Encirclements in 1941
Encyclopedia
The majority of the fighting and dying in World War II centered on the Eastern Front and the clash of the Nazi and Soviet armies. The Nazi invasion in June of 1941 Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...

 can be viewed as a series of double envelopments, capturing huge numbers of men and machines. Also called "cauldrons", the great encirclement battles of 1941 cost 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....

 dearly. There were approximately 8-11 pockets in 1941, each of which netted more than 100,000 prisoners. Most of these prisoners would be dead within the next 8 months.
  • Białystok and Minsk pockets - 324,000 POWs
  • Smolensk encirclement (three caldrons, two smaller ones east of Mogilev and west of Nevel, a greater one between Orscha and Smolensk) - 310,000 POWs
  • Uman pocket - 103,000 POWs
  • Kiev pocket - 665,000 POWs
  • Vyazma and Brysansk pockets - 650,000 POWs

Encirclement losses for the Soviet Union
in 1941
Pocket Prisoners taken Tanks D/C Guns D/C
1 Rossizny 200 tanks
2 Bialystok-Minsk 290,000 3,332 tanks 1809 guns
3 Smolensk 310,000 3205 tanks 3120 guns
4 Roslavl 38,000 250 tanks 359 guns
5 Gomel 84,000 144 tanks 848 guns
6 Dvina 35,000 355 tanks 655 guns
7 Staraya Russa 53,000 320 tanks 695 guns
8 Luga 250,000 1170 tanks 3075 guns
9 Reval 12,000 91 tanks 293 guns
10 Galacia 150,000 1970 tanks 2190 guns
11 Uman 103,000 317 tanks 1100 guns
12 Zhitomir 18,000 142 tanks 123 guns
13 Valdai Hills 30,000 400 guns
14 Kiev 667,000 884 tanks 3718 guns
15 Vyazma-Bryansk 663,000 1242 tanks 5412 guns
16 Nikolav 60,000 84 tanks 1100 guns
17 Dnieper Bend 84,000 199 tanks 465 guns
18 Mariupol (Sea of Azov) 106,000 212 tanks 672 guns
19 Crimea 100,000 160 tanks 700 guns
20 Donetz 14,000 45 tanks 69 guns
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK