BARVENKOVO-LOZOVO OPERATION 1942, offensive troops of the Southwestern and Southern Fronts in the Great Fatherland, the war, conducted from 18 to 31 January. in the area of \u200b\u200bBarvenkovo \u200b\u200band Lozovaya. The troops of the fronts were opposed by the 6th and 17th field and 1st tank, German armies. -fache. Army Group South. The defense of the pr-ka was of a focal nature, the highest density of troops was in the Donbass direction.

The idea of \u200b\u200bthe owls. command was to strike the troops of the adjacent wings of the South-West. (teams, general-l. F. Ya. Kostenko) and Yuzh. (teams, general-l. R. Ya. Malinovsky) of the fronts to break through the defenses at the junction of the 6th and 17th field armies of the pr-ka between Balakleya and Artyomovsk and, developing an offensive in the general direction of Zaporozhye, go to the rear of the Donbass the Taganrog grouping of the pr-ka, cut off the escape routes at 3., subsequently block it off the coast of the Azov m. and destroy. Part of the forces of the left wing of the South-West. Front, it was planned to strike in the general direction of Krasno-grad in order to support the operation from the north and the subsequent liberation of Kharkov. They were involved in the operation from the South-West. front 38th, 6th armies and 6th cavalry. building, from South. front - 57,37,12 and 9th armies, 1st and 5th cavalry. housing, as well as main. Air Force forces of the fronts.

The main blow was delivered by the 6th and 57th armies. The troops of the fronts had about the same number of infantry and tanks as pr-k, and only in aviation they outnumbered it by 1.4 times. However, in the composition of the owls. aviation 50% of the aircraft were outdated designs. In guns and mortars, the pr-k was superior to the owls. troops 1.2 times, and anti-tank. art and 4.5 times.

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The offensive of Marshal Shaposhnikov [History of the Second World War, which we did not know] Isaev Alexey Valerievich

Barvenkovsko-Lozovskaya offensive operation (18.01-31.01 1942)

G.K. Zhukov, postulating the need to break through a solid defense in the general onset of the winter of 1942 planned by the Supreme Command Headquarters, proceeded rather from the realities of his Western Frontrather than the peculiarities of the formation of German troops on an arbitrarily chosen sector of the Soviet-German front as a whole. The Soviet command in the winter of 1942 had the opportunity to choose a point for attack and in the formation of any of the German army groups could find weak points. This was facilitated by the fact that the enemy troops were formed unevenly, with the concentration of corps and divisions in a certain direction. This fact can be clearly illustrated by the example of the construction of Army Group South. 10 divisions defended themselves in front of the South-Western Front in a strip 370 km wide. 30 divisions, including all tank and motorized formations of Army Group South, defended in front of the Southern Front in a strip of 320 km. Thus, the operational density of enemy forces in front of the Southern Front was very high - about 11 km per division. An even higher density of troops was on the 170-km section of the front between Artyomovsk and Taganrog, where it reached 7.5 km per division. At the same time, in front of the armies of the South-Western Front, the formation of German troops was sparse. The operational density of enemy forces in this direction was 37 km per division. It is obvious that the sparse formation of enemy forces in the zone of the South-Western Front favored the breakthrough of the enemy's defenses and the development of success in depth.

As early as December 19, 1941, the Military Council of the Southwest Direction submitted to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command views on a plan for conducting operations against the German armies operating in the southwest direction. At this time, the Commander-in-Chief of the direction was Marshal S. K. Timoshenko, a member of the Military Council - N. S. Khrushchev and Chief of Staff - Lieutenant General I. Kh. Baghramyan.

Marshal SK Timoshenko proposed not only to assist the troops of the Western Front advancing in the Moscow direction, but also to carry out a major offensive operation: "with the aim of defeating the enemy in the Donbass, Krivoy Rog and the final elimination of all his attempts to move to the North Caucasus." It was proposed to push the enemy far to the west, reach the lower reaches of the Dnieper and encircle the large enemy forces advancing in the autumn of 1941 on Rostov. The general situation in the south-western direction was supposed to radically change in favor of the Soviet troops, according to the authors of the plan:

“The capture of Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye by the beginning of 1942 gives us the following benefits:

1. Deprives the enemy of the railway lines of supply to the areas of Stalino, Melitopol, Crimea.

2. Allows us to limit the active operations of the armies of the Southern Front to the Zaporozhye-Melitopol line with the transition to the defensive at this line in order to transfer the liberated divisions to the western bank of the river. Dnieper.

3. Will force the enemy to clear the Crimea and the southern Dnieper region due to difficulties with the supply because of the prospect of having a spring flood of the Dnieper in the rear.

4. Allows the Southern Front at the beginning of the spring campaign to seize the regions of Kirovograd, Krivoy Rog and Nikolaev, which will ensure our further operations in the Kiev and Odessa directions.

5. Facilitates the crossing of the Dnieper in the further development of operations with limited ferry means remaining at the disposal of the troops. "

Thus, the Military Council of the South-Western Direction proposed to the Supreme Command Headquarters a plan of an operation of colossal scope and depth. Achieving the goals set in the plan required additional human and material resources, which S.K. Timoshenko requested from the high command:

“For the successful implementation of the winter campaign for the liberation of Donbass and Left-Bank Ukraine during December and January, it is necessary to dramatically increase the inflow of human reinforcements and to replenish the materiel of artillery, tanks, aircraft, especially transport aviation. Equipping the troops of the South-West direction with tanks is of particular importance. The flat character of the terrain of the area of \u200b\u200bproposed actions allows widespread use of tank formations, which should play a particularly important role in the planned operations. "

The considerations of the High Command of the South-Western Direction on the plan of offensive actions of the fronts set out in the report were approved by the Supreme Command Headquarters. The Southwestern and Southern fronts received replenishment in the person of rifle and cavalry divisions of the formation in the fall of 1941.

The idea of \u200b\u200bthe Barvenkovo-Lozovskaya operation was to break through the enemy's defenses at the junction of the 6th and 17th armies between Balakleia and Artyomovsk, developing an offensive in the general direction beyond Zaporozhye, and simultaneously reach the rear of the Donbass-Taganrog enemy group, to push its main forces to the coast of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov and cut off its escape routes to the west. At the same time, it was intended that part of the forces of the left wing of the South-Western Front strike in the general direction of Krasnograd in order to support the operation from the north and with the prospect of the subsequent capture of Kharkov from the south. The operation involved the 6th Army of the Southwestern Front (six rifle divisions, three cavalry divisions, three tank brigades) and the 57th, 37th, 12th, 18th, 56th and 9th armies of the Southern Front (30 rifle divisions, 4 rifle brigades, 9 tank brigades, 15 cavalry divisions, 19 artillery regiments of the RGK). The 6th Army of the Southwestern Front, the 57th and 37th armies of the Southern Front - a total of 18 rifle divisions, 12 cavalry divisions, 10 tank brigades and 14 artillery regiments of the RGK were supposed to operate in the direction of the main attack.

The tasks of the fronts were detailed by operational directives of the headquarters of the South-West direction No. 02 / op of December 29 and No. 03 / op of January 6, 1942. The Southern Front by the forces of the 57th and 37th armies should have been from the Izyum - Nyrkovo line (lawsuit) (30 km south of Lisichansk) break through the defenses of the LII and XI army corps of the 17th German army and develop an offensive in two diverging operational directions. Accordingly, Lieutenant General DI Ryabyshev's 57th Army was to advance through Barvenkovo \u200b\u200bto Pavlograd in the direction of the Dnieper, while Lieutenant General AI Lopatin's 37th Army was to advance through Krasnoarmeiskoye to Bolshoi Tokmak to the rear of the enemy's Donbass grouping. The echelon of success development consisted of two cavalry corps (1st and 5th) introduced at the junction between these armies and the 9th Army transferred from the left wing of the front to the Svatov region (before entering the battle it was the reserve of the Commander-in-Chief of the direction). The task of the two cavalry corps and the 9th Army was an offensive in the direction of Zaporozhye. The ultimate task of the cavalrymen of the 57th and 9th armies was to reach the river. Dnieper and seizure of crossings at Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye. An auxiliary strike in the direction of Dzerzhinsk in order to support the actions of the front strike grouping from the south was to be delivered by the 12th Army of Major General KA Koroteev. The rest of the armies of the Southern Front offensive tasks did not receive and had to defend the occupied lines.

The main blow was delivered by the forces of the 6th Army of Major General A.M. Gorodnyansky and the 6th Cavalry Corps of Major General A.F.Bychkovsky (26, 28, 49th Cavalry Divisions and 5th Guards Tank brigade) in the general direction of Krasnograd in order to support the actions of the strike group of the Southern Front from the northwest. Simultaneously, the army of A. M. Gorodnyansky was tasked with capturing Kharkov in cooperation with the 38th Army of Major General A. G. Maslov.

The beginning of the offensive of the troops of both fronts was scheduled for January 12. In the first ten days of January, there was a regrouping of troops for the upcoming offensive. The 6th Army regrouped from 5 to 12 January. Two rifle and one cavalry divisions withdrew from its composition along with their defense sectors. The strip of the army then decreased to 55 km. Traditionally, for the shock groupings of the winter campaign of 1941/42, three divisions of the formation of the fall of 1941 arrived in the army. Thus, the size of the army increased to six rifle divisions: 253, 270, 337, 343, 393 and 411th. They were commanded, respectively, by brigade commander A.A. Neborak, colonels Z. Yu. Kutlin, S. M. Bushev, P. P. Chuvashev, I. D. Zinoviev, M. A. Pesochin. The army also included the 7th tank brigade of Colonel I. A. Yurchenko and the 13th Lieutenant Colonel A. I. Kazakov (on January 19 he was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel I. T. Klimenchuk). The total number of troops of the 6th Army as of January 1, 1942 was 38,336 people (the average staffing of the division was 6,897 people) with 531 guns and mortars. There were only 111 guns with a caliber of 105 mm and above. There were only 22 tanks in four front-line tank brigades.

The left neighbor of the 6th Army, the 57th Army of the Southern Front, under the command of one of the main participants in the Dubna battles, DI Ryabyshev, was one of the brainchilds of "permanent mobilization." Like the 1st shock, 20th and 10th armies, it consisted entirely of "three hundredth" divisions formed in the fall of 1941. It can be conditionally called "Stalingrad", since most of its formations were formed in the Stalingrad region. So, the 341st rifle division of Colonel A.I.Shagin was formed in Stalingrad itself, the 351st, 335th and 333rd divisions - in the Stalingrad region. The 349th Rifle Division of Major General FV Brailyan was formed in Astrakhan. The 60th Cavalry Division was formed on the Don, the 79th Cavalry Division - in Central Asia. The formation of the 57th Army began in October 1941, when DI Ryabyshev, who had been removed for encirclement near Melitopol, was appointed commander of a still non-existent formation. In December, the 57th Army began to transport from the Stalingrad region to the Southern Front, where 153 echelons of the army were unloaded by December 28, 1941. After unloading, the newly formed divisions marched through snow-covered fields through snowstorms and winds scorching 25-30-degree frost. baptism by fire. They did not yet know that in the coming 1942 the war would reach their homelands and the battles for the city of Stalingrad would become one of the symbols of the Second World War. The compound received weapons either immediately before departure, or already at the points of unloading. Upon arrival at the position, the 57th Army gave up the 337th Infantry Division of the 6th Army, and in return received the 255th Infantry Division of the summer 1941 formation. Thus, by the beginning of the offensive the army had 341, 351, 255, 335, 333 and 349th Infantry Divisions, 6th, 12th and 130th Tank Brigades, four artillery regiments and three PC divisions. The total number of troops of the 57th Army was 74,190 people (with an average completeness of a rifle division of 10,971 people) with 702 guns and mortars. The tank brigade of the 57th Army was staffed with 46 tanks. The rest of the armies of the shock group of the Southern Front were less numerous. The 37th Army consisted of 30,846 people (with an average completeness of the division of 5,313 people), the 9th - 29,046 people (6,260 people).

After the regrouping of the troops of the South-Western and Southern Fronts in accordance with the operation plan, the following balance of forces developed in the main sectors of the front:

1) the 6th Army of the South-Western Front on a 55-kilometer sector of the front was opposed by units of the enemy's 295th Infantry Division.

2) The 57th and 37th armies in the 115-kilometer sector of the front were opposed by the 68th, 257th and 298th infantry and 98th light infantry divisions.

The artillery density and the saturation of the advancing troops with tanks were rather low. In the breakthrough areas of the armies, a density of up to 11 medium and large-caliber guns and 5-7 tanks per 1 km of the front was created, with a total density in the bands of these armies of up to 3.5 guns and 2 tanks per 1 km of the front.

Just a day before the start of the Soviet offensive, the command of Army Group South was replaced. On January 17, Field Marshal General Walter von Reichenau, who had led the army group since the scandalous rollback from Rostov in November and December 1941, died of a heart attack. Fyodor von Bock, who arrived at the headquarters of Army Group South only on 19 January. Army Group South became a "settler" for the commanders who displeased the Fuhrer. Before von Bock, G. Goth was exiled to the southern sector of the front and led the 17th Army. In the same days, the German 6th Army was led by Friedrich Paulus. In a few months he will have to lead her to Stalingrad. In January 1942 Paulus's 6th Army was to repulse the blows of the newly formed "Stalingrad" divisions of the 6th and 57th armies.

The first Soviet offensive operation of strategic importance in the southwestern direction began in the morning of January 18, 1942 with the transition to the offensive of the 6th, 57th and 37th armies along their entire front. The artillery of the RGK by the beginning of the operation had not finished its concentration. In the 57th Army, only 40% of the RGK artillery guns were in firing positions, in the 37th Army - 62%. However, the general rule was the allocation of a tank brigade advancing in important directions to the rifle divisions as direct support for the infantry. Therefore, the German formations stretched along the front did not offer serious resistance. However, the Germans managed to keep two important communication centers, leaving only the routes passing through Izyum at the disposal of the Soviet command. The Germans were faithful to their idea of \u200b\u200bidentifying on the ground a “centerboard”, the retention or capture of which is of key importance for the operation as a whole. On the right flank of the offensive, in the zone of the 6th Army, the city of Balakleya became the center of resistance. The assault on Balakley by the 253rd rifle division of the brigade commander A.A.Neborak with the 13th tank brigade did not bring success. On the contrary, the 411th Infantry Division of the 6th Army, which was advancing together with the 7th Tank Brigade, was confidently advancing, and its success was used by the neighbors on the right and left - the 337th and 393rd Infantry Divisions.

The commander of the Southern Front, R. Ya. Malinovsky, decided not to create a mobile group of front importance from the existing tank brigades, but to attach the brigades to rifle divisions as a means of direct support for the infantry. Reinforced with tanks, the divisions of the 57th Army moved forward rather briskly in the Izyum direction. The 341st Infantry Division, advancing on the right flank of the army, together with the 6th Tank Brigade covered 20 km in four days. The neighboring 351st Infantry Division, together with the 130th Tank Brigade, had advanced 20-22 km by January 21. The German 298th Infantry Division opposing them fought deterrent battles on a 40 km wide front. After the first days of fighting, only two guns remained in the formation. Formations on the left flank of the 57th Army advanced worse. The 255th rifle division with the 12th tank brigade of V.M.Badanov advanced 18 km in four days, the 335th rifle division - 6-12 km and the 333rd rifle division, which met especially stubborn enemy resistance and was not reinforced tanks, did not advance at all.

The ability of the command of Army Group South to fend off the Soviet offensive by that time was very limited. The 88th Infantry Division, being transferred from Germany, arrived at a rate of one train a day. The 1st Romanian division was transported from Romania. The 113th Infantry Division, intended to stabilize the situation in Crimea, was forced to turn around to close the gap made by the Soviet offensive. The 100th light infantry division was withdrawn from the first line of the XIV motorized corps and was preparing to be transferred to the Krasnoarmeiskiy area. Also, the 73rd Infantry Division was withdrawn from the reserve of Kleist's 1st Panzer Army.

If the offensive of the 6th and 57th armies was accompanied by success, the offensive of the 37th army on the left flank of the strike group of the Southern Front quickly got bogged down in positional battles. Soviet troops encountered a “diving center” in the form of the town of Slavyanok on the left flank. The army only managed to break into the enemy's defenses east of Slavyansk. The 257th Infantry Division, thrown back by the left-flank formations of the 57th Army, was used by the German command to bend the flank of the 17th Army by the front to the north in the Slavyansk region. This city became an important stronghold of the enemy, the retention of which made it possible to control the railways and highways passing through Slavyanka. However, in the initial period of the operation, the command of the South-West direction did not pay due attention to expanding the penetration, fully focusing on advancing in depth. The 12th and 38th armies operating in the auxiliary axes did not achieve any significant advance. In this regard, the question of capturing Kharkov in the course of the Barvenkovo-Lozovskaya operation disappeared by itself already in the first days of the offensive.

So far, only the actions of the 6th and 57th armies gave hope for the success of the operation. During the first four days of the operation, the formations of the two armies broke through the enemy's front in the 75 km wide sector from Balakliya to Slavyansk and advanced in the directions of their main attacks to a depth of 25 km. Favorable conditions were created for entering the breakthrough in the zone of the 57th army of the mobile group of the Southern Front, consisting of the 1st and 5th cavalry corps. Both corps were supposed to advance to the south and southeast, cutting off the communications of the enemy's Donbass grouping. Major General A. Grechko's 5th Cavalry Corps (34th, 60th and 79th Cavalry Divisions and 132nd Tank Brigade) by the end of January 21 was concentrated in the Dmitrievka, Bazaleevka, Brazhovka area, having the task to enter from the morning of January 22 in a breakthrough in the general direction of Malaya Kamyshevakha, Barvenkovo, and having captured them, advance south into the deep rear of the enemy opposing the 37th and 12th armies. Before entering the corps into the breakthrough, Marshal SK Timoshenko ordered the commander of the Southern Front to transfer the 351st Infantry Division of Colonel N. U. Gursky and the 130th Tank Brigade of Colonel E.G. Pushkin to the subordination of A.A. Grechko. The second mobile unit of the front, the 1st Cavalry Corps of Major General F.A. Parkhomenko (35, 36, 68th Cavalry Divisions and 15th Tank Brigade), was supposed to move the troops of the 57th Army through the Seversky Donets and exit to the front Dolgenkaya, Krasnopole-2 (on the Slavyansk - Izium highway) to break through in the general direction to Dolgenkaya, Vasilyevka and further to the southeast. On the morning of January 21, the corps began to advance and by the end of the day reached the Dolgenkaya area. By the morning of January 22, he was ready to fulfill the task assigned to him.

In the afternoon of January 22, the 6th and 57th armies, which had previously advanced along parallel routes, began to disperse. The 57th Army began to turn to the southeast, gradually crossing the Lozovaya - Barvenkovo \u200b\u200b- Slavyansk railway. Most of the army turned out to be west of Barvenkov. The 341st Infantry Division and the 6th Panzer Brigade, pursuing units of the retreating 298th Infantry Division, fought 20 kilometers northwest of Barvenkovo. The 351st Infantry Division bypassed Barvenkovo \u200b\u200bfrom the north and cut the Lozovaya-Barvenkovo \u200b\u200brailway to the west of the latter. On January 23, the formations of the 57th Army finally turned to the southwest and, together with the 5th Cavalry Corps, engaged in battles for and around Barvenkovo. The reserve of the army commander, the 349th Rifle Division, was brought into battle. By the evening of January 23, by the joint efforts of the 351st Rifle Division, 130th Tank Brigade and 5th Cavalry Corps, Barvenkovo \u200b\u200bwas liberated. Favorable conditions were created for bypassing the enemy grouping near Slavyansk from the west. For the city of Slavyansk itself, the 335th Infantry Division led unsuccessful battles with the front to the south. The 12th Panzer Brigade (which had previously operated together with the 255th Division), sent to her aid, was left without fuel and stood idle in anticipation of it. During January 25-27, the 57th Army's formations reached the approaches to Lozovaya and advanced 25-30 km west and south-west of Barvenkovo. The 5th Cavalry Corps advanced 30 km south of Barvenkovo.

On the right flank of the offensive, the operation entered the phase of the struggle for the German-held "centerboard" in the Balakleya area. The 6th Army of A. M. Gorodnyansky fought for this communications center. The 253rd and 337th rifle divisions, 7th and 13th tank brigades were aimed at the city. Part of the forces of the 411th Infantry Division also attacked Balakleia. Only the 393rd and 270th rifle divisions advanced to the west, which soon cut the Kharkov-Lozovaya railway. On January 23, the 6th Cavalry Corps entered the breakthrough. However, having reached the village of Alekseevka on the river. Orel south of Kharkov, the corps was inactive there for four days, which was the subject of proceedings by the front command. The corps commander A. F. Bychkovsky was removed from his post, and his place was taken by K. S. Moskalenko.

On the morning of January 25, the 270th rifle division, which had just liberated the settlement of Krasnopavlovka, received the task of capturing the town of Lozovaya. The turn of the 57th Army to the southwest forced the 6th Army to expand the front of the offensive, into which a large railway junction, Lozovaya, fell. The 270th Infantry Division captured Lozova by 27 January. Meanwhile, the forward detachments of the 411th and 393rd rifle divisions reached the line of the r. Orel. Since a significant part of the 6th Army's forces got involved in positional battles near Balakleya, the advance to the west at this line stopped.

To counteract the flanking maneuver in the direction of Krasnoarmeiskoe, the command of Army Group South on January 28 created the "Mackensen Group" under the leadership of the commander of the III Motorized Corps E. von Mackensen. Subordinated to him were the 100th Light Infantry Division, the 14th Panzer Division, the 11th Army Corps (298th Infantry Division, the 1st Romanian Infantry Division), as well as numerous other small, hastily assembled military units (which included Italians, Hungarians , Croats and Walloons). As elsewhere, the grouping for the counterstrike was assembled by the Germans by dismantling the tank armies that were advancing in the fall of 1941. On the way of the 6th and 57th armies to the Dnieper, 113th infantry and 454th security divisions and Eberhard's 60th tank battalion lined up. Formally, there was no tank battalion with such a number in the Wehrmacht, but the 50th Tank Battalion "appears both in E. von Mackensen's memoirs and in von Bock's diary. Apparently, we are talking about a temporary unit from units of the 60th Motorized Division.

Moving southwest on January 28-29, the 57th Army achieved a major success by capturing Petropavlovka, a settlement on the main and only supply line of German troops in the Donbass. In essence, DI Ryabyshev fulfilled the task assigned to the 5th Cavalry Corps of AA Grechko, which got stuck in the battles at Krasnoarmeiskiy. However, by this moment the attention of the command of the Southern Front was focused on the base of the wedge driven into the enemy's defenses. In view of the stubborn resistance of the enemy in the area of \u200b\u200bSlavyansk and Artemovsk, the commander of the Southern Front R. Ya. Malinovsky decided to take advantage of the advance to the west of the 57th Army and go to the rear of the stubbornly resisting Slavic group of the enemy. This task was supposed to be solved by a strike in the converging directions of the 1st, 5th cavalry corps and the 9th army, bypassing Slavyansk from the west and 37th army - from the east.

As part of the implementation of this plan, the troops were ordered: 57th Army - to advance to the southwest, securing the right wing of the front; 5th Cavalry Corps - to enter the area of \u200b\u200bKrasnoarmeisky, and 1st Cavalry Corps to advance in the direction of Konstantinovka (35 km south of Slavyansk). Accordingly, the 9th Army was to deploy north of Slavyansk, bypass the enemy's grouping in the area of \u200b\u200bSlavyansk and Kramatorsk from the west and, in cooperation with the 37th Army, destroy it. At the same time, a constraining offensive by the troops of the 12th and 18th armies was envisaged.

By the end of January 29, the 9th Army began to occupy positions north of Slavyansk. Initially, the 9th Army consisted of the 51st and 317th rifle divisions, the 11th, 78th rifle brigades, the 23rd rifle regiment, the 38th, 66th cavalry divisions. With the introduction into battles, the 1st and 5th cavalry corps, consisting of 35, 56, 58, 60, 79th cavalry divisions, 73rd cavalry regiment, 15th, 132nd tank brigades, were included in it. The army consisted of 41 thousand people, 44 tanks, 500 guns and mortars, 246 heavy machine guns, 1159 light machine guns and machine guns. From the 57th army, the 335th and 333rd rifle divisions, the 12th tank brigade, a number of artillery and anti-tank units were transferred to it. The withdrawal from the army of two divisions and a tank brigade against the background of the stretching of the front of the offensive predetermined the end of the active actions of the army of DI Ryabyshev on January 29. The army occupied the front against the XI Corps in the west of the Barvenkovo \u200b\u200bledge and the 100th light infantry division south of Barvenkov.

The transfer of the efforts of the troops of the South-Western and Southern fronts to the flanks, to Balaklea and Slavyansk, led to the fact that the development of the operation by the end of January 1942 practically stopped. On the contrary, the regrouping of the troops of Army Group South, begun in the early days of the Soviet offensive, was completed by the end of January. This allowed the Germans to launch a counteroffensive.

On January 31, 1942, both sides were offensive. The 37th Army plunged 4 km into the depths of the German defense. At the same time, combat group Hube (commander of the 16th Panzer Division), consisting of the 14th Panzer and 100th Light Infantry Divisions, began the offensive. Originally created from the 60th tank battalion and several construction units, the "Kollerman strike group" managed to recapture Petropavlovka and restore movement along the main communications of German troops in the Donbass. This day in the Soviet history of the war is considered the last day of the Barvenkovo-Lozovskaya operation. Formally, this day can be considered the end of the maneuverable phase of the operation. After that, the battles entered the positional phase. Attempts to crush the defenses at Slavyansk and Balakliya lasted for almost a month, until the end of February 1942. Simultaneously, A.A. Grechko's cavalry corps and the 57th Army were conducting mobile combat operations against Mackensen's group advancing north of Krasnoarmeyskoye. The main task of the German troops at this stage of the battle was the formation of an integral and stable front along the perimeter of the Barvenkovsky ledge formed as a result of the offensive of two Soviet fronts.

The first days of February raged with snowstorms, which forced the troops of Army Group South and the two Soviet fronts to abandon large-scale attacks on each other's positions. However, after the weather improved, starting on February 7, the opponents began offensive operations in key directions for each of the sides. Soviet troops attacked Slavyansk from both sides, but all attacks were repulsed. At the same time, Mackensen's group was advancing northward. As the situation stabilized, the command of Army Group South began to move from temporary "groups" to traditional methods of control. Already on February 9, the XI Corps was withdrawn from the subordination of the Mackensen group. In the following days, in the diary of the commander of Army Group South, von Bock, the words about the "strong", "conducted by large forces" offensive of the Soviet troops to the west of Slavyansk are heard as a refrain.

Battles with the aim of capturing key communication centers were also fought in the zone of the South-Western Front. On February 13, 1942, the 6th Cavalry Corps of KS Moskalenko was withdrawn to the reserve. However, on February 18, the German XI Army Corps reached the approaches to Lozovaya. The crisis that arose here, the front command was forced to fend off with a counterattack by the 6th Cavalry Corps and 270th Infantry Division. From February 20 to early March, KS Moskalenko's corps fought in the Lozovaya area, eventually occupying a front 30-35 km wide west of the city.

The von Mackensen group gradually pushed back the troops of the 57th Army from the main communications of troops in the Donbass. The villages to the south of the Lozovaya-Slavyansk road changed hands several times. On February 18, the 1st Mountain Jaeger Division began to arrive at the "von Mackensen group" after a foot march and transportation by rail. On February 25, preparations began for the continuation of our offensive planned for March 1. The 1st Mountain Division was moved between the groups of Hube and Kollerman, which were subordinate to her.

In March, the offensive impulse of both sides exhausted itself. The harsh and snowy winter had to end sooner or later. On March 24, the snow began to melt, and with it the period of spring thaw came to the front. March and April, beginning in the spring of 1942, became the traditional time of operational pause, when both the Wehrmacht and the Red Army were recovering from the winter campaign and were intensively preparing for the summer offensives.

Operation results

The tasks assigned by the Supreme Command Headquarters to the troops of the South-Western and Southern Fronts to reach the Dnieper and intercept the communications of the enemy's Donbass grouping as a result of the Barvenkovsko-Lozovskaya operation were not completed. The incompleteness of the operation was largely due to the slow development of the breakthrough and the untimely adoption of measures to expand it towards the flanks. This allowed the enemy to strengthen his groupings at the base of the breakthrough in the Balakliya and Slavyansk regions and organize stubborn resistance here.

The enemy, holding these strong points at the base of the breakthrough, with his counterattacks created a threat to the flanks and rear of the strike forces of the Southwestern and Southern fronts. In this regard, it was necessary to abandon the use of the 9th Army for the development of the operation in depth and send it to eliminate the enemy grouping in the area of \u200b\u200bSlavyansk and Artemovsk. Moreover, for the same purpose, a significant part of the forces of the 57th Army and the echelon of success development in the person of the front-line cavalry group were used. In essence, the attackers became hostages of the tasks set to great depths. It seems more expedient to divide the operation into two stages. During the first stage, enemy strongpoints in communication centers are surrounded by strikes in converging directions to a shallow depth. At the second stage, relying on these points, an offensive is carried out to great depth. At the same time, one can understand the motivations for starting an offensive immediately to great depth. It was obvious that the enemy would dismantle the Rostov grouping and restore at the expense of its integrity the front. Conducting local operations in the initial phase of the offensive concealed the danger of a collision with a barrier castled from Donbass from the mobile units of Kleist's tank army.

As a result of the offensive in the southwestern direction in January - February 1942, the Barvenkovsky ledge was formed, which could become both a springboard for a new large-scale offensive, and a trap for the armies that occupied it. Moreover, without political damage (the war was fought on the territory of the USSR), the Red Army could not evacuate this bridgehead extended to the Dnieper, despite its obvious vulnerability to flank attacks. The situation was worsened by the division of a rather narrow ledge between the two fronts. The northern part of the Barvenkovo \u200b\u200bledge was under the jurisdiction of the South-Western Front, and the southern part - the Southern Front. This required subtle team play by the troops of both fronts. As further events will show, organizing such a game will be very difficult.

Like other offensives of the Red Army in the winter campaign of 1941/42, the Barvenkovsko-Lozovskaya operation was carried out with ambitious plans, but not with the tools corresponding to them. Cavalry divisions, although they were not an obsolete means of struggle, were still significantly inferior in their capabilities to independent mechanized formations. In addition, all the cavalry corps at the front's disposal were composed of so-called "light" (sometimes called raid) cavalry divisions. In the eight cavalry divisions of the Southern Front (30, 38, 66, 35, 56, 58, 60 and 79th) on January 15, 1942, there were 21,013 soldiers and commanders, 20,240 horses, 296 guns and mortars, 157 easel and anti-aircraft machine guns, 13 315 rifles.

The German command did not have large reserves in the southern sector of the front, and the Soviet offensive was repulsed mainly by regrouping within Army Group South with the traditional dismantling of the strike group in the Rostov direction in such cases. At the same time, the absence of large reserves did not allow the command of Army Group South to radically solve the problem of the Barvenkovsky ledge, which had wedged into the defenses. It was cut off only in May 1942. When the Soviet command tried to reproduce the ideas of the Barvenkovo-Lozovskaya operation in the winter of 1943, the counterstrike with fresh forces was made much faster, which led to truly catastrophic consequences in just a few weeks. In 1942, the cutting of the Barvenkovsky ledge stretched to the Dnieper occurred a few months after its formation - in May 1942.

The Barvenkovsko-Lozovskaya operation, like other offensives of the winter of 1942, was rich in trophies. Soviet troops captured 658 guns, 40 tanks and armored vehicles, 843 machine guns, 331 mortars, 6013 vehicles, 573 motorcycles, 1095 bicycles, 23 radio stations, more than 100 thousand mines, about 80 thousand shells, more than a million cartridges, over 23 thousand handheld grenades, 430 wagons with ammunition and military supplies, 8 echelons with military-economic equipment, 24 warehouses with various military supplies, 2400 carts, 2800 horses.