The Fuhrer felt that precious time slipped away from him like sand between his fingers. Moscow was Barbarossa's most important target. However, the resistance of the Red Army forced to forget about it for a while and focus on the flanks of the Soviet-German front. Even in the midst of the battle for Kiev, Directive No. 35 of the Wehrmacht High Command was born. It determined the form and tasks of the operation to defeat the Soviet troops in the Moscow direction. The document was signed by Hitler on September 6, 1941. Hitler demanded "as soon as possible (end of September)" to go on the offensive and defeat the Soviet troops of the Western direction, named in Directive No. 35 "Timoshenko's army group" [1]. It was supposed to solve this problem by means of "double encirclement in the general direction of Vyazma in the presence of powerful tank forces concentrated on the flanks." Since the outcome of the battles for Kiev was still unknown, there was no talk of using Guderian's 2nd Panzer Group in this operation in the Moscow direction. The Fuehrer's directive only vaguely promised "the largest possible forces from Army Group North", that is, mobile formations of the 4th Panzer Group.
However, as the new operation was being prepared, the number of forces to carry it out increased. Ten days after Directive No. 35, on September 16, the command of Army Group Center moved from the general concept of the operation against the “Tymoshenko troops” to a more detailed plan. The successful development of events for the Wehrmacht near Kiev allowed the commander of Army Group Center Fyodor von Bock to plan to enter into battle not only the 3rd and 4th tank groups, but also the 2nd tank group. On September 19, 1941, the operation was codenamed Taifun.
The German command has already gained some experience of fighting the Red Army. Therefore, the actions of the Soviet command were predicted quite accurately: “the enemy will, as before, most strongly cover and defend with large forces the road to Moscow, that is, the Smolensk-Moscow highway, as well as the Leningrad-Moscow road. Therefore, the offensive of the German troops along these main roads will meet the strongest opposition from the Russians. Accordingly, it was decided to advance in the poor road areas north and south of the Smolensk-Moscow highway.
The scope of the planned environment became the topic of lively discussions. Von Bock insisted on closing the ring of encirclement of Soviet troops on the distant approaches to Moscow in the Gzhatsk region. However, in the end, OKH decided to close the encirclement ring in the Vyazma area, and not Gzhatsk. That is, the scale of the "boiler" has been reduced.
"Typhoon" was the most ambitious operation of the German armed forces, carried out in one direction. Neither before nor after that three formations of the tank group (tank army) class were concentrated in one army group at once. The Typhoon involved three armies and three panzer groups, totaling 78 divisions, including 46 infantry, 14 panzer, 8 motorized, 1 cavalry, 6 security divisions and 1 CC cavalry brigade. Only in the armies and three tank groups, von Bock had 1,183,719 people under his command. The total number of personnel in the combat and auxiliary units of Army Group Center at the beginning of October was 1,929,406.
Aviation support of the Typhoon was carried out by the 2nd Air Fleet under the command of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring. It consisted of II and VIII air corps and an anti-aircraft corps. By transferring air formations from Army Groups North and South, the German command brought the number of aircraft of the 2nd Air Fleet to 1,320 by the beginning of Operation Typhoon (720 bombers, 420 fighters, 40 attack aircraft and 140 reconnaissance aircraft).
While the Germans were planning to crack down on the "Tymoshenko Army Group", this name ceased to correspond to reality. On September 11, S. K. Timoshenko headed the South-West direction, and on September 16, the West direction itself was disbanded. Instead, Soviet troops on the outskirts of the capital united into three fronts, directly subordinate to the high command. Directly the Moscow direction was defended by the Western Front under the command of Colonel-General I. S. Konev. It occupied a strip about 300 km wide along the Andreapol, Yartsevo line, west of Yelnya.
In total, the Western Front included 30 rifle divisions, 1 rifle brigade, 3 cavalry divisions, 28 artillery regiments, 2 motorized rifle divisions, 4 tank brigades. The front's tank forces numbered 475 tanks (19 KV, 51 T-34, 101 BT, 298 T-26, 6 T-37). The total strength of the Western Front was 545,935 people.
Mostly in the rear of the Western Front, and partly adjacent to its left flank, the troops of the Reserve Front were built. Four armies (31, 32, 33 and 49) of the Reserve Front occupied the Rzhev-Vyazma defensive line behind the Western Front. With the forces of the 24th Army of Major General K. I. Rakutin, the front was covered by the Elninskoe direction, and the 43rd Army of Major General P. P. Sobennikov - the Yukhnovskoe direction. The total defense front of these two armies was about 100 km. The average staffing of a division in the 24th army was 7, 7 thousand people, and in the 43rd army - 9 thousand people [2]. In total, the Reserve Front consisted of 28 rifle divisions, 2 cavalry divisions, 27 artillery regiments, and 5 tank brigades. The first echelon of the Reserve Front had 6 rifle divisions and 2 tank brigades in the 24th Army, 4 rifle divisions, and 2 tank brigades as part of the 43rd Army. The total number of troops of the Reserve Front was 478,508 people.
The troops of the Bryansk Front under the command of Colonel General A. I. Eremenko occupied a 330 km front in the Bryansk-Kaluga and Oryol-Tula directions. The front's tank forces numbered 245 tanks (22 KV, 83 T-34, 23 BT, 57 T-26, 52 T-40, 8 T-50). The total number of troops on the Bryansk Front was 225,567 people.
Thus, more than 1 250 thousand people were concentrated on a front of 800 km as part of the Western, Bryansk and Reserve fronts. It should be noted that the Moscow direction was significantly strengthened shortly before the start of the battle. During September, the fronts of the Western strategic direction received over 193 thousand marching reinforcements to make up for the losses incurred (up to 40% of the total number of people sent to the active army).
The air force of the three fronts consisted of 568 aircraft (210 bombers, 265 fighters, 36 attack aircraft, 37 reconnaissance aircraft). In addition to these aircraft, already in the first days of the battle, 368 long-range bombers and 423 fighters and 9 reconnaissance aircraft of the Moscow Air Defense Forces were brought into battle. Thus, the forces of the Air Force of the Red Army in the Moscow sector on the whole were practically not inferior to the enemy and numbered 1,368 aircraft against 1,320 in the 2nd Air Fleet. However, the Luftwaffe certainly had a numerical superiority in the early stages of the battle. Also, the German Air Force made extensive use of its units, performing up to six sorties per day per plane and eventually achieving a large number of sorties.
The operational plans of the troops in the western direction provided for the conduct of defense practically along the entire front. Defense orders in one form or another had been received at least three weeks before the German advance. Already on September 10, the Stavka demanded that the Western Front "bury itself firmly in the ground and, at the expense of secondary directions and solid defense, withdraw six or seven divisions into reserve in order to create a powerful mobile group for an offensive in the future." Fulfilling this order, I. S. Konev allocated four rifle, two motorized rifle and one cavalry division, four tank brigades and five artillery regiments to the reserve. In front of the main defense zone, in most armies, a support zone (foreground) was created with a depth of 4 to 20 km or more. IS Konev himself writes in his memoirs: "After the offensive battles, the troops of the Western and Reserve fronts, at the direction of the Headquarters, went on the defensive in the period from 10 to 16 September." Finally, the measures of the fronts to strengthen the defense were fixed by the directive of the Supreme Command Headquarters No. 002373 of September 27, 1941.
However, as with most defensive operations in 1941, the main problem was the uncertainty of the enemy's plans. It was assumed that the Germans would strike along the highway running along the Smolensk - Yartsevo - Vyazma line. A defense system with good densities was created in this direction. For example, the 112th Infantry Division of the 16th Army of K. K. Rokossovsky, which saddled the highway, occupied an 8 km front with a strength of 10,091 people with 226 machine guns and 38 guns and mortars. The neighboring 38th Infantry Division of the same 16th Army occupied an unprecedentedly narrow front by the standards of the initial period of the war, a front of 4 km with a strength of 10,095 men with 202 machine guns and 68 guns and mortars. The average staffing of divisions of the 16th Army was the highest on the Western Front - 10, 7 thousand people. On the 35 km front, the 16th Army had 266 guns with a caliber of 76 mm and above, 32 85-mm anti-aircraft guns for direct fire. The 19th Army was built even more densely on a front of 25 km, with three divisions in the first echelon and two in the second. The army had 338 guns with a caliber of 76 mm and above, 90 45-mm guns and 56 (!) 85-mm anti-aircraft guns as anti-aircraft guns. The 16th and 19th armies were the most numerous on the Western Front - 55,823 and 51,983, respectively.
Behind the defense line of the 16th and 19th armies, there was a reserve defense zone on the highway. MF Lukin later recalled: “The border had a developed defense system prepared by the formations of the 32nd Army of the Reserve Front. Near the bridge, on the highway and on the railway line, naval guns were stationed on concreted areas. They were covered by a detachment of sailors (up to 800 people). " It was the 200th division of the OAS Navy, consisting of four batteries of 130-mm B-13 guns and three batteries of 100-mm B-24 guns near the Izdeshkovo station on the Yartsevo-Vyazma highway. There is no doubt that the German motorized corps would have cost dearly to try to force their way along the highway. One cannot but recall the opinion of the Germans, cited above, that an offensive along the highway "will meet with the strongest opposition from the Russians."
However, for a dense, echeloned barrier on the highway, it was necessary to pay with low troop densities in other directions. In the 30th Army, which took the main blow of the 3rd Panzer Group, there were 157 76-mm and above guns on the 50 km front, 4 (!) 45-mm anti-tank guns and 24 85-mm anti-aircraft guns as anti-aircraft guns. … There were no tanks in the 30th Army at all. The situation was approximately the same in the first line of the Reserve Front. Here, at a front of 16-24 km, divisions of 9-12 thousand people defended themselves. The statutory standard for the defense of a rifle division was 8 - 12 km.
According to a similar scheme with a dense barrier on a large highway, the defense of the Bryansk Front was built by A. I. Eremenko. Simultaneously with Konev, he received a directive of the Supreme Command Headquarters No. 002375 on the transition to a tough defense, similar in content. But, as at Vyazma, the direction of the German attack was incorrectly determined. AI Eremenko was expecting an attack on Bryansk and kept his main reserves near Bryansk. However, the Germans struck 120 - 150 km to the south. The Germans planned an operation against the Bryansk Front in the form of "asymmetric cannes", when on one flank the left wing of the 2nd Panzer Group was deeply penetrated from the Glukhov area, and the LIII Army Corps was attacking it south of Bryansk.
It should also be said that in September 1941 there were no independent mechanized units of the tank division class in the Red Army. The mechanized corps burned down in the flames of the fighting in July and August 1941. Separate tank divisions were lost in July and August. Tank brigades began to form in August. Until the spring of 1942 they will become the largest tank unit of the Red Army. Those.the command of the fronts was deprived of one of the most effective tools for countering deep penetration by the enemy.
The commander of the 2nd tank group G. Guderian decided to attack two days earlier than the 3rd and 4th tank groups in order to take advantage of the massive air support from the aviation that was not yet involved in the operations of other formations of the Army Group Center. Another argument was the maximum use of the good weather period; there were few paved roads in the 2nd Panzer Group's offensive zone. Guderian's offensive began on 30 September. Typhoon has started! Already on October 6, the German 17th Panzer Division howled towards Bryansk from the rear and captured it, and Karachev was captured by the 18th Panzer Division in the morning of the same day. AI Eremenko was forced to give the order to the armies of the front to fight "with an inverted front", that is, to break through to the east.
On October 2, 1941, it was the turn of the Western Front to receive a crushing blow. The effect of surprise was aggravated by the fact that the transfer of mobile units from Army Group North was made at the last moment. She simply did not have time to track down the Soviet intelligence. The radio operator of the group was even left near Leningrad with the characteristic handwriting of the key. This was how the Soviet radio intelligence was misled. In fact, the headquarters of the 4th Panzer Group was transferred to the area south of the Smolensk-Moscow highway. On a 60-kilometer front, at the junction of the 43rd and 50th armies, a shock group of 10 infantry, 5 tank and 2 motorized divisions of the subordinate 4th field army of the 4th tank group was concentrated. In the first echelon there were three tank and five infantry divisions. For the Soviet divisions defended on a wide front, the blow of such large forces was fatal.
At 6 o'clock in the morning on October 2, after a relatively short 40-minute artillery preparation, the strike group of the 4th Panzer Group went over to the offensive against the 53rd and 217th rifle divisions. The large air forces assembled for the offensive allowed the Germans to prevent the approach of the reserves of the 43rd Army. The front of the defense was hacked, the rifle division and the tank brigade in reserve were in a local environment. It became a harbinger of a big "cauldron". The offensive of the tank group developed along the Varshavskoe highway, and then the tank divisions turned to Vyazma, lingering for some time in an impassable wooded area near Spas-Demensky.
The offensive of the 3rd Panzer Group on a 45-kilometer sector at the junction of the 30th and 19th armies of the Western Front developed in a similar way. Here the Germans placed in the first echelon all three tank divisions intended to strike in this direction. Since the blow struck an area in which no offensive was expected, its effect was deafening. In the report on the operations of the 3rd Panzer Group from 2.10 to 20.10 1941, it was written: “The offensive that began on 2.10 was a complete surprise for the enemy. […] The resistance … turned out to be much weaker than expected. The resistance to artillery was especially weak."
For a flank counterattack on the advancing grouping of German troops, the so-called "Boldin group" was created. It included one rifle (152nd), one motorized rifle (101st) divisions, 128th and 126th tank brigades. On October 1, 1941, the tank regiment of the 101st motorized rifle division included 3 KV tanks, 9 T-34s, 5 BTs and 52 T-26s, the 126th tank brigade numbered 1 KV, 19 BTs and 41 T- 26, 128th Tank Brigade - 7 KV, 1 T-34, 39 BT and 14 T-26. The forces, as we can see, are few in number, with a large share of light tanks.
Moving towards Kholm-Zhirkovsky, the formations of Boldin's group entered a tank battle with the XXXXI and LVI motorized corps of the Germans. In one day, on October 5, the 101st division and the 128th tank brigade announced the destruction of 38 German tanks. In the report on the hostilities of the 3rd Panzer Group in October 1941these battles are described as follows: “To the south of Kholm [-Zhirkovsky] a tank battle broke out with Russian tank divisions approaching from the south and north, which suffered significant losses under the attacks of units of the 6th Panzer and 129th Infantry Divisions, as well as from air raids by formations VIII air corps. The enemy was defeated here in the course of multiple battles."
When the directions of the main attacks of the German troops were determined, the front commander, I. S. Konev, decided to advance a strong group of forces under the command of an energetic commander to the point of convergence of the tank wedges. On the evening of October 5, Konev removed control of the 16th Army from the highway and sent it to Vyazma. Thus, I. S. Konev planned to contain one wing of the German troops approaching Vyazma with a counterattack of I. V. Boldin's group, and the second - by defending the front reserves under the control of K. K. Rokossovsky.
However, by October 6, German infantry reached Kholm-Zhirkovsky, pushing Boldin's group from the flank of the German tank wedge. The 7th Panzer Division quickly broke through, first through the Dnieper defensive positions of the Rzhev-Vyazemsky line, and then to the highway west of Vyazma. With this maneuver, the 7th Panzer Division for the third time in the 1941 campaign became the "closure" of a large encirclement (before that there were Minsk and Smolensk). On one of the darkest days of Russian history, October 7, 1941, the 7th Panzer Division of the 3rd Panzer Group and the 10th Panzer Division of the 4th Panzer Group merged and closed the encirclement of the Western and Reserve Fronts in the Vyazma region.
Signs of an approaching catastrophe appeared on the third day of the German offensive in the Vyazma direction. In the evening of October 4, the commander of the western front, IS Konev, reported to JV Stalin "about the threat of a large enemy grouping going into the rear of the troops." The next day, a similar message was received from the commander of the Reserve Front, S. M. Budyonny. Semyon Mikhailovich reported that "there is nothing to cover the resulting breakthrough along the Moscow highway."
On October 8, the commander of the Western Front ordered the encircled troops to break through to the Gzhatsk area. But it was too late. At Vyazma, 37 divisions, 9 tank brigades, 31 artillery regiment of the RGK and the command of the 19th, 20th, 24th and 32nd armies of the Western and Reserve fronts were surrounded. Organizationally, these troops were subordinate to the 22, 30, 19, 19, 20, 24, 43, 31, 32 and 49 armies and Boldin's task force. The management of the 16th Army was evacuated in the first days of the battle to unite the troops in the northern sector of the Mozhaisk line of defense. Near Bryansk, 27 divisions, 2 tank brigades, 19 artillery regiments of the RGK and command and control of the 50, 3rd and 13th armies of the Bryansk front were surrounded. In total, seven army directorates (out of 15 in total in the western direction), 64 divisions (out of 95), 11 tank brigades (out of 13) and 50 artillery regiments of the RGK (out of 64) were surrounded. These formations and units were part of 13 armies and one task force. Attempts to unblock the encircled, although initially planned, were not actually undertaken due to lack of forces. Rebuilding the front on the Mozhaisk line of defense became a more important task. Therefore, all breakthroughs were made only from within the "boiler". Until October 11, the encircled armies tried to break through several times, but were unsuccessful. It was only on 12 October that a breach was breached for a short time, which was soon sealed again. One way or another, the remnants of 16 divisions made their way from the Vyazma "cauldron".
Despite the lack of air supplies in noticeable quantities, the encircled troops resisted for a week after the "cauldron" was closed. Only on October 14 did the Germans manage to regroup the main forces of the 4 and 9 armies operating near Vyazma for the pursuit, which began on October 15. In the Vyazma "cauldron" were captured the commander of the 19th Army, Lieutenant General MF Lukin, the commander of the 20th Army, Lieutenant General F. A. Ershakov, and the commander of the 32nd Army, S. V. Vishnevsky. The commander of the 24th Army, Major General K. I. Rakutin, was killed at Vyazma.
October 19, 1941The commander of Army Group Center, Field Marshal Fyodor von Bock, wrote in his daily order to his troops:
“The battle for Vyazma and Bryansk led to the collapse of the Russian front echeloned deep into the depths. Eight Russian armies, consisting of 73 rifle and cavalry divisions, 13 tank divisions and brigades, and strong army artillery were destroyed in a difficult struggle against a far superior enemy.
The total trophies were: 673,098 prisoners, 1,277 tanks, 4,378 artillery pieces, 1,009 anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns, 87 aircraft and huge amounts of military supplies."
The first thing that catches your eye is the discrepancy between the number of tanks available on the three fronts (1,044 units) and the number declared in von Bock's order - 1,277 tanks. Theoretically, the number of 1,277 could be tanks at the front repair bases. However, such a discrepancy undoubtedly undermines the credibility of the adversary's figures.
What were the real losses? According to official data, the losses of Soviet troops in the Moscow strategic defensive operation from September 30 to December 5, 1941 are 658,279 people, including 514,338 people who were irretrievably lost. Let's try to isolate the Vyazemsky and Bryansk “boilers” from these figures. You can immediately subtract the losses created after the formation of the "boiler" of the Kalinin Front. 608,916 people will remain. According to Krivosheev, the Western Front lost 310,240 people from September 30 to December 5. For obvious reasons, it was impossible to obtain accurate information about the losses from the encircled armies. However, we have data on the losses of those troops that defended Moscow after the collapse of the front near Vyazma. According to reports from the department of organizational accounting and staffing of the Western Front, from October 11 to November 30, the front troops lost 165,207 people killed, missing, wounded and sick. Losses from 1 to 10 December amounted to 52 703 people [3]. This figure includes casualties in the early days of the counteroffensive. In this regard, it must be stated that the figure of 310,240 casualties declared by the Krivosheev team for the entire defensive period looks underestimated. 310 240 - 165 207 = 145 033. Let half of the losses from December 1 to 10 fall on defense, that is, for the period from December 1 to 5. In total, only 120-130 thousand people remain for the Vyazma "boiler". Such low losses in a large environment seem extremely unlikely.
On the other hand, estimates of Soviet losses of a million people and more seem to be just as far-fetched. This figure was obtained by simply subtracting from the total number of troops of two (or even three) fronts the number of those who occupied the fortifications on the Mozhaisk line (90-95 thousand people). It should be remembered that of the 16 formations of the three fronts, 4 armies (22nd and 29th Western Fronts, 31st and 33rd Reserve) and the task force of the Bryansk Front were able to avoid encirclement and complete defeat. They just found themselves out of the German "ticks". Their number was approximately 265 thousand people. Part of the rear units also had the opportunity to go east and avoid destruction. A number of subunits of the 30th, 43rd and 50th armies were also cut off from the "boilers" by the breakthroughs of the German tank groups. A number of subunits from the 3rd and 13th armies of the Bryansk Front withdrew to the zone of the neighboring South-Western Front (these armies were eventually transferred to it). The breakthrough was not such a rare occurrence. From the 13th Army, 10 thousand people left the encirclement in an organized manner, from the 20 Army - 5 thousand people, as of October 17, 1941.
Nor should we disregard the small groups of Soviet servicemen who made their way to their own "boilers". Through the forests, in roundabout ways, they could make their way for weeks to their own. Accounting for this component seems to be the most difficult thing. Keeping records in 1941 left much to be desired, and accurate screening of reinforcements from troops and commanders who had escaped from the encirclement was almost impossible. Moreover, some of the encircled people switched to partisan actions and remained in the forests near Vyazma until the winter of 1941–42. From these encircled people in February-March 1942, the Belov cavalry corps, isolated near Vyazma, were replenished. In a word, even the estimated 800 thousand people of the difference between the initial number of the Western, Reserve and Bryansk fronts and the number of troops remaining outside the "cauldrons" do not give us an unambiguous figure of losses.
Great losses make the Vyazemsky and Bryansk "cauldrons" the worst tragedies of 1941. Could it have been avoided? Unfortunately, the answer is no. There were no objective prerequisites for the timely unraveling of the enemy's plans at the headquarters of the fronts and at the General Staff of the Red Army. In general, this was a typical mistake of the side that lost its strategic initiative. Likewise, in the summer of 1944 in Belarus, the German command had already misjudged the plans of the Red Army (the main attack was expected on Army Group Northern Ukraine) and Army Group Center suffered the largest defeat in the history of the German army.
In any case, the death of three fronts surrounded by troops on the distant approaches to Moscow in October 1941 was not in vain. For a long time they chained to themselves large forces of German infantry and even tank formations of Army Group Center. The offensive on Moscow could be continued only with mobile formations of tank groups, and even then not in full strength. This made it possible to restore the collapsed front based on the Mozhaisk line of defense. When the German infantry reached this line, the Soviet defense had already been significantly strengthened at the expense of reserves. The quick capture of Moscow on the move did not take place.
