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7th Guards Mechanized Corps
The 2nd Mechanised Corps was a formation in the Soviet Red Army during the Second World War. First formation (June 1940 – Aug 1941) Initially formed in June 1940 in response the German victories of 1940 it was attached to the Odessa Military District, & attached to the 9th Army in the Odessa Fortified Region in Soviet Union It was under the command of Lieutenant General Iu. V. Novoselsky when the German Operation Barbarossa began in June 1941. It initially comprised the 11th and 16th Tank Divisions, & the 15th Mechanized Division. On 22 June 1941 2nd Mechanized Corps comprised 32,396 men, 517 tanks, 186 armoured cars, 162 artillery pieces, 189 mortars, 3794 vehicles, 266 Tractors & 375 Motorcycles including lighter models T-26, Bt 7, & T-28's & 60 of the newer T-34 & KV-1 models. On 22 July 1941 2nd Mechanized Corps consisted of 11th Tank Division 181 (81 Operational) tanks, 1070 vehicles & 71 tractors. 16th Tank Division with 99 tanks, 870 vehicles & 16 tractors & 15t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mechanised Corps (Soviet Union)
A mechanised corps was a Soviet armoured formation used prior to the beginning of World War II and reintroduced during the war, in 1942. Pre-war development of Soviet mechanised forces In Soviet Russia, the term armored forces (thus called ''Bronevyye sily'') preceded the mechanised corps. They consisted of the autonomous armored units (''avtobroneotryady'') made of armored vehicles and armored trains. The country did not have its own tanks during the Civil War of 1918–1920. In January 1918, the Russian Red Army established the Soviet of Armored Units (''Sovet bronevykh chastey'', or ''Tsentrobron’''), later renamed to Central Armored Directorate and then once again to Chief Armored Directorate (''Glavnoye bronevoye upravleniye''). In December 1920, the Red Army received its first light tanks, assembled at the Sormovo Factory. In 1928, it began the production of the MS-1 tanks (''Malyy Soprovozhdeniya 1'', 'Small Convoy 1'). In 1929, it established the Central Directorate f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after Frederick Barbarossa ("red beard"), a 12th-century Holy Roman emperor and German king, put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goal of conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it with Germans. The German aimed to use some of the conquered people as forced labour for the Axis war effort while acquiring the oil reserves of the Caucasus as well as the agricultural resources of various Soviet territories. Their ultimate goal was to create more (living space) for Germany, and the eventual extermination of the indigenous Slavic peoples by mass deportation to Siberia, Germanisation, enslavement, and genocide. In the two years leading up to the invasion, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed political and economic pacts for st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
11th Army (Wehrmacht)
The 11th Army (german: 11. Armee) was a World War II field army. History The 11th Army was established on 5 October 1940 as "Kommandostab Leipzig", but changed its designation to Kommandostab München on 23 April 1941. It was restructured into Heeresgruppe Don on 21 November 1942. After being reformed on 26 January 1945 and taking part in various counter-offensives against the Soviet and US advance, the army surrendered to American troops on 23 April 1945. Formation The 11th Army was activated in 1940 to prepare for the forthcoming German attack on the Soviet Union. The 11th Army was part of Army Group South when it invaded the USSR during Operation Barbarossa. In September 1941, Erich von Manstein was appointed its commander. His predecessor, Colonel-General Eugen Ritter von Schobert, perished when his Fieseler Storch aircraft landed in a Soviet minefield. At the start of ''Barbarossa'', the 11th Army order of battle included: *LIV Corps ** 50th Infantry division ** ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugen Ritter Von Schobert
Eugen Siegfried Erich Ritter von Schobert (13 March 1883 – 12 September 1941) was a German general during World War II. He commanded the 11th Army during Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. Schobert died when his observation plane crashed in a Soviet minefield. Early life Schobert was born as Eugen Schobert in Würzburg in the Kingdom of Bavaria, a member state of the German Empire.''Virtuti Pro Patria'', 404 He was the son of Major Karl Schobert and Anna ''née'' Michaely. Schobert entered the Royal Bavarian Army in July 1902. He served primarily in the 1st Bavarian Infantry Regiment "König" and underwent pilot training in 1911. World War I and post-war During World War I, Schobert remained a Bavarian infantry officer, serving the entire war on the Western Front. During the German spring offensive of 1918, he led the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Bavarian Infantry Regiment. For his actions on 23 March 1918, when he personally and successfully led his battalio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bessarabia
Bessarabia (; Gagauz: ''Besarabiya''; Romanian: ''Basarabia''; Ukrainian: ''Бессара́бія'') is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east and the Prut river on the west. About two thirds of Bessarabia lies within modern-day Moldova, with the Ukrainian Budjak region covering the southern coastal region and part of the Ukrainian Chernivtsi Oblast covering a small area in the north. In the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War (1806–1812), and the ensuing Peace of Bucharest, the eastern parts of the Principality of Moldavia, an Ottoman vassal, along with some areas formerly under direct Ottoman rule, were ceded to Imperial Russia. The acquisition was among the Empire's last territorial acquisitions in Europe. The newly acquired territories were organised as the Bessarabia Governorate of the Russian Empire, adopting a name previously used for the southern plains between the Dniester and the Danube rivers. Following the Crimean War ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
18th Army (Soviet Union)
The 18th Army of the Soviet Union's Red Army was formed on 21 June 1941 on the basis of HQ Kharkov Military District and armies of the Kiev Special Military District. The Army's commander in 1941 was General-Lieutenant Andrey Smirnov. The Army composition on the beginning of the war was: * 16th Mechanised Corps ** 15th Tank Division, 39th Tank Division, 240th Mechanised Division, 64th Fighter Air Division and 45th Mixed Air Division * 17th Rifle Corps **96th Mountain Rifle Division, 60th Mountain Rifle Division, 164th Rifle Division * 18th Mechanised Corps ** 47th Tank Division, 218th Mechanised Division * 55th Rifle Corps ** 130th Rifle Division, 160th Rifle Division, 189th Rifle Division, 4th Independent Tank Brigade It was caught soon after the start of Operation Barbarossa in 1941 in a huge encirclement south of Kiev along with the 6th Army and 12th Armies. This encirclement was part of the Battle of Uman. A further formation was shattered during the Battle of the Sea o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Front (Soviet Union)
The Southern Front was a front, a formation about the size of an army group of the Soviet Army during the Second World War. The Southern Front directed military operations during the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in 1940 and then was formed twice after the June 1941 invasion by Germany, codenamed Operation Barbarossa. During the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in 1940, the Soviets deployed three armies (12th, 5th and 9th). Altogether the Soviet Southern Front opposing Bessarabia and Bukovina consisted of 32 (or 31) rifle divisions, 2 (or 3) motorised rifle divisions, 6 cavalry divisions, 11 tank brigades, 3 airborne brigades (one in reserve), 14 corps artillery regiments, 16 artillery regiments of the Reserve of the Supreme High Command and 4 heavy artillery divisions. These force totalled around 460,000 men, ca. 12,000 guns and mortars, ca. 3,000 tanks and 2,160 aircraft. First Formation After the German invasion, the Southern Front wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
KV-1 (tank)
The Kliment Voroshilov (KV) tanks are a series of Soviet heavy tanks named after the Soviet defence commissar and politician Kliment Voroshilov who operated with the Red Army during World War II. The KV tanks were known for their heavy armour protection during the early stages of the war, especially during the first year of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. In certain situations, even a single KV-1 or KV-2 supported by infantry could halt German formations. The German ''Wehrmacht'' at that time rarely deployed its tanks against KVs, as their own armament was too poor to deal with the "''Russischer Koloss''" – "Russian Colossus". The KV tanks were practically immune to the 3.7 cm KwK 36 and howitzer-like, short-barreled 7.5 cm KwK 37 guns mounted, respectively, on the early Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks fielded by the invading German forces. Until the Germans developed more effective guns, the KV-1 was invulnerable to almost any German weapon except the 8.8 cm Flak gun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
T-34
The T-34 is a Soviet medium tank introduced in 1940. When introduced its 76.2 mm (3 in) tank gun was less powerful than its contemporaries while its 60-degree sloped armour provided good protection against Anti-tank warfare, anti-tank weapons. The Christie suspension was inherited from the design of American J. Walter Christie's M1928 tank, versions of which were sold turret-less to the Red Army and documented as "farm tractors", after being rejected by the U.S. Army. The T-34 had a profound effect on the conflict on the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front in the World War II, Second World War, and had a short lasting impact on tank design. After the Germans encountered the tank in 1941 during Operation Barbarossa, German general Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist called it "the finest tank in the world" and Heinz Guderian affirmed the T-34's "vast superiority" over German tanks. Alfred Jodl, chief of operations staff of the German armed forces noted in his war diar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
T-28
The T-28 was a Soviet Union, Soviet multi-turreted medium tank. The prototype was completed in 1931, and production began in late 1932. It was an infantry tank, infantry support tank intended to break through fortified defences. The T-28 was designed to complement the heavier T-35 (also multi-turreted), with which it shared turret designs. The type did not have great success in combat, but it played an important role as a development project for Soviet tank designers. A series of new ideas and solutions that were tried out on the T-28 were later incorporated in future models. Design history The T-28 was in many ways similar to the British Vickers A1E1 Independent tank, which greatly influenced tank design in the period between the wars, even though only a single prototype was manufactured in 1926. The Kirov Factory in Leningrad began manufacturing a tank that was based on the design of the British Independent in 1932. The T-28 tank was officially approved on 11 August 1933. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BT-8
The BT-7 BT (russian: БТ) is the Russian abbreviation for "fast tank" (, ). was the last of the BT series of Soviet cavalry tanks that were produced in large numbers between 1935 and 1940. It was lightly armoured, but reasonably well-armed for the time, and had much better mobility than other contemporary tank designs. The BT tanks were known by the nickname ''Betka'' from the acronym, or its diminutive, ''Betushka.'' The BT-7's successor was the famous T-34 medium tank, introduced in 1940, which replaced all of the Soviet fast tanks, infantry tanks, and medium tanks then in service. Development The first prototypes of the BT-7 had a distinctive canted-ellipse shaped turret mounting both the main gun and a coaxial machine-gun. The specification also called for the project to allow for the installation of new guns without any significant change to the framework: the 76 mm KT-26 or PS-3 main gun (a short-barreled howitzer) and the 45 mm 20K model 1932/38, a long-barr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
T-26 Tank
The T-26 tank was a Soviet light tank used during many conflicts of the Interwar period and in World War II. It was a development of the British Vickers 6-Ton tank and was one of the most successful tank designs of the 1930s until its light armour became vulnerable to newer anti-tank guns.Franco, ''El Tanque de la Guerra Civil Española'', p. 74. It was produced in greater numbers than any other tank of the period, with more than 11,000 units manufactured. During the 1930s, the USSR developed 53 variants of the T-26, including flame-throwing tanks, combat engineer vehicles, remotely controlled tanks, self-propelled guns, artillery tractors, and armoured carriers. Twenty-three of these were series-produced, others were experimental models. The T-26 and BT were the main tanks of the Red Army's armoured forces during the interwar period. The T-26 was the most important tank of the Spanish Civil War and played a significant role during the Battle of Lake Khasan in 1938, as well ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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