12th Army (Soviet Union)
Encyclopedia
The Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

's 12th Army was a field army
Field army
A Field Army, or Area Army, usually referred to simply as an Army, is a term used by many national military forces for a military formation superior to a corps and beneath an army group....

 formed multiple times during the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...

 and World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

Civil War & Polish-Soviet War

The 12th Army (Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...

 1st Formation) of the Soviet Red Army was first formed from Soviet forces in the north-eastern Caucasus in 1918.

The 12th Army (Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...

 2nd Formation) was formed from the 1st and 3rd Ukrainian Red Armies in central Ukraine in the summer of 1919. In July 1920 Simon Aralov
Simon Aralov
Semyon Ivanovich Aralov was the first head of the Soviet Red Army Intelligence Directorate and subsequently had a career in the Soviet diplomatic service....

 was chief of intelligence
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...

 with this unit.

Second World War

The 12th Army (1st Formation) (RKKA) of the Soviet Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 was formed from the Southern (Cavalry-Mechanised) Army Group of the Kiev Special Military District during 1939-40.

It was then involved in the Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)
Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)
The 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland was a Soviet military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939, during the early stages of World War II. Sixteen days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west, the Soviet Union did so from the east...

. It entered the Second World War as part of the Soviet Southwestern Front
Soviet Southwestern Front
The Southwestern Front was a name given to a Front by the Imperial Russian Army during the First World War, by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic during the Russian Civil War, and by the Red Army during the Second World War.The Southwestern Front in this article describes several...

, comprising the 13th Rifle (including the 44th
44th Rifle Division (Soviet Union)
The 44th Kievskaya of the Red Banner Rifle Division of Nikolay Shchors, or 44th Kievskaya for short, was an elite military formation of the Soviet Union....

, 58th, and 192nd Rifle Divisions) 17th Rifle Corps (60th Mountain, 69th Mountain, and 164th Rifle Divisions), 16th Mechanised Corps (15th, 39th Tank Divisions, 240th Mechanised Division) 10th, 11th and 12th Fortified Regions, and artillery, engineering and other units. It participated in the frontier battle to the west of Stanislav
Stanislav
Stanislav and its variants may refer to:-Places:* Stanislaus County, California, named after Stanislaus River* Place Stanislas, a square in Nancy, France, World Heritage Site of UNESCO...

. In the second half of July as part of the Soviet Southern Front
Soviet Southern Front
The Southern Front was a Front - a roughly Army group sized formation - of the Soviet Army during the Second World War. The Southern Front directed military operations during the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in 1940, and then was formed twice after the June 1941 German...

 it conducted defensive fights in the direction of Uman
Uman
Uman is a city located in the Cherkasy Oblast in central Ukraine, to the east of Vinnytsia. The city rests on the banks of the Umanka River at around , and serves as the self-governing administrative center of the Umanskyi Raion ....

. During the Battle of Uman
Battle of Uman
The Battle of Uman was the German and allied encirclement of the 6th and 12th The Battle of Uman (15 July–8 August 1941) was the German and allied encirclement of the 6th (General Lieutenant I.N. Muzyrchenko) and 12th The Battle of Uman (15 July–8 August 1941) was the German and allied...

, the Twelfth Army was caught in a huge encirclement south of Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....

 along with the 6th Army
6th Army (Soviet Union)
The 6th Army was a field army of the Soviet Red Army formed four times during World War II and active with the Russian Ground Forces up until 1998...

. Thus the army's headquarters was disbanded on 10 August 1941, after the battle.

The 12th Army was reformed in August 1941 as part of the Soviet Southern Front
Soviet Southern Front
The Southern Front was a Front - a roughly Army group sized formation - of the Soviet Army during the Second World War. The Southern Front directed military operations during the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in 1940, and then was formed twice after the June 1941 German...

 on the basis of 17th Rifle Corps. On 1 September 1941 its structure included 270th
270th Rifle Division
The 270th Rifle Division was a Red Army infantry division formed twice during World War II, in 1941 and 1942. After World War II it became a motor rifle division and became part of the Russian Ground Forces after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991....

 and 274th Rifle Divisions, the 11th Tank Division, 268th and 374th Corps Artillery Regiments, 64th and 181st Fighter Aviation Regiments, and a number of separate formations. The Army defended the left coast of the Dnepr around Zaporozhye, from the end of September to the beginning of December, 1941. It participated in the Donbass defensive, Rostov
Rostov
Rostov is a town in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, one of the oldest in the country and a tourist center of the Golden Ring. It is located on the shores of Lake Nero, northeast of Moscow. Population:...

 defensive and offensive, in January, 1942 in the Barvenkovo-Lozove offensive operations, in the subsequent conducted defensive fights in Donbass and on Northern Caucasus (part of the Battle of the Caucasus
Battle of the Caucasus
The Battle of Caucasus is a name given to a series of German and Soviet operations in the Caucasus area during the Soviet-German War.-1941 operations:...

). In the middle of April 1942 the 261st Rifle Division under Colonel A.M. Ilina, the 4th Rifle Division
4th Rifle Division (Soviet Union)
The 4th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Soviet Union's Red Army active from 1921 to 1946.The Division was activated 1919 near Petrograd during the Russian Civil War, and fought on the western front of that war and in the Soviet-Polish War. Until 1923 its headquarters was at Minsk...

 (Colonel I.P.Roslogo), the 74th Rifle Division under General F.E.Sheverdina, the 176th Rifle Division (General V.N.Martsinkevicha) and 54th Tank Brigade (тбр) under Colonel K.S. Minarova were assigned to the Army.

It was later in 1942 reorganised as a defensive zone HQ, but then reformed again by conversion of the previous 5th Tank Army
5th Guards Tank Army (Soviet Union)
The 5th Guards Tank Army was a Soviet Guards armoured formation which fought in many notable actions during World War II.The 5th Guards Tank Army was formed on 10 February 1942. Its organisation varied throughout its history, but in general included two or more Guards Tank Corps and one or more...

 in mid April 1943. It joined the Southwestern Front. Its structure included the 172nd, 203rd, 244th, 333rd and 350th Rifle Divisions and other formations. In April - July the Army was in Front reserve, and then participated in the Donbass and Zaporozhye offensive operations. In November the army HQ was disbanded, with its forces transferred to other armies. Commanders included Lieutenant-General I.Shlemin (April - May 1943), and Major-General Danilov (May - October 1943).
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