6th Guards Army

The 6th Guards Army was a Soviet Guards formation which fought against Nazi Germany during World War II under the command of General Ivan Chistyakov. The Army's chief of staff was General Valentin Antonovich Penkovskii.

The 6th Guards Army was formed on 16 April 1943 from the 21st Army and fought under command of the Voronezh, 1st Baltic, 2nd Baltic, and Leningrad Fronts from 1943 until the end of the war. In 1943, the army fought in the Battle of Kursk. During the summer of 1944, the army fought in Operation Bagration, the Polotsk Offensive, the Šiauliai Offensive and the Riga Offensive. During the Battle of Memel, the army helped drive German troops into what became the Courland Pocket. The 6th Guards Army was one of the Soviet formations committed to besieging German Army Group Kurland in the Courland Peninsula. This was a lengthy operation that continued until the Germans in Courland surrendered on May 12, 1945. Postwar, the army was stationed in the Baltic region until its disbandment in 1947.

The 6th Guards Army was formed on 1 May 1943 in accordance with the Stavka directive of 16 April 1943 from the 21st Army.

By May 1943 the forces of 6th Guards Army, subordinated to Voronezh Front, were in well-entrenched positions in the southern sector of the Kursk Salient south of Oboyan. Here the Army faced the forces of the German Fourth Panzer Army. During May and June both sides prepared for the impending German summer offensive against the Kursk Salient (Operation Citadel), a salient into the German lines that had been secured by Soviet forces in the spring of that year. By early July, 6th Guards Army consisted of the 22nd Guards Rifle Corps (67th Guards Rifle Division, 71st Guards Rifle Division, and 90th Guards Rifle Division), and the 23rd Guards Rifle Corps (51st Guards Rifle Division, 52nd Guards Rifle Division, and 375th Rifle Division), as well as the army-controlled 89th Guards Rifle Division and the 96th Tank Brigade. It also included the 230th and 245th Separate Tank Regiments, 27th and 33rd Artillery Brigades, 60th Separate Armored Train Division, 1440th Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment, 628th Artillery Regiment, 27th and 28th Anti-Tank Artillery Brigades, 293rd and 295th Mortar Regiments, the 5th, 16th, 79th and 314th Guards Mortar Regiments. The army also included the 26th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division, which included the 1352nd, 1357th, 1363rd and 1369th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiments. The 1487th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment was an independent unit. Anti-Tank Artillery Regiments were the 493rd, 496th, 611th, 694th, 868th, 1008th, 1240th, 1666th and 1667th. The 205th and 540th Separate Engineer Battalions provided engineering capabilities for the army. Additionally the Army had been heavily reinforced with artillery and anti-tank guns, and 6th Guards Army's defensive positions were heavily mined.

On 4 July both sides engaged in an artillery duel and Fourth Panzer Army began probing attacks but the main offensive by Fourth Panzer Army's two panzer corps began on the morning of 5 July. The main weight of Fourth Panzer Army's western corps fell on 67th Guards Rifle Division but the division, though suffering heavy losses, only gave ground slowly. On 67th Guards Rifle Division's right, 71st Guards Rifle Division was driven back more than five kilometres, but Fourth Panzer Army did not have the resources to fully exploit this success on its left flank. The main weight of Fourth Panzer Army's eastern corps fell on 52nd Guards Rifle Division. This division was driven back 10 kilometres on the first day, but German commanders were nonetheless disappointed at the rate of progress of their assault forces.

Voronezh Front command had, on the afternoon of 5 July, begun to move armoured forces forward to support 6 Guards Army. The main reinforcement came from 1st Tank Army. By the morning of 6 July the battered 67th Guards Rifle Division had been withdrawn north to defensive positions on the Psel River and Vorenezh Front had taken the decision to use 1 Tank Army defensively. Over the next 48 hours, despite the commitment of more Soviet reserves, including armour, the German penetration north towards Oboyan continued, and the defences of 51st Guards Rifle Division, part of 6th Guards Army's second echelon, had been shattered. The offensive by Fourth Panzer Army continued through 8 July and by 9 July the panzers had advanced close to Chistiakov's headquarters forcing him to withdraw further north, leaving Penkovskii at Kochetovka with a forward battle headquarters attempting to maintain contact with the Army's divisions. By that evening Chistiakov had managed to establish a new defensive line for his Army, but German forces had by then advanced to within 20 kilometres of Oboyan.

After 9 July, though the German effort against 6th Guards Army and 1st Tank Army on the direct route to Oboyan continued, these attacks were diversionary in nature since the German command had decided to direct its main effort further to the northeast off 6th Guards Army's left flank towards the village of Prokhorovka. Soviet High Command and Voronezh Front Headquarters were aware of this diversion of German effort and, in addition to deploying further armoured reserves to the Prokhorovka area, began a series of counter-attacks against Fourth Panzer Army's penetration towards Oboyan.

By the third week of July, after the failure of the German strategic effort against the Kursk salient had become apparent, and in response to Soviet offensives towards Orel and in the southern Ukraine, German forces south of Oboyan began to pull back to the positions they had occupied at the beginning of the month in order to release forces for deployment elsewhere.