Pages of the history of the Second World: tank battle near Senno, July 1941

The Battle of Senno (or the Lepel counterattack) that took place on July 6-10, 1941, remained practically unknown to the descendants, although in terms of the number of tanks it uses it is comparable in scale to the battle of Prokhorovka during the Battle of Kursk. Like other events of the Red Army of that period, this operation was another unsuccessful attempt to stop the German offensive at the initial stage of the Great Patriotic War. In many ways, precisely because of the failure of the Soviet counterattack in Byelorussia, he remained an undeservedly rarely mentioned episode of the fierce summer-autumn campaign of 1941.

The circumstances of the operation

The bloody battle near Senno was the Red Army's last attempt to inflict a counterattack by tank units. After the battle the mechanized corpses ended, and further efforts to intercept the enemy's initiative in 1941 amounted to attacks by infantry formations. The second week of the war is over, and the Germans have already passed 500 kilometers - half way from the border to Moscow. When the Battle of Senno began, the staggering offensive of the Wehrmacht had already shifted the front line to Vitebsk and Orsha.

The high command of the German army from the very beginning chose the central sector of the Eastern Front as the main direction of the blow to the Soviet Union. The Army Group Center was deployed here - in some respects it exceeded two other South and North groups combined. The mechanized parts of the Germans consisted of the 2 nd and 3 rd Tank Group - in total 7 motorized and 9 tank divisions were at their disposal.

This scale of the offensive made it possible to carry out a deep coverage and encirclement of Soviet troops. Parts of the Western Front were indeed quickly defeated. By July 3, the Germans had suppressed the last foci of coordinated resistance. The Soviet losses were enormous - about two-thirds of all front-line units. In the divisions leaving the "boilers" there were 1 to 2 thousand people left. All heavy weapons (airplanes, tanks, artillery) were lost. The technology was thrown directly on the roads. The command of the front for this failure was arrested and shot (including General Dmitry Pavlov). In such circumstances, the battle of Senno began. 1941 was the most terrible year of the war, and the planned counteroffensive promised to be no less serious in terms of human losses than previous attempts to stop the Germans' offensive.

Counterstrike Plan

The idea of the Lepel counterblow was to attack the tank units of the Wehrmacht before the infantry formations that were approaching from Minsk were to join them. This plan was consistent with one of the key military principles - to smash the enemy in parts. In addition, the experience of the first two weeks of confrontation with the Germans showed that the chain of rifle divisions fights against tank attacks is extremely inefficient. Therefore, it seemed more logical to undertake a preemptive strike against the weakened forces of the Wehrmacht. This was supposed to be from the point of view of strategy the battle of Senno.

July 1941 was not the worst time for a counter-offensive in this region. Most of the German forces moved not to the east, but to the northeast - the leadership of the Wehrmacht strove to cross the Western Dvina as soon as possible . In the zone of the Soviet strike only two enemy divisions remained (17th and 7th Panzer), although they were a formidable force.

On the Eve of the Battle

On the evening of July 4, Semyon Timoshenko (who became the commander of the Western Front that day), Herman Malandin and Lev Mehlis approved the directive, which set the task of preparing a counterattack in the direction of Ostrovno and Senno. The final point of the offensive was established Lepel, who gave the name of the whole operation. However, even at the planning stage, counterattacks in the leadership of the Western Front made a serious mistake. The opportunities of the enemy were misjudged, which was clearly demonstrated by the Battle of Senno. The photo from the epicenter of the battle during that operation was almost gone, but for one loss it can be understood that the Red Army formations failed their task.

The command of the Western Front was in a hurry with the organization of the counterstrike also because time worked for the enemy. A week later, the infantry divisions of the Germans, having completed the encirclement of the Minsk and Bialystok "boilers", were to approach the front line. In this case, the ratio of forces changed radically. Every day the Red Army found itself in an increasingly difficult situation, and the delay even in a few hours was extremely expensive.

Prepared for a counterattack, the 7th Mechanized Corps under the command of Vinogradov moved west from the Moscow Military District on June 24. Cars on wheels set off on their own, and caterpillar technology was loaded onto railway platforms. On the way the mechanized corps received new tasks several times, as the situation in Belarus changed too quickly.

Relation of forces

The German 7th Panzer Division was a rare structure for such a formation. It included 4 battalions. The number of tanks was a record for the entire Eastern Front - 265 combat units, of which in two weeks of fighting 25 were lost. However, the Soviet 7th Mechanized Corps consisted of twice as many cars.

Most of the park of the German division consisted of Czech models "Skoda" in 1938 produced. These light tanks had a 37-mm gun and assembled on rivets and bolts. When the enemy shell hit, these elements were torn off and injured by the crew. So it's extremely difficult to call "Skoda" a technical miracle. In addition to them were still light PZ-II. They were armed with small 20-mm cannons. In the Soviet units there were KV and T-34. Technical characteristics allowed them in a shootout with the above-described German models to neutralize the entire park, costing minimal losses. It was such a fight in his painting was demonstrated by the artist Nikolai Nazarchuk. "Battle of Senno" by the Belarusian master became one of the most recognizable illustrations of that battle.

Artillery and infantry

In tank divisions, tanks were "spear points," but any such formation needed the "shaft" - infantry and artillery. What was the state of these parts in the German divisions? The artillery regiment consisted of 36 guns - mostly howitzers and several cannons. These figures were much more modest than Soviet ones. In two tank divisions there were almost a hundred guns. The ratio in the infantry was similar: 15 infantry battalions of the Red Army against 4 in the Wehrmacht.

In the area of the offensive of the 7th Mechanized Corps, Soviet numerical superiority was twofold, and in the 5th Mechanized Corps it was seven-eightfold. A large number of tanks later became a reason to compare the battle of Senno with the famous Prokhorov battle during the Battle of Kursk in 1943.

The 5th Mechanized Corps had its own unique structure - two additional artillery regiments were attached to it. These units were added from the reserve structure of the Western Front. They were also called corps artillery regiments. An important feature of these formations was the presence of heavy guns-howitzers 122-mm and 152-mm caliber. They created not only mathematical, but also qualitative superiority over enemy artillery.

The Battle of Senno could have ended even faster if the Germans had not left two of their motorized infantry battalions in Borisov , a tank battalion and an anti-tank division. These units remained to guard a strategically important crossing across the Berezina. These units were located near Senno only on July 7, reducing the numerical superiority of the 5th mechanized corps to twofold.

The beginning of the counterattack

July 5, 1941 preparations began for the Battle of Senno. The 14th Panzer Division and the 7th Mechanized Corps made a 40-kilometer march-throw and took the initial positions for the alleged counter-attack. It was the Ostrovno-Gnezdilovichi-Svetogory area 10 kilometers east of the Chernogostnitsa River. Another 18th Panzer Division was delayed somewhat. By noon the next day, she concentrated on both sides of the river Oboljanki. The 5th Mechanized Corps took up positions in the Orsha area.

On July 6, the Battle of Senno entered the active phase. In the 14th Panzer Division, two detachments were formed (each included a company of tanks and a battalion of motorized infantry). These compounds attempted to force the Chernogostnitsa and stay on the west bank of the river. One detachment really managed to retain a small bridgehead near Lake Sarro. At this time, the forces of the 18th Panzer Division approached the eastern outskirts of Senno and there entered into a stubborn battle with the Germans. In the evening the enemy was knocked out of the city. On this stretch of the front, Soviet troops moved to the defense. This was their only success during the whole operation.

Disruption of plans

July 7 tank battle near Senno continued. All previous night, Soviet soldiers were preparing ferries on Chernogostnitsa. In the morning, parts of the 14th Panzer Division advanced along them to the west bank of the key river. The advance choked after 4 kilometers of the road. The tanks collided with the main forces of the 7th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht. Soviet units suffered heavy losses and retreated to the original eastern shore. Then they returned to Ostrovno and began to evacuate their material parts.

Meanwhile, the Germans from the north launched an offensive on Senno, where the 18th Panzer Division defended itself. The Red Army left the city by noon on 8 July. At this time, the 5th Mechanized Corps fought a fierce battle with enemy tanks 20 kilometers south of Senno. He managed to break the column of the Germans, but the subsequent counterattack restored the status quo.

On July 9, the 14th and 18th Panzer divisions retreated to the eastern shore of Obolianka. The Germans from the captured Senno began to advance to the motorway to Smolensk. On the 10th, the advance detachments entered Oboltsy. By noon the Germans had walked 40 kilometers and reached the motorway 30 kilometers west of Orsha. The Soviet 5th mechanized corps was faced with the threat of complete encirclement. His command decided to retreat, the same was done by the remains of tank divisions.

Results and reasons for failure

So, the tank battle near Senno for the Soviet army ended in nothing. The troops did not fulfill any of the tasks assigned to them. It was not possible to pass half way to Lepel. According to the plan, the main blow was struck on the flank of the Polotsk grouping of the Germans, but it did not suffer any losses - it simply did not reach it. For an incomplete week of fighting, about 70% of the equipment was lost. The remnants of the tank divisions lost their fighting ability and subsequently continued to retreat to the east, until they finally disappeared in the "cauldron" near Smolensk.

What was the reason for this failure? July 17, 1914, near the village of Liozno in the Vitebsk region, senior lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili, the son of Joseph Stalin, was taken prisoner. During the interrogation, he complained about the terrible air attacks by the German Junkers. The same point of view was defended in the reports of the command to Moscow. Later it migrated to Soviet historiography and for a long time was considered an indisputable truth. The main reason why the Battle of Senno was lost was considered to be the all-destroying and ubiquitous German aviation, which dumped and bombed the Red Army soldiers from morning till night.

However, in reality everything was much more complicated. The inability of the command to maneuver and establish communication between various formations was said. In addition, the Red Army simply did not have the experience of conducting such large-scale operations, while the Wehrmacht came to the USSR, having behind it many victories in Europe. All this rendered useless the numerical and qualitative superiority of Soviet troops.

The state of the command staff was undermined after the recent repression. Most of the experienced military, including civil war, were shot or were sitting in the camps. This could not affect how the Battle of Senno ended. The consequences of haste and wrong decisions in the first stage of the war were reflected in the set of setbacks on the Western Front. This trend spread not only to the Lepel counterblow, but also to the whole campaign of 1941.

Losses

In terms of losses, the Battle of Senno in 1941 corresponded to the typical proportions of that war. The Germans lost about 4 wounded per 1 killed (the total loss was 468 people). About 50 pieces of equipment (tanks) were lost. The biggest losses occurred in the battle with the 5th mechanized corps near Senno on July 7 - 9.

The Soviet troops had very different numbers. The 5th and 7th Mechanized Corps lost almost all their tanks (collectively, more than 1,000 units, which is approximately 20 times more than the enemy's). Even today, historians have not exactly been able to figure out where that technique went. The figures that fell into the reports of the command of the Red Army often did not correspond to reality and because of this they can not be reduced to the data of the Germans.

Nevertheless, it is precisely known that when the tank battle at Senno 1941 was over, in the 18th Panzer Division, not one of the 220 tanks was left, in the 14th - there were 14 tanks left, in the 13th 5 tanks out of 393 tanks. At the same time, it was better with cars. For example, in the 14th division there were 34 cars and 475 trucks, as well as 56 tankers.

Reports and facts

The personal losses of the Soviet formations, as in the case of the German formations, fully corresponded to the proportions of the terrible 1941 for the USSR. For example, according to the official report, 193 people were killed in the same 14th Panzer Division, 359 were wounded, and more than 3,000 were reported missing. However, these figures are now in doubt. They contradict the fact that the armed forces of the regiment on July 25 had only 552 small arms (rifles), whereas according to the report, without replenishment, more than 5,000 people were to remain in the ranks.

The monstrous gap between the facts and the reports can only be explained by the desire of the leadership of the formations to hide and retouch their failures before their superiors. At the initial stage of the war, such stories were commonplace. The battle of Senno was no exception. In any case, the losses of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht were incommensurable, and it is this indicator that most clearly demonstrates the catastrophe of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.