Strength of Southwestern Front in September 1941

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per70
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Strength of Southwestern Front in September 1941

#1

Post by per70 » 05 May 2017, 20:06

Hi,

I've been trying to get a better understanding of the strength of Southwestern Front in September 1941.
Which leaves me with a number of questions that I hope someone can help shed some light on.

[1] Literature

To start off, I looked at some english literature, where you can a very large number.

For instance:

a) In "Barbarossa - Hitler's invasion of Russia 1941 (p.132)", Glantz writes: "On 1 September the Southwestern Front numbered 752-760 000 men (850 000 including reserves and rear area service organs), 3 923 guns and mortars, 114 tanks and 167 combat aircraft."

b) Glantz in Barbarossa Derailed Volume 2 (p.515) writes: "Hitlers's decision to liquidate the Red Army's Southwestern Front (and it's almost 1 million men) from the Red Army's order of battle in September"

c) While Stahel in his Kiev 1941 book, quotes Glantz's 850 000 figure for 1 September.

Question: Does anyone recognize the source of Glantz's claim in [1a] for 752-760 000 men (850 000 including reserves and rear area service organs). It's not clear from the book where he got it from.

Question: Are these numbers similar to those that appear in recent Russian literature of the battle?

[2] Ration strength?

The 850 000 number seems familiar, as it appears in this report dated 11 September 1941.
http://soldat.ru/doc/gko/text/0660.html

In later ration strength reports (for instance this one from January 1942: http://soldat.ru/doc/gko/text/1119.html), a column for hospitalized soldiers appears.

Question: does anyone know if the numbers in the September report includes hospitalized soldiers?
Question: and is there any rough heuristic one can use to calculate combat strength from the ration strength during this period?

[3] Strength reports combat units

If I look at the reports listing the strength of the combat units in the Front on 1 September (I've included 21A here), I get the following data:

5th Army: 79 498 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032911
21st Army: 80 988 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032912
26th Army: 66 735 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032913
37th Army: 97 526 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032914
38th Army: 56 091 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032915
40th Army: 29 767 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032914 (page 2)
Units subordinated to the Front HQ: 40 035 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032910

Total: 450 640 men

Note: when cross-checking the units included in these reports against the following, I get some minor discrepancies:
http://teatrskazka.com/Raznoe/BoevojSos ... 10901.html

[4] Complete personnel report

In a previous thread, Art posted the following numbers from a report submitted by Pokrovsky and Bagramyan on 2 October.
viewtopic.php?f=55&t=197807&hilit=kiev+ ... t#p1781270

5th Army: 93 412
21st Army: 106 831
26th Army: 85 456
37th Army: 113 718
Units subordinated to the Front HQ: 53 303

Total: 452 700 men

Missing from this report is the strength of the 38th and 40th Armies.
However, I note that the complete personnel strength reports are roughly 25% higher than the combat unit strength reports in [3].

If we apply the same factor to the two "missing" armies, we get a total Front strength of roughly 555-560 000 men.

[5] Unaccounted units

At this point, I'm trying to figure out which units I haven't accounted for.

a) I note that teatrskazka.com lists several fortified regions (FR) under Front HQ control (3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 13, 15, 17) which doesn't appear on the reports in [3]. Now, since these FR's were positioned well to the west of the frontline in September, I have a hunch that they might be shells of their former self, and only are included in the list because they hadn't been officially disbanded yet.
Does anyone know if this is a plausible explanation?

On the teatrskazka.com list, I also note that:
b) there is a number of separate AA battalions (13), 2 PVO divisions and 3 PVO brigades
c) there is a number of engineering units (34 battalions)
d) and there is a few air units under Front control (with associated ground personnel)

Question: I'm assuming that not all of these units are included in the [4]-report.
Does anyone know which unit-types were commonly included/excluded from such reports?
And for the excluded unit types; does anyone have an estimate on the size of them on 1 September?

e) Nigel Askey writes in "Operation Barbarossa Volume 3" that the 4th Rail Security Division was headquartered in Kiev at the start of the campaign, while the 10th Rail Security Division was encircled at Kiev.

Question: Does anyone know the size of these and other NKVD units in the area at the time?

f) In the previous thread, Art mentioned four railroad engineer brigades with about 12 500 men on 1 September.

Question: Does anyone know the size of other construction units in the area?

Conclusion
While it's hard to reach a firm conclusion with the number of questions I have ( :-) ), I'm having hard time figuring out how the manpower allocation looked if the numbers given in [1] are correct?

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I'm missing?

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Re: Strength of Southwestern Front in September 1941

#2

Post by Art » 06 May 2017, 19:38

per70 wrote: [3] Strength reports combat units

If I look at the reports listing the strength of the combat units in the Front on 1 September (I've included 21A here), I get the following data:

5th Army: 79 498 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032911
21st Army: 80 988 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032912
26th Army: 66 735 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032913
37th Army: 97 526 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032914
38th Army: 56 091 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032915
40th Army: 29 767 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032914 (page 2)
Units subordinated to the Front HQ: 40 035 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032910

Total: 450 640 men
All those documents give the personnel in combat units only. The report by Pokrovsky and Bagramyan from 2 October on the other hand quotes complete numbers for 4 armies (5, 21, 26, 27). In particular in the same folder (229/161/103) there is a draft document with the following numbers:
21 Army: 79 575 in combat units, 16 739 in combat support units, 5 887 in services of supply. Total 111 977
5 Army: combat units - 72 874, combat support - 10 986, services of supply - 7 426, replacement - 2 538. Total 100 448 men
26 Army: combat - 66 735, combat support - 9 416, supply - 7 153. Total 83 440
37 Army: combat - 97 526, combat support - 4 617, supply - 6 616. Total 108 759.
One can notice that figures for the 21 and 5 Army don't fit. I don't understand why, probably some elements not explicitly mentioned were added. On the other hand in the final version (Pokrovsky-Bagramyan) numbers for both armies are different and closer to "correct" sum.

In their turn numbers elements under SW Front HQ were mostly taken from this report:
https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032910
From which they excluded 5 Cavalry Corps (it wasn't in the pocket after all) and added 3 Anti-Aircraft Division and some engineer, signal and survey elements. Hence a final number (53 303). It was by no means complete since there were also massive supply, replacement and air force elements which were not counted.
Question: Does anyone recognize the source of Glantz's claim in [1a] for 752-760 000 men (850 000 including reserves and rear area service organs). It's not clear from the book where he got it from.
That is from "Catastrophe at Kiev" by I. Moschanskiy

Image

So the SW Front had 673 183 men as of 1 September 1941 without 21 Army. Of them 398 368 in five armies and 5 Cav. Corps and the remaining 274 817 in elements under Front HQ. Including 21 Army (79 575) total 752 760 men. I suppose that was Glantz's source or probably some other book that refers to the same document. From comparison with info given above you can notice a flaw in this table. Numbers for the 21 Army stand for combat units only. Since we know that the total strength was about 30 000 higher the correct total for the South-West Front must be about 780 000. It doesn't include wounded in hospitals and non-Red Army elements (NKVD, NKPS railroad engineers and some others). If you add them you will probably arrive to something like 850 000.


per70
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Re: Strength of Southwestern Front in September 1941

#3

Post by per70 » 07 May 2017, 00:27

Thanks - this was very helpful. I'll try to summarize my understanding of the above:

1) Overall, we have 780 000 men under SW Front on 1 September + maybe about 70 000 in non-Red Army elements.

2) Looking closer at the SW Front, we have 505 000 under control of the 6 armies and the cavalry corps + 275 000 under Front HQ.

3a) Looking closer at the 6 armies/cavalry corps, we have about 407 000 * in combat units and 98 000 in combat support or supply service.
* 400k from the combat strength reports of the armies + 7k from the 3 and 14th CD

3b) But looking closer at the units under Front HQ, I'm still a bit unsure about the distribution of these.
From the combat strength report (https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032910) we have about 33 000 men left after excluding the 5th Cavalry Corps from that report.

Do you have any rough estimate on how to subdivide the remaining 240 000 men?
As you write, there is a lot of supply and air force elements under Front control, in addition to air defense units, engineering troops and so forth. Were there still military schools and training facilities in use in the area controlled by the Front, and if so, would these be included in the above numbers?

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Re: Strength of Southwestern Front in September 1941

#4

Post by Art » 07 May 2017, 20:14

per70 wrote:Question: does anyone know if the numbers in the September report includes hospitalized soldiers?
Nothing is said about it. However from a common sense hospitals should be allocated military rations. It's hardly possible to imagine that hospitalized soldiers were supplied as civilians. Since there was no separate allocation for hospitals it can be assumed that they were included in the common pool. What supports this assumption is paragraph 4 from GKO No.660 which says that wounded evacuated to military district should receive rations from the allocations made by GKO. So my answer is most probably yes (not positive though). There were about 400 000 Red Army personnel in hospitals on 1.09.41, so reasonable estimate for the SW Front would be 30-40 thousand.
Generally speaking it's not clear how rations allocations were calculated.
Question: I'm assuming that not all of these units are included in the [4]-report.
Most definitely not. Seems that Pokrovsky and Bagramyan listed only those elements that they believed were encircled.
Question: Does anyone know the size of other construction units in the area?
In late October the following railroad units were listed by the staff of the SW Front:
RKKA railroad units (4 brigades, authorized strength 15 018 men)
NKPS 5 Railroad Brigade (authorized strength 11 938 men)
NKPS reconstruction units (authorized strength 6104)
Which must give some idea.
Do you have any rough estimate on how to subdivide the remaining 240 000 men?
Don't know. Just from a general considerations the air force (including ground services) must be not less than 50 000 men or probably even considerably larger.
a) I note that teatrskazka.com lists several fortified regions (FR) under Front HQ control (3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 13, 15, 17) which doesn't appear on the reports in [3]. Now, since these FR's were positioned well to the west of the frontline in September, I have a hunch that they might be shells of their former self, and only are included in the list because they hadn't been officially disbanded yet.
Does anyone know if this is a plausible explanation?
Probably. As a matter of fact all pre-war fortifications except Kiev fortified region were lost so there was no reason to keep them. Unfortunately organization documents of the SW Front from that period are not fully available, I can't find relevant orders.

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Re: Strength of Southwestern Front in September 1941

#5

Post by per70 » 07 May 2017, 22:23

Art wrote: There were about 400 000 Red Army personnel in hospitals on 1.09.41, so reasonable estimate for the SW Front would be 30-40 thousand.
With regard to the estimate of 30-40 thousand under SW Front care (or about 10% of the total) - I'm guessing most of the lightly wounded would be treated under SW Front supervision, while more serious cases would be moved to other military districts further back (when possible). Which makes your estimate sound reasonable.

And if that were the case, I would be inclined to believe that these lightly wounded (being Red Army soldiers) would be counted as part of the personnel under Front HQ control (that is the 275 000 men from Moschanskiy's compilation).


As a postscript, I noticed that Lopukhovsky in his Viaz'ma Catastrophe, 1941 includes a table derived from Velikaia Otechestvennaia voina 1941-45: Strategicheskie operatsii i srzaheniia, statisticheskii analiz, Kniga 1 about the strength of the Fronts facing Operation Tyhpoon.

In that table, he provides the following numbers:
Western Front is listed with 262 683 men under army control and 283 252 under Front HQ.
Reserve Front is listed with 435 597 men under army control and 42 911 under Front HQ.
Briansk Front is listed with 182 355 men under army control and 43 212 under Front HQ.

If we assume that the number of men under Front HQ is counted in the same way for all three Fronts, that seems like a huge discrepancy (even after accounting for the larger number of combat units under Western Front HQ control).

The Western Front numbers looks close to the numbers for SW Front, and could be explained by both Fronts controlling a large rear area with a similar mix of rear area personell.

The Briansk Front on the other hand seems to be operating close to the borders of the Orel Military District, and therefore; a lot of the rear area personnel could belong to the military district and not the Front.

While the Reserve Front was operating on top of the Western Front with it's second echelon armies, and therefore could have been serviced by rear area personnel formally belonging to the Western Front.

Does that sound like a plausible explanation?

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Re: Strength of Southwestern Front in September 1941

#6

Post by Art » 08 May 2017, 10:16

per70 wrote: And if that were the case, I would be inclined to believe that these lightly wounded (being Red Army soldiers) would be counted as part of the personnel under Front HQ control (that is the 275 000 men from Moschanskiy's compilation).
No, definitely not. Hospitalized men were not included in the roster strength in the type of document Moschanskiy quoted. If they were included in the ration allocation is not completely clear. As I said I believe it's more likely that they were.
e) Nigel Askey writes in "Operation Barbarossa Volume 3" that the 4th Rail Security Division was headquartered in Kiev at the start of the campaign, while the 10th Rail Security Division was encircled at Kiev.

Question: Does anyone know the size of these and other NKVD units in the area at the time?
10 NKVD Division HQ was disbanded in early September and all subordinated regiments were disbanded on 1 September (and remaining personnel transferred elsewhere, I guess).
There is a list of NKVD forces under SWF control here:
https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=133299089
We have 10 border guard detachments/regiments and other units from the former Ukrainian border district, authorized strength on 1.9.41 - 23 597, actual strength - 11 149. 23 Motorized NKVD Division in Kiev region (authorized wartime strength - about 8500 men), 4 Railroad Security Division in Kiev/Central Ukraine (authorized wartime strength - 10000, 5 Railroad Security Division in Eastern Ukraine (authorized wartime strength - 6000), 13 Convoy Division in Eastern Ukraine. I guess a reasonable estimate for their aggregate actual strength in September would be about 30 000 men.
Question: Does anyone know the size of other construction units in the area?
Addition: there were the following railroad construction and repair formation in the SWF area:
HQ of the Special Railroad Corps with three brigades (1, 4 and 5 Brigades). Corps was an RKKA formation but was under operational control of the NKPS
4 separate railroad brigades (13, 19, 25, 27)
special formation of the NKPS (workshops, repair trains, depots etc).
An official list of uints participating in Kiev defense here:
http://www.teatrskazka.com/Raznoe/Perec ... ev_04.html
Railroad Corps with 5 brigades consisted of 53 500 men at the war start. 2 brigades were left in the Far East and corps HQ and 3 brigades were deployed in Ukraine. So they must have more than 30 000 men (10000-11000 per brigade). Separate railroad brigades had smaller establishment - about 4000-5000 per brigade, total 15000-20000. NKPS elements had several thousand men (as I said authorized strength by November was about 6000). All in all rail construction and repair formations must have not less than 50 000 men. Only part of them were encircled at Kiev (about 12 000 from Pokrovksy). It's not clear if the Railroad Corps was shown in the SWF strength reports, its chain of command was complicated somewhat. The Corps was disbanded in September, 5 brigade stayed with the SWF, 1 and 4 brigades were transferred elsewhere.

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Re: Strength of Southwestern Front in September 1941

#7

Post by Kelvin » 10 May 2017, 09:14

Art wrote:
per70 wrote: [3] Strength reports combat units

If I look at the reports listing the strength of the combat units in the Front on 1 September (I've included 21A here), I get the following data:

5th Army: 79 498 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032911
21st Army: 80 988 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032912
26th Army: 66 735 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032913
37th Army: 97 526 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032914
38th Army: 56 091 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032915
40th Army: 29 767 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032914 (page 2)
Units subordinated to the Front HQ: 40 035 men - https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032910

Total: 450 640 men
All those documents give the personnel in combat units only. The report by Pokrovsky and Bagramyan from 2 October on the other hand quotes complete numbers for 4 armies (5, 21, 26, 27). In particular in the same folder (229/161/103) there is a draft document with the following numbers:
21 Army: 79 575 in combat units, 16 739 in combat support units, 5 887 in services of supply. Total 111 977
5 Army: combat units - 72 874, combat support - 10 986, services of supply - 7 426, replacement - 2 538. Total 100 448 men
26 Army: combat - 66 735, combat support - 9 416, supply - 7 153. Total 83 440
37 Army: combat - 97 526, combat support - 4 617, supply - 6 616. Total 108 759.
One can notice that figures for the 21 and 5 Army don't fit. I don't understand why, probably some elements not explicitly mentioned were added. On the other hand in the final version (Pokrovsky-Bagramyan) numbers for both armies are different and closer to "correct" sum.

In their turn numbers elements under SW Front HQ were mostly taken from this report:
https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032910
From which they excluded 5 Cavalry Corps (it wasn't in the pocket after all) and added 3 Anti-Aircraft Division and some engineer, signal and survey elements. Hence a final number (53 303). It was by no means complete since there were also massive supply, replacement and air force elements which were not counted.
Question: Does anyone recognize the source of Glantz's claim in [1a] for 752-760 000 men (850 000 including reserves and rear area service organs). It's not clear from the book where he got it from.
That is from "Catastrophe at Kiev" by I. Moschanskiy

Image

So the SW Front had 673 183 men as of 1 September 1941 without 21 Army. Of them 398 368 in five armies and 5 Cav. Corps and the remaining 274 817 in elements under Front HQ. Including 21 Army (79 575) total 752 760 men. I suppose that was Glantz's source or probably some other book that refers to the same document. From comparison with info given above you can notice a flaw in this table. Numbers for the 21 Army stand for combat units only. Since we know that the total strength was about 30 000 higher the correct total for the South-West Front must be about 780 000. It doesn't include wounded in hospitals and non-Red Army elements (NKVD, NKPS railroad engineers and some others). If you add them you will probably arrive to something like 850 000.

Hello, Art, may I ask u the chart you attached the second to fifth column , what are they ?

And so called 13 Convoy division is also like army " division " ? Thank

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Re: Strength of Southwestern Front in September 1941

#8

Post by Art » 10 May 2017, 10:10

2. Men
3. Automobiles
4. Tractors
5. Horses

NKVD "divisions" and "brigades" were for the most part territorial districts rather than combat formations in a normal sense. 13 Division consisted of 6 regiments and 2 separate battalions stationed in various cities in Ukraine when the war started. I don't know about its strength, based on order of battle it was to be up to 10000 men probably.

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Re: Strength of Southwestern Front in September 1941

#9

Post by per70 » 10 May 2017, 23:56

I tried to make a visual presentation of the numbers talked about so far.
swf_strength_01_09_41.png
The various columns would be:

(A) numbers given in the combat unit strength reports on September 1
(B+C+D+E) detailed breakdown given in a draft document about SWF losses on October 1?
(F) the sum of columns (B+C+D+E)
(G) the total sum given in the draft document. Note the difference for 5th and 21st Army as opposed to (F)
(H) the actual report submitted by Pokrovsky/Bagramyan on October 2 based in part on the draft document. Note that the Front HQ numbers only includes encircled units.
(I) the strengths listed in Moschanskiy's table. Note that the number for 21st Army only includes combat units and should be 20-25k higher.


Using Moschanskiy's table, that leaves us with about 240 000 troops under Front HQ, but not in any of the combat unit listed in the reports.
With a further 70 000 men unaccounted for if we use the 850 000 ration strength number instead.

I've tried to put together a very rough estimate on the distribution, based on the list of units participating in the Kiev battle (http://www.teatrskazka.com/Raznoe/Perec ... _Kiev.html), the numbers/estimates provided by Art, some numbers derived from Nigel Askey in his Operation Barabrossa Volume 3 and some guesses on my part.
Feel free to comment if I've made some errors/omissions or if my estimates are wildly off mark.
swf_01_09_41_front_hq_units.png

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Re: Strength of Southwestern Front in September 1941

#10

Post by per70 » 11 May 2017, 15:18

With regards to the Railroad contruction/repair units, I found this document (https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=114793871) , which seem to describe the manpower of the units caught in the encirclement:

5th Railroad Brigade (2 Battalions): 2 372 men
13th Separate Railroad Brigade (1 Battalion, 1 Company): 643 men
19th Separate Railroad Brigade (5 Battalions, 2 Companies): 5 122 men
25th Separate Railroad Brigade (4 Battalions, 1 Company): 4 219 men

In addition, I interpret the end note to say that no information was available for the 17th Separate Railroad Brigade (which joined the SWF when 21st Army was transferred).

The estimates for 19+25 Separate Railroad Brigade from the list above seems pretty good.
For the others, its either much too low, or explained by the fact that not all of the units were caught up in the encirclement.
And it seems as we should include the 17th Separate Railroad Brigade in the overview as well.

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Re: Strength of Southwestern Front in September 1941

#11

Post by Art » 12 May 2017, 13:19

per70 wrote:a) I note that teatrskazka.com lists several fortified regions (FR) under Front HQ control (3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 13, 15, 17) which doesn't appear on the reports in [3]. Now, since these FR's were positioned well to the west of the frontline in September, I have a hunch that they might be shells of their former self, and only are included in the list because they hadn't been officially disbanded yet.
Some additional clarification:
On 6 August the south-West Front ordered to attach:
HQ 2 Fortified Region to the 19 Military Construction HQ (under SWF)
HQ 4 FR - 16 Military Construction HQ (5 Army)
HQ 6 FR - 17 Military Construction HQ (26 Army)
HQ 12 FR - 15 Military Construction HQ (SWF)
HQ 17 FR - 18 Military Construction HQ (38 Army)
to reconnoiter newly constructed defense positions.
https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=114790919
I suppose, units other than HQ were disbanded or converted to separate.

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Re: Strength of Southwestern Front in September 1941

#12

Post by Art » 12 May 2017, 14:33

Also a curios document from July 1941:
https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=156032809
Authorized strength of the SW Front as of 15.7.41 - about 1 400 000 men
Actual strength (roster strength) - 669 202.
Shortfall - about 700 000

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Re: Strength of Southwestern Front in September 1941

#13

Post by Art » 14 May 2017, 19:51

Also not mentioned above:

1. Railway supply&service units. From an official list of units participating in defense of Kiev I counted 9 service battalion under SWF and 13 battalions under armies' control. Each battalion has a TO&E strength of 815 men (Shtat 047/28). Two work battalions under SWF command (organization unknown). 3 guard companies under SWF and 4 under army control (TO&E strength - 78 men). Total 8-10 000 men under SW Front control

2. Replacement units under SW Front control by the end of August:
13 Replacement Rifle Brigade (59, 61, 92 Replacement Rifle Regiments, 76 Replacement Artillery Regiment, 28 Replacement Signal Battalion, 29 Replacement Engineer Battalion)
7 Replacement Automobile Regiment
41 Replacement Horse Artillery Regiment
45 Replacement Corps Artillery Regiment
7 Replacement Engineer Regiment
4 Replacement Pontoon Bridge Battalion
6 Replacement Railway Regiment
15 Replacement Signal Regiment
9 Replacement Road Regiment
26 Replacement Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment
10 Replacement Anti-Aircraft Machine-gun Battalion
1 Replacement Air Warning Battalion
5 Replacement Chemical Defense Battalion
8 Replacement Decontamination Battalion
2 Replacement Horse Depot

13 Replacement Brigade was the the biggest unit and also the biggest unknown factor. According to an official list the brigade belonged to the operational army up to 30 August and apparently was assigned to an of military districts thereafter. I'm not completely sure about the exact day though. In general it's not clear if it was still under SWF command on 1 September. Other units had an authorized strength of 15-20 thousand men probably.
There were also replacement rifle regiments and horse depots assigned to each army. Strangely enough the report on armies' strength doesn't mention any their replacement elements except the 5 Army.

3. Fortification construction units. The SFW front had one front and 5 army HQ for military construction works with some number of construction units. This document lists 20 construction battalions (TO&E strength 1000 men), 4 automobile battalions (513 men) and 1 carpenter battalion assigned to them on 27 July. 3 days later 3 construction battalions were added. According to Malyarov on 19 September the SW Front had 28 battalions working on defense construction. That gives us some 25-30 000 men. This estimate is further confirmed by the order from 13 August 1941 which says that personnel in construction units is to be replaced with recently conscripted 25 000 men of older ages. Not clear where they would be reported - all under Front HQ or some part belonging to armies.

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Re: Strength of Southwestern Front in September 1941

#14

Post by Kelvin » 25 Feb 2020, 16:11

Art wrote:
14 May 2017, 19:51
Also not mentioned above:

1. Railway supply&service units. From an official list of units participating in defense of Kiev I counted 9 service battalion under SWF and 13 battalions under armies' control. Each battalion has a TO&E strength of 815 men (Shtat 047/28). Two work battalions under SWF command (organization unknown). 3 guard companies under SWF and 4 under army control (TO&E strength - 78 men). Total 8-10 000 men under SW Front control

2. Replacement units under SW Front control by the end of August:
13 Replacement Rifle Brigade (59, 61, 92 Replacement Rifle Regiments, 76 Replacement Artillery Regiment, 28 Replacement Signal Battalion, 29 Replacement Engineer Battalion)
7 Replacement Automobile Regiment
41 Replacement Horse Artillery Regiment
45 Replacement Corps Artillery Regiment
7 Replacement Engineer Regiment
4 Replacement Pontoon Bridge Battalion
6 Replacement Railway Regiment
15 Replacement Signal Regiment
9 Replacement Road Regiment
26 Replacement Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment
10 Replacement Anti-Aircraft Machine-gun Battalion
1 Replacement Air Warning Battalion
5 Replacement Chemical Defense Battalion
8 Replacement Decontamination Battalion
2 Replacement Horse Depot

13 Replacement Brigade was the the biggest unit and also the biggest unknown factor. According to an official list the brigade belonged to the operational army up to 30 August and apparently was assigned to an of military districts thereafter. I'm not completely sure about the exact day though. In general it's not clear if it was still under SWF command on 1 September. Other units had an authorized strength of 15-20 thousand men probably.
There were also replacement rifle regiments and horse depots assigned to each army. Strangely enough the report on armies' strength doesn't mention any their replacement elements except the 5 Army.

3. Fortification construction units. The SFW front had one front and 5 army HQ for military construction works with some number of construction units. This document lists 20 construction battalions (TO&E strength 1000 men), 4 automobile battalions (513 men) and 1 carpenter battalion assigned to them on 27 July. 3 days later 3 construction battalions were added. According to Malyarov on 19 September the SW Front had 28 battalions working on defense construction. That gives us some 25-30 000 men. This estimate is further confirmed by the order from 13 August 1941 which says that personnel in construction units is to be replaced with recently conscripted 25 000 men of older ages. Not clear where they would be reported - all under Front HQ or some part belonging to armies.
Hi, Art, I would like to ask if Pinsk Flotilla and 3rd PVO divison were trapped too in Kiev Kassel ? Thank

Art
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Re: Strength of Southwestern Front in September 1941

#15

Post by Art » 25 Feb 2020, 21:41

Staff of the SWF explicitly included the 3rd PVO division at Kiev-Piryatin in the list of the units encircled in the pocket. According to their data by early September the division had 120 85-mm and 12 37-mm AA guns, 3 heavy machine guns, 141 quad machine guns, 68 searchlights etc.
As for the Pinsk flotilla according to the Russian wiki "at the last stage of the battle for Kiev the Pinsk Military Flotilla formed two land detachments from sailors of the lost ships with 300-400 men. The 1st detaqchment operated in the region Oster-Bobrik-Rusanov, the 2nd detachment - defended the positions of the Kiev fortified regions at the Golosyevskiy forest." The flotilla's vessels were mostly lost b mid-September, those that remained were blown up when the Kiev (and the last stretch of the Dniper River) was abandoned.

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