1.
Corps
A corps is a military unit usually consisting of several divisions. Some military service branches are called corps, such as the Military Police Corps, Royal Logistic Corps, Quartermaster Corps, a few civilian organizations use the name corps to imply a similar service level, such as the Peace Corps. In many armies, a corps is a formation composed of two or more divisions, and typically commanded by a lieutenant general. During World War I and World War II, due to the scale of combat. In Western armies with numbered corps, the number is indicated in Roman numerals. II Corps was formed, with Militia units, to defend south-eastern Australia, sub-corps formations controlled Allied land forces in the remainder of Australia. I Corps headquarters was assigned control of the New Guinea campaign. In early 1945, when I Corps was assigned the task of re-taking Borneo, the Canadian Corps consisted of four Canadian divisions. After the Armistice, the peacetime Canadian militia was organized into corps and divisions.
Early in the Second World War, Canadas contribution to the British-French forces fighting the Germans was limited to a single division, after the fall of France in June 1940, a second division moved to England, coming under command of a Canadian corps headquarters. This corps was renamed I Canadian Corps as a corps headquarters was established in the UK. I Canadian Corps eventually fought in Italy, II Canadian Corps in NW Europe, after the formations were disbanded after VE Day, Canada has never subsequently organized a Corps headquarters. The Chinese Republic had 133 Corps during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Corps became the basic tactical unit of the NRA having strength nearly equivalent to an allied Division. The French Army under Napoleon used corps-sized formations as the first formal combined-arms groupings of divisions with reasonably stable manning, Napoleon first used the Corps dArmée in 1805. The use of the Corps dArmée was an innovation that provided Napoleon with a significant battlefield advantage in the early phases of the Napoleonic Wars.
The Corps was designed to be an independent military group containing cavalry and infantry and this allowed Napoleon to mass the bulk of his forces to effect a penetration into a weak section of enemy lines without risking his own communications or flank. This innovation stimulated other European powers to adopt similar military structures, the Corps has remained an echelon of French Army organization to the modern day. As fixed military formation already in peace-time it was used almost in all European armies after Battle of Ulm in 1805, in Prussia it was introduced by Order of His Majesty from November 5,1816, in order to strengthen the readiness to war
2.
Operation Uranus
The operation formed part of the ongoing Battle of Stalingrad, and was aimed at destroying German forces in and around Stalingrad. Planning for Operation Uranus had commenced in September 1942, and was developed simultaneously with plans to envelop and destroy German Army Group Center and these Axis armies lacked heavy equipment to deal with Soviet armor. The situation was exacerbated by the German decision to relocate several mechanized divisions from the Soviet Union to Western Europe, units in the area were depleted after months of fighting, especially those which took part in the fighting in Stalingrad. In comparison, the Red Army deployed over one million personnel for the purpose of beginning the offensive in, Soviet troop movements were not without problems, due to the difficulties of concealing their build-up, and to Soviet units commonly arriving late due to logistical issues. Operation Uranus was first postponed from 8 to 17 November, to 19 November, at 07,20 Moscow time on 19 November, Soviet forces on the northern flank of the Axis forces at Stalingrad began their offensive, forces in the south began on 20 November.
By late 22 November Soviet forces linked up at the town of Kalach, instead of attempting to break out of the encirclement, German dictator Adolf Hitler decided to keep Axis forces in Stalingrad and resupply them by air. In the meantime and German commanders began to plan their next movements, on 28 June 1942, the Wehrmacht began its offensive against Soviet forces opposite of Army Group South, codenamed Case Blue. After breaking through Red Army forces by 13 July, German forces encircled and captured the city of Rostov. The responsibility to take Stalingrad was given to the Sixth Army, the following day, the Battle of Stalingrad began when vanguards of the Sixth Army penetrated the suburbs of the city. By November the Sixth Army had occupied most of Stalingrad, pushing the defending Red Army to the banks of the Volga River, the German command was intent upon finalizing its capture of Stalingrad. Ultimately, command of Soviet efforts to relieve Stalingrad was put under the leadership of General Aleksandr Vasilevsky, Operation Uranus involved the use of large Soviet mechanized and infantry forces to encircle German and other Axis forces directly around Stalingrad.
For example, in early July the Sixth Army was defending a 160-kilometer line, Army Group B had the 48th Panzer Corps, which had the strength of a weakened panzer division, and a single infantry division as reserves. For the most part the German flanks were held by arriving non-German Axis armies, while German forces were used to spearhead continued operations in Stalingrad, their 37-millimeter PaK anti-tank guns were antiquated and they were largely short of ammunition. Only after repeated requests did the Germans send the Romanian units 75-millimeter PaK guns, the Italians and Hungarians were positioned at the Don west of the Third Romanian Army, but the German commanders did not hold in high regard the capability of those units to fight. The Sixth Army had suffered casualties during the fighting in the city of Stalingrad proper. In some cases, such as that of the 22nd Panzer Division, German formations were overextended along large stretches of front, the XI Army Corps, for example, had to defend a front around 100 kilometers long.
The Red Army allocated an estimated 1,100,000 personnel,804 tanks,13,400 artillery pieces and over 1,000 aircraft for the upcoming offensive. Across the Third Romanian Army, the Soviets placed the redeployed 5th Tank Army, as well as the 21st and 65th Armies, in order to penetrate, in total, the Soviets had amassed 11 armies and various independent tank brigades and corps
3.
51st Army (Russia)
The 51st Army was a field army of the Red Army that saw action against the Germans in World War II on both the southern and northern sectors of the front. The army fought in the Battle of Stalingrad during the winter of 1942–43, from late 1944 to the end of the war, the army fought in the final cutting-off of German forces in the Courland area next to the Baltic. Inactivated in 1945, the army was activated again in 1977 to secure Sakhalin, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the army continued in existence as a component of the Russian Ground Forces. The army was active during two periods from 1941 until 1997, the Army was ordered formed on 14 August 1941 in the Crimea based on the 9th Rifle Corps and other units as the 51st Independent Army under Colonel General F. I. Kuznetsov, with the task of guarding the Crimean Peninsula, pavel Batov was appointed as his deputy. Thus Kuznetsov was summoned, and after a discussion, he was sent south to take up his new command, the Stavka ordered that the army command be handed over to Batov.
In November the army was evacuated from the Taman Peninsula and it joined the Transcaucasian Front, the army participated in the Kerch-Feodosiya landing operation in December 1941 – January 1942 alongside the 44th Army. The 44th and 51st Armies formed the Crimean Front under General Dmitri T. Kozlov, formally established on 28 January 1942, a German offensive was launched against the Front on 8 May 1942. Army commander Lieutenant General Vladimir Nikolayevich Lvov was killed by bomb fragments on 11 May while changing his command post, three armies,21 divisions,176,000 men,347 tanks, and nearly 3,500 guns were lost. The remains of the force were evacuated, after the evacuation 51st Army joined the North Caucasian Front at Kuban. On 22 July, army commander Major general Nikolai Trufanov was relieved of command, as part of the Stalingrad Front, briefly with the Southeast Front, and back with the Stalingrad Front it took part in the Battle of Stalingrad. On 31 July when it came under Stalingrad Front control it was so worn down by its previous rough handling that it was only 3,000 men strong and it was attacked on the same day by the 4th Panzer Army, which was able to break through.
During Operation Uranus, the counterattack from Stalingrad, the 4th Mechanized Corps began its attack from the 51st Armys sector, in early December, 51st Army was deployed to cover the Kotelnikovo approaches against German relief attempts by the LVII. On 24–25 December 1942, the commander of 51st Army, Major-General N. I, on 30 January 1943, the Luftwaffes Kampfgeschwader 51 destroyed the 51st Armys Headquarters, near Salsk. Up to 20 buildings and personnel billets were destroyed, casualties among personnel were very high. On 1 April 1944, 51st Army included the 1st Guards Rifle Corps, 10th Rifle Corps, 63rd Rifle Corps, the 77th Rifle Division, during these operations, the 51st Armys attacks trapped the German XXIX. Armeekorps against the Sea of Azov, the army was withdrawn to the Reserve of the Supreme High Command on 20 May and relocated to the area of Polotsk and Vitebsk in Belarus. As part of the 1st Baltic Front it participated in operations clearing Latvia and Lithuania – the Baltic Offensive
4.
Division (military)
A division is a large military unit or formation, usually consisting of between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers. Infantry divisions during the World Wars ranged between 10,000 and 30,000 in nominal strength, in most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, in turn, several divisions typically make up a corps. In the West, the first general to think of organising an army into smaller units was Maurice de Saxe, Marshal General of France. He died at the age of 54, without having implemented his idea, victor-François de Broglie put the ideas into practice. He conducted successful practical experiments of the system in the Seven Years War. The first war in which the system was used systematically was the French Revolutionary War. It made the more flexible and easy to manoeuvre. Under Napoleon, the divisions were grouped together into corps, because of their increasing size, napoleons military success spread the divisional and corps system all over Europe, by the end of the Napoleonic Wars, all armies in Europe had adopted it.
In modern times, most military forces have standardized their divisional structures, the peak use of the division as the primary combat unit occurred during World War II, when the belligerents deployed over a thousand divisions. With technological advances since then, the power of each division has increased. Divisions are often formed to organize units of a particular type together with support units to allow independent operations. In more recent times, divisions have mainly been organized as combined arms units with subordinate units representing various combat arms, in this case, the division often retains the name of a more specialized division, and may still be tasked with a primary role suited to that specialization. For the most part, large cavalry units did not remain after World War II, in general, two new types of cavalry were developed, air cavalry or airmobile, relying on helicopter mobility, and armored cavalry, based on an autonomous armored formation. The former was pioneered by the 11th Air Assault Division, formed on 1 February 1963 at Fort Benning, on 29 June 1965 the division was renamed as the 1st Cavalry Division, before its departure for the Vietnam War.
After the end of the Vietnam War, the 1st Cavalry Division was reorganised and re-equipped with tanks, the development of the tank during World War I prompted some nations to experiment with forming them into division-size units. Many did this the way as they did cavalry divisions, by merely replacing cavalry with AFVs. This proved unwieldy in combat, as the units had many tanks, instead, a more balanced approach was taken by adjusting the number of tank, infantry and support units. A panzer division was a division of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS of Germany during World War II
5.
Battle of Stalingrad
Marked by fierce close quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians by air raids, it is often regarded as one of the single largest and bloodiest battles in the history of warfare. German forces never regained the initiative in the East and withdrew a vast military force from the West to replace their losses, the German offensive to capture Stalingrad began in August 1942, using the German 6th Army and elements of the 4th Panzer Army. The attack was supported by intensive Luftwaffe bombing that reduced much of the city to rubble, the fighting degenerated into house-to-house fighting, and both sides poured reinforcements into the city. By mid-November 1942, the Germans had pushed the Soviet defenders back at great cost into narrow zones along the west bank of the Volga River. On 19 November 1942, the Red Army launched Operation Uranus, the Axis forces on the flanks were overrun and the 6th Army was cut off and surrounded in the Stalingrad area. Adolf Hitler ordered that the stay in Stalingrad and make no attempt to break out, attempts were made to supply the army by air.
Heavy fighting continued for two months. By the beginning of February 1943, the Axis forces in Stalingrad had exhausted their ammunition, the remaining units of the 6th Army surrendered. The battle lasted five months, one week, and three days, the war had been progressing well, the U-boat offensive in the Atlantic had been very successful and Rommel had just captured Tobruk. In the east, they had stabilized their front in a running from Leningrad in the north to Rostov in the south. There were a number of salients, but these were not particularly threatening, neither Army Group North nor Army Group South had been particularly hard pressed over the winter. Stalin was expecting the main thrust of the German summer attacks to be directed against Moscow again, with the initial operations being very successful, the Germans decided that their summer campaign in 1942 would be directed at the southern parts of the Soviet Union. The initial objectives in the region around Stalingrad were the destruction of the capacity of the city.
The river was a key route from the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea to central Russia and its capture would disrupt commercial river traffic. The Germans cut the pipeline from the oilfields when they captured Rostov on 23 July, the capture of Stalingrad would make the delivery of Lend Lease supplies via the Persian Corridor much more difficult. On 23 July 1942, Hitler personally rewrote the operational objectives for the 1942 campaign, both sides began to attach propaganda value to the city based on it bearing the name of the leader of the Soviet Union. The expansion of objectives was a significant factor in Germanys failure at Stalingrad, caused by German overconfidence, the Soviets realized that they were under tremendous constraints of time and resources and ordered that anyone strong enough to hold a rifle be sent to fight. If I do not get the oil of Maikop and Grozny I must finish this war, Army Group South was selected for a sprint forward through the southern Russian steppes into the Caucasus to capture the vital Soviet oil fields there
6.
6th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
The 6th Panzer Division was an armoured division in the German Army, the Heer, during World War II, established in 1939. The division, initially formed as a brigade, participated in the invasions of Poland, France. From 1941 to 1945 it fought on the Eastern Front, interrupted only by periods of refitting spend in France and it eventually surrendered to US forces in Czechoslovakia in May 1945 but was handed over to Soviet authorities. The 1st Light Brigade was a unit established in October 1937 in imitation of the French Division Légère Mécanique. It was intended to take on the roles of army-level reconnaissance and it included mechanized recon units, motorized infantry, and a battalion of tanks. The concept of the Light Brigade, of three were planned by the Wehrmacht, quickley showed its flawed nature and was abandoned. Following the latter the division received 130 Czech-build tanks which were superior to the Panzer I, in 1939, the division fought in the Invasion of Poland. The division was part of the German advance to the English Channel through Belgium and it swung back towards the French-Swiss border before relocating to Eastern Prussia in September 1940 where it remained until June 1941.
At the time of the German invasion of the Soviet Union the division had 239 tanks, but only twelve of those were Panzer III, in June 1941, it joined Operation Barbarossa, fighting at first under Army Group North for Leningrad. 6th Panzer Division was soon transferred to Army Group Center, where it fought in the Battle of Moscow, with the Soviet counter offensive in December 1941 the division was pushed back and suffered the loss of all its tanks and most of its vehicles. Severely decimated the 6th Panzer Division was sent to France to be rebuilt in March 1942 and equipped with more modern tanks. It was moved to southern France after the US landing in North Africa and it was part of the failed German attempt to break through to the encircled forces but had to retreat to escape encirclement itself. The division was part of the German retreat and counter offensive at Kharkov, the 6th Panzer Division was part of the only partially successful relief operation at the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket as well as the escape from the Kamenets-Podolsky pocket.
It was part of the German defence of northern Poland and East Prussia before being relocated to Hungary in December 1944 and it took part in the battles around Budapest before retreating into Austria and taking part in the defence of Vienna. When the city fell it moved into Czechoslovakia where it surrendered to US 3rd Army in May 1945 but was handed over to Soviet forces, soldier of the division executed an unknown number of black prisoners of war from the 12th Senegalese Tirailleurs regiment in mid-June 1940. V. Generalleutnant Rudolf Freiherr von Waldenfels Oberst Friedrich-Wilhelm Jürgens Generalleutnant Rudolf Freiherr von Waldenfels The organisation of the division, die Gepanzerten und Motorisierten Deutschen Grossverbände 1935 –1945
7.
Romanian armies in the Battle of Stalingrad
Overpowered and poorly equipped, these forces were unable to stop the Soviet November offensive which punched through both flanks and left the 6th Army encircled in Stalingrad. The Romanians suffered enormous losses, which ended their offensive capability on the Eastern Front for the remainder of the war. As a result, King Carol II was forced to abdicate in September 1940, in October, Romania joined the Axis and expressed its availability for a military campaign against the Soviet Union, in order to recapture the provinces ceded in June. After a highly successful campaign in 1941 as part of Army Group South. The spring and summer of 1942 saw the Third and Fourth Romanian Armies in action in the Battle of Crimea, by the fall of 1942, the two armies were poised to join the attack on Stalingrad. The Long Range Recon and the 112th Liaison Squadrons were at its disposal, in November came the German XLVIII Panzer Corps, composed of the 22nd Panzer Division and the 1st Armoured Division, which was put in reserve.
It had the 2nd, 4th, 5th and 8th Motorized Heavy Artillery Regiments, opposite the 3rd Army was the Southwestern Front, with a staggering force of 5,888 artillery pieces,728 tanks and 790 planes. The Romanian Fourth Army, commanded by General Constantin Constantinescu, with 75,580 men, occupied a line south of the city and it comprised the 6th and 7th Army Corps. The Romanian Air Corps put at its disposal the 15th, 16th, 17th Observation, thus the 18th Cavalry covered a line of 100 km. The reserve consisted of the 6th Roşiori Regiment, the 27th, 57th Pioneer Battalions, the Fourth Panzer Army had in the area the 29th Motorized Infantry Division. This army was supposed to check the advance of the Stalingrad Front, most of these formations were in deplorable shape, with at best 73% of necessary manpower, with the 1st Infantry Division going as low as 25% and an almost nonexistent arsenal of heavy antitank guns. Between these two armies was the Sixth German Army, under General der Panzertruppe Friedrich Paulus, the 37mm and 47mm AT guns were useless against Soviet tanks, so the Romanian troops had to use grenades, anti-tank mines and Molotov cocktails.
In the first hours, they managed to delay the advance and destroy some armor, the Soviets attacked west of Tsaritsa Valley and at Raspopinskaya, but were repulsed. By evening, the 1st Romanian Armored Division reached Sirkovsky, making preparations to attack Bolsoy the next day, on 20 November, the Soviet armored and motorized forces advanced towards Kalach, with the intention of encircling the 6th German Army fighting at Stalingrad. The 22nd Panzer Division, overwhelmed at Petshany by the number of Soviet tanks. In the 4th Corps sector,40 Soviet tanks attacked the 15th Infantry Division but were repulsed by evening with heavy losses, the 1st Cavalry Division had to retreat towards Stalingrad and was subordinated to the 6th Army. At the end of the day, the position of the Third Romanian Army had a 70 km wide gap in the centre. In this pocket were encircled the 1st Armored Division, three divisions and remains of other two infantry divisions
8.
Field army
A field army is a military formation in many armed forces, composed of two or more corps and may be subordinate to an army group. Likewise, air armies are equivalent formation within some air forces, a field army is composed of 100,000 to 150,000 troops. Particular field armies are named or numbered to distinguish them from army in the sense of an entire national land military force. In English, the style for naming field armies is word numbers, such as First Army, whereas corps are usually distinguished by Roman numerals. A field army may be given a name in addition to or as an alternative to a numerical name, such as the British Army of the Rhine. The term is derived from the fact that they were commanded by Roman emperors, while the Roman comitatensis is sometimes translated as field army, it may be translated as the more generic field force or mobile force. In some armed forces, an army is or has been equivalent to a corps-level unit, prior to 1945, this was the case with a gun within the Imperial Japanese Army, for which the formation equivalent in size to a field army was an area army.
In the Soviet Red Army and the Soviet Air Forces, an army was subordinate in wartime to a front and it contained at least three to five divisions along with artillery, air defense and other supporting units. In peacetime, a Soviet army was subordinate to a military district. Modern field armies are large formations which vary significantly between armed forces in size and scope of responsibility. For instance, within NATO a field army is composed of a headquarters, a battle is influenced at the field army level by transferring divisions and reinforcements from one corps to another to increase the pressure on the enemy at a critical point. NATO armies are controlled by a general or lieutenant general, Military unit Military history List of numbered armies
9.
Military organization
Military organization or military organisation is the structuring of the armed forces of a state so as to offer military capability required by the national defense policy. In some countries paramilitary forces are included in an armed forces. Armed forces that are not a part of military or paramilitary organizations, such as insurgent forces, often mimic military organizations, the use of formalized ranks in a hierarchical structure came into widespread use with the Roman Army. These in turn manage Armed Services that themselves command combat, combat support and combat support formations. Within each departmental agency will be found administrative branches responsible for further agency business specialization work, in most countries the armed forces are divided into three or four Armed services, army and air force. Many countries have a variation on the model of three or four basic Armed Services. Some nations organize their marines, special forces or strategic missile forces as independent armed services, a nations coast guard may be an independent military branch of its military, although in many nations the coast guard is a law enforcement or civil agency. A number of countries have no navy, for geographical reasons, most smaller countries have a single organization that encompasses all armed forces employed by the country in question.
Third-world armies tend to consist primarily of infantry, while first-world armies tend to have larger units manning expensive equipment and it is worthwhile to make mention of the term joint. In western militaries, a joint force is defined as a unit or formation comprising representation of power from two or more branches of the military. It is common, at least in the European and North American militaries, to refer to the blocks of a military as commands, formations. In a military context, a command is a collection of units and it is not uncommon for a nations services to each consist of their own command, but this does not preclude the existence of commands which are not service-based. A formation is defined by the US Department of Defense as two or more aircraft, ships, or units proceeding together under a commander. The formations only differ in their ability to achieve different scales of application of force to achieve different strategic and tactical goals and it is a composite military organization that includes a mixture of integrated and operationally attached sub-units, and is usually combat-capable.
Example of formations include, brigades, wings, formation may refer to tactical formation, the physical arrangement or disposition of troops and weapons. Examples of formation in such usage include, panzerkeil, testudo formation, any unit subordinate to another unit is considered its sub-unit or minor unit. It is not uncommon for unit and formation to be used synonymously in the United States, in Commonwealth practice, formation is not used for smaller organizations like battalions which are instead called units, and their constituent platoons or companies are referred to as sub-units. In the Commonwealth, formations are divisions, etc, different armed forces, and even different branches of service of the armed forces, may use the same name to denote different types of organizations
