The Bloody Triangle

by Victor Kamenir

  CHAPTER 3

  Dispositions of Kiev Special Military District

  FROM THE SOGGY VASTNESS OF PRIPYAT MARSHES, then south along the meandering Western Bug River and to the craggy Carpathian Mountains, the Kiev Special Military District was responsible for defending slightly over six hundred miles of Soviet Union’s western frontier. In the center of district’s border, a salient of land, centered on ancient Ukrainian city of Lvov, protruded into German-occupied southern Poland. The importance which the Soviet leadership allocated this area was underscored by the amount of troops deployed in and around Lvov salient. This area could have been easily used as a beachhead for a thrust southwest, threatening Rumanian oil fields, crucial for German war effort. In a similar manner, a Soviet attack could have been launched northwest, into the southern flank of German-controlled Poland.

  There has been much discussion whether Soviet deployment was indicative of their offensive or defensive intentions. The official version presented by the Soviet Union was that its peace-loving country was treacherously attacked by predatory Nazi Germany. This version has many adherents, especially in the former Soviet Union. Others advocate the dense concentration of Soviet troops in the Lvov salient as indication of offensive intentions. However, documentation and memoirs of participants on both sides of the conflict could be interpreted in favor of either viewpoint, massing for a powerful offensive or concentrating for a determined defense in depth.

  The truth, as it often tends to, most likely lies somewhere in the middle. In this writer’s opinion, Soviet Union did have aggressive intentions, but not in July 1941, as presented by sensationalist writer and ex–Chief Intelligence Directorate (GRU) defector Victor Suvorov (pen name of Vladimir Rezun), but in spring of 1942. Declassified documents and numerous memoirs consistently paint the picture of the Soviet military on the eve of World War II as a cumbersome organization in a state of flux. Based on my own research for this work, I do not believe that the Soviet Union was in shape to conduct invasion-scale offensive operations in 1941.

  The nonaggressive rhetoric decried by the Soviet propaganda does not bear scrutiny when compared against the actual course of action carried out under Stalin’s stewardship. Just as Hitler browbeat the aging Czech president Emil Hacha into permitting the unopposed entrance of German troops into Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Stalin similarly bullied the three small Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania in September/October of that same year into accepting Red Army garrisons on their soil, effectively subjugating them by the Soviet Union. In the similar manner, Rumania was forced to cede the province of Northern Bukovina to Stalin in 1940.

  Once threats failed, the communist state had no qualms about using force. When, in November 1939, unlike the Baltic states, Finland defiantly refused establishment of Red Army bases on its territory, the Soviet Union invaded its small northern neighbor. And, almost simultaneous with swallowing of the three small Baltic democracies, the Soviet Union lopped off for itself a large chunk of eastern Polish territory in September 1939.

  However, these territorial acquisitions reached the limits of Soviet offensive capabilities. Performance of Red Army troops during the easy campaign against Poland was dismal and was duly noted by the German observers. The Winter War against Finland was downright disastrous, exposing for the whole world the weaknesses of the Soviet military machine. Faced with cumulative effects of purges, humiliating Finnish campaign, and need for rearmament and reorganization, Stalin required at least two years of peace to rebuild his offensive potential.

  The backbone of the Soviet defensive network was a series of “fortified regions,” a system of field and semi-permanent defensive fortifications based on strategically important localities and usually named after them. Prior to late 1939, the Soviet Union possessed a very strong line of these fortified regions, called “The Stalin Line,” situated along its western border. Constructed at great expenditure of time, money, and resources, these fortified regions protected vital areas along possible avenues of invasion into the Soviet Union. The fortified regions, comprising a formidable array of defensive fortifications manned by independent machine-gun and artillery battalions, formed the framework in which the Soviet field forces were expected to first halt and then expel the enemy from Soviet territory.

  However, after a period of extensive land acquisitions in 1939, the Soviet borders were moved roughly two hundred miles due west, and the old system of well-developed fortified regions soon became redundant. The following year, Soviet government began construction of a new line of fortified regions called “The Molotov Line” along the new border. The old fortified regions, being superfluous and expensive to maintain, were largely mothballed, their equipment and armaments either partially stored or partially moved to the new border.

  On May 21, 1941, the People’s Commissariat for Defense (NKO, or Narodniy Kommissariat Oborony) ordered the fortified regions along the western border to be brought up to full readiness and manning. This measure was to start on June 4, but by June 22, not a single fortified district was at full readiness, due to shortage of manpower and equipment, endemic to the rest of the Red Army. At the start of the war, battalions manning the fortified regions were at below 50 percent strength, and less than 50 percent of actual fortifications were constructed.

  According to Zhukov, an admonishment from Timoshenko and the General Staff on June 14, 1941, stated: “Despite series of directives from the General Staff of the Red Army, emplacement of [appropriate] bunker armaments into long-term field fortifications and bringing these bunkers to combat readiness is being conducted inexcusably slow[ly].”1

  Had the Soviet Union had time to completely build the system of fortified regions along the new border, similar to the one along the 1939 border, it would have presented a formidable barrier to German invaders. As it was, construction of new fortified regions was progressing slowly, hampered by huge financial expenditures needed for these works.

  A major weakness of the new defensive lines lay in the fact that many bunkers were evenly distributed along the the border, rather than being concentrated along the most-likely routes of enemy advance. In addition, many of these field fortifications were constructed in full view from the German side and weren’t even camouflaged. Being in the early stages of construction, a majority of already-built fortifications were still isolated islands of resistance, not tied in together by trenches and concealed lanes of approach. Means of telephone communications among them were also lacking, with only 32 percent of land lines completed and 12 percent of buried telephone cable in place. A majority of bunkers in these strong points, if armed at all, were equipped with machine guns, leaving them at only 25 percent of the required norm for antitank defenses.2

  In accordance with the Soviet defensive plans, upon declaration of mobilization, the first echelons of Soviet field armies were to move directly to the border and take up defensive positions in the field between the strong points of the fortified regions, augmenting their garrisons and linking together the whole system. The second echelons of these armies were to concentrate roughly twenty miles east of the border in order to contain enemy breakthroughs and eliminate enemy forces that did penetrate Soviet territory. Behind the screen of these covering armies, the reserve armies of the South-Western Front were to organize and deliver follow-through strikes into enemy territory.

  On paper, reserves of the South-Western Front, backing up the four covering armies, were formidable. They were five separate rifle corps (XXXI, XXXVI, XXXVII, XLIX, and LV), one airborne corps, and two field armies (Sixteenth and Nineteenth). These last two armies began arriving in Ukraine in mid-June from military districts deeper within the Soviet Union, and parts of them were still in transit when the war started. Had the Red Army been given time to sufficiently equip, organize, and man these formations, the outcome of German invasion in northwestern Ukraine would have unfolded drastically differently.

  CHAPTER 4

  Organization and Strength of Kiev Special
Military District

  AS MENTIONED PREVIOUSLY, THE KIEV SPECIAL MILITARY DISTRICT was the strongest of other similar groups of forces. Its major combat components numbered sixty-one ground divisions: sixteen tank, thirty-three rifle, eight motorized rifle, two mountain rifle, two cavalry, plus eight air force divisions. Additionally, there were five antitank brigades and six artillery regiments belonging to the Reserves of Supreme Command. These formations, formidable on paper, in reality were a mixed bag of bad and mediocre combat units, sparsely sprinkled with some good ones.

  The mechanized corps of Kiev Special Military district were a representative sample of the Red Army’s armored forces as a whole. In this work I will concentrate only on five mechanized corps which directly participated in the border armored battle: the VIII, IX, XV, XIX, and XXII Mechanized Corps.

  In his summary report on July 17, 1941, Maj. Gen. Rodion N. Morgunov, chief of the armored forces of the South-Western front, described condition of the front’s mechanized formations on the eve of the war:

  Mechanized corps were not yet cohesive formations and were not fully provided with equipment. The strongest mechanized corps were the IV, VIII, and XV corps, but even in these corps the tank regiments of their mechanized rifle divisions had only the armored vehicles designated as training park. There were no vehicles designated for combat in the motorized divisions.

  The rest of mechanized corps appeared in the following manner as far as combat capability was concerned:

  • XVI Mechanized Corps: the only combat-capable division was the 15th Tank Division, but it was equipped with older tank models; the other two divisions had limited numbers of armored vehicles designated for training.

  • XIX Mechanized Corps: only the 43rd Tank Division was combat-capable, but even it had old equipment.

  • XXII Mechanized Corps: only the 41st Tank division was combat-capable, which was equipped with T-26 tanks and thirty-one KV tanks; the other divisions had “training park.”

  • XXIV Mechanized Corps: all divisions had only the “training park.”

  • IX Mechanized Corps: only the 35th Tank Division was combat-capable, mainly equipped with T-26s, some of them two-turreted machine-gun versions; the rest had “training park.”

  • The armored train detachment had two light armored trains and one heavy.

  By the start of combat operation the South-Western Front had 4,536 tanks and 1,014 armored cars distributed in the following manner:

  KV x265

  T-34 x496

  BT x1,486

  T-26 x1,962

  T-35 x44

  T-28 x195

  T-40 x88

  BA-10 x 749

  BA-20 x 365

  Such equipping of the mechanized corps led to such events that on the first day of war the tank regiments of IX, XVI, XIX, XXII, and XXIV Mechanized Corps, not having specific armaments, were equipped with 45mm and 76mm cannons and were, in effect, antitank regiments.1

  XXII MECHANIZED CORPS

  As mentioned in the previous chapter, the XXII Mechanized Corps was the closest unit to the border in the Fifth Army’s area of operations. A new formation, numbering 712 tanks and 82 armored cars and formed in March 1941, the XXII Mechanized Corps was commanded by Maj. Gen. Semyon M. Kondrusev. Major combat units of the XXII Mechanized Corps were the 19th and 41st Tank and 215th Motorized Rifle divisions.

  Corps headquarters, along with 19th Tank and 215th Motorized Rifle Divisions and corps support units, were located in Rovno, over sixty miles from the border. The 41st Tank Division was situated in Vladimir-Volynskiy, with its motorized rifle regiment in direct vicinity of the border at Lyuboml.

  In the previously mentioned report, Major General Morgunov described the XXII Mechanized Corps at the start of war: “Only the 41st Tank division was combat capable, equipped with T-26 tanks and thirty-one KV-2 tanks; the other divisions had ‘training park.’ “Taking a closer look at the 41st Tank Division would demonstrate the bleak shape the other two divisions were in, if the 41st Tank was the best one.

  Even though KV-2s were not exactly new tanks, they were new to the 41st Tank Division. Various sources place them between eighteen to thirty-one machines. These vehicles were received by the 41st Tank Division in the evening of June 17. Needless to say, by the time the war started six days later, not a single crew was trained to effectively operate these new tanks. Division’s Chief of Staff Colonel Konstantin A. Malygin remembered:

  In the evening of June 17th, a train with KV-2 tanks for the heavy tank battalion arrived at the Vladimir-Volynskiy railroad station. There were eighteen machines, five each per company and three for the command platoon. These tanks were classified [secret]; we were permitted to unload them and move them to [our] division only at night, covered by tarps. . . . With the exceptions of drivers who were sent to the factory to receive and escort the KV-2s, no one in the division has seen them yet.

  In the morning of June 20th, division’s commanding officer [Colonel Petr P. Pavlov] delegated his deputy for technical affairs, Lt. Col. D. A. Vasilyev, to conduct a briefing for command personnel about these new machines. Reading from the manual, Vasilyev pointed out that due to the extreme weight of these tanks, close to fifty tons, they could be towed only by a specially made heavy “Voroshilovets” tractor, of which the division had none. If one of the new KV-2s would become immobilized, it could only be moved by one or two other KV-2s.

  It soon became clear that KV-2, even though being a mighty combat vehicle, had major shortcomings: heavy, with poor maneuverability, could not fight against tanks because its 152mm cannon had a steep . . . trajectory. . . . Examining the tank, everybody voiced their opinions, but common opinion was sketchy: the tank, of course, is powerful, but . . . we counted many of these “buts.”2

  In his summary report of July 25, 1941, Col. Petr P. Pavlov described condition of his division on the eve of the war:

  The artillery regiment, equipped with sixteen 122mm and 152mm howitzers, did not have a single tractor. Thirty-one KV tanks with naval turrets [KV-2], armed with 152mm cannons, did not have a single round of ammunition. The air defense battalion had four cannons and no ammunition either. Shortage of wheeled vehicles was seven hundred trucks, which were not received from the civilian sector. Drivers of KV tanks were not trained, since these tanks were received seven to eight days before the war. 15 KV tanks, arriving before the start of the war, turned out to have major defects. . . . At the start of combat operations, the following tanks were made ready for action, albeit without spare parts: 312 T-26s and 31 KV-2s.3

  Colonel Malygin seconded his commanding officer:

  While the tank regiments were formed on basis of two good existing tank brigades, the 41st Motorized Rifle Regiment was formed from scratch. Personnel, armaments, and equipment for it began arriving at the beginning of May. Overwhelming majority of soldiers were brand new recruits, never having held a rifle in their hands. The 41st Howitzer Regiment by that time received men and cannon, but did not have a single tractor. The 41st Air Defense Battalion had three batteries–worth of personnel, but only one of [the batteries] had four 37mm air defense cannons.4

  Table 2.

  Tanks, XXII Mechanized Corps, June 22, 1941

  Table 3.

  Artillery, XXII Mechanized Corps, June 22, 1941

  Table 4.

  Transport, XXII Mechanized Corps, 19415

  The 19th Tank Division was not a combat-ready unit. Formed from scratch, by the start of the war the division had 163 tanks, all of them light BT and T-26 models, many of which were nonoperational, plus 58 armored cars. Lower ranks of the 19th Tank Division, being mainly recent draftees, were not fully trained. In addition, almost 60 percent of lower enlisted personnel came from various non-Slavic ethnic groups. Of this number, approximately 30 percent, or almost two thousand men, did not speak Russian language.6

  The 215th Motorized Rifle Division was formed around a previously existing rifle brigade and had a relatively well-trained core of enlisted
personnel, supplemented by a large number of recent draftees. Like many other motorized rifle divisions, the 215th suffered from dearth of wheeled transport and, in effect, was a regular foot-slogging formation. The tank regiment of this motorized division, however, had almost as many tanks as the whole of the 19th Tank Division, albeit most of them being old and in poor condition.

  XV MECHANIZED CORPS

  XV Mechanized Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Ignatiy I. Karpezo, was another corps located close to the border. Its major components were 10th and 37th Tank and 212th Motorized Rifle divisions. Even though the 15th Mechanized was formed in the second wave, in March 1941, it was a relatively strong formation, numbering sixty-four KV-1s and seventy-two T-34s among its 740 tanks, plus 160 armored cars.

  The new T-34 tanks were split roughly equally between the two tank divisions of the XV Mechanized Corps. All but one KV-1 were concentrated in the one battalion of 10th Tank Division. This division was transferred from the IV Mechanized Corps in the summer of 1940 and was a veteran formation with well-trained personnel. They were augmented by an influx of new recruits, called-up reservists, and transferred personnel. The 37th Tank Division was created in the spring of 1941 around the 18th Light Tank Brigade relocated from the Baltic region.7 Like its brethren corps, the XV was almost fully staffed with lower enlisted personnel, but suffering from shortage of commissioned and noncommissioned officers.