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. It appears to have been reformed in 2010.

It was first formed in August, 1939 in the Kiev Special Military District from the Volochiskaya Army Group (a corps-sized formation).

In September 1939 it participated in the Soviet invasion of Poland. At the beginning of war the Army (6th Rifle Corps, 37th Rifle Corps (which included the 80th, 139th, and 141st Rifle Divisions), 4th and 15th Mechanized Corps, 5th Cavalry Corps, 4th and 6th Fortified Regions, and a number of artillery and other units) was deployed on the Lviv direction. It started the Second World War as part of the Soviet Southwestern Front. The army's headquarters was disbanded 10 August 1941 after the Battle of Uman. In this battle, the 6th Army was caught in a huge encirclement south of Kiev along with the 12th Army.

It was immediately reformed within the Southern Front on the basis of 48th Rifle Corps and other units, and defended the west bank of the Dnepr River northwest of Dnipropetrovsk. On 1 September 1941 it consisted of 169th, 226th, 230th, 255th, 273rd, and 275th Rifle Divisions, 26th and 28th Cavalry Divisions, 47 сп (15th NKVD Rifle Division), 269th, 274th, and 394th Corps Artillery Regiments, 522 гап б/м, 671st Artillery Regiment of the Reserve of the Supreme High Command (ап РВГК), 14, 27 озад, and 8th Tank Division. It was then transferred to the Soviet Southwestern Front and took part in defensive actions in the Donbas, the Barvenkovo-Lozovaia operation, and the Second Battle of Kharkov, but along with the 57th Army, was surrounded in the Izium pocket with the loss of 200,000 plus men in casualties alone, and afterwards formally disbanded.

The Army was reformed in July 1942 for the third time from the 6th Reserve Army, comprising the 45th, 99th, 141st, 160th, 174th, 212th, 219th, and 309th Rifle Divisions plus the 141st Rifle Brigade. It was assigned in sequence to the Voronezh, Southwestern, and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts. In January 1943, the 6th Army smashed through the defensive lines of the Alpini divisions of the Italian 8th Army as part of Operation Little Saturn. In 1944 it took part in the Nikopol-Kryvyi Rih, Bereznogova-Snigorovka, and Odessa offensives. However in June 1944 it was broken up again, and only reformed in December 1944 with troops posted in from 3rd Guards and 13th Armies. On 1 January 1945 the Army consisted of the 22nd Rifle Corps (218th and 273rd Rifle Divisions), the 74th Rifle Corps (181st and 309th Rifle Divisions), the 359th Rifle Division, the 77th Fortified Region, and other support units.

During 1945 the Army took part in the Sandomierz-Silesia, and the Lower Silesia offensives. During the Lower Silesia offensive in February 1945, 6th Army besieged Fortress Breslau (Festung Breslau) in the Battle of Breslau. The city was besieged as part of the Lower Silesian Offensive Operation on February 13, 1945, by the 6th Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front commanded by Marshal Ivan Koniev, and the encirclement of Breslau was completed the following day. The 1st Ukrainian Front forces besieged the city with the 22nd and 74th Rifle Corps, and the 77th Fortified Region, as well as other smaller units. Even approximate estimates vary greatly concerning the number of German troops trapped in Breslau. Some sources claim that there were as many as 150,000 defenders, some 80,000 and some 50,000. The Siege of Breslau consisted of destructive house-to-house street fighting. The city was bombarded to ruin by artillery of the Soviet 6th Army, as well as the Soviet 2nd Air Army and the Soviet 18th Air Army. During the siege, both sides resorted to setting entire districts of the city on fire.

6th Army then fought in the Bresla offensive.

After the end of the Second World War, the 6th Army was withdrawn from Germany and stationed briefly in the Orlovskiy Military District before being disbanded in the Voronezh Military District late in 1945. Its second formation was (re)formed in the Leningrad Military District in 1960 with headquarters at Petrozavodsk.

In 1988 it consisted of:

• 37th Motor Rfle Division (Нагорный (Мурманск)), including 31, 54th Motor Rifle Regiments
• 54th Motor Rifle Division (Alakurtti) 82nd Guards Tank Regiment, 221 гв. и 251 (Кандалакша), 281* Motor Rifle Regiments, 441 ап, 454 зрап
• 71st Motor Rifle Division (Petrozavodsk)
• 111th Motor Rifle Division (Sortavala), 91st Tank Regiment (Лахденпохья) 182* и 185 (Лахденпохья), 184 109 ап, 1037 зрап
• 131st Motor Rifle Division (Pechenga)
• 88th Independent Helicopter Squadron (Apatity, Murmansk Oblast, from 1977) Disbanded 1991 or 1994. (Kirovsk-Apatity Airport)
• 840th Independent Engineer-Sapper Battalion
• and several other independent brigades, regiments, and battalions

In 1989 the 71st Motor Rifle Division became the 5186-ю БХВТ (30-я мотострелковая бригада), and the 37th similarly became a weapons and equipment storage base (VKhVT).

In January 1996 it consisted of the 161st Artillery Brigade, the 182nd MRL Regiment, the 485th Separate Helicopter Regiment, the 54th Motor Rifle Division (Allakurtti), the 111th Motor Rifle Division (Sortavala), and the 131st Motor Rifle Division (Pechenga). It finally disbanded after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1997-98.

In 2010, as part of the creation of the Western Military District / Western Operational-Strategic Command with headquarters at St. Petersburg, the army was reformed. The new 6th Army may include:

• Headquarters Agalatovo
• 138th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade
• 25th mechanized brigade
• 9th guards artillery brigade
• 380th guards MLRS regiment
• 268th guards artillery brigade
• indigenous engineering brigade
• SAM brigade