-old Vlasov had no previous experience with tanks, but was a rising star in the post-purge Red Army. Kirponos’ second echelon of armour consisted of three cadre mechanized corps deployed west of Kiev; these formations were equipped solely with light tanks and had between 20 and 40 per cent of their equipment. Further south, the Odessa Military District had two partly-equipped mechanized corps defending the Romanian border with 700 light tanks and a single battalion of T-34s. In central Russia, in the Moscow, Orel and Volga military districts, there were four more partly-equipped mechanized corps, with 2,000 light tanks but no KV or T-34 tanks. Another 5,000 Soviet light tanks were beyond the reach of the Wehrmacht, located in the Caucasus, Transbaykal, Central Asian and Far Eastern military districts. Even more important were the 15,000–20,000 tankers in these districts, who would provide the Stavka with a ready reserve of at least partly-trained armour crewmen to form new tank brigades.