Kursk-Oboyansk operation

During the winter counterattack of 1941-1942, the Soviet command attacked the enemy with forces from almost all fronts, especially on the North-Western , Western , Bryansk and South-Western fronts. In the strip of the Southwestern Front in the first half of December during the Yelets operation, troops of the 3rd and 13th armies defeated the German troops. The 40th army, neighboring with them from the south , fettered the enemy’s forces and attacked in the direction of Cheremisinovo from the turn of the river Kshen , but almost did not advance.

Nevertheless, in the spirit of the general decision of the Supreme High Command Headquarters to go on the offensive in the western direction, the command of the South-Western direction (Commander-in-Chief - Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko ) decided to go on the offensive by the armies of the right flank of the South-Western Front (front commander - Lieutenant General F. Ya. Kostenko ): the 40th Army (commander Lieutenant General K.P. Podlas ) in the Kursk direction and the 21st (commander Major General V.N. Gordov ) armies in the Oboyan direction, with the goal to capture the cities of Kursk and Oboyan, respectively about.

At the same time, the 40th Army received practically no replenishment, and the 21st Army, although it was brought into battle from the reserve of the front, where it was replenished for two months, but also had a significant shortage. In fact, each of the armies was a reinforced rifle corps . There were no mobile means of success development ( tank formations) at all; there was also a big drawback in artillery and ammunition. Each of the armies solved the tasks of breaking through the German defense independently, and shock army groups in their composition were also not created. Thus, the execution of the tasks of breaking through enemy defenses was decided by ordinary rifle divisions . And, finally, the army was not even fully involved in the operation, but acted only in parts of its forces (for example, in the 21st army, out of 5 divisions, 2 participated in the operation); constraining and distracting attacks were practically not used. The plan of the operation by the front command was not sufficiently developed, the main burden of its development was assigned to the army headquarters. In fact, the operation was reduced to independent actions of the two armies in disparate directions. Even their transition to the offensive began at the same time, as they were ready. All this made it easier for the German command to repulse the Soviet offensive.

The troops of the left wing of the 6th German army (commander Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau , from January 5, 1942 - the general of the tank troops Friedrich Paulus ( 29 army corps ) and the right flank of the 2nd German army, the General Colonel Maximilian von Weichs ( 48 motorized corps ) They created a reinforced defense system based on the creation of powerful defense units in the settlements and on the dominant high-rises with completely shot through the gaps between them.

Having not received time to prepare the operation and without reinforcing the troops, following the command order, the 40th Army went on the offensive on December 20, 1941 , having the initial task of reaching the border of the Tim River and then attacking Kursk . Advancing 10-12 kilometers with heavy fighting, on December 25 the army stormed the heavily fortified village of Tim , by December 28, 1941, reached the border of the Tim river and forced it.

On December 28, 1941, the 21st Army also went on the offensive in the Oboyan direction, liberating 5 villages on the first day, 2 more villages the next day and cutting the Kursk - Belgorod railway .

In the following days, the offensive developed slowly, boiling down the enemy and slowly “gnawing” his defenses: on December 30 the 40th army occupied 3 villages (and one lost as a result of a counterattack), the 21st army took 2 villages. The attacks were carried out in deep snow, without sufficient intelligence. Repeated frontal attacks prevailed at the same lines, without proper artillery support. Aviation actions in the conditions of prevailing cloudy weather and snowfalls were episodic and not effective.

Having determined the directions of the Soviet troops' strikes, the German command promptly pulled fresh units to the threatened directions. The Germans were stubbornly defending settlements, even encircled, forcing the Soviet troops to squander in multiple attacks, and when the attacking units suffered heavy losses, they launched strong counterattacks, striving to influence the flanks and rear .

On January 1, 1942, the troops of the 21st Army, continuing the offensive, reached the village and the Marino stronghold, but were only able to capture it at dawn on January 4. On January 3, units of the 21st Army captured Gorodishche, Krivtsovo, Zorinsky Yards, intercepting the Oboyan-Belgorod highway. On January 4, the villages of Nagolnoye and Bobryshevo (the center of Krivtsovsky district) were liberated, the previously blocked garrison in the village of Shakhova was liquidated. On January 5, 1942, Soviet troops reached the suburban villages near Oboyan Cossack, Pushkarnoye, Streletskoye.

Fierce protracted battles for Oboyan unfolded. The first units broke into the eastern outskirts of Oboyan in the afternoon of January 4 ( 160th Infantry Division ). January 5 Oboyan was generally blocked .

The enemy, having strengthened his strength in the city, offered stubborn resistance. Also, his resistance and counterattacks against other advancing units intensified sharply, in fact, having achieved a stop on their offensive. Extremely stubborn but unsuccessful battles unfolded throughout the strip of both Soviet armies - troops stagnated in one place, waging battles for the same settlements. On January 6, in Oboyan, with great losses, they managed to seize the fortified buildings of the station and elevator . On the night of January 7, 1942, a decisive attempt was made to liberate Oboyan, during the day of the assault on January 7 and 8 several times the Soviet troops managed to break into the city center, but for the most part they were pushed out of there every time. Only some areas managed to gain a foothold in the city and they fought surrounded .

For a turning point in the operation in the zone of the 21st Army, the 8th motorized rifle division of the NKVD was introduced into the battle. On January 8, 1942, one regiment of this division, in collaboration with parts of the 169th Infantry Division, took possession of the northwestern outskirts of the village of Cossack and the eastern outskirts of Oboyan, other parts occupied the eastern half of the city. On January 9, units of the 8th motorized rifle division of the NKVD reached the center of Oboyan.

During these battles, a daring 40-kilometer raid on enemy rear in the Oboyan direction was carried out by the battalion of the 777th Infantry Regiment of the 227th Infantry Division under the command of Lieutenant Kh. B. Melikyan . The battalion defeated 4 enemy garrisons in the village of Orlovka, in the farms of Zorinsky Dvory, Vesely, Ivnyansky district and Peresyp of Oboyansk district . By his actions, he facilitated the offensive in the Oboyan direction. In the battle on January 8, 1942, the battalion commander died the hero’s death. November 5, 1942 he was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union .

In order to keep Oboyan, the enemy used the failure of the 227th Infantry Division, which from the very beginning of the offensive was never able to take over Prokhorovka station . The Germans went on a counterattack north of Prokhorovka and pushed parts of the division from it. On January 9, the Germans began crowding out neighboring units of the 169th Infantry Division. Due to the threat of encirclement by superior enemy forces from Zorino, Bolshaya Psinka, Nagolnoye and the lack of ammunition and fuel , an order was received on January 10 to withdraw troops from Oboyan. Although the Soviet command sought to continue to block the Oboyan garrison until the threat of the German bypass was removed, and then to repeat the assault on the city, this could not be done.

The Germans pushed our troops from Oboyan about 20 kilometers to the area of ​​the village of Krasnikovo. The Soviet units took up defense at about the same line from where the offensive began. On January 11, stubborn battles began at this line, the parties exhausted each other with mutual attacks.

To the north, parts of the 40th Army hardly reached the Seim River line on January 6, overcame it on ice and reached the area of ​​28-30 kilometers south and southeast of Kursk by January 8. But the army no longer had the forces for a decisive blow to Kursk. On January 10, German units also launched strong counterattacks, stopping the Soviet offensive. On January 15 and 18, the army again tried to break through the enemy’s defenses, but achieved only the smallest advance. Particularly stubborn battles took place in the vicinity of the village of Vypolzovo (occupied by Soviet troops on January 15, repelled by the enemy on the 23rd, and again released on the 24th).

On January 18, Soviet troops again went on the offensive, shifting the main blow to Shchigrov’s direction. This time, the offensive was linked to the actions of the left wing of the front forces, which launched the Barvenkovo-Lozovo operation on that day.

In the band of the 40th army, a specially formed group of General V. D. Kryuchenkin went on the offensive from the frontier of the Tim River, broke through the defenses and occupied several villages. The 21st Army on the left flank again went on the offensive on Oboyan, the 38th Army on Belgorod . In the following days, Kryuchenkin’s group slowly advanced towards the Shchigry, and the offensive of the 21st and 38th armies stalled almost immediately. By January 23, the Germans managed to stop the advance of the Kryuchenkin group, which did not reach the Shchigry 20 kilometers. Cruel battles unfolded there, lasting until February 5. As a result, the group was surrounded and with losses was forced to break through from there.

In general, during the operation, Soviet troops did not achieve their goals, despite stubborn attacks and heroism of the personnel. In the offensive zone of the 40th Army, the front line at the end of the operation was pushed from 15 to 35 kilometers to the north-west, in the 21st Army’s zone, it remained approximately where it was at the beginning of the operation.

Losses of the Soviet troops amounted to 10 586 people irretrievable losses, 19 996 people sanitary losses during the period from January 2 to 26, 1942 ^[2] . Losses of German troops are not known.

The reasons for the failure are characteristic of all other offensive operations of the Soviet troops in the winter of 1941-1942: improper planning of the offensive (not only every army but each division participating in the offensive broke through the German defense), extremely short preparation time, lack of superiority over the enemy, lack of shock tank formations, an acute shortage of artillery, illiterate tactical actions (constant attacks of the same lines and settlements in the same areas with heavy losses). The situation was aggravated by cold winters with high snow cover.

In the report of the headquarters of the Southwestern Front on the Oboyansk operation, the reasons for this failure were reduced to unsuccessful actions of the command of the army and divisions: poor reconnaissance, inadequate training of troops, loss of command and control on the battlefield. Assessing those events, their participant S.P. Ivanov came to the conclusion that the reasons are much deeper:

“The main thing was that the principle of consistent concentration of forces was violated: three armies ^[3] , which in composition were hardly equal to rifle corps without means of reinforcement, were tasked to conquer Kursk, Oboyan, Belgorod at the same time - and this with significant superiority of the enemy, an organized defense, an artillery fire system and, finally, under the most adverse weather conditions. ”

- Ivanov S.P. Army headquarters, front-line headquarters. M., 1990.S. 197.

In Soviet times, this operation was not investigated and was practically not mentioned.

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