The backbone of the Soviet defensive network was a series of “fortified regions,” a system of field and semi-permanent defensive fortifications based on strategically important localities and usually named after them. Prior to late 1939, the Soviet Union possessed a very strong line of these fortified regions, called “The Stalin Line,” situated along its western border. Constructed at great expenditure of time, money, and resources, these fortified regions protected vital areas along possible avenues of invasion into the Soviet Union. The fortified regions, comprising a formidable array of defensive fortifications manned by independent machine-gun and artillery battalions, formed the framework in which the Soviet field forces were expected to first halt and then expel the enemy from Soviet territory.
However, after a period of extensive land acquisitions in 1939, the Soviet borders were moved roughly two hundred miles due west, and the old system of well-developed fortified regions soon became redundant. The following year, Soviet government began construction of a new line of fortified regions called “The Molotov Line” along the new border. The old fortified regions, being superfluous and expensive to maintain, were largely mothballed, their equipment and armaments either partially stored or partially moved to the new border.
On May 21, 1941, the People’s Commissariat for Defense (NKO, or Narodniy Kommissariat Oborony) ordered the fortified regions along the western border to be brought up to full readiness and manning. This measure was to start on June 4, but by June 22, not a single fortified district was at full readiness, due to shortage of manpower and equipment, endemic to the rest of the Red Army. At the start of the war, battalions manning the fortified regions were at below 50 percent strength, and less than 50 percent of actual fortifications were constructed.
According to Zhukov, an admonishment from Timoshenko and the General Staff on June 14, 1941, stated: “Despite series of directives from the General Staff of the Red Army, emplacement of [appropriate] bunker armaments into long-term field fortifications and bringing these bunkers to combat readiness is being conducted inexcusably slow[ly].”[1]
Had the Soviet Union had time to completely build the system of fortified regions along the new border, similar to the one along the 1939 border, it would have presented a formidable barrier to German invaders. As it was, construction of new fortified regions was progressing slowly, hampered by huge financial expenditures needed for these works.
A major weakness of the new defensive lines lay in the fact that many bunkers were evenly distributed along the the border, rather than being concentrated along the most-likely routes of enemy advance. In addition, many of these field fortifications were constructed in full view from the German side and weren’t even camouflaged. Being in the early stages of construction, a majority of already-built fortifications were still isolated islands of resistance, not tied in together by trenches and concealed lanes of approach. Means of telephone communications among them were also lacking, with only 32 percent of land lines completed and 12 percent of buried telephone cable in place. A majority of bunkers in these strong points, if armed at all, were equipped with machine guns, leaving them at only 25 percent of the required norm for antitank defenses.[2]
In accordance with the Soviet defensive plans, upon declaration of mobilization, the first echelons of Soviet field armies were to move directly to the border and take up defensive positions in the field between the strong points of the fortified regions, augmenting their garrisons and linking together the whole system. The second echelons of these armies were to concentrate roughly twenty miles east of the border in order to contain enemy breakthroughs and eliminate enemy forces that did penetrate Soviet territory. Behind the screen of these covering armies, the reserve armies of the South-Western Front were to organize and deliver follow-through strikes into enemy territory.
On paper, reserves of the South-Western Front, backing up the four covering armies, were formidable. They were five separate rifle corps (XXXI, XXXVI, XXXVII, XLIX, and LV), one airborne corps, and two field armies (Sixteenth and Nineteenth). These last two armies began arriving in Ukraine in mid-June from military districts deeper within the Soviet Union, and parts of them were still in transit when the war started. Had the Red Army been given time to sufficiently equip, organize, and man these formations, the outcome of German invasion in northwestern Ukraine would have unfolded drastically differently.
CHAPTER 4
Organization and Strength of Kiev Special Military District
AS MENTIONED PREVIOUSLY, THE KIEV SPECIAL MILITARY DISTRICT was the strongest of other similar groups of forces. Its major combat components numbered sixty-one ground divisions: sixteen tank, thirty-three rifle, eight motorized rifle, two mountain rifle, two cavalry, plus eight air force divisions. Additionally, there were five antitank brigades and six artillery regiments belonging to the Reserves of Supreme Command. These formations, formidable on paper, in reality were a mixed bag of bad and mediocre combat units, sparsely sprinkled with some good ones.
The mechanized corps of Kiev Special Military district were a representative sample of the Red Army’s armored forces as a whole. In this work I will concentrate only on five mechanized corps which directly participated in the border armored battle: the VIII, IX, XV, XIX, and XXII Mechanized Corps.
In his summary report on July 17, 1941, Maj. Gen. Rodion N. Morgunov, chief of the armored forces of the South-Western front, described condition of the front’s mechanized formations on the eve of the war:
Mechanized corps were not yet cohesive formations and were not fully provided with equipment. The strongest mechanized corps were the IV, VIII, and XV corps, but even in these corps the tank regiments of their mechanized rifle divisions had only the armored vehicles designated as training park. There were no vehicles designated for combat in the motorized divisions.
The rest of mechanized corps appeared in the following manner as far as combat capability was concerned:
• XVI Mechanized Corps: the only combat-capable division was the 15th Tank Division, but it was equipped with older tank models; the other two divisions had limited numbers of armored vehicles designated for training.
• XIX Mechanized Corps: only the 43rd Tank Division was combat-capable, but even it had old equipment.
• XXII Mechanized Corps: only the 41st Tank division was combat-capable, which was equipped with T-26 tanks and thirty-one KV tanks; the other divisions had “training park.”
• XXIV Mechanized Corps: all divisions had only the “training park.”
• IX Mechanized Corps: only the 35th Tank Division was combat-capable, mainly equipped with T-26s, some of them two-turreted machine-gun versions; the rest had “training park.”
• The armored train detachment had two light armored trains and one heavy.
By the start of combat operation the South-Western Front had 4,536 tanks and 1,014 armored cars distributed in the following manner:
KV x 265
T-34 x 496
BT x 1,486
T-26 x 1,962
T-35 x 44
T-28 x 195
T-40 x 88
BA-10 x 749
BA-20 x 365
Such equipping of the mechanized corps led to such events that on the first day of war the tank regiments of IX, XVI, XIX, XXII, and XXIV Mechanized Corps, not having specific armaments, were equipped with 45mm and 76mm cannons and were, in effect, antitank regiments.[1]