Chapter 8

STRATEGIC DEPLOYMENT

Having finished (for now) with all hypotheses, let us return again to military history, i.e. exact science of numbers, dates, documents. Let's start, as it should be in science, with terms and definitions. What exactly do the words "strategic deployment" that we encountered so often in the last chapter mean? In the language of military academies, the answer to this question sounds something like this: Strategic deployment is understood as a set of measures and actions for the transfer of the Armed Forces from a peaceful position to a military one and the creation of groupings of the Armed Forces in theaters of military operations.

The most important components of strategic deployment are:

Transfer of the Armed Forces from a peaceful position to a military one (mobilization deployment),

Operational deployment (creation and formation of groupings of troops in theaters of military operations),

- strategic regroupings of troops from the interior of the country to and between theaters of war,

Deployment of priority strategic reserves.

Translated from academic language into human language, strategic deployment - in relation to the Red Army of the 1941 model of the year (and not in general to any other army in the world) - consisted in the following:

Firstly, it is necessary to complete the peacetime army with people and equipment up to standard wartime standards;

Secondly, to load troops, equipment and ammunition into railway trains and take them to the western regions of the USSR;

Thirdly, to unload the soldiers, guns and tanks from the echelons and bring them to those areas where they must prepare for combat operations and wait for orders.

The peculiarity of the strategic deployment of the Red Army consisted mainly in two points.

We have already discussed one of them in Chapter 2, but due to the exceptional significance of this, it is not a sin to repeat it: the number of divisions (regiments, brigades) of the Red Army, already during the pre-war covert mobilization, was almost completely brought up to the planned size of the wartime army. In the first three months after the announcement of open mobilization, it was planned to form only a very limited (30, i.e., about 15% of the original) number of rifle divisions. Shooting. All tank and motorized divisions, separate artillery regiments and brigades had already been formed in the course of a two-year covert mobilization (and were also kept in wartime states or the so-called "reinforced" states, which make up 80% of wartime states). Thus, the mobilization deployment of the Red Army at the first stage was reduced only to completion of existing parts and connections personnel and horses, cars and tractors.

The second feature of the strategic deployment of the land army of the Soviet Union was the huge size of the country, due to which the volume and duration of rail transport were unusually large. The huge size of the country is undeniable and very significant for the preparation and conduct of war. advantage. German generals would be very happy if they could locate tank and artillery factories, chemical plants that produce explosives, and training centers that train soldiers and officers, several thousand kilometers from the border. But the geographical conditions of the country did not provide them with such luxury, so hundreds of thousands of bombs from the Anglo-American aircraft fell on all the industrial centers of Germany without exception. The fact that in the Soviet Union an echelon with tanks had to spend a week on the way from the Chelyabinsk plant to the front is just a "feature" that should be taken into account when drawing up plans for strategic deployment, and not at all a "trouble" about which it is necessary to arrange another "lament of Yaroslavna" on the pages of historical books.

In concrete terms, the situation was as follows. In the spring of 1941, 4.8 million people served in all the Armed Forces of the USSR (army, aviation, navy). In May-June, during the so-called “big training camps” (it was not an improvisation, but an operation originally conceived and given this name in advance), another 802 thousand people were mobilized by personal agendas, without a public announcement of general mobilization. Total: 5.6 million people were put under arms before June 23, 1941. In total, after the complete mobilization of all military districts of the European part of the USSR (including the Ural and North Caucasian districts), the total number of armed forces according to the MP-41 plan was to be 7,85 million people. (3, p. 83, 4, p. 643) By dividing one number by another, we get the so-called "expansion coefficient", i.e. the scale factor for the growth of the army. In the USSR, it was very small, only 1.40. Or, in other words, the size of the army already in peacetime was 71% of the size of the wartime army. In other European countries, the size of the army after mobilization increased significantly. So, in Germany, by August 25, 1939 (five days before the start of the war), only 35% of wartime ground forces divisions were mobilized. In France, the size of the army since the beginning of mobilization has increased 4 times, in impoverished Finland, which could not maintain a large army in peacetime, 9 times.

Of course, the available human contingents were not evenly distributed. Of course, the troops of the western border districts were much better equipped than the troops of the rear of the Ural or Volga Military District. As early as May 21, 1940 (this is not a typo - exactly the fortieth year), by the Decree of the Politburo of the Central Committee No. 16/158, it was decided to maintain peacetime rifle divisions in the following numbers: 98 divisions of the western districts for 12 or more thousand people, 3 divisions - for 9 thousand and 43 divisions of internal districts - 6 thousand people each. (6, p. 617) A year later, in May-June 1941, 802 thousand people mobilized during the "big training camps" (BUS) were sent precisely to complete the units and formations of the western districts, as well as the armies advancing to the West second strategic echelon. " At the same time, the composition of the rifle divisions of the border districts, with a staffing strength of 14,483 people, was increased: 21 divisions - up to 14 thousand people, 72 divisions - up to 12 thousand people and 6 rifle divisions - up to 11 thousand people". (3, p. 83) I specifically cited a complete quotation from the collective work of military historians of the General Staff "1941 - Lessons and Conclusions" (1992), because there is hardly another fact in the history of the beginning of the war that would be misrepresented with such strength and perseverance. Zhukov's famous phrase, repeated in hundreds of publications, can be considered an exemplary example of elegant shamelessness: Our divisions, even 8,000 strong, are almost two times weaker than the German". Well, isn't that adorable? There is nothing to object. The number 8 is practically (and even theoretically) two times less than 16. Zhukov can still be understood - he wrote his memoirs in an era when it was simply impossible to assume the possibility of declassifying authentic documents on the eve of the war. Another thing is strange: even in 2004, 700-page monographs were published in which the numerical strength of the rifle divisions of the border districts was deliberately underestimated. (33)

It would be logical to compare the level of staffing of the Red Army divisions with the state of affairs in the enemy troops. Unfortunately, in the two decades spent reading military history literature, I have not been able to find a single figure characterizing the staffing of Wehrmacht divisions on the Eastern Front as of June 22, 1941. Of course, this is my flaw. I admit, but I dare to assume that it is not accidental either. The German generals and historians were not interested in the annoying search for at least some “good reasons” for the defeat - they had no defeats in the summer of 1941. The Soviet historians, who had access to the captured Wehrmacht documents, did not publish what they saw there, because for the German division, which had been fighting for the second year, the staffing of 85% of the regular strength was, most likely, an unattainable ideal ... Anyway, none, but 85 is less than 100, and full staffing is undoubtedly better than "almost full." It took time to go from “almost full” to full-fledged “full”. It remains only to find out the quantitative measure of this time: weeks, months, years? Refraining from further amateurish discussions, we will quote from the monograph of General Vladimirsky (in 1941 - Deputy Chief of the Operations Department of the Headquarters of the 5th Army of the Kyiv Regional Military District), who knew almost everything about the mobilization readiness of his army on duty:

« ... Mobilization plans in all rifle formations and units were worked out. They were systematically checked by higher headquarters, refined and corrected ...

... From May 20, 1941, for the purpose of retraining, all the privates and sergeants of the reserve were involved in 45-day training camps with rifle divisions. This made it possible to increase the number of personnel of each rifle division yes 12-12.5 thousand people, or up to 85-90 percent of the wartime staff ...

... The envisaged procedure for mobilization basically boiled down to the following. Each part was divided into two mobilization echelons. The first mobilization echelon included 80-85 percent of the personnel of the unit ... First echelon readiness period to go on a campaign to carry out a combat mission was installed at 6 o'clock (underlined by me. - M.S.)The second mobilization echelon of the unit included 15-20 percent of the personnel, as well as the entire reserve staff that arrived on mobilization. Ready period for the second echelon was established: for formations stationed in the border zone, as well as for the air defense and air force troops - no later than the first day of mobilization, and for all other connections - in a day…

... All connections and parts were established sheltered from the air areas of mobilization outside the points of their deployment, and also determined the order of entry of units into these areas and cover them during mobilization. According to the conclusion of the commissions of the army and district headquarters, which checked the state of mobilization readiness of rifle formations and units in May-June 1941, all rifle divisions and corps units were recognized ready to be mobilized on time… » (28)

Now let's take a breath and think about what we've read.

The traditional version of Soviet historiography is well known: the Red Army needed at least a whole year to "prepare for war." The Germans did not chivalrously wait and treacherously attacked the "peacefully sleeping country". In a slightly more refined version, these fables sounded like this: “The Wehrmacht’s rapid advance inland disrupted the course of mobilization. This was the reason ... "In fact, mobilization deployment of the Red Army was close to completion. The rifle divisions of the western districts (that is, the main backbone of the army of that era and, we note, the main force in the defense!) actually completed their mobilization, and the planned terms of their readiness for combat operations were no longer calculated in days, but in hours. A small "appendage" (the second mobilization echelon) was to be brought to full readiness in one or two days. With what speed was the "rapid advance of the Wehrmacht" to develop, in which the Red Army could be deprived of these few hours? Was the USSR similar in size to Luxembourg or Denmark, which the Wehrmacht was able to occupy in one day?

Everything that we have listed so far applies to rifle divisions. Simply put - to the infantry, the main weapons of which were a rifle and a machine gun. To remember how these items should be used, the reservist, who had previously served two (or three) years of active service, could very quickly. Really in a matter of hours. Technically complex branches of the armed forces (artillery, tanks, aviation), where an excellent composition requires a much larger set of knowledge and skills, were already in peacetime kept in states as close as possible to wartime states. Even before the implementation of the BUS in motorized and tank divisions, in the artillery regiments of the RGK, in anti-aircraft units, almost the entire combat strength was already there. Thus, the staffing table of a tank division approved on July 6, 1940 assumed the presence of 10,493 people in peacetime and 11,343 in wartime. As you can see, the deployment factor is negligible - 1.08. With the announcement of mobilization, only a certain number of political, administrative, technical and service personnel had to be called up. The same situation of mobilization readiness was in aviation and air defense units.

« ... The Air Force was in easier conditions of mobilization, since the flight personnel of the units were mainly kept in wartime states ... Therefore the terms of combat readiness of the air regiments were no more than 2-4 hours. Airfield maintenance battalions and air bases were mobilized in two echelons. The first echelon had terms of readiness corresponding to the terms of the serviced part, and the second was staffed on 3-4th day mobilization...

... The mobilization of the air defense forces was also planned by echelon. The first echelon had constant combat readiness for up to 2 hours. The second echelon had a deadline for 1-2 days mobilization...

... Thus, out of 303 divisions that were to be mobilized according to the MP-41 plan, - 172 divisions had full readiness terms on the 2nd-4th day of mobilization, - 60 divisions - on the 4-5th day, - the rest - on 6-10 days.

All remaining combat units, front-line rears and military educational institutions were mobilized on the 8th-15th day. Full mobilization of the Armed Forces was envisaged for 15-30 days". (3, p.79)

The question of mobilization deployment can also be approached from another angle. For the full staffing of 198 rifle, 13 cavalry, 61 tank, 31 motorized divisions, you must have about 4 million human. And by June 22, there were 5.6 million people in the Armed Forces of the USSR, of which 4.4 million people (79% of the total) - in the ground forces. At first glance - "there are already more people than necessary." Why call on another 2.25 million (7.85-5.6) people? Where to send them? Of course, these people are not at all superfluous for the army, although we were not mistaken in simple arithmetic. The whole point is that the Armed Forces is a complex, multi-link, "multi-tiered" mechanism. The expression "to put under arms" is just an established metaphor. Even on that “tier” that is directly facing the enemy, i.e. in the rifle division of the army, not everyone carries out their service with a "gun in their hands." So, according to the April (1941) state in the rifle division are:

22 shoemakers (camping shoe repair shops);

19 postmen (field post office);

11 konovalov (separate veterinary hospital);

9 shepherds (horse drivers);

11 pastors (department of political propaganda).

All these services and all these people are needed, although even without them, the division can still fight through those 1-2-3 days that it needs to fully replenish. The number (absolute and relative) of auxiliary, administrative, economic services is rapidly growing in other "tiers" of the military machine. Along with divisions and individual (mainly artillery and anti-aircraft) units, the active army also includes numerous transport, sanitary, road, repair and technical, supply services and subunits. For example, in 1941, in the operating army of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front, the total number of personnel (3.3 million people) was 1.5 times higher than the regular strength of all divisions allocated for operations on this front. But the active army is only a part of the Armed Forces. A huge number of people carry out their military service in the deepest rear. Thus, in the Soviet Union during the last two years of the war, the size of the active army (about 6.5 million people) was only 57-58% of the total personnel of the Armed Forces. (2, pp. 138, 152) It was the auxiliary, sanitary, rear services - and not the divisions on the western border at all - that were the main "recipient" of the personnel arriving as part of open mobilization. We repeat again and again - there are no "extra parts" in the military machine. All of them are needed and created for a reason. However, the shortage of personnel in the tank training ground near Chelyabinsk or the artillery school in Tomsk hardly had any effect on the course and outcome of the border battle in Western Belarus.

Let's sum up the first result. There were no problems with staffing the army with personnel. In the combat units of the western districts, by June 22, 1941, this staffing was completed to the extent that, without a doubt, made it possible to conduct organized combat operations. Much worse was the situation with the staffing of troops with vehicles and means of mechanized artillery. And there were at least two major reasons for this.

The first is Stalin's (and in a more general sense, eternally inherent in all Eastern despotisms) gigantomania. Gigantomania in everything: in the number of simultaneously formed motorized formations (tank and motorized rifle divisions, anti-tank artillery brigades, heavy artillery regiments of the RGK), and in the huge, insanely inflated staffing standards for mechanized traction equipment (which we discussed in detail in Chapter 5). Maybe at the moment (in May 1941), when it was decided to postpone the invasion of Europe from the spring of 1942 to the end of the summer of 1941, it would be worthwhile to stop the formation of 20 new mechanized corps, and use all available resources to fully staff nine already available. Or maybe not - even a one-third-equipped mechanized corps was a shock tank formation, in most respects superior to a Wehrmacht tank division equipped “to the last button”. This question is complex, and the answer to it requires special military knowledge. In any case, such a decision was not made, and the available equipment continued to be sprayed over a hundred motorized units. Secondly, covert mobilization - thanks to which the divisions of the western districts were almost completely manned - did little to equip the troops with vehicles. The resources of the Soviet Union (as, indeed, of any other country of that time) did not allow hundreds of thousands of cars and tens of thousands of tractors to be withdrawn from the national economy without very serious and, most importantly, noticeable consequences to the outside eye. Probably, the unwillingness to leave the collective farms without tractors before the completion of the main field work also played a role.

As a result, the following situation has developed. In February 1941, the Red Army already had 34 thousand tractors(caterpillar tractors), 201 thousand trucks and special, 12.6 thousand cars cars. (4, p. 622) Which in itself is a lot. As noted above, this number of tractors already doubled the available number of heavy guns. But it was still far from full staffing according to the requirements of the MP-41 mobilization plan. On the other hand, in February 1941, the equipment of the Red Army with military equipment was by no means completed. The factories worked in three shifts, in 1940 the Soviet industry produced 32 thousand tractors of all types and purposes. The military order of 1941 was 13,150 tractors and tractors. (4, p. 617). The number of vehicles in the Red Army by June 1941 had grown to 273,000. (2, p. 363) Finally, on June 23, open mobilization was announced, and, despite all the chaos and confusion of the catastrophic start of the war, by July 1, 1941, more 31.5 thousand tractors and 234 thousand cars(3, p. 115) On average, each of the 303 Soviet divisions (of all types, in all districts) theoretically accounted for 220 tractors and 1670 cars each. Average. This means that in the divisions of the western border districts there should have been twice as much equipment - mobilized cars and tractors were not sent to the Siberian district ...

But domestic military historians can’t calm down their lamentations in any way: “Little ... few ... few ... Blatant unpreparedness ... Lack of prescribed means of mechanized traction ... in the Urals Military District, the mobilization need was provided by means of mechanized traction only from 9 to 45% ... "(3) Terrible thing. You read this - and the reason for the unprecedented defeat immediately becomes clear: there were not enough tractors beyond the Urals. Now let's convert percentages to units. Even 9% of the state is 6 tractors in a howitzer regiment, located in the deepest rear, many thousands of kilometers from any border. Six tractors are enough for the drivers to practice towing guns from morning to evening, and the gun crews of a full howitzer battery (4 guns) worked out the march and reaching firing positions. All the other guns of the regiment are where they are supposed to be: in a guarded warehouse, in factory lubrication. Why carry them around? Well, 45% of the state is already 32 tractors. In this form, the regiment can be loaded onto railway platforms and sent from beyond the Urals to the front. Four "horseless" howitzers will not be superfluous - they can, for example, be used as a reserve for immediate replenishment of losses. A 122-mm howitzer (whose weight roughly corresponds to the weight of a Volga car) could well be towed by a ZIS-5 truck, and light tanks from the reconnaissance battalion of a rifle division could also be used as a tractor.

Nevertheless, in this case, Soviet historians are absolutely right. Even after the open mobilization, the Red Army did not receive the prescribed amount of mechanized traction equipment. According to the mobilization plan, the MP-41 of the Red Army required 90.8 thousand tractors and 595 thousand cars. This quantity was not available. The shortfall in both cars and tractors was almost 28% of the mobilization requirement. Needs, twice the standard norms, which, in turn, imply a double redundancy of mechanical traction. According to the traditional version, it was this “blatant unpreparedness for war” that led to astronomical losses in the material part of artillery in the summer of 1941.

Mobilization deployment (mobilization) is an important, but not the only, component of the entire complex of strategic deployment. Let us now consider how three other interrelated tasks were carried out (strategic regrouping of troops from the interior regions of the country to the theaters of operations, the creation and formation of groupings of troops in the theaters of operations, the deployment of priority strategic reserves).

The last of the known pre-war documents - the certificate "On the deployment of the Armed Forces of the USSR in case of war in the West", signed by the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army N. Vatutin on June 13, 1941 - provided for the following distribution of ground forces: (TsAMO, f. 16A, op 2951, d. 236, l. 65-69)

186 divisions (out of 303), 10 (out of 10) anti-tank artillery brigades, 5 (out of 5) airborne corps, 53 (out of 74) RGK artillery regiments as part of active fronts;

51 divisions consisting of five (22, 19, 16, 24, 28) armies of the reserve of the High Command deployed in the strip from the western border to the Bryansk-Rzhev line;

31 divisions in the Far East (as part of the troops of the Trans-Baikal Military District and the Far Eastern Front);

35 divisions "on the secondary sections of the state border" (so in the text. - M.S.), including 3 divisions in the Crimea.

Of the 186 divisions included in the fronts operating in the West, 100 (more than half) are deployed in Ukraine, Moldova and the Crimea. Half of all tank (20 out of 40) and motorized (10 out of 20) divisions included in the active fronts should also be concentrated there. Of the 51 divisions of the reserve of the Civil Code, 23 are concentrated directly behind the Southwestern Front (Kyiv OVO). (6, pp. 358-361)

Even if this document were the only source of information about the pre-war Soviet Union, even then, on its basis, one can categorically deny any "strategic surprise" of the war that began on June 22, 1941. The Red Army was expecting war, preparing for war, and this preparation took on the character of a large-scale strategic regrouping of forces. The location of the groupings created is clearly not accidental. The huge concentration of forces in the western direction is quite obvious, and within the framework of this direction - in the southern (Ukrainian) theater of operations. The document does not yet give grounds for assuming the direction - offensive or defensive - of this concentration, but the very fact of the existence of a certain Grand Plan, for the implementation of which such a grouping was built, is beyond doubt.

The certificate, signed by Vatutin on June 13, 1941, does not contain a single mention of the tasks and action plans of the troops. Only numbers, numbers of armies, stations for unloading troops, the required number of wagons and echelons. But we have the opportunity to compare the actual deployment of June 1941 with the known variants of the operational plan. For example, with the May (1941) "Considerations on the plan for the strategic deployment of the forces of the Soviet Union in the event of a war with Germany and its allies", the unambiguously offensive nature of which was discussed in the previous chapter. Somewhat violating the chronological order of presentation, we will immediately cite the actual position of the Red Army troops as of June 22, 1941.

Notes:

The first digit is the total number of divisions, the second digit is incl. tank, the third - incl. motorized;

On June 21, the troops deployed in the southern theater of operations were divided into two fronts: Southwestern and Southern, the table shows the total number of divisions in two fronts and in the Crimea;

According to the cover plan, with the start of hostilities, two divisions of the S-Z.f., deployed in Estonia, were transferred to the S.f., but this is not reflected in the table.

It is not difficult to verify that the actual concentration of troops in the western regions of the USSR took place in direct accordance with the May "Considerations on the Strategic Deployment Plan". In three districts (Leningrad, Baltic, Western), which turned into the Northern, North-Western and Western Fronts, respectively, the coincidence of the May plan and the June fact is almost exact. Divergence in 4 tank and 2 motorized divisions, i.e. the apparent increase in the grouping of the Western Front by two mechanized corps is most likely the result of a purely clerical operation. No new mechanized corps appeared in Belarus, just the emerging 17th MK and 20 MK, which were not taken into account in the May "Considerations", were included in the general list according to the Information of June 13. A much greater discrepancy is observed in the south, although even there the changes took place mainly on paper, and not on the ground. The main strike force of the Southwestern Front was created not by weakening the other three fronts, but by redeploying 20 divisions from the Kharkov, Oryol and Volga districts to the Kyiv OVO. However, in the second half of June, another redistribution of forces between the First and Second strategic echelons was carried out. The troops of the internal districts were not organizationally transferred to the Kyiv OVO (South-Western Front), but were used to deploy reserve armies (Second Strategic Echelon). Thus, two new armies appeared, which were not taken into account in the Certificate of June 13: the 20th and 21st. The total number of divisions in the armies of the Civil Code reserve increased from 51 to 77, but the grouping of the first strategic echelon in the southern theater of operations (South-Western and Southern Fronts) turned out to be 20 rifle divisions less than expected on June 13, 1941. Nevertheless, the concentration of forces in the southern direction remained just as pronounced: three reserve armies were now deployed in the rear of the Southwestern Front (the 16th in the Proskurov-Shepetovka area, the 19th in the Cherkassy area, and the 21st in the Chernigov area).

Much more significant is not this paper redistribution of the same corps and divisions from one army to another, but the actual course of the strategic regrouping of troops from the interior of the country to the theater of future military operations. On June 22, it was still far from over. Of the 77 divisions of the second strategic echelon, no more than 17-20 divisions arrived in the planned operational deployment areas. " The total volume of transportation of military formations was 939 railway echelons. The protracted advance of troops and the late periods of concentration were determined by camouflage measures and the maintenance of the peacetime railway operation regime. By the beginning of the war, only 83 military echelons arrived at their designated points, 455 were on their way ..."(3, p. 84) The phrase about" camouflage measures and preservation of the peacetime railway operation' deserves special attention. For the multimillion-strong armies of the first half of the 20th century, railways became the most important type of weapon, which largely determined the outcome of the main battles of the two world wars. Accordingly, all countries (especially those with such large armed forces as Germany and the USSR) had plans developed back in peacetime for the transfer of railway traffic to the “maximum military traffic” regime. The meaning of the term and the process is quite clear: all trains, cargo and passengers stand and wait until the echelons with troops, equipment and ammunition proceed in the direction they need. In addition, the mobilization stocks of coal, steam locomotives, wagons are being cleared, and the armed protection of railway stations and stages is being strengthened. The schedule of military transportation in the European part of the USSR was introduced (September 12, 1939) even at the stage of the strategic deployment of the Red Army before the war with Poland, which was dilapidated by the invasion of the Wehrmacht. (1, p. 110) However, nothing of the kind was done in June 1941!

According to the calculations contained in the pre-war plans of the Soviet command, the enemy (the Germans) needed from 10 to 15 days, and the Red Army - from 8 days for the Northern to 30 days for the South-Western fronts, necessary for the implementation of all transportation according to plans for the strategic deployment of troops. In fact, both sides (Germany and the USSR) did not speed up, but, on the contrary, dragged out the terms for the concentration of troops. They delayed it with a completely understandable, mutual goal - not to scare the enemy ahead of time.

It is difficult to say which event should be considered the beginning of the concentration of German troops near the borders of the USSR (the first divisions of the Wehrmacht were transferred to the East almost immediately after the end of the fighting in France), but in any case, the strategic deployment for Operation Barbarossa was stretched for at least four month. The redeployment plan was divided into five stages, and in the early stages only infantry units were advanced to the borders of the USSR. At the beginning of April 1941, the grouping of German troops in the East consisted of only 43 infantry and 3 tank divisions, and although Soviet intelligence in their reports traditionally overestimated this number by almost half (to 70 infantry, 7 tank and 6 motorized), such a "concentration" did not gave no reason to speculate about the imminent invasion of the Wehrmacht.

By mid-May, the German grouping had increased by 23 infantry and 1 motorized divisions. (1, pp. 304-305) This fact was also revealed by Soviet intelligence, but it still fit into the version spread by the Nazi secret services about the "minimal precautions" taken in relation to a very unreliable "partner" in the division of Europe. As noted above, the date of the invasion (June 22, 1941) was set by Hitler on April 30, at the same time it was decided to transfer the railways to the maximum military traffic schedule from May 23. But even after that, with the transfer of tank and motorized divisions clearly unmasking the whole plan of the operation, they dragged on, as they say, until the last minute. So, for example, five tank divisions of Army Group South were loaded into echelons from June 6 to 16 and arrived at unloading stations in southern Poland (Lublin-Sandomierz-Rzeszow) only by June 14-20. Three divisions (13th TD, 14th TD and 11th TD) went directly to the areas of concentration and deployment 25-40 km from the Soviet border literally in the last hours before the invasion, and the other two (16th TD and 9 -i td) on the evening of June 21 were still on the march 100-150 km from the border. (33, pp. 37,108)

There is nothing surprising in the fact that by Sunday morning, June 22, 1941, the concentration of the Soviet armies of the second strategic echelon had not yet been completed. The Red Army command acted according to its own deployment schedule, which did not involve a German invasion. " The transfer of troops was planned with the expectation that the concentration in the areas outlined by the operational plans would be completed from June 1 to July 10, 1941.". For this phrase alone, the authors of the collective monograph “1941 - Lessons and Conclusions” should have been awarded the medal “For Courage” then, in 1992 ...

The formations of the 16th Army and the 5th MK, located in Transbaikalia and Mongolia, were the first to start advancing.

On April 26, the General Staff issued a preliminary order to the Military Councils of the Trans-Baikal and Far Eastern Military Districts, on May 22, the loading of the first units into echelons began, which, taking into account the vast distance and the remaining peacetime railway schedule, should have arrived in the Berdichev-Proskurov-Shepetovka region in the period from 17 June to July 10. From May 13 to May 22, orders were received from the General Staff to begin advancing two more armies of the Civil Code reserve to the western border. The 22nd Army was advancing to the Velikiye Luki-Vitebsk region with a deadline for the end of concentration July 1-3, 21st Army concentrated in the Chernigov-Gomel-Konotop region by July 2. On May 29, a decision was made to form the 19th Army and deploy it in the Cherkasy-Bila Tserkva region by July 7. Not earlier than June 13, a decision was made to form, on the basis of the formations of the Orlovsky and Moscow Military Districts, another, the 20th Army, which was supposed to concentrate at Smolensk by July 3-5. We repeat once again that all these transportations were planned to be carried out on the condition " maintaining the mode of operation of railways in peacetime”and with absolutely unprecedented measures of the strictest secrecy. So, on June 12, 1941, the People's Commissar of Defense, by Directive No. 504206, gave the following instructions to the commander of the Kyiv OVO: “ No one should know about the arrival of units of the 16th Army, except for you, a member of the Military Council and the chief of staff of the district ... Open conversations by telephone and telegraph related to the arrival, unloading and disposition of troops, even without the name of the units, I categorically forbid ... Conditional use the name in all correspondence, including on envelopes of top secret documents". (6, p. 352)

Among the great number of events with a deadline "by July 1, 1941" should not pass by our attention and adopted on June 4, 1941 at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the decision " approve the creation of one rifle division in the Red Army, staffed by personnel of Polish nationality and knowing the Polish language". (48) The national formations in the Red Army had long since been eliminated by that time. In addition, the decision of the Politburo is not just about people of Polish origin, but about people who know the Polish language (which in the specific conditions of the multinational Soviet Union, with a large number of mixed marriages and assimilated national groups, was not at all the same) . The only similar incident took place on November 11, 1939. Then, 20 days before the start of the planned "liberation" of Finland, it was decided to form the 106th Infantry Division, whose personnel were recruited exclusively from people who spoke Finnish or Karelian. (49, p. 137) The furious detractors of V. Suvorov’s version have exhausted a bottomless abyss of paper on their waste products, on all these “anti-Suvorov”, “icebreaker myths”, etc., but have not yet bothered to answer a simple question: why did Stalin needed by July 1, 1941, a division that speaks Polish? Did the Poles urgently need to defend the inviolable borders of the USSR?

A wave of large-scale regrouping of troops rolled from the distant Far East through the military districts of the European part of the USSR to the border western districts. In mid-June, the turn came for such measures, which were the most difficult to hide from enemy reconnaissance - the consolidation of the operational formation of the troops of the First Strategic Echelon began. In the period from June 12 to 15, the command of the western border districts received orders to advance divisions of the district (front) reserve closer to the state border. So, in the directive of the People's Commissar of Defense No. 504205 dated June 13, 1941, sent to the Kyiv Regional Military District, it was indicated: “ In order to increase the combat readiness of the troops of the district by July 1 (underlined by me. - M.S.) transfer all deep divisions with corps headquarters, with corps units closer to the state border to new camps ... Keep troop movements in complete secrecy. To make a march with tactical exercises, at night. With the troops to withdraw fully transportable stocks of firearms and fuels and lubricants. Do not take families. Execution to be delivered by courier by July 1, 1941."(6, p. 359)

The order was immediately accepted for execution. Here is how Marshal Bagramyan describes these events in his memoirs (at that time he was the head of the operational department, deputy chief of staff of the Kyiv OVO):

« ... On June 15, we received an order to start moving all five rifle corps of the second echelon to the border from June 17. We already have everything was prepared (underlined by me. - M.S.) to this: we in early May, by order of Moscow carried out significant work - they prepared directives for the corps, conducted reconnaissance of movement routes and areas of concentration. Now it only remained to give a command to the performers ... The divisions took with them everything necessary for combat operations. For the purpose of secrecy, the troops were supposed to move only at night.. The plan was developed in detail ... To prevent the Nazis from noticing our movements, the areas of concentration of the corps were chosen not at the very border, but in several daily transitions to the east". (45, p. 75)

A directive of similar content and indicating the same date for the completion of the concentration - by July 1 - was also received by the Western OVO. (6, p. 423) By June 15, more than half of the divisions that made up the second echelon and reserve of the western military districts were set in motion. On the eve of the war, 32 divisions of the western districts secretly, by night crossings, through forests and swamps walked (sneaked) to the border. Colonel Novichkov, who at the beginning of the war was the chief of staff of the 62nd Infantry Division of the 5th Army of the Kyiv OVO, recalls: “ Parts of the division set out from the camp in Kivertsy(about 80 km from the border. - M.S.) and, having made two night crossings, by the morning of June 19 they entered the defense zone, however the defensive line was not occupied, but concentrated in the forests (underlined by me. - M.S.) close to him'(46)

On June 15, the commander of the troops of the Baltic OVO, Colonel-General F.I. Kuznetsov issued order No. 0052, in which he reminded his subordinates that “It is today, more than ever, that we must be in full combat readiness ... Everyone must firmly and clearly understand this, because at any moment we must be ready to perform any combat mission» . (50, p. 8) Despite the fact that no specific operational tasks were contained in order No. 0052, it was topped with the heading “Top Secret. Of particular importance, "brought to the attention of only the senior command staff (from division commanders and above) and ended with the following indication:" In the development of this order, no written orders or orders should be given to anyone". Concern about the "goals of secrecy" reached the point that the head of the political propaganda department of the Baltic OVO, Comrade Ryabchiy, on the evening of June 21, 1941, ordered " not to give written directives to the departments of political propaganda of corps and divisions, to set the tasks of political work orally through their representatives ...". (46) All this is strange, very strange. Of course, the Soviet norms of secrecy were very different from the universal ones, but was it really impossible to entrust paper with such tasks as “to be ready to protect the peaceful labor of the Soviet people” or “we don’t want an inch of foreign land”? In this regard, it is worth noting that on the very first day of the war, June 22, 1941, the Germans seized a warehouse in the town of Sakiai (Lithuania) with leaflets in German addressed to Wehrmacht soldiers. (42, p. 79)

The most amazing thing is the other. To this day, there are still writers who claim that Stalin tried his best to "delay Hitler's attack" on the Soviet Union. So after all, in order to "pull" better, it was necessary not to hide divisions in the forests, not to wander through the swamps at night, but on a bright sunny June day to call the correspondents of all the central newspapers to the same Kivertsy and order them to remove the marching columns. And on the front page of the newspaper - under the general heading "The border is locked!". And next - an interview with the tank commander, who arrived with his comrades from the hot steppes of Mongolia to Shepetovka. And let the German analysts think - what would it be for ... " When dealing with a dangerous enemy, one should probably show him, first of all, his readiness to fight back. If we had demonstrated our true power to Hitler, he might have refrained from going to war with the USSR at that moment.”, - writes in his memoirs General of the Army S.P. Ivanov, a highly experienced staff officer. (47) It was exactly as a military professional of such a high level advises that it was necessary to act - if Stalin thought about how to "pull", and not about how DO NOT FEAR enemy in the weeks and days remaining before the invasion of Europe.

The last doubts about the offensive direction of the Grand Plan disappear, as soon as we put on the geographical map the location of the divisions of the first strategic echelon, which was created during the secret months-long strategic deployment. Thanks to the prudently drawn in September 1939 “the line of delimitation of the state interests of the USSR and Germany on the territory of the former Polish state” (this was the official name for what is called the “western border” in all books and textbooks), this “border” had two deep (on 120-170 km) ledge, facing the "point" to the West. Belostok ledge in Western Belarus and Lvov ledge in Western Ukraine. Two protrusions are inevitably accompanied by four "hollows". From north to south, these "depressions" at the bases of the ledges were located in the areas of the cities of Grodno, Brest, Vladimir-Volynsky, Chernivtsi. If the Red Army were going to stand on the defensive, then only minimal covering forces would be left on the "points of the ledges", and the main defensive groupings would be built at the base, in the "hollows". Such a formation makes it possible to avoid the encirclement of friendly troops on the territory of the ledges, to reduce the total length of the defense front (the length of the base of the triangle is always shorter than the sum of the other two sides), and to create the highest operational density in the most probable directions of the enemy offensive.

In June 1941, everything was done exactly the opposite. The main shock formations "huddled together" on the tips of the Bialystok and Lvov ledges. At the bases of the ledges, in the region of Grodno, Brest and Chernivtsi, incomparably weaker forces were located. A description of the entire grouping will take us too much time and space, so we confine ourselves to considering the deployment of the main strike force of the Red Army - mechanized (tank) corps. The extreme haste and diversity of the beginning of their formation led to the fact that the available tanks, armored vehicles, cars and tractors were distributed very unevenly among the mechanized corps. The composition of the tank fleet was just as heterogeneous. Most of the corps of the latest tanks (T-34, KV) did not exist at all, some (10th MK, 19th MK, 18th MK) were armed with extremely worn out BT-2 / BT-5, production 1932-1934 gg., or even light floating tankettes T-37 / T-38. Against this background, the "five warriors", five mechanized corps, which are armed with from 700 to 1000 tanks, including more than 100 of the latest T-34 and KV tanks, hundreds of tractors (tractors), thousands of cars, stand out in contrast. These are (listing from north to south) 3rd MK, 6th MK, 15th MK, 4th MK and 8th MK. Even among these, the best of the best, the 6th and 4th mechanized corps are noticeable. They were armed with 452 and 414 of the latest tanks, respectively - more than in all the other (and there were 27 "others") mechanized corps of the Red Army combined. By the beginning of hostilities, the 6th MK had 1,131 tanks (i.e., even more than the standard norm), 294 tractors (an honorary "second place" among all mechanized corps of the Red Army), and in terms of the number of cars and motorcycles (4,779 and 1,042, respectively), it also surpassed any other mechanized corps of the Red Army. It looked very solid before the start of the war and the 8th MK. The corps was armed with 171 newest T-34s and KVs, 359 tractors and tractors, 3237 vehicles.