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Reserve Front

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Army General Georgy Zhukov near Yelnya, 1941.

The Reserve Front was a major formation of the Red Army during the Second World War.

First Formation

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The Reserve Front describes either of two distinct organizations during the war. The first version was created on July 30, 1941 in a reorganization of the earlier Front of Reserve Armies. STAVKA Order No.003334, of 14 July, directed that the Front of Reserve Armies include:[1]

  • 24th Army, with ten divisions, three gun, one howitzer, and three corps artillery regiments, and four anti-tank artillery regiments;
  • 28th Army, with nine divisions, one gun, one howitzer, and four corps artillery regiments, and four anti-tank artillery regiments;
  • 29th Army, with five divisions, five regiments of artillery, and two regiments and one squadron of aviation;
  • 30th Army, with five divisions, one corps artillery regiment, and two AA artillery regiments;
  • 31st Army, with six divisions, one corps artillery regiment, and two anti-tank artillery regiments; and
  • 32nd Army, with seven divisions (apparently including the 8th Rifle Division), and one anti-tank artillery regiment.

This Front was encircled and destroyed at Vyazma.

The surviving forces transferred to the Western Front on October 10, 1941 under the command of Zhukov.[2]

2nd Formation

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The second version of this Front was created on April 6, 1943. It incorporated the:

It was reorganized as the Steppe Military District on April 15, 1943 and eventually designated the Steppe Front.

Commanders

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See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ STAVKA Order 003334, Collection of Combat Documents of the Great Patriotic War, ('SBDVOV'), Moscow, Voenizdat, 1958(?), Issue 37, p.13, cited in Glantz, Stumbling Colossus, p.215
  2. ^ Zhukov, Georgy (1974). Marshal of Victory, Volume II. Pen and Sword Books Ltd. p. 19. ISBN 9781781592915.

References

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  • David Glantz, Stumbling Colossus, University Press of Kansas, 1998
  • David Glantz, Colossus Reborn: The Red Army at War 1941-43, University Press of Kansas, 2005