Poised for Chaos: Soviet Order of Battle on 22 June 1941
By James F. GoffIntroduction
In the Soviet Union in June 1941, Red Army force structure was evolving into one needed to conduct modern war. During the conflict it continued to evolve, mainly through trial-and-error modified by manpower and equipment availability. The result was a fascinating variety of units and organizational forms.
This paper examines the evolution of Red Army force structure, especially that of the ground forces, and particularly that of combat units. The coverage is not comprehensive, because of reasons of time and space, and emphasizes the armored troops.
- This paper was requested by David M. Glantz, whom I thank for the opportunity. Special thanks go to my research assistants, Jay C. Lysne and Anita N. Plant, who dug through Russian material and had to learn the peculiarities of a new computer system. And thanks to my departmental secretary, Bonnie Pautz, for her efficiency in doing the tables and other things.
Some discussion is still in order for terms used in this study. NARKOM or NK stands for People's Commissariat, the equivalent at that time of ministries of the government. In turn, they were divided into Main Administrations (Russian Glavnoye Upravleniye, usually translated as Chief Directorates in U.S. government publications). The latter were divided into Administrations (Upravleniye or Directorates), of which independent ones could be directly under a Narkom. Further levels are not relevant to this paper.
Some Soviet terms are often difficult or impossible to translate tersely, because they deal with concepts or ways of thinking that differ from those used in the American or other Western societies. Understanding them is hindered by the lack of Russian-English military dictionaries which have operational definitions. Here are some examples, based on my experience with Russian language and military affairs.
The term khozyaystvennyy (as opposed to administrativnyy) literally means "housekeeping". It involves the Russian distinction between paper-pushing and getting one's hands dirty. The term in parentheses involves paper shuffling, while this term deals with such things as fixing broken windows (though as a peculiarity of Russian thinking, it also involves handing out passes to leave post). The term upravleniye sometimes means an administration (a level in a bureaucracy). In a military sense, though, it usually means headquarters.
The term razvedyvatel'nyy stands for all four English-language concepts of scouting, reconnaissance, intelligence, and spying. Its definition is usually clear only from the context. The term ustroystvo generally applies to the installation of machinery, but in organizational matters seems to apply to such things as planning and forming military units. Komplektovaniya deals mainly with giving a newly formed unit its manpower, but probably includes distributing equipment. It seems to pertain to the actual physical process of forming units.
The term voyska should usually be translated as troops rather than forces (for which the Russian is sil', though we must make an exception for the asconced "group of forces"). The term strelkovyy voysk, for rifle troops, is generally translated as that. The Tsarist and Soviet armies both used pekhota for infantry. The Tsarist Army had some rifle brigades in Siberia because of the difficult environment, and they may actually have been above-average troops. When the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army formed in 1918, nearly all its infantry units were designated strelkovyy rather than pekhota. This was done to indicate that Soviet units were better than the enemy's infantry. The basis of the Soviet Union's military strength was its uniformed forces. The uniformed forces consisted of the armed forces, augmented by the security troops of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD). The armed forces consisted of the Red Army and the Navy. The army, under jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat of Defence (NKO), had three major components: ground forces, air force, and territorial air defence (protivovozdushnoy oborony strany – PVO). The NKO and Red Army General Staff delegated control of most forces to the fifteen military districts (MD's), though retaining direct control of such things as long-range aviation.
In this system, the ground forces were clearly top dog. And within them, infantry and cavalry generals occupied nearly all of the top command and staff positions. Officers of other combat branches usually commanded units of just their branch, or held positions in the staff department dealing with their branch.
The Navy, controlled by the People's Commissariat of the Navy (NKVMF), was relatively weak. Intended primarily for coast defense, it will be generally overlooked in this paper. The security forces of the NKVD consisted mostly of border troops and internal troops. Within the NKVD, each of these was controlled by its own Main Administration. When war came, these troops could be used in ground combat. In addition, the NKVD had the uniformed Militia (actually, the police) who could be used for combat in emergencies. The NKVD Main Administration of Local Air Defense (GUMPVO) had a cadre of uniformed personnel, but no actual units which could serve in ground battle. And, the People's Commissariat of State Security (NKGB) was a uniformed service, but operated only in small groups.
The uniformed forces were generally organized into units similar to those used in other countries, though with some Russian/Soviet peculiarities. Squad (otdeleniye) and platoon (vzvod) were basic. Company (rota) was usually triangular; battery (batareya) generally had 6 guns in AT, 4 in light and medium, and 2 in heavy units. Cavalry and motorcycle squadron (eskadron) was often directly under regiment, and was usually larger than most companies (companies of cavalry division tank regiments were called squadrons). The battalion (batal'on) was usually triangular; in artillery and armored trains it was called "divizion" (not to be confused with "diviziya"). The regiment (polk), a very old Russian term, came in two types. The most common type, found in such branches as infantry and artillery, was divided into 3 (or two) battalions. The other type, found mostly in cavalry and mountain infantry, was organized directly into 4 companies, batteries, or squadrons. Likewise, the brigade (brigada) was of three different types. One type was a French-system organization (semisquare), in that it consisted of two identical regiments, plus support and service units. The second type was simply an expanded regiment, usually with a fourth primary mission and/or a battalion from a different branch. The third type, generally found in PVO and destroyer units, was built around a single regiment, augmented by smaller units of different types.
The division (diviziya) was the basic oyedineniye of standard organization in most branches, and came mostly in four different types. The most common triangular form (built around 3 regiments) was found in rifle, war-type motorized rifle, Central Asian and war-formed cavalry, and airborne divisions. A modified triangular type was based on two regiments of one branch and another from a different primary mission branch. A rarer type was divided into 2–3 brigades. Some square divisions (prewar Western cavalry and mountain rifle) existed, built around 4 regiments. Aviation divisions had 2–5 regiments, depending on formation type and the period of the war.
A corps (korpus) had either flexible or fixed organization. The typical organization, familiar in the West, was usually built from 2–3 divisions, supported by other units. The fixed type generally consisted of the prewar airborne and wartime armored corps, which were actually division-sized formations, divided into brigades.
The army (armiya) had a flexible organization. Most followed the Western and Tsarist pattern of dividing into several corps, but some had the Soviet Civil War pattern of being organized directly into divisions, particularly after the war started. Their number and type of other combat and support units varied.
The front (front) was originally designed to control several armies on a broad sector which was nearly a theater of military operations. Later their frontage narrowed, and for a time they became part of theater commands. Their composition depended on local circumstances.
Terms for military units of a particular level are based on Soviet classification. The Russian term obedeneniye refers to fronts (army groups) and armies, which we shall call "higher formations". The term oyedineniye applies to corps, divisions, and brigades, which we shall call "formations". Regiments and independent battalions (chast') are here given the dangerous term of "unit". Finally, battalions belonging to regiments, and companies and smaller units (grouped by Soviets as podrazdeleniya), shall be called "subunits". Because the U.S. military lacks such categories for military entities of different sizes, they use the term "unit" for practically everything.
- For example, see U.S. Department of Defense, Dictionary of Military Terms (Bath, U.K.: Greenhill, 1987). Because this author has no better ideas, I also will persist in using "unit" for units of all sizes, so readers will have to use context to determine whether "unit" refers to entities of any size, or just to regiments and battalions. Caveat emptor.
A note about sources might be useful. Most of those mentioned in the notes are among the standard sources. Besides these, hundreds which I have read or perused have contributed to giving me the feel for the way that the Soviets have done things, and have clarified definitions of some specific facts. These include many articles, as well as memoirs, histories of branches, units, and battles, and tactical/operational studies. These Soviet sources often require careful reading, because of an apparent tendency in Russian language and thinking toward vagueness, and inadequate definitions.
- For some guidance on how to approach Soviet materials see, James F. Goff, "Investigating Soviet Military Organization and Order of Battle: Some advice to researchers" Red Star No 27 March–April 1987. Most Soviet sources do not address the questions of the process and of planning and implementing force structure. One older source does it somewhat, however.
- K. Malan'nin, "Razvitiye organizatsionnykh form sukhoputnykh voysk v Velikoy Otechestvennoy Voyne" Voyenno-istoricheskiy zhurnal (August 1967), 28–9. (Hereafter VIZh.) Among the factors affecting military unit organization that he lists are the country's economic strength, science and technology, military doctrine, geographic environment, ability and experience of personnel, and the enemy's military characteristics. He does overlook the impact of tradition on organizational concepts and styles.
The Main Military Council (GVS), created on 13 March 1938, consisted of the Commissar of Defense and other senior officers. In conjunction with the Central Committee of the Communist Party, it dealt with various high-level matters, including recommendations on unit organization and creation of formations. It also gave recommendations about new types of weapons and other materiel.
- Sovetskaya Voyennaya Entsiklopedia, 1976–80 ed., s.v. "Glavnyy Voyennaya Sovet." Hereafter cited as SVE. An agency with the same name existed in the NARKOM of the navy, with identical missions. The NKO was responsible for issuing the shtat for organizing and equipping units.
- Sovetskaya Vooruzhennye Sily: istoriya stroitel'stva (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1978) p.235 Hereafter cited as SVS. At that time, the structure of the ground forces tended to correspond to those units required by existing military theory, which showed up in such areas as the 1936 Field Regulations (PU-36).
- An English-language example is: Foreign Broadcast Information Service. USSR Report: Military Affairs, 12 June 1986. Provisional Field Regulations for the Red Army (PU-36) trans. Foreign Broadcast Information Service, (Washington: GPO, 1986). Theory called for areas of main effort to have shock armies consisting of a score of rifle divisions, supported by tank corps and much artillery. Secondary sectors would be held by armies of several rifle divisions, supported by cavalry divisions and tank brigades. Airborne brigades would be used to disrupt important points in the enemy rear. To me, this looks like a slightly modernized version of the Allied 1919 operations plan. The Red Army was indeed getting ready to refight World War I, but with more tanks, planes, trucks, and radios.
The ground force structure created to fulfill these missions had to be derived from various sources. The midyear (up to 1 September) structure would seem to have been as follows. Headquarters (HQ) of two armies were in the Far East, and of several army-type operational groups of forces in the Byelorussian and Kiev Military Districts, thus in the potentially most active areas. Otherwise, corps HQs were the highest HQs in the 15 MDs. Corps HQs existed for 4 tank, 25 rifle, and about 6 cavalry corps. The bulk of the army was in the 96 (including 8? mountain) rifle, a motorized rifle, and 36 cavalry divisions. Other armored force units were 3 armored car and 32 tank brigades, and 10 separate tank regiments (to expand into brigades in wartime), tank regiments in each standard cavalry division, and around 80 tank battalion or companies in the rifle divisions. Besides these forces, the 6 airborne brigades formed the previous year could be used for harassing operations. Out of an unknown number of fortified areas (because they were still only named and not numbered), about 20 were along the western border (the "Stalin Line").
- A fairly good source for units is a German Army intelligence map of June 1939, (in the Library of Congress) showing deployment of Red Army units. Full citation unfortunately not available. Much of this map's information is supported by data in Germany Oberkommando des Heeres, Generalstab des Heeres, Fremde Heere Ost IIc, Gruppen-Übersicht und Kriegsliederungen Rote Armee Stand August 1944. Hereafter cited as UK 44.
In building the armed forces to a level capable of withstanding Germany, the Soviet Union found a major limitation in industrial production. From 1930 to the start of 1939, the output of military aircraft increased fivefold, tank output tripled, and artillery and rifle production increased about six times.
- V.A. Anfilov, Bessmertnyy Podvig (Moscow: Nauka, 1971), 90.
An important administrative event implemented during summer was the replacement of division-based unit numerical designations by army-wide numbers.
- Before that time, the numerical designations of units were based on the identity of their divisions (e.g., the 10th Rifle Division would have the 28th, 29th and 30th Rifle Regiments, 10th Artillery Regiment, 10th Sapper Battalion, etc.). After that change, unit numbers had no fundamental relationship to that of their divisions or corps. This change made the work of foreign intelligence specialists far more difficult, and has unfortunately complicated the task of contemporary students of Soviet order of battle. It eliminated the predictability of designations of both formations and their units.
The armored troops consisted primarily of 4 tank corps for conducting major breakthroughs, 3 armored car and about 40 separate tank brigades, tank regiments in each standard cavalry division, and around 80 tank battalions or companies in the rifle divisions.
The enactment on 1 September of the Universal Military Service Law provided the main base for force expansion.
- SVS p.234. It increased manpower by retaining many current personnel for another year, increased the service term for future conscripts, and made formerly shunned groups now eligible for service. Preparing for expansion and action, already in summer the Red Army assigned numbers to new and prospective army HQs, ranging through the 14th.
- The new numbers, in addition to the existing two, are grouped by MD as follows: Belorussian 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th; Kiev 5th, 6th, 12th; Leningrad 7th, 8th, 9th, 13th, 14th. The latter two armies may have been added later, but certainly by 30 November. Note that all these were in the west border MDs.・ The main building block of its ground forces, the rifle division, was now subjected to considerable strengthening via the September 1939 粘htat・・
- September 1939 rifle division wartime 粘htat・ 18 thousand men, add an artillery regiment and an independent artillery battalion.・ Several began forming concurrent with enactment of the service law (and a few appeared earlier, as if in anticipation of it).・
- The best source of comprehensive rifle division data is still, unfortunately, the classic and often correct German document 乃UK 44・・・姫reparations in November for war with Finland were managed poorly, for the difficulty of the operation was greatly underestimated, and at first all were put in the hands of only the Leningrad MD (which was not even mobilized as a front). Both older and new divisions were used, and soon units were sent in from other MDs (including specially formed ski battalions). Overall, though, the Red Army performed badly, and lacked the time to apply what it learned before Germany attacked.
A major event late in the year, ordered on 21 November by the GVS, was the inactivation of the tank corps headquarters.
- Anfilov, p.107. This was presumably because of their unwieldy performance during the Polish Occupation. They were to be replaced by 15 smaller motorized divisions (each of 275 tanks and 73 armored cars) which would serve directly under field armies and front horse-mechanized groups to exploit breakthroughs. These were armored force formations, and should not be confused with the motorized rifle divisions of the infantry formed in 1939, for 8 of them would form only the next year.
At the end of the year, the RVS decided to build armored troops around a single-type tank brigade RGK (with 4 battalions, of 258 T-26 or BT tanks, to be replaced with T-34s). Also existing were brigades with T-28 and T-35 (to be replaced with KVs).
The High Command Aviation's three armies of special designation (long-range bombardment) were inactivated, probably because they seemed an awkward and superfluous level in the command structure, leaving the independent bomber corps as their highest level formation.
- Ibid., p.109. Each corps actually consisted of just 3 brigades. The tactical aviation of each military district consisted of fighter, short-range bomber, and perhaps some attack brigades.
The NKVD border troops were grouped into 13 districts (with 2 more added on the eve of the Winter War), consisting of about 80 border otryads (detachments).
After the Winter War with Finland ended, demobilization did not occur. Instead, the ground forces continued to develop new types and numbers of units. By early May, the military leadership had planned (and apparently actually did implement) a ground force structure built around the HQs of 52 rifle and 5 cavalry corps; 161 rifle series divisions (144 rifle, 3 motorized rifle, 4 motorized, and 10 mountain), 23 cavalry divisions (5 were mountain) 2 cavalry brigades, 6 airborne and 3 rifle brigades; 3 armored car, and 38 tank brigades.
- N.Ye. Yeliseyev and I.M. Nagayev, “Germanskiy Militarizm i legenda o ‘preventivnoy voyne’ Gitlerovskoy Germanii protiv SSSR”, VIZh (March 1991), 5–7. Which is built around Marshal Voroshilov's 9 May 1940 document which gives useful insight into the process of planning the Red Army force structure. It shows that each MD had a manpower lid, so that when new units were formed, some existing units must have their strength reduced. Of interest is that the “6000” and “12000” shtat levels for rifle divisions existed that early. Perhaps as early as May, the numbers assigned to armies
- The new numbers, nearly all for armies to form soon were: Far East Front 15th, 25th and Transbaykal 16th, 17th. For armies mostly to form on mobilization, the numbers were: Khar'kov 18th North Caucasus 19th Orel 20th Volga 21st, Ural 22nd Leningrad 23rd, Siberian 24th, and Kiev Special 26th. The latter may have come a little latter, at the same time as 27th Army of Baltic Special MD. Soon, 9th Army was inactivated, and its number was assigned to Odessa MD. Apparently the same thing happened with 13th Army. The army HQs were to form from part of the MD HQ. Moscow MD is interesting, for one would expect that it would form an army HQ (instead, its units went into 20th Army on mobilization). Perhaps even this early, it was planned to use its HQ to form South Front. The ground force emphasis on rifle divisions meant that, by the end of the year, their numerical designations had entered the 190's. Cavalry divisions continued to disappear as their men and equipment were used to form the mechanized corps. As was common in Soviet organizational norms, not all the new tank divisions were in mechanized corps.
- Most Soviet sources and their Western spinoffs are superficial, and imply that the only tank divisions formed in 1940 were those in the mechanized corps. For a correction of this idea see James F. Goff, “The 1940 Soviet Tank Divisions: Geographic Order of Battle Analysis”, History, Numbers, and War (Winter 1978–1979) pp.187–8. Industrial output, of course, effected the development of force structure. For example, production of new tank models fell behind schedule. Planned production of T-34 tanks in 1940 was 600, but actually amounted to only 115. Re-equipping of the new tank divisions was thus delayed. Aircraft production in 1940 rose only 19 percent above that of 1939. As a result, creation of new air units slowed behind that of ground units, and the role of the air force decreased in comparison to the other armed forces.
- Anfilov, pp.93–94.
Having ceased building the T-35 heavy tank in 1939, the Khar'kov Tank Plant continued with the BT-7M, and started producing the T-34 medium. The Kirov Plant had already given up on the T-28 medium and had started the KV heavy tank.
- Losik O.A. ed., Stroitel'stvo i boyevoye primeneniye sovetskikh tankovykh voysk v gody velikoy otechestvennoy voyny (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1979), p.7.
The peacetime jobs of military districts were to administer units and installations, draft recruits and keep track of reservists, and to plan for mobilization. Most importantly, they would provide the HQ for wartime fronts and armies. Thus, their spatial extent revealed Soviet plans for the wartime areas (and boundaries) of higher formations. Since mid 1939s, the MDs underwent important changes. The easternmost 2 were merged into the Far East Front (indicating its readiness to fight). In the interior were formed the Orel and Arkhangel'sk MDs. The west border was strengthened by creation of the Odessa and Baltic MDs, and three (Baltic, West, and Kiev) got the designation “Special”, to show that they were supposedly at an advanced state of readiness.
The German blitz across Belgium and France in May gave shocking reinforcement to Soviet perceptions of the blitzkrieg in Poland. The new Soviet motorized divisions apparently were not up to performing their mission of replacing the old tank corps. The Red Army, like that of the U.S., decided it was time to emulate the German panzer corps with ones of their own, built around a motorized and two armored divisions. So, the NKO issued an order on 9 June to activate 9 mechanized corps.
- Anfilov, p.107. In July, the General Staff issued information on the organization and shtat for 8 mechanized corps (plus 2 separate tank divisions). A mechanized corps would have a motorized and 2 tank divisions, motorcycle regiment, signal and engineer battalions.
- SVS p.240. Note the lack of any AAA units among the corps troops. Peculiar, in light of the need to protect armor against air attack. The first eight mechanized corps (numbered 1st–8th) were formed in July. The 9th was finally created about October. One Soviet source has finally mentioned the existence of separate tank divisions; see my earlier analysis confirming the existence of 20 tank divisions in 1940. On 26 June, the NKO issued a directive to the Belorussian about this time, each UR garrison became a numbered brigade-size formation, while the physical UR retained its name designation.
- Anfilov, p.162. About midyear, the MD engineer battalions were converted into both engineer and pontoon regiments (each with a shtat of circa 1000 men). This change was for convenience of administration and training. In the chemical troops, the three flamethrowing tank brigades (each with 150 KHT-26) were considered unwieldy and inactivated, and their tanks were distributed to new tank divisions. In various MDs they formed battalions of chemical defence.
- SVS p.241. The brigades apparently did belong to the chemical troops, rather than the armor troops. Which MDs got battalions and how many is unknown. The truck troops now had 19 regiments, 38 separate battalions, and “several” companies (with 27 thousand cargo trucks). Railroad (RR) troops units underwent some changes, including creation of more specialized subunits. Each of the 8 RR brigades under NKO control had an RR regiment, battalions for rehabilitation and for bridges, and a mechanized work company.
- Ibid., p.242. The air force was reorganized from a brigade to a divisional basis in 1940. Its tactical component included close bomber, fighter, and composite divisions. Each field army was generally assigned a composite division for direct air support.
- Anfilov, p.109. The fighter and bomber divisions were under the district air force HQ. In November, most long-range divisions were grouped into corps.
Early 1941
After the start of the year, grandiose schemes were implemented to continue expanding and modernizing the armed forces. The 18th Conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), in February 1941, played a large role in generating further changes in the Soviet Armed Forces, particularly in force structure. The party and government decided to improve the structure of the PVO troops, and on 25 February, they issued a special decision about reorganization of the Air Force. This was followed by the issuance of an NKO plan to re-equip air regiments with new aircraft models.
- Voyska Protivovozdushnoy Oborony Strany: Istoricheskiy Ocherk (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1968), p.58. On 10 April, the Party Central Committee (TSK) and the government passed a resolution on reorganizing Air Force rear services.
- SVS p.245. Directly involved with force structure were two administrations of the General Staff. The Organization Administration dealt with establishing the shtat (Soviet for T/O and E) strength of units, and probably had a role in planning force structure. The Manpower (komplektovaniya voysk) Administration would be involved in planning personnel aspects of force structure, and may have also dealt with equipment. Also, the Rear Arrangement and Supply Administration was involved with planning the restructuring of rear services including number and type of units.
- Ibid. Many types of formations and units existed in and were planned for the Red Army. Most of them (and perhaps all) were organized according to some kind of shtat.
- The organizational structure of the more important formations was as follows: Rifle division (all three shtat levels) – 3 rifle, artillery, howitzer regiments; AT, AAA, Recon, Sapper, signal, and truck battalions. Standard cavalry division – 4 cavalry, and tank regiments, horse artillery and AAA battalions, sapper and signal squadrons. In February, the NKO and the General Staff made the astonishing decision to form fully 20 more mechanized corps and 3 more independent tank divisions. This change would simplify the variety of shtats and units in the armored troops, but would cause reorganizational chaos, and the resources were simply not there to bring the redesignated tank brigades up to divisional status. Putting them at full strength would take 11,729 KV and T-34 tanks, and about 4330 old ones. The old ones might be available, but the new ones certainly were not. A total of only 1861 KV and T-34 had been produced. And the existing mechanized corps were short of tanks, especially new ones (of which they alone needed 4914). So, the older 6th Corps had 1021 tanks, and was nearly at shtat in new ones. But the new 17th Corps ended up with only 36 tanks, all of them T-26. The policy of distributing new tanks to corps was, I feel, very inopportune. It did make sense to give most of the KV and T-34 to the west border districts. But they tended to give each division a battalion of either 31 KV or 50 T-34, just enough to make each corps less weak. The result was that no corps, except for the 6th, had any real clout. If they had concentrated all the new models in 4–5 corps, it might have made a big difference in the western border battles.
Industrial production continued as a factor, but was perhaps misused. The 1941 tank output through the end of June was 1684, of which fully 1503 were KV and T-34 (the rest were mostly T-26 and T-40).
- Anfilov, p.95. These could have been used to fully equip 5–6 tank divisions, but were not.
The hasty buildup of the armed forces resulted in some “jumping the gun” situations, wherein various types of units were already formed and were to be built around weapons systems which had not been thoroughly developed. Thus, they expected to use the T-50 to replace both the T-26 and BT tanks in the motorized rifle, cavalry, tank, and motorized divisions, and in motorcycle regiments. This would make the T-50 the most abundant tank in the army (and perhaps also in NKVD internal troops), with the Red Army needing about 15,200 of them in combat units alone. The tank's hull was already being built, but insurmountable problems in making its V-4 engine work led to cessation of production soon after the German invasion, after only a few had been completed.
- Losik, p.7–8.
As a result, many Red Army formations went into action with an inadequate number of obsolete tanks.
The 107mm M 1940 gun presents a perhaps more interesting problem. It is rarely mentioned in Soviet sources.
- “107mm M1940”. The sparse mentions of it are perhaps a method of soliciting interest in its predicament. My interpretation of its situation follows. The gun was adopted in 1940 as corps artillery, but its performance fell short of requirements, and production was curtailed. It was replaced in the shtat of one type of corps artillery regiment by the 122mm gun. In searching for weapons to quickly equip the newly forming antitank artillery brigades, the Main Artillery Administration perceived their use as substitute antitank guns. So, it entered the shtat of these new brigades. But continuing poor performance or production difficulties meant that few or none were actually issued, and they were replaced with 85mm guns wherever possible. These brigades, then, entered combat without the heavy antitank guns which they needed.
The air force had similar problems. Performance of the MiG-1 was inadequate, but it was quickly improved into the MiG-3. The LaGG-3, on the other hand, stayed in production, and Soviet pilots soon said that its initials stood for “lacquered guaranteed coffin”. The NK of the Navy seemed to have more sense than did the NKO.
Activation of so many formations put tremendous strain on the supply of officers. To help meet the need, most existing basic officer training colleges (uchilishche) added cadet battalions to increase the number of their students. And, new uchilishche were created in late 1940 and early 1941. In the armored troops alone, for example, seven were formed in February–April 1941, nearly doubling their number.
- Losik, p.80. The uchilishche had a two-year course, so they couldn't produce the needed officers by the time the war started. Not until the war-inspired course reduction to 6 months would they contribute (except for the wasteful use of some as front-line regiments in emergency situations).
The force buildup since September 1939 had a disproportionate effect on the ground forces. At the start of 1941, the armed forces had 4,207,000 people, of which fully 80.6 percent were in the ground forces. The air force had only 8.6, navy 7.3, and PVO 3.3 percent of the total. Not surprisingly, infantry made up over half of the ground forces.
A new rifle division shtat was called for by both the sluggish performance of divisions in the Winter War, and the need to keep forming new units with increasingly tight officer and materiel resources. So a new one was issued on 5 April, which had three strength levels (See table 1).
- Few Soviet sources mention any but wartime shtat. One person writing a book on Red Army organization asked me about the “A, B, and V” shtat levels he's encountered (probably in some German source), but I've never encountered that classification. One source that I'm familiar with is Khor'kov, A., “Krasnoznamenniy odesskiy voyennyy okrug nakanune velikoy otechestvennoy voyny” VIZh (June, 1974, pp.92–3). It gives data for just a few items, implying that artillery was the same at all three levels. This tends to be confirmed by Gurov, A.A., “Boyevyye deystviya sovetskikh voysk na yugo-zapadnom napravlenii v nachal'nom periode voyny”, VIZh (August 1988) p.33., which gives data for the covering divisions of Kiev Special MD, and indicates that these divisions were building to or at the “12,000 level”, but all had “wartime” level artillery. This shtat probably set the pattern for the postwar pattern of three shtat levels in Soviet divisions. As for other formations, only “wartime” shtat is mentioned for tank divisions, which most certainly did not have. This at least implies that there was a peacetime shtat which is never mentioned. The “wartime level” was literally to be used then, but in the meantime, was to be applied only to reorganizing the Far East divisions from their current special shtat. It would make the formations fully mobile, with all the support services they would need in combat. The “12,000 level” was for units primarily responsible for peacetime training, but which also had to be soon ready for combat. They would need only some specialized support personnel and transport. And, they did this with the standard peacetime NCO training units (a battalion in every regiment, a company in each separate battalion).
The “6000 Level” division was really just a training outfit. It lacked any but local transport for peacetime logistical needs, and depended on its garrison hospital for medical services. To take the field properly, it would need to more than double its personnel from reservists, and acquire a large number of trucks and tractors from the civilian sector. Compared with the September 1939 shtat personnel were reduced 23.3 percent, and horses dropped 51 percent.
A fortified area formation had a flexible shtat built around usually 3 (but ranging from 2–6) machine gun or artillery machine gun battalions, depending on the width of its sector and how many pill boxes it contained. It also had engineer, signal, and service subunits.
In prewar field artillery production, guns made up only 29 percent, while 71 percent were howitzers. This ratio resulted from the military doctrine then in effect, and which was reflected in the shtat of artillery units.
Field artillery units changed somewhat. Corps artillery regiments were now of two types, one with 36 107mm guns and 152mm howitzers, and the other type was supposed to have 30 152mm howitzers and gun howitzers. In the High Command Reserve (RGK) artillery, the gun regiment traded their 107mm guns for new ones of 122mm. RGK regiments expanded to four battalion. The RGK howitzer regiments were mostly equipped with 203mm pieces, and the rest had 152mm gun-howitzers.
- SVS p.238. The shtat strength of RGK artillery units was: gun regiment – 48 122mm guns and 152mm gun-howitzers; gun regiment BM – 24 152mm guns; howitzer regiment – 48 152mm howitzers; howitzer regiment BM – 24 203mm howitzers; and separate battalion BM – up to 5 pieces (210mm gun, 280mm “mortir”, or 305mm howitzer).
- Anfilov p.117. The decision in March to start forming airborne corps was perhaps adventuresome. Higher personnel and training standards seemed to make the airborne troops better than regular infantry, but at exorbitant cost, especially if they had jump training. It would have taken about a year to give proper jump and tactical training to the new brigades and recruits. Granted, the Soviets did not know that they the time to accomplish this, but that does not excuse the waste of resources. An overriding consideration was that there was not enough airlift to transport one corps, let alone five. The often bizarre failure of coordinated planning between branches of the Soviet bureaucracy certainly appears here, perhaps reinforcing the Soviet focus on “gigantomania” (already reflected in the massive creation of new armored units). Forming one or two corps might have been a better idea.
To help fight enemy tank units, on 26 April the NKO ordered the creation of 10 antitank artillery brigades. Someone had realized that was imminent, that Germany had strong armored forces, that Soviet mechanized corps were complex and too dependant on slow industrial output, and that strong interim measures were needed to quickly produce passive but strong anti-tank measures. The mission of a brigade was to defend against the advance of a panzer division. To accomplish this, each brigade was supposed to have 48 76mm antitank guns, 24 85mm and 16 37mm AAA guns.
- SVS p.238. The AT artillery brigade consisted of two AT artillery regiments, a mine-sapper, and a truck battalion. It was supposed to have 120 AT guns, though production problems with the 107mm, competition with rifle divisions for the 76mm, and with PVO for the 85mm meant that they had serious problems in forming. Assigned to just three border MDs facing German-occupied territory, they showed that the Red Army had a policy of creating certain units for specific operational environments.
Plans for deploying a wartime strength system of rear area service units assumed that plenty of time would be available during mobilization. Many of the units planned would be stationary.
- SVS p.246.
2 JUNE
On the day that Germany attacked the Soviet Union and started the Great Patriotic War, 22 June 1941, the Soviet armed forces were redeploying field-worthy units and attempting to finish forming the new ones. The formation of new units was apparently still planned, however.
From the end (?) of 1939 to June 1941, infantry decreased from 56 to 40 percent of the ground force, mostly because armored force personnel increased 7.4 times from January 1940 to June 1941 (going from 7 to 21 percent of ground forces).
- Ibid., pp.240, 242. Cavalry dropped from 11 to 2 percent of ground forces.
All Red Army units (except for long-range aviation) belonged to the 16 MDs (including Far East Front). These varied considerably in area, population and resources, and number of military units. Most of them were built around several provinces (oblast or kray) or small union republics, and the HQ was located in the district's largest/most important city.
On 22 June, the Red Army ground forces included the headquarters (HQ) of 25 field armies and of 100 corps (62 rifle, 4 cavalry, 29 mechanized, and 5 airborne).
- The armies were numbered 1st–27th, but the 9th and 18th were not activated before 22 June. Technically, the exact time when the 24th was formed is important, and determines exactly how many armies existed. The rifle corps were numbered 1st–69th, and missing the 38th, 46th, 54th, 56th, 57th, 60th, and 68th. Of the 303 divisions, there were 13 cavalry and 61 tank. The 229 divisions in the rifle division numbering series included 177 rifle, 19 mountain rifle, 2 motorized rifle, and 31 motorized. In addition, there were several brigades with 2 rifle, an airborne, and 10 antitank artillery. These were supplemented by about 60 brigade-sized fortified areas. Augmenting these formations was a modest array of independent combat, combat support, and service units and subunits. Among these were 74 RGK artillery regiments (14 gun and 60 howitzer). There were 18 engineer and 16 pontoon regiments.
- Unit list sources include: SVS; Istoriya vtoroy mirovoy voyny 1939–1945 vol. 3 (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1974) Hereafter cited as IVMV; Anfilov, 50 let Vooruzhennykh Sil SSSR (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1968). The UR formations are difficult to count because they were designated by a special code number for a particular MD (e.g. the Transcaucasus MD had the 50s, and West Special had the 60s, but apparently only one UR existed in the 50s series). Soviet data is sparse for URs outside of the 5 west border MDs. The airforce had 13 long-range divisions (mostly formed into 5 corps), and 2 PVO corps. Most aviation was tactical, formed into 61 divisions (9 bomber, 34 composite, and 18 fighter), and 10 Reconnaissance regiments. Also, 5 aviation brigades existed (of which at least one was “heavy bomber”), and 5 strategic fighter divisions.
- IVMV vol. 3, p.424. About a quarter (81) of the divisions were in the state of being formed.
- SVE “Vooruzhennye Sily SSSR”. These presumably included the spring-formed tank divisions and those in the rifle division series numbered 200 and higher.
An examination of crude ratios between the different types of units seems to shed light on the Soviet concept of force structure. Nearly four corps existed for every army, over two being rifle. There were about 12 divisions per army, or slightly more than three per corps. Specifically, there were almost exactly three rifle divisions per rifle corps, and just about two tank and one motorized divisions per mechanized corps, with only a few left over. Note the ratio of just about one tank for every three rifle divisions, or almost exactly one per rifle corps. The RGK artillery regiments amounted to three per army, or about one howitzer regiment per rifle corps. These ratios probably reflect somewhat the real ones used by the Red Army General Staff in planning the actual force structure.
The PVO troops were now organized administratively into 13 zones which corresponded to most MDs. Within the zones were smaller numbered area commands (totalling 3 corps, 2 divisions, 9 independent brigades, and at least 26 brigade areas). The primary work of PVO was carried out by antiaircraft artillery (AAA), of which there were 28 regiments and 109 independent battalions supplementing these.
The strength of rifle divisions in the west border MDs, was about 8–9 thousand men, and in interior MDs, about 6 thousand (i.e., they were at the “6000 level” shtat). They were 80–90 percent of shtat in weapons.
- Anfilov, p.108. The existing Soviet formations departed considerably from the strength in men and equipment that shtat called for, especially wartime shtat. Table 2 shows the requirements for major items in the wartime shtat of formations, table 3 shows the disparity between shtat and actual strength for various components.
- Soviet data on shtat is very uneven. The gaps are unfortunate, and can be managed only by reasonable estimates. Rifle division data is from the 5 April 1941 shtat 04/400. Mountain rifle division data is sparser (just two divisions were known to have tanks) and conflicting, and that for Central Asian divisions is basically guesswork based on simple reduction of amounts in the standard divisions. The tank division's truck strength does not include the 88 repair workshops. No hard data exists for the mountain cavalry divisions, so it was estimated simply by reducing the figures for the standard cavalry divisions. The airborne corps shtat of 8 April 1941 includes a battalion of 50 tanks reduced “later” to 32 tanks. Sources are unclear as to wether the brigade tank companies were eliminated. No actual shtat is known for rifle brigades, and they differed somewhat in actual organization. The figures here are therefore calculated from fragmentary data and from existing shtat of rifle division components. Sources for the data are: Pavlovskiy, I.G., Sukhoputnyye voysk SSSR (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1985) p.49; Khor'kov, A., “Krasnoznamennyy Odesskiy voyennyy okrug nakanune velikoy otechestvennoy voyny”, VIZh (June 1974), p.92; Sovetskaya Voyennaya Entsiklopediya 1976–80 ed., s.v. “Gornostrelkovaya diviziya”, “Motorizovannaya diviziya”, “Kavaleriyskaya diviziya”, “Vozhdushno-desantnyy korpus”; Sbornik 33 boyevikh dokumanetov velikoy otechestvennoy voyny (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1957), p.205; Losik; Lisov, I.I., Desantniki (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1968); Istoriya Velikoy Otechestvennoy Voyne Sovetskogo Soyuza 1941–45 vol. 1, (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1961); Langut 1941 (Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1974).
The shtat data was derived by multiplying the numbers in table 2 by the number of formations of each type. These figures were then augmented by the authors reasonable (?) estimates of the strength of units outside of shtat formations. In several instances the shtat figures are low, because they do not count equipment in the hands of units smaller than divisions. The units varied widely in strength, depending on their location, and how new they were. The NKO had a definite geographic policy of allocating strength. In the East, where fighting with Japan had occurred and was expected all units were kept near wartime strength in personnel, but their equipment needed to be only somewhat better than that of the Japanese. In the West, where war with Germany was possible but not certain, units could be understrength in personnel because many reservists were nearby, but their equipment had to be the best that the Soviets had.
The day before (21 June), three of the west border MDs had been ordered to convert part of their HQs into those of fronts and send them to previously prepared field command posts.
- Contrary to what nearly all Western and Soviet sources say, the 3 MDs (Baltic, West, and Kiev Special) did not disappear, instead the deputy heads of departments took over, and the designation special was dropped. So these MDs remained to conduct the important business of mobilization and new unit formation. Another front HQ was pulled from the HQ of Moscow MD and started to Odessa MD. They, like all the army HQs, were still at peacetime shtat. Three of the army HQs (13th, 23rd, 26th) in the west were newly formed, but this seemed to have no adverse effect on their combat performance.
Some units actually had foreign-made substitute standard equipment. An obvious example would be the 22nd, 24th, and 29th Rifle Corps (the former armies of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), which had not been re-equipped by the Soviets. Several of the rifle or mountain rifle divisions in Kiev Special MD had foreign weapons (possibly captured by the Finns, or more likely obtained from Germany via the Hitler-Stalin Pact). Examples of this include 20–50mm antitank guns (in lieu of 122mm).
For the entire Red Army, a ground force division slice numbered 16.6 thousand men. The west (5 west border MDs), it was 15.8 thousand. For Kiev Special MD, it was 14.9 thousand, and for Baltic Special MD it was 13.9 thousand men. Because average divisional strength in the west was about 8–9 thousand men, it appears that about half the army troops in the west were in non-divisional units and installations, especially because the interior rifle divisions were mostly on the “6000 level” shtat. The interior MDs, as a group, had a division slice of 17.7 thousand men.
- The “division slice” is a military concept in which the total number of divisions (or perhaps just of a specific type) is divided into the manpower total of a country's army, major command, or whatever. Such figures provide a quick device for comparing different armies or commands, to get a handle on such things as the amount of overhead support that divisions have. The Red Army examples here are the manpower in the army (including airforce and PVO) divided by ground divisions.
- The best source of comprehensive rifle division data is still, unfortunately, the classic and often correct German document UK 44... Preparations in November for war with Finland were managed poorly, for the difficulty of the operation was greatly underestimated, and at first all were put in the hands of only the Leningrad MD (which was not even mobilized as a front). Both older and new divisions were used, and soon units were sent in from other MDs (including specially formed ski battalions). Overall, though, the Red Army performed badly, and lacked the time to apply what it learned before Germany attacked.
A major event late in the year, ordered on 21 November by the GVS, was the inactivation of the tank corps headquarters.
- Anfilov, p.107. This was presumably because of their unwieldy performance during the Polish Occupation. They were to be replaced by 15 smaller motorized divisions (each of 275 tanks and 73 armored cars) which would serve directly under field armies and front horse-mechanized groups to exploit breakthroughs. These were armored force formations, and should not be confused with the motorized rifle divisions of the infantry formed in 1939, for 8 of them would form only the next year.
At the end of the year, the RVS decided to build armored troops around a single-type tank brigade RGK (with 4 battalions, of 258 T-26 or BT tanks, to be replaced with T-34s). Also existing were brigades with T-28 and T-35 (to be replaced with KVs).
The High Command Aviation's three armies of special designation (long-range bombardment) were inactivated, probably because they seemed an awkward and superfluous level in the command structure, leaving the independent bomber corps as their highest level formation.
- Ibid., p.109. Each corps actually consisted of just 3 brigades. The tactical aviation of each military district consisted of fighter, short-range bomber, and perhaps some attack brigades.
The NKVD border troops were grouped into 13 districts (with 2 more added on the eve of the Winter War), consisting of about 80 border otryads (detachments).
After the Winter War with Finland ended, demobilization did not occur. Instead, the ground forces continued to develop new types and numbers of units. By early May, the military leadership had planned (and apparently actually did implement) a ground force structure built around the HQs of 52 rifle and 5 cavalry corps; 161 rifle series divisions (144 rifle, 3 motorized rifle, 4 motorized, and 10 mountain), 23 cavalry divisions (5 were mountain) 2 cavalry brigades, 6 airborne and 3 rifle brigades; 3 armored car, and 38 tank brigades.
- N.Ye. Yeliseyev and I.M. Nagayev, “Germanskiy Militarizm i legenda o ‘preventivnoy voyne’ Gitlerovskoy Germanii protiv SSSR”, VIZh (March 1991), 5–7. Which is built around Marshal Voroshilov's 9 May 1940 document which gives useful insight into the process of planning the Red Army force structure. It shows that each MD had a manpower lid, so that when new units were formed, some existing units must have their strength reduced. Of interest is that the “6000” and “12000” shtat levels for rifle divisions existed that early. Perhaps as early as May, the numbers assigned to armies
- The new numbers, nearly all for armies to form soon were: Far East Front 15th, 25th and Transbaykal 16th, 17th. For armies mostly to form on mobilization, the numbers were: Khar'kov 18th North Caucasus 19th Orel 20th Volga 21st, Ural 22nd Leningrad 23rd, Siberian 24th, and Kiev Special 26th. The latter may have come a little latter, at the same time as 27th Army of Baltic Special MD. Soon, 9th Army was inactivated, and its number was assigned to Odessa MD. Apparently the same thing happened with 13th Army. The army HQs were to form from part of the MD HQ. Moscow MD is interesting, for one would expect that it would form an army HQ (instead, its units went into 20th Army on mobilization). Perhaps even this early, it was planned to use its HQ to form South Front. The ground force emphasis on rifle divisions meant that, by the end of the year, their numerical designations had entered the 190's. Cavalry divisions continued to disappear as their men and equipment were used to form the mechanized corps. As was common in Soviet organizational norms, not all the new tank divisions were in mechanized corps.
- Most Soviet sources and their Western spinoffs are superficial, and imply that the only tank divisions formed in 1940 were those in the mechanized corps. For a correction of this idea see James F. Goff, “The 1940 Soviet Tank Divisions: Geographic Order of Battle Analysis”, History, Numbers, and War (Winter 1978–1979) pp.187–8. Industrial output, of course, effected the development of force structure. For example, production of new tank models fell behind schedule. Planned production of T-34 tanks in 1940 was 600, but actually amounted to only 115. Re-equipping of the new tank divisions was thus delayed. Aircraft production in 1940 rose only 19 percent above that of 1939. As a result, creation of new air units slowed behind that of ground units, and the role of the air force decreased in comparison to the other armed forces.
- Anfilov, pp.93–94.
Having ceased building the T-35 heavy tank in 1939, the Khar'kov Tank Plant continued with the BT-7M, and started producing the T-34 medium. The Kirov Plant had already given up on the T-28 medium and had started the KV heavy tank.
- Losik O.A. ed., Stroitel'stvo i boyevoye primeneniye sovetskikh tankovykh voysk v gody velikoy otechestvennoy voyny (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1979), p.7.
The peacetime jobs of military districts were to administer units and installations, draft recruits and keep track of reservists, and to plan for mobilization. Most importantly, they would provide the HQ for wartime fronts and armies. Thus, their spatial extent revealed Soviet plans for the wartime areas (and boundaries) of higher formations. Since mid 1939s, the MDs underwent important changes. The easternmost 2 were merged into the Far East Front (indicating its readiness to fight). In the interior were formed the Orel and Arkhangel'sk MDs. The west border was strengthened by creation of the Odessa and Baltic MDs, and three (Baltic, West, and Kiev) got the designation “Special”, to show that they were supposedly at an advanced state of readiness.
The German blitz across Belgium and France in May gave shocking reinforcement to Soviet perceptions of the blitzkrieg in Poland. The new Soviet motorized divisions apparently were not up to performing their mission of replacing the old tank corps. The Red Army, like that of the U.S., decided it was time to emulate the German panzer corps with ones of their own, built around a motorized and two armored divisions. So, the NKO issued an order on 9 June to activate 9 mechanized corps.
- Anfilov, p.107. In July, the General Staff issued information on the organization and shtat for 8 mechanized corps (plus 2 separate tank divisions). A mechanized corps would have a motorized and 2 tank divisions, motorcycle regiment, signal and engineer battalions.
- SVS p.240. Note the lack of any AAA units among the corps troops. Peculiar, in light of the need to protect armor against air attack. The first eight mechanized corps (numbered 1st–8th) were formed in July. The 9th was finally created about October. One Soviet source has finally mentioned the existence of separate tank divisions; see my earlier analysis confirming the existence of 20 tank divisions in 1940. On 26 June, the NKO issued a directive to the Belorussian about this time, each UR garrison became a numbered brigade-size formation, while the physical UR retained its name designation.
- Anfilov, p.162. About midyear, the MD engineer battalions were converted into both engineer and pontoon regiments (each with a shtat of circa 1000 men). This change was for convenience of administration and training. In the chemical troops, the three flamethrowing tank brigades (each with 150 KHT-26) were considered unwieldy and inactivated, and their tanks were distributed to new tank divisions. In various MDs they formed battalions of chemical defence.
- SVS p.241. The brigades apparently did belong to the chemical troops, rather than the armor troops. Which MDs got battalions and how many is unknown. The truck troops now had 19 regiments, 38 separate battalions, and “several” companies (with 27 thousand cargo trucks). Railroad (RR) troops units underwent some changes, including creation of more specialized subunits. Each of the 8 RR brigades under NKO control had an RR regiment, battalions for rehabilitation and for bridges, and a mechanized work company.
- Ibid., p.242. The air force was reorganized from a brigade to a divisional basis in 1940. Its tactical component included close bomber, fighter, and composite divisions. Each field army was generally assigned a composite division for direct air support.
- Anfilov, p.109. The fighter and bomber divisions were under the district air force HQ. In November, most long-range divisions were grouped into corps.
Early 1941
After the start of the year, grandiose schemes were implemented to continue expanding and modernizing the armed forces. The 18th Conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), in February 1941, played a large role in generating further changes in the Soviet Armed Forces, particularly in force structure. The party and government decided to improve the structure of the PVO troops, and on 25 February, they issued a special decision about reorganization of the Air Force. This was followed by the issuance of an NKO plan to re-equip air regiments with new aircraft models.
- Voyska Protivovozdushnoy Oborony Strany: Istoricheskiy Ocherk (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1968), p.58. On 10 April, the Party Central Committee (TSK) and the government passed a resolution on reorganizing Air Force rear services.
- SVS p.245. Directly involved with force structure were two administrations of the General Staff. The Organization Administration dealt with establishing the shtat (Soviet for T/O and E) strength of units, and probably had a role in planning force structure. The Manpower (komplektovaniya voysk) Administration would be involved in planning personnel aspects of force structure, and may have also dealt with equipment. Also, the Rear Arrangement and Supply Administration was involved with planning the restructuring of rear services including number and type of units.
- Ibid. Many types of formations and units existed in and were planned for the Red Army. Most of them (and perhaps all) were organized according to some kind of shtat.
- The organizational structure of the more important formations was as follows: Rifle division (all three shtat levels) – 3 rifle, artillery, howitzer regiments; AT, AAA, Recon, Sapper, signal, and truck battalions. Standard cavalry division – 4 cavalry, and tank regiments, horse artillery and AAA battalions, sapper and signal squadrons. In February, the NKO and the General Staff made the astonishing decision to form fully 20 more mechanized corps and 3 more independent tank divisions. This change would simplify the variety of shtats and units in the armored troops, but would cause reorganizational chaos, and the resources were simply not there to bring the redesignated tank brigades up to divisional status. Putting them at full strength would take 11,729 KV and T-34 tanks, and about 4330 old ones. The old ones might be available, but the new ones certainly were not. A total of only 1861 KV and T-34 had been produced. And the existing mechanized corps were short of tanks, especially new ones (of which they alone needed 4914). So, the older 6th Corps had 1021 tanks, and was nearly at shtat in new ones. But the new 17th Corps ended up with only 36 tanks, all of them T-26. The policy of distributing new tanks to corps was, I feel, very inopportune. It did make sense to give most of the KV and T-34 to the west border districts. But they tended to give each division a battalion of either 31 KV or 50 T-34, just enough to make each corps less weak. The result was that no corps, except for the 6th, had any real clout. If they had concentrated all the new models in 4–5 corps, it might have made a big difference in the western border battles.
Industrial production continued as a factor, but was perhaps misused. The 1941 tank output through the end of June was 1684, of which fully 1503 were KV and T-34 (the rest were mostly T-26 and T-40).
- Anfilov, p.95. These could have been used to fully equip 5–6 tank divisions, but were not.
The hasty buildup of the armed forces resulted in some “jumping the gun” situations, wherein various types of units were already formed and were to be built around weapons systems which had not been thoroughly developed. Thus, they expected to use the T-50 to replace both the T-26 and BT tanks in the motorized rifle, cavalry, tank, and motorized divisions, and in motorcycle regiments. This would make the T-50 the most abundant tank in the army (and perhaps also in NKVD internal troops), with the Red Army needing about 15,200 of them in combat units alone. The tank's hull was already being built, but insurmountable problems in making its V-4 engine work led to cessation of production soon after the German invasion, after only a few had been completed.
- Losik, p.7–8.
As a result, many Red Army formations went into action with an inadequate number of obsolete tanks.
The 107mm M 1940 gun presents a perhaps more interesting problem. It is rarely mentioned in Soviet sources.
- “107mm M1940”. The sparse mentions of it are perhaps a method of soliciting interest in its predicament. My interpretation of its situation follows. The gun was adopted in 1940 as corps artillery, but its performance fell short of requirements, and production was curtailed. It was replaced in the shtat of one type of corps artillery regiment by the 122mm gun. In searching for weapons to quickly equip the newly forming antitank artillery brigades, the Main Artillery Administration perceived their use as substitute antitank guns. So, it entered the shtat of these new brigades. But continuing poor performance or production difficulties meant that few or none were actually issued, and they were replaced with 85mm guns wherever possible. These brigades, then, entered combat without the heavy antitank guns which they needed.
The air force had similar problems. Performance of the MiG-1 was inadequate, but it was quickly improved into the MiG-3. The LaGG-3, on the other hand, stayed in production, and Soviet pilots soon said that its initials stood for “lacquered guaranteed coffin”. The NK of the Navy seemed to have more sense than did the NKO.
Activation of so many formations put tremendous strain on the supply of officers. To help meet the need, most existing basic officer training colleges (uchilishche) added cadet battalions to increase the number of their students. And, new uchilishche were created in late 1940 and early 1941. In the armored troops alone, for example, seven were formed in February–April 1941, nearly doubling their number.
- Losik, p.80. The uchilishche had a two-year course, so they couldn't produce the needed officers by the time the war started. Not until the war-inspired course reduction to 6 months would they contribute (except for the wasteful use of some as front-line regiments in emergency situations).
The force buildup since September 1939 had a disproportionate effect on the ground forces. At the start of 1941, the armed forces had 4,207,000 people, of which fully 80.6 percent were in the ground forces. The air force had only 8.6, navy 7.3, and PVO 3.3 percent of the total. Not surprisingly, infantry made up over half of the ground forces.
A new rifle division shtat was called for by both the sluggish performance of divisions in the Winter War, and the need to keep forming new units with increasingly tight officer and materiel resources. So a new one was issued on 5 April, which had three strength levels (See table 1).
- Few Soviet sources mention any but wartime shtat. One person writing a book on Red Army organization asked me about the “A, B, and V” shtat levels he's encountered (probably in some German source), but I've never encountered that classification. One source that I'm familiar with is Khor'kov, A., “Krasnoznamenniy odesskiy voyennyy okrug nakanune velikoy otechestvennoy voyny” VIZh (June, 1974, pp.92–3). It gives data for just a few items, implying that artillery was the same at all three levels. This tends to be confirmed by Gurov, A.A., “Boyevyye deystviya sovetskikh voysk na yugo-zapadnom napravlenii v nachal'nom periode voyny”, VIZh (August 1988) p.33., which gives data for the covering divisions of Kiev Special MD, and indicates that these divisions were building to or at the “12,000 level”, but all had “wartime” level artillery. This shtat probably set the pattern for the postwar pattern of three shtat levels in Soviet divisions. As for other formations, only “wartime” shtat is mentioned for tank divisions, which most certainly did not have. This at least implies that there was a peacetime shtat which is never mentioned. The “wartime level” was literally to be used then, but in the meantime, was to be applied only to reorganizing the Far East divisions from their current special shtat. It would make the formations fully mobile, with all the support services they would need in combat. The “12,000 level” was for units primarily responsible for peacetime training, but which also had to be soon ready for combat. They would need only some specialized support personnel and transport. And, they did this with the standard peacetime NCO training units (a battalion in every regiment, a company in each separate battalion).
The “6000 Level” division was really just a training outfit. It lacked any but local transport for peacetime logistical needs, and depended on its garrison hospital for medical services. To take the field properly, it would need to more than double its personnel from reservists, and acquire a large number of trucks and tractors from the civilian sector. Compared with the September 1939 shtat personnel were reduced 23.3 percent, and horses dropped 51 percent.
A fortified area formation had a flexible shtat built around usually 3 (but ranging from 2–6) machine gun or artillery machine gun battalions, depending on the width of its sector and how many pill boxes it contained. It also had engineer, signal, and service subunits.
In prewar field artillery production, guns made up only 29 percent, while 71 percent were howitzers. This ratio resulted from the military doctrine then in effect, and which was reflected in the shtat of artillery units.
Field artillery units changed somewhat. Corps artillery regiments were now of two types, one with 36 107mm guns and 152mm howitzers, and the other type was supposed to have 30 152mm howitzers and gun howitzers. In the High Command Reserve (RGK) artillery, the gun regiment traded their 107mm guns for new ones of 122mm. RGK regiments expanded to four battalion. The RGK howitzer regiments were mostly equipped with 203mm pieces, and the rest had 152mm gun-howitzers.
- SVS p.238. The shtat strength of RGK artillery units was: gun regiment – 48 122mm guns and 152mm gun-howitzers; gun regiment BM – 24 152mm guns; howitzer regiment – 48 152mm howitzers; howitzer regiment BM – 24 203mm howitzers; and separate battalion BM – up to 5 pieces (210mm gun, 280mm “mortir”, or 305mm howitzer).
- Anfilov p.117. The decision in March to start forming airborne corps was perhaps adventuresome. Higher personnel and training standards seemed to make the airborne troops better than regular infantry, but at exorbitant cost, especially if they had jump training. It would have taken about a year to give proper jump and tactical training to the new brigades and recruits. Granted, the Soviets did not know that they the time to accomplish this, but that does not excuse the waste of resources. An overriding consideration was that there was not enough airlift to transport one corps, let alone five. The often bizarre failure of coordinated planning between branches of the Soviet bureaucracy certainly appears here, perhaps reinforcing the Soviet focus on “gigantomania” (already reflected in the massive creation of new armored units). Forming one or two corps might have been a better idea.
To help fight enemy tank units, on 26 April the NKO ordered the creation of 10 antitank artillery brigades. Someone had realized that was imminent, that Germany had strong armored forces, that Soviet mechanized corps were complex and too dependant on slow industrial output, and that strong interim measures were needed to quickly produce passive but strong anti-tank measures. The mission of a brigade was to defend against the advance of a panzer division. To accomplish this, each brigade was supposed to have 48 76mm antitank guns, 24 85mm and 16 37mm AAA guns.
- SVS p.238. The AT artillery brigade consisted of two AT artillery regiments, a mine-sapper, and a truck battalion. It was supposed to have 120 AT guns, though production problems with the 107mm, competition with rifle divisions for the 76mm, and with PVO for the 85mm meant that they had serious problems in forming. Assigned to just three border MDs facing German-occupied territory, they showed that the Red Army had a policy of creating certain units for specific operational environments.
Plans for deploying a wartime strength system of rear area service units assumed that plenty of time would be available during mobilization. Many of the units planned would be stationary.
- SVS p.246.
2 JUNE
On the day that Germany attacked the Soviet Union and started the Great Patriotic War, 22 June 1941, the Soviet armed forces were redeploying field-worthy units and attempting to finish forming the new ones. The formation of new units was apparently still planned, however.
From the end (?) of 1939 to June 1941, infantry decreased from 56 to 40 percent of the ground force, mostly because armored force personnel increased 7.4 times from January 1940 to June 1941 (going from 7 to 21 percent of ground forces).
- Ibid., pp.240, 242. Cavalry dropped from 11 to 2 percent of ground forces.
All Red Army units (except for long-range aviation) belonged to the 16 MDs (including Far East Front). These varied considerably in area, population and resources, and number of military units. Most of them were built around several provinces (oblast or kray) or small union republics, and the HQ was located in the district's largest/most important city.
On 22 June, the Red Army ground forces included the headquarters (HQ) of 25 field armies and of 100 corps (62 rifle, 4 cavalry, 29 mechanized, and 5 airborne).
- The armies were numbered 1st–27th, but the 9th and 18th were not activated before 22 June. Technically, the exact time when the 24th was formed is important, and determines exactly how many armies existed. The rifle corps were numbered 1st–69th, and missing the 38th, 46th, 54th, 56th, 57th, 60th, and 68th. Of the 303 divisions, there were 13 cavalry and 61 tank. The 229 divisions in the rifle division numbering series included 177 rifle, 19 mountain rifle, 2 motorized rifle, and 31 motorized. In addition, there were several brigades with 2 rifle, an airborne, and 10 antitank artillery. These were supplemented by about 60 brigade-sized fortified areas. Augmenting these formations was a modest array of independent combat, combat support, and service units and subunits. Among these were 74 RGK artillery regiments (14 gun and 60 howitzer). There were 18 engineer and 16 pontoon regiments.
- Unit list sources include: SVS; Istoriya vtoroy mirovoy voyny 1939–1945 vol. 3 (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1974) Hereafter cited as IVMV; Anfilov, 50 let Vooruzhennykh Sil SSSR (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1968). The UR formations are difficult to count because they were designated by a special code number for a particular MD (e.g. the Transcaucasus MD had the 50s, and West Special had the 60s, but apparently only one UR existed in the 50s series). Soviet data is sparse for URs outside of the 5 west border MDs. The airforce had 13 long-range divisions (mostly formed into 5 corps), and 2 PVO corps. Most aviation was tactical, formed into 61 divisions (9 bomber, 34 composite, and 18 fighter), and 10 Reconnaissance regiments. Also, 5 aviation brigades existed (of which at least one was “heavy bomber”), and 5 strategic fighter divisions.
- IVMV vol. 3, p.424. About a quarter (81) of the divisions were in the state of being formed.
- SVE “Vooruzhennye Sily SSSR”. These presumably included the spring-formed tank divisions and those in the rifle division series numbered 200 and higher.
An examination of crude ratios between the different types of units seems to shed light on the Soviet concept of force structure. Nearly four corps existed for every army, over two being rifle. There were about 12 divisions per army, or slightly more than three per corps. Specifically, there were almost exactly three rifle divisions per rifle corps, and just about two tank and one motorized divisions per mechanized corps, with only a few left over. Note the ratio of just about one tank for every three rifle divisions, or almost exactly one per rifle corps. The RGK artillery regiments amounted to three per army, or about one howitzer regiment per rifle corps. These ratios probably reflect somewhat the real ones used by the Red Army General Staff in planning the actual force structure.
The PVO troops were now organized administratively into 13 zones which corresponded to most MDs. Within the zones were smaller numbered area commands (totalling 3 corps, 2 divisions, 9 independent brigades, and at least 26 brigade areas). The primary work of PVO was carried out by antiaircraft artillery (AAA), of which there were 28 regiments and 109 independent battalions supplementing these.
The strength of rifle divisions in the west border MDs, was about 8–9 thousand men, and in interior MDs, about 6 thousand (i.e., they were at the “6000 level” shtat). They were 80–90 percent of shtat in weapons.
- Anfilov, p.108. The existing Soviet formations departed considerably from the strength in men and equipment that shtat called for, especially wartime shtat. Table 2 shows the requirements for major items in the wartime shtat of formations, table 3 shows the disparity between shtat and actual strength for various components.
- Soviet data on shtat is very uneven. The gaps are unfortunate, and can be managed only by reasonable estimates. Rifle division data is from the 5 April 1941 shtat 04/400. Mountain rifle division data is sparser (just two divisions were known to have tanks) and conflicting, and that for Central Asian divisions is basically guesswork based on simple reduction of amounts in the standard divisions. The tank division's truck strength does not include the 88 repair workshops. No hard data exists for the mountain cavalry divisions, so it was estimated simply by reducing the figures for the standard cavalry divisions. The airborne corps shtat of 8 April 1941 includes a battalion of 50 tanks reduced “later” to 32 tanks. Sources are unclear as to wether the brigade tank companies were eliminated. No actual shtat is known for rifle brigades, and they differed somewhat in actual organization. The figures here are therefore calculated from fragmentary data and from existing shtat of rifle division components. Sources for the data are: Pavlovskiy, I.G., Sukhoputnyye voysk SSSR (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1985) p.49; Khor'kov, A., “Krasnoznamennyy Odesskiy voyennyy okrug nakanune velikoy otechestvennoy voyny”, VIZh (June 1974), p.92; Sovetskaya Voyennaya Entsiklopediya 1976–80 ed., s.v. “Gornostrelkovaya diviziya”, “Motorizovannaya diviziya”, “Kavaleriyskaya diviziya”, “Vozhdushno-desantnyy korpus”; Sbornik 33 boyevikh dokumanetov velikoy otechestvennoy voyny (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1957), p.205; Losik; Lisov, I.I., Desantniki (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1968); Istoriya Velikoy Otechestvennoy Voyne Sovetskogo Soyuza 1941–45 vol. 1, (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1961); Langut 1941 (Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1974).
The shtat data was derived by multiplying the numbers in table 2 by the number of formations of each type. These figures were then augmented by the authors reasonable (?) estimates of the strength of units outside of shtat formations. In several instances the shtat figures are low, because they do not count equipment in the hands of units smaller than divisions. The units varied widely in strength, depending on their location, and how new they were. The NKO had a definite geographic policy of allocating strength. In the East, where fighting with Japan had occurred and was expected all units were kept near wartime strength in personnel, but their equipment needed to be only somewhat better than that of the Japanese. In the West, where war with Germany was possible but not certain, units could be understrength in personnel because many reservists were nearby, but their equipment had to be the best that the Soviets had.
The day before (21 June), three of the west border MDs had been ordered to convert part of their HQs into those of fronts and send them to previously prepared field command posts.
- Contrary to what nearly all Western and Soviet sources say, the 3 MDs (Baltic, West, and Kiev Special) did not disappear, instead the deputy heads of departments took over, and the designation special was dropped. So these MDs remained to conduct the important business of mobilization and new unit formation. Another front HQ was pulled from the HQ of Moscow MD and started to Odessa MD. They, like all the army HQs, were still at peacetime shtat. Three of the army HQs (13th, 23rd, 26th) in the west were newly formed, but this seemed to have no adverse effect on their combat performance.
Some units actually had foreign-made substitute standard equipment. An obvious example would be the 22nd, 24th, and 29th Rifle Corps (the former armies of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), which had not been re-equipped by the Soviets. Several of the rifle or mountain rifle divisions in Kiev Special MD had foreign weapons (possibly captured by the Finns, or more likely obtained from Germany via the Hitler-Stalin Pact). Examples of this include 20–50mm antitank guns (in lieu of 122mm).
For the entire Red Army, a ground force division slice numbered 16.6 thousand men. The west (5 west border MDs), it was 15.8 thousand. For Kiev Special MD, it was 14.9 thousand, and for Baltic Special MD it was 13.9 thousand men. Because average divisional strength in the west was about 8–9 thousand men, it appears that about half the army troops in the west were in non-divisional units and installations, especially because the interior rifle divisions were mostly on the “6000 level” shtat. The interior MDs, as a group, had a division slice of 17.7 thousand men.
- The “division slice” is a military concept in which the total number of divisions (or perhaps just of a specific type) is divided into the manpower total of a country's army, major command, or whatever. Such figures provide a quick device for comparing different armies or commands, to get a handle on such things as the amount of overhead support that divisions have. The Red Army examples here are the manpower in the army (including airforce and PVO) divided by ground divisions.
22 June On the day that Germany attacked the Soviet Union and started the Great Patriotic War, 22 June 1941, the Soviet armed forces were redeploying field-worthy udits and attempting to finish forming the new ones. The formation of new units was apparently still planned, however. On 22 June, the Red Army ground forces included the headquarters (HQ) of 25 field armies and of 100 corps (62 rifle, 4 cavalry, 29 mechanized, and 5 airborne). Of the 303 divisions, there were 13 cavalry and 61 tank. The 229 divisions in the rifle division numbering series included 177 rifle, 19 mountain rifle, 2 motorized rifle, and 31 motorized. In addition were several brigadeswh 2 rifle, an airborne, and 10 antitank a © 2026 James F. Goff
James F. Goff received BS and MS degrees in Geography from Illinois State University (1958/59), and a Ph.D. in Geography from University of Illinois (1970), the latter involving work in the Russian and East European Center. As Professor of Geography at Mankato State University (Minnesota) he specializes in the Soviet Union and in political and military geography. He has published articles on the Soviet Army in such journals/magazines as Geographical Survey, History, Numbers, and War, and Red Star (British). In 1984 his appendix on Red Army organization and order of battle appeared in Bryan Fugate's Operation Barbarossa. Teaching the perhaps only extent college course on war game design his game on the 1939-40 Soviet-Finnish conflict (Winter War) appeared in Strategy and Tactics (1972)
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