The 11th Guards Army was a Soviet field army active from 1943 to 1997-98, which traces its origins to the formation of the Soviet 16th Army in June-July 1940.
Before Operation Barbarossa, HQ 16th Army was formed in July, 1940 in the Transbaikal Military District (uniting the forces deployed in Dauriya). General Lieutenant М. F. Лукин (июнь - август 1941) took command.[1] In June 1941 it was relocated (with six Trans-Baikalian divisions) to Ukraine and subordinated to the Kiev Special Military District.[2] On 1 July 1941 the 16th Army consisted of the 32nd Rifle Corps (with the 46th and 152nd Rifle Divisions), two artillery regiments, and the 5th Mechanised Corps (13th and 17th Tank Divisions and the 109th Mechanised Division).[3] Army HQ was at Orel on 22 June 1941. The Army HQ was disbanded on 8 August 1941 after encirclement (the Battle of Smolensk (1941)) just west of Smolensk as part of the Western Front. The army was reformed three times in 1941.
In September 1941 Konstantin Rokossovsky was given command of 16th Army and tasked with blocking the Volokolamsk Highway, and barring the German forces' access towards Moscow.[4] By late November, 16th Army had gradually been forced back to a line Krasnaya Polyana-Kryukovo-Istra, but here it held firm until the Red Army went over to the offensive in December. In June 1942 however, Rokossovsky was transferred to take command of the Bryansk Front.
General Zhukov, with the approval of STAVKA, appointed Hovhannes Bagramyan commander of the 16th Army in Rokossovsky's place. The 16th Army transferred its troops to the 5th Army, and its headquarters were moved to the second echelon of the Western Front where the Army HQ took command of some troops transferred from the 10th Army, and their defensive positions. On August 11, 1942, however, German forces mounted a surprise offensive on the southern flank of Western Front, splitting the 61st Army from the 16th Army, which was not taking part in the Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive Operation.[5] The German forces threatened Bagramyan's left flank as he quickly moved his forces to counter their movements and halted them from advancing further on September 9.
For its prowess in battle, the 16th Army became the 11th Guards Army on 16 April 1943. On 1 June 1943 the 11th Guards Army consisted of the 8th Guards Rifle Corps (11, 26 и 83 гв. сд), 16th Guards Rifle Corps (1st, 16th & 31st Guards, and 169th Rifle Divisions), and the 5th, 18th, and 84th Guards, and the 108th and 217th Rifle Divisions, several artillery divisions, armoured units, and other support units.[6] The Army took part in the Orel Offensive (Operation Kutuzov), Briyansk, Gorodok, Operation Bagration, the Gumbinnen Operation the East Prussian Offensive, and finally the Battle of Königsberg under Bagramyan's command.
11th Guards ended the war in the Kaliningrad region and was based throughout the Cold War in the Kaliningrad oblast, forming part of the Baltic Military District. Pavel Batov commanded the army in the 1950s. In the 1950s it comprised 1st TD (former Tank Corps) and all the remaining Guards formations - 2nd Rifle Corps, 16th Koenigsberg Red Banner Rifle Corps (the 1st and 26th RD, 29 MD) and 36th Nemanskiy Red Banner Rifle Corps (5th and 16th Guards Rifle Divisions, 30th MD).[7] Subsequently the army's composition changed little, and for the entire postwar period it comprised the 40th Guards Tank Division (former 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps, then 28th Guards MD) at Sovetsk, and the 1st Tank, and the 1st Guards and 26th Guards MRD (former Rifle Divisions). In 1960 the 5th Guards MRD, a former Rifle Division, was disbanded.
It was disbanded in the late 1990s to form the Ground and Coastal Defence Forces of the Baltic Fleet.
Sources and references
- ^ http://samsv.narod.ru/Arm/a16/arm.htm
- ^ Lenskii 2001
- ^ Combat Composition of the Soviet Army, 1 July 1941
- ^ Constantine Rokassovsky
- ^ Jukes. Stalin's Generals, p. 27
- ^ Combat Composition of the Soviet Army, 1 June 1943
- ^ Feskov et al., The Soviet Army in the period of the Cold War, Tomsk, 2004
- http://www.victory.mil.ru/rkka/units/03/11.html
- Keith E. Bonn, Slaughterhouse: Handbook of the Eastern Front, Aberjona Press, Bedford, PA, 2005
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