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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.
A mechanised corps was a Soviet armoured formation used prior to the beginning of World War II and reintroduced during the war, in 1942.
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The 20th Guards Combined Arms Army is a field army. In 1991, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the army became part of the Russian Ground Forces.
The 2nd Shock Army was a field army of the Soviet Union during the Second World War. This type of formation was created in accordance with prewar doctrine that called for Shock Armies to overcome difficult defensive dispositions in order to create a tactical penetration of sufficient breadth and depth to permit the commitment of mobile formations for deeper exploitation. However, as the war went on, Shock Armies lost this specific role and reverted, in general, to ordinary frontline formations.
The 51st Army was a field army of the Red Army that saw action against the Germans in World War II on both the southern and northern sectors of the front. The army participated in the Battle of the Kerch Peninsula between December 1941 and January 1942; it was destroyed in May 1942 with other Soviet forces when the Wehrmacht launched an operation to dislodge them from the peninsula. The army fought in the Battle of Stalingrad during the winter of 1942–43, helping to defeat German relief attempts. From late 1944 to the end of the war, the army fought in the final cutting-off of German forces in the Courland area next to the Baltic. Inactivated in 1945, the army was activated again in 1977 to secure Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the army continued in existence as a component of the Russian Ground Forces. The army was active during two periods from 1941 until 1997.
The 20th Guards Motor Rifle Division is a formation of the Russian Ground Forces, originally formed within the Soviet Red Army as the 3rd Mechanised Corps. The division was reformed in 2021 from the former 20th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade.
The 16th Army was a Soviet field army active from 1940 to 1945.
The 1st Mechanized Corps was a mechanized corps of the Red Army during World War II, formed twice.
The 2nd Mechanised Corps was a formation in the Soviet Red Army during the Second World War.
The 9th Bobruisk-Berlin Red Banner Order of Suvorov Tank Division was the designation of two separate formations of the Soviet Army. The original 9th Tank Division was formed in 1940 and later reorganized into a different division. During World War II, the Soviet Army formed the 9th Tank Corps, which was renamed the 9th Tank Division after the defeat of Germany in 1945. This second instance of the 9th Tank Division served with the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany from 1945 until about 1991, when it was disbanded.
The 20th Army was a field army of the Red Army that fought on the Eastern Front during World War II.
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The 5th Guards Zimovnikovskaya order Kutuzov II degree Motor Rifle Division, named on the 60th anniversary of the USSR, was a military formation of the Soviet Ground Forces. It was formed from the 6th Mechanized Corps created in 1940 and destroyed in 1941 in the beginning of Operation Barbarossa. The corps was reformed in November 1942 under the same name, but with a different organizational structure. In early 1943, the 6th Mechanized Corps was granted "Guards" status and became the 5th Guards Mechanized Corps.
The 2nd Tank Division was a division of the Red Army and Soviet Ground Forces, which was formed twice under very different circumstances.
The 7th Guards Cavalry Corps of the Soviet Union's Red Army was a cavalry corps active during the Second World War. It was formed from the 8th Cavalry Corps in February 1943.
The 11th Tank Division was a Soviet tank division initially formed in 1940 at Tiraspol and destroyed in 1941; it was then formed as a tank corps in May 1942. This unit was subsequently reorganized as the second formation of the 11th Tank Division in 1945.
The 9th Guards Motor Rifle Division was a Soviet Army unit initially formed as a tank corps in April 1942. In the same year, it was then formed as a mechanized corps in November 1942. This unit then became a Guards mechanized corps in September 1944. Following World War II, the corps were reorganized as a mechanized division in 1945 and then a motor rifle division in 1957 before being disbanded in 1958.
The 140th Rifle Division was a Red Army rifle division that saw service during the Great Patriotic War. Originally formed during the prewar buildup of the Red Army, the 140th might be regarded as the unluckiest division in the Army, as it, uniquely, had to be completely, or almost completely, re-formed three times between 1941 and 1943, being destroyed in the Uman pocket during Operation Barbarossa, the Vyasma pocket during Operation Typhoon, and on the Caucasian steppes in the face of the German summer offensive of 1942. In spite of this, the fourth formation of the 140th went on to have a very distinguished record in combat, a testament to the resiliency of the Red Army in World War II.
References
- David Glantz (1998), 'Stumbling Colossus – The Red Army on the Eve of World War', Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-0879-6
- Antony Beevor (1999). Stalingrad: The Faithful Siege, Penguin. ISBN 0-14-028458-3.
- Keith E. Bonn, Slaughterhouse: Handbook of the Eastern Front, Aberjona Press, Bedford, PA, 2005
- John Erickson (historian), Road to Stalingrad, Cassel (2003), p. 430 pp
- Feskov, V.I.; Golikov, V.I.; Kalashnikov, K.A.; Slugin, S.A. (2013). Вооруженные силы СССР после Второй Мировой войны: от Красной Армии к Советской[The Armed Forces of the USSR after World War II: From the Red Army to the Soviet: Part 1 Land Forces] (in Russian). Tomsk: Scientific and Technical Literature Publishing. ISBN 9785895035306.
