The Red Army of 1941 could be described being akin to mythological golem, large, scary, and formidable, but with no soul and very little brain. The brutal purges of late 1930s ripped the very soul out of the Soviet officer corps. Besides sheer loss of life and destroyed careers, the spirit of innovation and initiative was lost along with a significant portion of the upper crust of Red Army’s commanders. Golem’s puppet strings ended up in the inept hands of Stalin’s cronies from the heady days of the Russian Civil War.
An underlying factor of Soviet efforts during the battle in Lutsk-Dubno-Brody triangle was an utter lack of coordination and gaping information void. Over one hundred thousand Soviet soldiers and well over three thousand tanks and armored cars moved to the sound of the guns without any tangible efforts to coordinate their operations. They were fed into the grinder piecemeal.
Enjoying strategic initiative, German commanders achieved numerical and qualitative superiority at the time and place of their choosing. While all the German divisions crossing into the Soviet Union on June 22 were viable and combat-capable formations, the majority of their Red Army counterparts were pale facsimiles of same. This point merits a closer look.
The basic maneuver block tasked with combat operations was a division. Eighteen German divisions from the Sixth Army and Panzer Group[1] were directly involved in the battle of the Bloody Triangle. I am considering this battle as lasting from June 22 to July 2, in the area from Vlodava in the north to Krystonopol in the south and east to Ostrog. These eighteen divisions are broken down into ten infantry divisions, one security division, two motorized divisions, and five panzer divisions. The five panzer divisions numbered roughly 650 tanks between them, with an additional approximately 100 tank destroyers and assault guns in four separate battalions.
Opposing this German group of forces was the Soviet Fifth Army, with additional reserve infantry and mechanized corps, consisting of twenty-eight divisions total. These forces were broken down into eleven rifle divisions, eleven tank divisions, and six motorized rifle divisions.
There were several more corps on the Soviet side and several more divisions on German sides, which were in close proximity to Dubno battle, but did not take immediate action in these particular events. I do not include them in this total.
If we look at just the number of divisions intimately involved in the struggle of the Bloody Triangle, the Germans are clearly outnumbered. However, qualitatively, Germans held a clear advantage. Each German division was larger in terms of assigned personnel. A German infantry division numbered susteen thousand men and a panzer division, fourteen thousand. Being already on war footing, these divisions were almost at their fully assigned strengths.
Of the Soviet divisions, a overwhelming majority was still on prewar footing, with the average of rifle divisions in the first echelon being around ten thousand men. The rifle divisions from the reserved corps, like the XXXI and XXXVI, numbered closer to eight thousand men.
Qualitatively, the Germans were on top as well. As I have already mentioned, each German division was fully a combat-worthy formation. Their Soviet counterparts, on the other hand, would have to be closely examined to determine which numbers could be called combat-capable.
Based on their time of formation, histories, and tables of organization and equipment, I would rate only six of these divisions as combat capable. I would characterize further nine more divisions as marginally capable of combat operations. I include all five of the rifle divisions from the Fifth Army in this category due to them being close to required personnel and equipment numbers, but lacking in command personnel and training. Divisions like the 37th Tank, belonging to the XV Mechanized Corps, for example, had roughly 90 percent of assigned tank strength, but fully over 80 percent of them (258 out of 316 tanks on hand) were super-numerary BT-7s, which this division was not supposed to have. The rest were chaff, a true cannon fodder, beefing up the Soviet numbers without adding further combat capabilities to the mix.
Much lip service has been given to the vaunted invulnerability of Soviet new machines, the medium T-34 and heavy KV tanks. However, this was just that—a myth. In an ancient battle between armor and projectile, the projectile usually won. While the thicker armor of T-34s and KVs could undoubtedly shake off projectile of German panzers and regimental antitank guns, they could do so only at medium to longer ranges. Germans’ flexible tactics and initiative quickly developed an effective antidote to the new Soviet machines.
Faced with an attack by Soviet tank formations, the lighter German tanks would fall back, drawing the Soviet units behind them in pursuit onto the waiting ambush of heavier 105mm and 150mm artillery from corps and army assets. The famous 88, a versatile air-defense gun, showed itself remarkably efficient in dispatching the dreaded Soviet tanks. At the same time, the more-maneuverable German panzers would double back and take the winded Soviet tank units from their vulnerable sides and rear.
Even as the Germans initially had difficulties with the new Soviet machines, they had no problems with disposing of the lighter Soviet tanks, the T-26 and BT series, which comprised the majority of Soviet tank formations. The much-maligned German regimental 37mm antitank guns, contemptuously called by their crews as “door-knockers,” proved to be quite efficient against the lighter Red Army tanks. The cannons on German panzers proved to be quite adequate to this task as well.
The use of artillery during the battles around Dubno has usually been glossed over. Yet, in a deadly cocktail that contributed to the defeat of Soviet counteroffensive, the German artillery played a major and decisive role. It is with the proper respect that the Russians call artillery “The God of War.”
Communications proved to be the weak link that plagued the Soviet tank formations for quite some time. At the beginning of the war, almost the only tanks equipped with radio were the commanders’ machines, usually not below company level. The rest had to rely on flag signals and messages relayed by motorcycle riders.
During battles, the Soviet tankers had a tendency to bunch up closer to their commanders in order to be able to better see their signals. The Germans quickly learned to spot and knock out command tanks, usually leaving the remainder of Soviet vehicles as a headless herd. Personally brave, Soviet officers, often up to senior levels, tended to actively participate in the attack or lead it from the front, suffering disproportionate numbers of casualties.
As already pointed out by General Morgunov above, high-level coordination of large-scale operations left much to be desired. Purkayev and Kirponos’ plans to utilize six mechanized corps in an early effort to defeat von Kleist’s Panzer Group 1 show sound operational thinking. However, it was the execution of these plans that came to naught.
Soviet reliance on civilian communications networks before the war and German timely neutralization of the same left Kirponos’ staff without an effective means to coordinate the efforts of forces converging on the border. German Luftwaffe further frustrated Soviet attempt to reestablish communications by systematically hunting down and destroying Soviet command posts with their irreplaceable radio equipment.
On par with the lack of communications, the Soviet ability to gather information came up short. German air superiority denied the Red Air Force its ability to conduct aerial reconnaissance, while lack of appropriate equipment, personnel, and training left Soviet ground formations moving blind.
1
I am stretching quite a bit to include the 109th Motorized Rifle Division (MRD) from Task Force Lukin into this number. The 109th MRD was part of 5th Mechanized Corps, already departed for Byelorussia.