If Crossfire it would concentrate on Infantry Regiment 18 and the capture of Height 215. The The attack of 6th Infantry Division could be worked into either a Crossfire or Megablitz scenario. The regiment lost 500 men killed and wounded during the day.īudenny, commander of the Reserve Front, suffered a collapse and lost touch with his staff for three days (Jones, 2009). The men fought hand to hand in the Russian trenches before rushing their main objective, height 215. They attacked across swampy ground, then crossed a river to attack the high ground. A notable action was by Infantry Regiment 18 in taking height 215. The German 6th Infantry Division was on the northern flank of the offensive (Jones, 2009). The 10th Panzer Division (Fischer) seized road and rail bridges over the Desna river on the first day of the operation (Jones, 2009). Ninth Infantry Army supported Third Panzer Group. In the north the Third and Fourth Panzer Groups smashed into the Western and Reserve Front with the aim of joining up at Vyazma (Braithwaite, 2006). There were about 900,000 men so considerably less than the attacking Germans. enko commanded the Bryansk Front in the south, Koniev commanded the Western Front based at Vyazma in the north, and Budenny commanded the Reserve Front. The Soviet’s had three ‘Fronts’ facing the Germans (Jones, 2009). The surviving defenders fought furiously for several hours they were only overcome by using flame thrower tanks against their dugouts. At noon the 1st Panzer Division crossed the flattened Russians positions. The German artillery opened up a preparatory barrage at 0600 hours. The Germans had 1.5 million men, 4,000 artillery pieces, 1,400 combat aircraft and over 1,000 tanks. Operation ‘Typhoon’ started in earnest with an address by the Fuhrer (Jones, 2009). Hitler makes Moscow the last German objective before winter (Jones, 2009). Hitler redirects German forces away from Moscow towards the south, to fight the encirclement battle at Kiev (Jones, 2009). Just after a passing German soldier noticed that a quarter of Guderian’s tanks were captured Soviet vehicles (Jones, 2009). Īrmy Group Centre successfully concludes encirclement battle at Smolensk (Jones, 2009). That put them on a par with some of the scratch regular units. By the end of September the volunteers had acquired much, if not all, of the weapons and equipment they needed, and had uniforms and some training. August also saw them moving to the front. They were also reorganised into regular rifle divisions with the full complement of supporting arms. At the end of August the volunteers were given proper uniforms and their divisional flag. From what I can tell the volunteer divisions assigned to the front included: 2nd (Stalin), 5th (Frunze), 6th (Dzerzhinski), 8th (Krasnaya Presnya), 9th (Kirov), 17th (Moskvorechie), 18th (Leningrad). This front was assigned five NKVD divisions and ten of the new volunteer divisions and formed two new armies each with five of the divisions. On 16 Jul the GKO ordered the construction of the Mozhaisk defensive line – more than 170 km from the Moscow reservoir to the the north of the city – and the formation of the new Reserve Front (Braithwaite, 2006). : KatyushasĪt Orsha the Russians used Katyushas for the first time (Jones, 2009). Although some training was given most of the volunteers were assigned to digging trenches. Some antiquated French rifles and captured equipment was also issued. Two divisions had French machine guns, artillery and mortars. Four divisions had Polish rifles but no ammunition. They had little or no training, weapons, ammunition, equipment, or uniforms. Twelve divisions had been formed by 5 Jul. The Raion Party Committees supplied the political commissars. The volunteers elected their own platoon commanders which meant these often had no military experience. Company commanders were mostly officer cadets. Divisional and regimental commanders and chiefs of staff were regular soldiers. Each Raion also had to raise a reserve regiment for replacements. Each division had a number and carried the name of the Raion in which it was raised. This was one division for each of Moscow’s Raions. On the GKO began to raise 25 volunteer divisions from Moscow and the surrounding region (Braithwaite, 2006). My timeline of the Battle for Moscow 1941.Īt 0315 hours the Germans launched Operation ‘Barbarosa’ – the attack on the Soviet Union (Erickson, 1993).
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