Lepel counterattack 1941 memories. Battle under hay. The plans of the Soviet command

The battle of Senno: the forgotten largest tank battle

It was here, more than 50 kilometers southwest of Vitebsk, on July 6, 1941, in a fierce bloody battle, more than two thousand combat vehicles of the USSR and the Third Reich agreed not for life, but for death. And this is more than twice the amount of equipment that was involved in the battles on the Kursk Bulge, where, according to the official Soviet version, 1200 Soviet and German tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts fought (by the way, according to later updated data, their number did not exceed one thousand on both sides).

However, in any case, it turns out that the tank battle near Senno is truly unique in terms of the number of armored vehicles involved in the entire history of wars! However, unlike the Kursk Bulge, about which a great many books have been written and many films made, almost nothing was known about the battle in the Vitebsk region for a long time.

There is one simple explanation for this: if under Prokhorovka Soviet troops won a victory that became one of the turning points in the war, then in Belarus they suffered a crushing defeat and suffered huge losses.

By the beginning of July 1941, the situation at the front for Soviet side developed critical. After Minsk was taken and the main forces of the Soviet Western Front were practically defeated, the Wehrmacht believed that the road to Moscow was now open to them. In particular, on July 3, the chief of the German General Staff, Colonel-General Halder, wrote the following in his diary: “In general, it can already be said that the task of defeating the main enemy forces in front of the Western Dvina and the Dnieper has been completed” ...

However, the general hurried in his assessments - soon the Wehrmacht was expecting an unpleasant surprise: on July 5, on the way to Vitebsk, the advanced German units ran into fierce resistance from the Soviet troops and were stopped.

But the main "surprise" for the German troops was a completely unexpected enemy tank counter-attack in the direction of Lepel, which began early in the morning on July 6. Before the two mechanized corps of the 20th Army of the Western Front, the Soviet command set the task of defeating the enemy tank groups separated from the main forces and stopping their advance on Vitebsk.

The most fierce battle in the counterattack took place near the small town of Senno, where thousands of engines roared, gun shots merged into one polyphonic chorus, and burning armor was generously watered with human blood. By the end of the day, Soviet tank formations managed to completely take over this locality. However, it was not easy to keep the city: the next day, Senno changed hands three times, but by the end of the day it was still under the control of Soviet troops.

On July 8, the German side threw all the reserves it had in the area into the assault on the city. After bloody battles, the Soviet troops had to leave Senno and retreat to the Vitebsk-Smolensk highway. Meanwhile, part of the Soviet tanks continued to advance on Lepel. Perhaps they would have been able to consolidate their success, but the enemy also managed to bypass the Soviet positions and capture Vitebsk on July 9th. As a result, even before the crossing of the Dnieper, a direct road to Smolensk, and then to Moscow, was opened in front of the Wehrmacht. Further sense in continuing the counterattack automatically fell away, and the commander of the 20th Army, Lieutenant General Kurochkin, ordered the attack on Lepel to be suspended.

The remnants of the Soviet units retreated under the cover of night, hiding behind forests, but many did not manage to escape from the encirclement. In addition, many armored vehicles ran out of fuel and ammunition.

It was here, according to the official version, that the most famous participant in the battle of Senno, Stalin's son Yakov Dzhugashvili, a junior officer of the 14th howitzer artillery regiment of the 14th tank division of the 7th mechanized corps, was captured.

Reasons for the defeat

What are the reasons for the failure of the Soviet Lepel counterattack? According to historians and military experts, the main one is the poor preparation of the operation and the lack of time to obtain the necessary intelligence information. Communication was very poorly established, as a result of which the participants in the counterattack often had to act blindly.

Moreover, a large part Soviet tankers I had to engage in battle literally from the wheels. At the time of the receipt of the order to conduct a counterattack, many units were sent along railway to the Kyiv Special Military District, and some echelons have already managed to unload west of the capital Ukraine.

In addition, in many respects, Soviet technology was inferior to the armored vehicles of the Third Reich. The obsolete T-26, BT-5, BT-7 tanks could not successfully confront more modern German vehicles. Soviet engines were inferior to German ones in terms of power, and 20-mm tank armor was penetrated by a projectile of any caliber. The situation was especially aggravated by outdated gasoline engines, because of which, according to participants in the events, Soviet tanks burned like candles. And a few dozen T-34s and KBs couldn't change anything here.

The Soviet troops also suffered significant losses from the active operations of German aviation. Here is what Major General of the Tank Forces Borzikov wrote in one of his reports: “The 5th and 7th mechanized corps are fighting well, the only bad thing is that their losses are very large. And the most serious - from aviation ... "

Summary and Lessons of Senno

The failure of the tank breakthrough on Lepel led to the loss of combat capability of two Soviet mechanized corps, which were sorely lacking during the subsequent battle of Smolensk. In addition, as a result of this defeat, Western front a huge gap was formed, which the German strike formations immediately tried to take advantage of. The losses were truly irreparable.

According to modern experts, during the said counterattack, the Soviet army lost over eight hundred tanks and about 5 thousand soldiers and officers. However, the opposite side was pretty shabby.

Despite the fact that the Lepel counterattack did not reach its goal, the Soviet tank units managed to temporarily push the enemy back 40 kilometers towards Lepel and defend the occupied lines for several days, pulling over a significant enemy reserve. As a result, the German troops lost a whole week, and the offensive pace of the Wehrmacht in the first days of the war slowed down greatly.

Another indirect result of the Lepel counterattack was the gradual restructuring of the Red Army. According to the Directive Letter of July 15, 1941, in addition to the decision to disband the clumsy mechanized corps, the question was raised of the need to switch to a system of small armies of five, maximum six divisions without corps directorates and with direct subordination of divisions to army commanders.

What lessons can be learned from the experience of those days? Probably, first of all, it is not always possible to immediately “beat the enemy on his territory”, as pre-war Soviet propaganda promised. Despite the fact that almost 70 years have passed since then, this topic does not lose its relevance, especially at a time when the "friendly" NATO is getting closer to our borders ... It is no coincidence that today the example of Senno is already widely considered in the preparation of modern Russian tankers and entered a number of specialized manuals.

However, even in the Belarusian state museum There are very few materials in history regarding the Lepel counterattack: only a few photographs and a modest model of the tank are presented on a small stand.

The battle of Senno (or the Lepel counterattack) that took place on July 6-10, 1941 remained practically unknown to posterity, although in terms of the number of tanks involved in it, it is comparable in scale to the battle of Prokhorovka during Battle of Kursk. Like other events of the Red Army of that period, this operation became another unsuccessful attempt to stop the German offensive at the initial stage. In many ways, it was precisely because of the failure of the Soviet counterattack in Belarus that it remained an undeservedly rarely mentioned episode of the fierce campaign of the summer-autumn of 1941.

Circumstances of the operation

The bloody battle near Senno was the last attempt by the Red Army to launch a counterattack with tank units. After the battle, the mechanized corps ended, and further efforts to seize the initiative from the enemy in 1941 were reduced to attacks by infantry formations. The second week of the war is over, and the Germans have already traveled 500 kilometers - half the way from the border to Moscow. When the battle of Senno began, the stunning offensive of the Wehrmacht had already shifted the front line to Vitebsk and Orsha.

High Command german army from the very beginning chose the central site Eastern Front as the main direction of attack Soviet Union. Army Group Center was deployed here - in some respects it surpassed the other two Groups South and North combined. The mechanized units of the Germans consisted of the 2nd and 3rd Tank Groups - in total, they had 7 motorized and 9 tank divisions.

Such a scale of the offensive made it possible to carry out a deep coverage and encirclement of the Soviet troops. Parts of the Western Front were indeed quickly defeated. By July 3, the Germans had crushed the last pockets of coordinated resistance. Soviet losses were huge - about two-thirds of all formations of the front. In the divisions leaving the "cauldrons" there were 1 - 2 thousand people left. All heavy weapons (aircraft, tanks, artillery) were lost. Equipment was thrown right on the roads. For this failure, the front command was arrested and shot (including General Dmitry Pavlov). In such circumstances, the battle of Senno began. 1941 was the most terrible year of the war, and the planned counter-offensive promised to be no less serious in terms of human losses than previous attempts to stop the German advance.

Counterattack plan

July 1941 was not the worst time for a counter-offensive in this region. Most of German forces moved not to the east, but to the northeast - the leadership of the Wehrmacht sought to force as quickly as possible. Only two enemy divisions (17th and 7th tank divisions) remained in the Soviet strike zone, although they also represented a formidable force.

On the eve of the battle

The command of the Western Front was in a hurry to organize a counterattack also because time worked for the enemy. A week later infantry divisions the Germans, having completed the encirclement of the Minsk and Bialystok "boilers", were supposed to approach the front line. In this case, the balance of power changed dramatically. Every day the Red Army found itself in an increasingly difficult position, and delaying even a few hours was extremely costly.

Prepared for the counterattack, the 7th mechanized corps under the command of Vinogradov moved west from the Moscow Military District on June 24th. Cars on wheels set off on their own, and tracked vehicles were loaded onto railway platforms. On the way, the mechanized corps received new tasks several times, since the situation in Belarus was changing too quickly.

balance of power

The German 7th had a rare structure for such a formation. It included 4 battalions. The number of tanks was a record for the entire Eastern Front - 265 combat units, of which 25 were lost in two weeks of fighting. However, the Soviet 7th mechanized corps included twice as many vehicles.

Most of the German division's fleet consisted of Czech 1938 Skoda models. These light tanks had a 37 mm cannon and a hull assembled with rivets and bolts. When hit by an enemy projectile, these elements came off and injured the crew. So it is extremely difficult to call Skoda a technical miracle. In addition to them, there were also light PZ-IIs. They were armed with small 20 mm cannons. KV and T-34 were present in the Soviet units. Specifications allowed them to neutralize the entire park in a skirmish with the German models described above, costing minimal losses. It was a similar battle in his picture that the artist Nikolai Nazarchuk demonstrated. The “Battle of Senno” by the Belarusian master has become one of the most recognizable illustrations of that battle.

Artillery and infantry

In tank divisions, tanks were the "points of the spear", but any such formation also needed a "pole" - infantry and artillery. What was the condition of these units in the German divisions? The artillery regiment consisted of 36 guns - mostly howitzers and a few cannons. These figures were much more modest than the Soviet ones. Two panzer divisions had almost a hundred guns. The ratio in the infantry was similar: 15 infantry battalions of the Red Army against 4 of the Wehrmacht.

In the offensive area of the 7th mechanized corps, the Soviet numerical superiority was twofold, and in the 5th mechanized corps it was seven to eightfold. A large number of tanks later became the reason for comparing the battle of Senno with the famous Prokhorov battle during the Battle of Kursk in 1943.

The 5th mechanized corps had a unique structure in its own way - two additional artillery regiments were attached to it. These units were added from the reserve of the Western Front. They were also called corps artillery regiments. An important feature of these formations was the presence of heavy 122-mm and 152-mm howitzer guns. They created not only mathematical, but also qualitative superiority over enemy artillery.

The battle near Senno could have ended even faster if the Germans had not left two of their motorized infantry and an anti-tank division in Borisov. These units remained to guard the strategically important crossing over the Berezina. These units ended up near Senno only on July 7, reducing the numerical superiority of the 5th mechanized corps to twofold.

The beginning of the counterattack

On July 6, the battle of Senno entered an active phase. Two detachments were formed in the 14th Panzer Division (each included a tank company and a motorized infantry battalion). These formations tried to force Chernogostnitsa and hold on to the western bank of the river. One detachment did manage to retain a small foothold near Lake Sarro. At this time, the forces of the 18th Panzer Division approached eastern outskirts Senno and there entered into a stubborn battle with the Germans. In the evening, the enemy was driven out of the city. On this sector of the front, Soviet troops went on the defensive. This was their only success during the operation.

Disruption of plans

On July 7, the tank battle near Senno continued. All previous night soviet soldiers prepared crossings on Chernogostnitsa. In the morning, units of the 14th Panzer Division moved along them to the western bank of the key river. Promotion bogged down after 4 kilometers of travel. The tanks collided with the main forces of the 7th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht. Soviet formations suffered heavy losses and rolled back to their original eastern coast. Then they returned to Ostrovno and began to evacuate their materiel.

Meanwhile, the Germans from the north launched an attack on Senno, where the 18th Panzer Division was defending. The Red Army left the city by noon on 8 July. At this time, the 5th mechanized corps was engaged in a fierce battle with enemy tanks 20 kilometers south of Senno. He managed to break the German column, but the ensuing counterattack restored the status quo.

On July 9, the 14th and 18th Panzer Divisions retreated to the eastern bank of the Obolyanka. The Germans from the captured Senno began advancing to the highway to Smolensk. On the 10th, the forward detachments entered Oboltsy. By noon, the Germans had covered 40 kilometers and reached the motorway 30 kilometers west of Orsha. The Soviet 5th mechanized corps faced the threat of complete encirclement. His command decided to retreat, the remnants of the tank divisions did the same.

Results and causes of failure

So, the tank battle near Senno for Soviet army ended up with nothing. The troops did not fulfill any of the tasks assigned to them. It was not possible to go even half the way to Lepel. According to the plan, the main blow was delivered on the flank of the Polotsk group of Germans, but it did not suffer any losses - they simply did not get to it. In less than a week of fighting, about 70% of the equipment was lost. The remnants of the tank divisions lost their combat effectiveness and continued to roll back to the east, until they finally disappeared in the “cauldron” near Smolensk.

What was the reason for this failure? July 17, 1914 near the village of Liozno in Vitebsk region Senior Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili, the son of Joseph Stalin, was taken prisoner. During interrogation, he complained about the terrible air attacks of the German Junkers. The same point of view was defended in the reports of the command to Moscow. Later, she migrated to Soviet historiography and for a long time was considered main reason, according to which the battle of Senno was lost, was considered the all-destroying and ubiquitous German aviation, which dived and dropped bombs on the Red Army from morning to night.

However, in reality, everything was much more complicated. The inability of the command to maneuver and establish communication between various formations affected. In addition, the Red Army simply did not have the experience of conducting such large-scale operations, while the Wehrmacht came to the USSR with many victories in Europe behind it. All this made useless the numerical and qualitative superiority of the Soviet troops.

State commanders turned out to be undermined after the recent repressions. Most of the experienced military, including civil war, was shot or sat in the camps. This could not affect how the battle of Senno ended. The consequences of haste and wrong decisions at the first stage of the war were reflected in many failures on the Western Front. This trend spread not only to the Lepel counterattack, but to the entire 1941 campaign of the year.

Losses

In terms of casualties, the Battle of Senno in 1941 corresponded to the typical proportions of that war. The Germans lost approximately 4 wounded per 1 killed (in total, the losses amounted to 468 people). About 50 pieces of equipment (tanks) were lost. The biggest losses occurred in the battle with the 5th mechanized corps near Senno on July 7-9.

The Soviet troops had completely different numbers. The 5th and 7th mechanized corps lost almost all of their tanks (over 1000 units in total, which is about 20 times more than the enemy). Even today, historians have not been able to figure out exactly where that technique went. The figures that fell into the reports of the Red Army command often did not correspond to reality, and because of this, they cannot be reduced to the data of the Germans.

Nevertheless, it is known for certain that when the tank battle near Senno in 1941 ended, none of the 220 tanks remained in the 18th Panzer Division, 14 tanks remained in the 14th, and 5 tanks out of 393 in the 13th. At the same time, things were better with cars. For example, in the 14th division there were 34 cars and 475 trucks, as well as 56 gas tanks.

Reports and facts

The personal losses of the Soviet formations, as in the case of the German ones, fully corresponded to the proportions of the terrible year for the USSR in 1941. For example, according to an official report in the same 14th Panzer Division, 193 people were killed, 359 were injured, and more than 3 thousand people were reported missing. However, these figures are now questionable. They contradict the fact that on July 25 the regiment was armed with only 552 small arms (rifles), while according to the report, more than 5 thousand people should have remained without replenishment in the ranks.

The monstrous gap between facts and reports can only be explained by the desire of the leadership of the formations to hide and retouch their failures before the authorities. On the initial stage war stories like this were commonplace. The battle of Senno was no exception. In any case, the losses of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht were incommensurable, and it is this indicator that most clearly demonstrates the catastrophe of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.

This spring, journalistic paths led me to the Russian Belgorod region. Among other addresses on the itinerary of that trip was the famous Prokhorovka Field - the place where in July 1943, during the battles on the Kursk Bulge, the largest tank battle of the Great Patriotic War. Getting acquainted then with the grandiose memorial complex created on the site of the battles, including a belfry monument, a battle museum and a museum of military equipment, as well as the majestic Orthodox Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, erected in honor of the Soviet soldiers who died on the field of military glory, I could not even imagine that in just six months I will visit places where, according to some historians, a much larger battle of Soviet and Nazi tank armadas took place than near Prokhorovka. And it was at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War near the Belarusian city of Senno.

Unfortunately, there are not so many testimonies about the heroic events of July 1941 in Senno and its district. There is no such memorial as in Prokhorovka. Everything is much simpler here: the memory of the feat of the Soviet soldiers of the 5th and 7th mechanized corps of the 20th Army of the Western Front, who took part in the tank battle near Senno on July 6–10, 1941, is immortalized only by the monument-tank IS-3 (abbreviation stands for "Joseph Stalin"). It was installed three years ago. Indeed, anyone who understands military equipment during the Second World War, it will not fail to note that this type of tank could not participate in the battles at the initial stage of the war, since it began to be produced much later. But that, as they say, is beside the point.
You can learn about the ups and downs and the course of the battle that took place near Senno from the modestly decorated, but actually very rich museum exposition of the local history museum. His researcher Vasily Bondarevich has been studying the July battles of 1941 near his city for decades and, together with his colleagues, has collected a lot of materials about a little-known tank battle.
- By the beginning of July 1941, the situation at the front for the Red Army was critical. Having defeated the main forces of the Western Front in the Bialystok and Minsk “cauldrons” during the first war week and capturing the Belarusian capital, German troops rushed further east, to the border of the Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers, - says Vasily Viktorovich. - This region was strategically important for the enemy, since it was from there that the Nazis planned to deliver a decisive blow to Smolensk, and then to Moscow. In order to reach the Dvina-Dnieper bridgehead as soon as possible, the Wehrmacht strike formations operating in the northwestern and central directions were ordered to conduct an offensive along two main routes - to Vitebsk, where the 39th Motorized Corps from the 3rd Panzer Group of General Colonel Herman Goth, and Orsha, where the 47th motorized corps of the 2nd Panzer Group, Colonel General Heinz Guderian rushed ...

Inspired by the successes of the first days of their eastern blitzkrieg, the German commanders hoped that they would be able to conquer this line without any problems. But they miscalculated. Already on July 5, advancing in the Vitebsk direction in the vanguard of the 39th motorized corps, the 7th Panzer Division of Major General Hans von Funk east of Byalynichy stumbled upon the defensive formations of the 153rd Infantry Division, which was part of the 20th Army, and was stopped by it. The Germans could not believe that they had failed to break through the Soviet barrier on the move. Therefore, after a while they gathered their forces and attacked the positions of our troops again. But this time they were not successful either. The fighters of the 153rd Infantry Division under the command of Colonel Nikolai Hagen in that fierce battle not only survived, but also knocked out about 50 German tanks, destroying more than half a thousand Nazis.
As it turned out later, this battle near Beshenkovichi was only a harbinger of larger-scale hostilities by the Soviet troops. Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, who had just been appointed the new commander of the Western Front, decided to attack the enemy on the distant approaches to the Dvina-Dnieper defensive line and ordered the 7th and 5th mechanized corps of the 20th Army to launch a counterattack with a depth of more than 100 kilometers in the direction of Senno-Lepel .
- In the historical literature since the times of the USSR, the offensive of the Soviet troops in early July 1941 on Lepel and Senno is considered as part of the Vitebsk battle called the Lepel counterattack. But in last years they began to call it the battle of Senno, - V. Bondarevich continues to bring up to date.
Both strike units of the 20th Army - the 5th and 7th mechanized corps, which were ordered to go on the offensive, had not previously been involved in battles on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. They were urgently redeployed to Belarus - the 5th corps from near Kyiv to the Orsha region, and the 7th from the Moscow region - to Liozno. Already in new places, both corps became part of the 20th Army and, according to the order of the commander of the Western Front, Marshal S. Timoshenko, received specific tasks to participate in offensive operation, the beginning of which was scheduled for the morning of July 6. Thus, units of the 7th mechanized corps were to attack the enemy in the Beshenkovichi and Senno directions, and the 5th mechanized corps - in Lepel. They were opposed by significant enemy forces - parts of the 47th and 39th motorized corps and rifle formations. Unlike the Soviet units, these were well-armed and great experience military operations.
At the appointed time on July 6, the 14th Panzer Division of the 7th Mechanized Corps under the command of Colonel Ivan Vasiliev went on the offensive in the direction of Beshenkovichi. Its advanced regiments, advancing in columns along country and forest roads, at first met with little resistance from the enemy.

However, problems began as soon as the first tanks reached the small creek of Chernogostica. It was not possible to force it on the move - steep banks and swampy terrain did not allow it. In addition, on the opposite bank, the Nazis managed to build an impressive defensive line.
Repeated attempts to seize the opposite bank of the river were unsuccessful. The division suffered heavy losses: according to the report of division commander Colonel I. Vasiliev, 126 tanks participated in the battle on the Chernogostitsa River and half of them were lost, more than 200 people were also killed and wounded. Therefore, on the evening of July 7, an order was given to change the direction of the strike - to bypass the line occupied by the enemy from the south and, on the morning of July 8, resume the offensive in a new direction in cooperation with the 18th Panzer Division.
At first, things were little better for units of the 5th mechanized corps, which was ordered to move out of the Orsha region and conduct an offensive on Lepel south of Senno. But even here the first day of the offensive operation did not work out: only about 15 kilometers were overcome.
As Colonel General of the Tank Forces Vasily Butkov, who in 1941 was the chief of staff of the 5th mechanized corps, later recalled, “on July 6 at 5 o’clock the 17th, 13th tank divisions, detachment motorized rifle division marched in columns along designated routes. At first, the Nazis did not offer active resistance, but the troops advanced too slowly. It was pouring rain, and traffic jams were created on muddy roads. In addition, due to the lack of air cover, they often had to take cover in the forests from enemy air strikes.
As they approached the line of Masyuki and Oboltsy, the tank divisions met organized resistance from the forward units of the enemy's 47th motorized corps. With a swift attack, our troops shot down enemy detachments and by 2000, having advanced to a depth of 14-16 km, they reached the line of Serkuty, Budno (17th Panzer Division); Zamoshye, Oboltsy (13th Panzer Division); 7 km west of Vyazmichi (detachment of the 109th motorized division).
By the end of July 6, the tanks had used up almost the entire supply of fuel. Therefore, it was decided to suspend the further offensive in order to refuel the combat vehicles during the night of July 7, and resume the offensive at dawn. However, by the morning of July 7, the vehicles providing the supply of fuel did not arrive at the units, and the commanders of the tank divisions resumed the offensive with the forces of the forward detachments, supplying their tanks with fuel drained from the tanks of other combat vehicles. And this was a justified step: they attacked the extended marching columns of the German 17th Panzer Division, advancing from the Lepel area to Senno, and broke through to the area of the villages of Tsotovo and Tolpino. As a result, the orders of the German division were broken.
But the next day, July 8, the situation of the Soviet shock tank divisions, which by that time had already provided a 40-kilometer breakthrough into the depths of the enemy defenses, deteriorated sharply. Parts of the German 7th and 17th tank divisions attacked the 5th mechanized corps in the flank and rear, and some of its units were surrounded. The next day, reinforcements came to our units that fell into the ring, and on the night of July 10, during a counter attack on the 17th motorized rifle regiment and the tank battalion of the 33rd tank regiment, the remnants of the advanced units of the 5th mechanized corps were able to get out of the encirclement. After that, with other units, they retreated to the Orsha region, where, on the orders of the commander of the 20th Army, Lieutenant General P. Kurochkin, they occupied a new line of defense.

The battles continued by the 14th Panzer Division of the 7th Mechanized Corps on the Chernogostitsa River near Beshenkovichi and the 17th, 13th Panzer Divisions and a detachment of the 109th Motorized Rifle Division, which were part of the 5th Mechanized Corps, in the area of the villages of Masyuki and Oboltsy. The eighteenth division of the 7th mechanized corps, led by Major General Fedor Remizov, came to the aid of the fighters of scattered units of the Soviet troops, who were holding back the onslaught of the enemy on the eastern outskirts of the city of Senno.
Thanks to the fresh forces that arrived in time, on July 7 the city was recaptured from the Germans. The Nazis, of course, did not want to put up with the loss of their positions and launched counterattacks one after another in order to regain control over a settlement that was strategically important to them. However, the soldiers of the 18th Panzer Division steadfastly repulsed the enemy’s attempts to capture Senno: during the day the city changed hands three times, but by the end of it, it still remained under the control of the Soviet troops ...
The fierce fighting that broke out in the Senno area is also evidenced by a memorandum from Major General Walter Nering, the commander of the German 18th Panzer Division, which fought against units of the Soviet 18th (what a coincidence!) Panzer Division: “Losses of equipment, weapons and vehicles unusually large and significantly exceed the captured trophies. This situation is intolerable, otherwise we will be defeated until our own death.
- On July 8, the Nazis threw all the reserves they had in this area against the defenders of the city, - continues V. Bondarevich. - Heavy fighting ensued again. Fire from tanks, guns and mortars fell upon our positions. And what is most inconvenient for the defenders of the city is that the Germans had powerful aviation support ...
It was impossible to keep such an enemy pressure, and the units of the 18th Panzer Division had to leave the city. They departed to eastbound, to the Vitebsk-Orsha highway, where they occupied the next line of defense.
However, it was not necessary to accept the battle in new defensive positions. On July 10, in connection with the capture of Vitebsk by the enemy, the commander of the 20th Army decided to abandon the further development of the counterattack on Lepel and ordered the remaining corps of the 14th and 18th Panzer Divisions to be withdrawn and concentrated in the areas occupied by them before the start of hostilities . Thus, significantly battered, having lost more than 50 percent of tanks and other weapons in the battles near Senno and on the Chernogostitsa River, the 14th and 18th tank divisions of the 7th mechanized corps were returned to the Liozno region.
Military strategists and historians in recent times among the reasons for the failure of the Lepel counterattack are the following: poor preparation of the operation and lack of time to obtain the necessary intelligence information. Communication was very poorly established, as a result of which the participants in the counterattack often had to act blindly. A significant part of the Soviet tankers had to engage in battle literally from the wheels; the supply of fuel and ammunition was extremely unimportant. The lack of combat experience also played its detrimental role: after all, for most soldiers and junior officers, the battles in the Senno area became the first baptism of fire. But they had to confront the already fairly "fired" enemy in European battles. In addition, in many respects, Soviet technology was inferior to enemy combat vehicles. Our troops also suffered significant losses from the active actions of fascist aviation, and Soviet tanks did not have any air support. And even the weather was against the Soviet tankers: heavy rains made dirt roads difficult to pass, and this greatly hampered the offensive ...

However, despite the fact that the counterattack did not reach its ultimate goal, the Soviet troops managed to temporarily push the enemy back 40 kilometers towards Lepel and defend the occupied lines for several days, pulling back a significant enemy reserve. As a result, the Nazis lost a whole week, and their offensive pace slowed down greatly.
An indirect result of the battles near Senno was the gradual restructuring of the Red Army. In the Directive letter of the Headquarters to the commanders of the fronts of July 15, 1941, the question was already raised of the need to switch to a system of small armies of five, maximum six divisions without corps directorates. This made tank units mobile, capable of solving the combat missions assigned to them more successfully. Which was not slow to affect the subsequent battles of the Great Patriotic War, including such turning points as the Battle of Prokhorov.

How it was?
From the memoirs of Major General of the Tank Troops Vasily Gulyaev about the battle near the Chernogostitsa River:
“Artillery fire increased. Tanks went ahead... Sultans of explosions are bouncing on the western coast of Chernogostitsa. The enemy positions were shrouded in thick dark brown dust and smoke. In the roar of artillery preparation, a roar of unusual strength suddenly thundered. The earth trembled and splashed a giant pillar of fire into the sky. Not otherwise, our gunners covered the ammunition depot.
Roaring engines, clanging caterpillars, a tank armada, numbering up to a hundred vehicles, rushed to the river. But the enemy was silent.
My BT-7 has already gone to the crossing. Through the periscope, I see our two lead vehicles on the opposite bank.
And then there were enemy planes. The bombing started. One of the fragments of an air bomb that exploded nearby broke our right caterpillar. BT-7 spun in place. He had to leave. By the way, the KV (tank "Kliment Voroshilov" - S.G.) of Lieutenant Yakovlev turned out to be nearby.
I clung to the periscope again. It is clearly seen that the two cars that crossed over are firing at the Nazis almost point-blank. Here the caterpillars caught on the shore of the third. But a direct hit either by an enemy shell or a bomb overturned it from a steep bank into a river. This caused some confusion among those who followed behind. And the enemy aircraft went on a rampage.
A disturbing thought flashed: “Everything is lost!”. And at the same moment I saw someone jump out of one of the tanks. A small figure in black darted between the cars. It was the political instructor of the Khristoforov company. He waved his arms and shouted something. It only remained to wonder how, in this hell, fragments do not touch him ...
Khristoforov managed to eliminate the blockage. But at the very last moment, death overtook him. The cars took off again. And they started to topple over again. I aimed the periscope at the left ferry. There is the same picture. Our tank got stuck almost at the very shore. Two other steel giants blocked his way, stuck in a muddy river ... "

Sergei GOLOVKO

Twice as many tanks participated in the battle near Senno than near Prokhorovka

About 15 years ago, as a staff correspondent for a republican newspaper, I had to travel frequently to the capital, sometimes in a company car, which was given to several correspondents at once, who used it in turn. On the way to Minsk, the driver usually turned into a parking lot near memorial complex"Khatyn", and we had a quick snack in a roadside cafe. There was also a large restaurant, which, I think, was called Partizansky Bor, but we did not go there: it was intended for distinguished guests and wealthy tourists, and the menu there was exquisite and expensive. In addition, eating delicacies near the village that was burned with the inhabitants seemed sacrilege to me.

During one of these stops, I quietly wormed my way into a group of tourists to listen to the guide with them. Moreover, this time it turned out to be the director of the museum "Khatyn and the Mound of Glory" Anatoly Bely, whom I knew from Minsk when he worked at the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, where my classmate in philology, later a candidate of historical sciences, also worked Tatyana Grosheva.
After the tour, A. Bely and I stepped aside and started talking. And I told him that I had recently learned from one of the central Russian newspaper that the village of Khatyn was burned, in fact, not by the Germans, but by policemen, immigrants from Ukraine.

I have known about this for a long time, - the director of the museum agreed, - but I must repeat the official version.
And then, having probably heard what the conversation was about, one of the tourists intervened in the dialogue, a stocky, very thin old man with characteristic traces of skin burns on his face and hands.
“The whole truth about the war will never be told,” he entered into the conversation. - Did you know, learned people where and when was the biggest tank battle?

He puzzled us with this question.
- On the Kursk Bulge, - I answered without hesitation.
- Near Prokhorovka, in the Belgorod direction, - the certified historian Anatoly Bely specified.
- Mob your yat with this Prokhorovka, - the old man was intricately indignant. The scorched skin on his forehead turned white, he reached into his jacket for cigarettes, the medals on his chest clinked, and I mentally noted on his slats Ribbons "Red Star" and "Red Banner".

This Prokhorovka was given to you,” he continued. - Yes, there were at most eight hundred tanks on both sides, although they lie that more than a thousand. And near Senno, where I was in the forty-first, more than two thousand tanks and self-propelled guns converged. Only we were gouged there and driven east, so they write about Kursk Bulge and Prokhorovka. And about Senno were silent and will be silent.

I had a pocket recorder with me, I turned it on and recorded the veteran's nervous speech. He claimed that at the beginning of the war, in early July 1941, he was a tank commander and was part of the 5th Corps of the 20th Army of General Kurochkin in a battle with the German tank army, where there were at least 2 thousand combat vehicles on both sides . And it was July 6, 1941, 2 years before the battle of Prokhorovka, which is described in all history books and military memoirs Soviet generals. But from what he said then on my tape recorder former tanker, it followed that the tank battle near Senno was really unique in terms of the number of opposing vehicles. And one of the largest in terms of the number of victims from the Soviet troops.
“Our tanks were weaker than the German ones in every respect,” said a participant in the Battle of Senno. - And the engines were inferior to the German ones in terms of power, and the armor was thinner, and the gun was worse. And most importantly, the Germans already had enough experience. They confidently fired at us, hit us with shells on the move, and our tanks burned like candles. My car was hit ten minutes after the start of the battle, the old man said. - The driver died immediately, and I got burned, but managed to get out of the tank. All of ours, who survived then, were surrounded, and after they left it, only six tanks and about twenty people were wounded in our regiment. We retreated somehow, first to Dubrovno, then to Smolensk, and from there we were sent to Moscow, where our corps was reorganized.
Returning to Vitebsk, I transferred the recording from the cassette to paper and the next day, as I promised, I sent the text to Anatoly Bely by mail. Soon I received a reply from him.

“Apparently, the old man spoke the pure truth,” the historian wrote. - I found confirmation of the correctness of his words. In the six-volume "History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-1945. (Vol. 2, 1961, p. 40) it is reported that on July 6, 1941, the troops of the 20th Army, then commanded by Lieutenant General P.A. Kurochkin, launched a counterattack from the Orsha region against the troops of the 3rd Panzer Group (according to our classification - the army) of the Germans. The 7th and 5th tank corps, which had about 1,000 tanks, took part in the counterattack. The 3rd tank group of the enemy had about the same number of vehicles. So it turns out, - wrote A. Bely, - that about 2 thousand tanks participated in the battle on both sides - twice as many as near Prokhorovka. The same book says that “in fierce battles, our mechanized corps inflicted heavy losses on the enemy and threw him back 30-40 km towards Lepel. But near Senno, the Germans threw the 47th motorized corps into the counteroffensive. It is here, presumably, - wrote Anatoly Bely, - that the battle took place, about which its participant told us about in Khatyn. And, judging by what is reported about it in official history, it was indeed the largest tank battle of the Great Patriotic War, and, consequently, the Second World War, and all the wars of the twentieth century. Another thing is that its results were unenviable for the Soviet side. As reported in the mentioned publication, "our troops withstood up to 15 attacks a day, and then they had to break out of the encirclement and retreat."

Further in the letter of A. Bely was the following: “Soviet sources did not report our losses in that battle, but if indeed all our tanks were killed (and there is no doubt about this), then we can safely talk about at least 5 thousand dead - soldiers and officers. In other major works on the history of the war, - wrote A. Bely, - there is nothing about the tank battle near Senno. True, in the 12-volume "History of the Second World War 1939-1945", published under L. Brezhnev, on page 46 of volume 4 of the battle of Senno is regarded as the usual "counterattack of our troops by the forces of the 5th and 7th mechanized corps of the 20th army of General P.A. Kurochkin in the division of the 3rd tank group of the Germans in the Lepel direction in the Senno area. About the number of tanks and the brutality of the fighting - not a word. Everything is veiled in military terminology and so intricately stated that even a historian finds it difficult to understand.

Then, 15 years ago, the historian Anatoly Bely found it difficult to understand this vague presentation of facts. But from the standpoint of our current experience, everything is very clear. The time was different, the ideological attitudes were different. Every word about the war was censored by Glavpur, the Main Political Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Defense.
Nothing can be changed in those books sifted by censors. But it is a sin for us, modern Belarusians, to hush up the undoubted fact that the largest and most brutal tank battle of the 20th century took place not just anywhere, but in the Vitebsk region, near Senno ... And the head of our independent state should not arrange the grand opening of the museum complex of a fictional why the “Stalin Lines”, but to please about the perpetuation of the heroes who fell near Senno in an unequal battle with the Nazi armored hordes. It is right that the President of Belarus lays flowers near Prokhorovka in Russia. But why not lay flowers near Senno, where Soviet tanks burned like candles and where there is still no even a modest sign in memory of that terrible, great battle of engines and people?

It is high time to pay tribute to the feat of the tankers who laid down their lives for native land for the freedom of posterity. Respect for their memory would not be an extra contribution of Belarus to the perpetuation of the tragic and glorious pages common history Europe and the world.

Long before the famous tank battle near Prokhorovka, from July 6 to 9, 1941, near the town of Senno, in the Vitebsk region of the Republic of Belarus, one of the largest tank battles of the Second World War took place, in which about 1200 tanks and self-propelled guns took part from both sides. This battle went down in history as the "Lepel counterattack", part of the Vitebsk battle.

Circumstances of the operation

From the very beginning, the high command of the German army chose the central sector of the Eastern Front as the main direction of attack on the Soviet Union. Army Group Center was deployed here - in some respects it surpassed the other two Groups South and North combined. The mechanized units of the Germans consisted of the 2nd and 3rd Tank Groups - in total, they had 7 motorized and 9 tank divisions at their disposal.
Such a scale of the offensive made it possible to carry out a deep coverage and encirclement of the Soviet troops. Parts of the Western Front were indeed quickly defeated. By July 3, the Germans had crushed the last pockets of coordinated resistance. Soviet losses were huge - about two-thirds of all formations of the front. In the divisions leaving the "cauldrons" there were 1 - 2 thousand people left. All heavy weapons (aircraft, tanks, artillery) were lost. Equipment was thrown right on the roads. For this failure, the front command was arrested and shot (including General Dmitry Pavlov). In such circumstances, the battle of Senno began.
The battle of Senno was the last attempt by the Red Army to launch a counterattack with tank units. After the battle, the mechanized corps ended, and further efforts to seize the initiative from the enemy in 1941 were reduced to attacks by infantry formations. The second week of the war is over, and the Germans have already covered 500 kilometers - half the way from the border to Moscow. When the battle of Senno began, the stunning offensive of the Wehrmacht had already shifted the front line to Vitebsk and Orsha.

Counterattack plan

The idea of the Lepel counterattack was to attack the tank units of the Wehrmacht before they were to be joined by infantry formations stretching from Minsk. This plan was consistent with one of the key military principles - to smash the enemy piece by piece. In addition, the experience of the first two weeks of confrontation with the Germans showed that the chain of rifle divisions was fighting tank attacks extremely inefficiently. Therefore, it seemed more logical to take a preemptive strike against the sprawling forces of the Wehrmacht. This is what the battle of Senno should have been from the point of view of strategy.
July 1941 was not the worst time for a counter-offensive in this region. Most of the German forces were moving not to the east, but to the northeast - the leadership of the Wehrmacht sought to force the Western Dvina as quickly as possible. Only two enemy divisions (the 17th and 7th tank divisions) remained in the Soviet strike zone, although they also represented a formidable force.

On the eve of the battle

On the evening of July 4, Semyon Timoshenko (who became commander of the Western Front that day), German Malandin and Lev Mekhlis approved a directive in which the task was to prepare a counterattack in the direction of Ostrovno and Senno. The end point of the offensive was set by Lepel, who gave the name to the entire operation. However, already at the stage of planning a counterattack, the leadership of the Western Front made a serious mistake. The capabilities of the enemy were incorrectly assessed. The command of the Western Front was in a hurry to organize a counterattack also because time worked for the enemy. A week later, the German infantry divisions, having completed the encirclement of the Minsk and Bialystok "boilers", were supposed to approach the front line. In this case, the balance of power changed dramatically. Every day the Red Army found itself in an increasingly difficult position, and delaying even a few hours was extremely costly. Prepared for the counterattack, the 7th mechanized corps under the command of Vinogradov moved west from the Moscow Military District on June 24th. Cars on wheels set off on their own, and tracked vehicles were loaded onto railway platforms. On the way, the mechanized corps received new tasks several times, since the situation in Belarus was changing too quickly.

The beginning of the counterattack

On July 5, 1941, preparations began for the battle of Senno. The 14th Panzer Division and the 7th Mechanized Corps made a 40-kilometer forced march and took up their original positions for the proposed counterattack. It was the region of Ostrovno - Gnezdilovichi - Svetogory, 10 kilometers east of the Chernogostnitsa River. The other 18th Panzer Division was somewhat delayed. By noon the next day, she concentrated on both sides of the Obolyanka River. The 5th mechanized corps took up positions in the Orsha area. On July 6, the battle of Senno entered an active phase. Two detachments were formed in the 14th Panzer Division (each included a tank company and a motorized infantry battalion). These formations tried to force Chernogostnitsa and hold on to the western bank of the river. One detachment did manage to retain a small foothold near Lake Sarro. At this time, the forces of the 18th Panzer Division approached the eastern outskirts of Senno and there entered into a stubborn battle with the Germans. In the evening, the enemy was driven out of the city. On this sector of the front, Soviet troops went on the defensive. This was their only success during the operation.

Disruption of plans

On July 7, the tank battle near Senno continued. All the previous night, Soviet soldiers were preparing crossings on Chernogostnitsa. In the morning, units of the 14th Panzer Division moved along them to the western bank of the key river. Promotion bogged down after 4 kilometers of travel. The tanks collided with the main forces of the 7th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht. Soviet formations suffered heavy losses and rolled back to their original eastern coast. Then they returned to Ostrovno and began to evacuate their materiel. Meanwhile, the Germans from the north launched an attack on Senno, where the 18th Panzer Division was defending. The Red Army left the city by noon on 8 July. At this time, the 5th mechanized corps was engaged in a fierce battle with enemy tanks 20 kilometers south of Senno. He managed to break the German column, but the ensuing counterattack restored the status quo. On July 9, the 14th and 18th Panzer Divisions retreated to the eastern bank of the Obolyanka. The Germans from the captured Senno began advancing to the highway to Smolensk. On the 10th, the forward detachments entered Oboltsy. By noon, the Germans had covered 40 kilometers and reached the motorway 30 kilometers west of Orsha. The Soviet 5th mechanized corps faced the threat of complete encirclement. His command decided to retreat, the remnants of the tank divisions did the same.

Results and causes of failure

The tank battle near Senno ended in nothing for the Soviet army. The troops did not fulfill any of the tasks assigned to them. It was not possible to go even half the way to Lepel. According to the plan, the main blow was delivered on the flank of the Polotsk group of Germans, but it did not suffer any losses - they simply did not get to it. In less than a week of fighting, about 70% of the equipment was lost. The remnants of the tank divisions lost their combat effectiveness and continued to roll back to the east, until they finally disappeared in the “cauldron” near Smolensk.
The main reason why the battle of Senno was lost was considered to be the all-destroying and ubiquitous German aviation, which dived and dropped bombs on the Red Army soldiers from morning to night.
However, in reality, everything was much more complicated. The inability of the command to maneuver and establish communication between various formations affected. In addition, the Red Army simply did not have the experience of conducting such large-scale operations, while the Wehrmacht came to the USSR with many victories in Europe behind it. All this made useless the numerical and qualitative superiority of the Soviet troops.
The state of the commanding staff was undermined after the recent repressions. Most of the experienced military, including those who went through the civil war, were shot or were imprisoned in camps. This could not affect how the battle of Senno ended. The consequences of haste and wrong decisions at the first stage of the war were reflected in many failures on the Western Front. This trend spread not only to the Lepel counterattack, but to the entire 1941 campaign of the year.

Losses

According to the study "Year 1941 - Lessons and Conclusions" (1992), in total, during the Lepel counterattack, Soviet troops lost 832 tanks. The losses of only one 5th mechanized corps amounted to 646 people.
Enemy losses are unknown. One of the sources gives figures of up to 4 infantry regiments, several artillery batteries and up to 300 tanks. However, these data are clearly overestimated, since "4 infantry regiment and 300 tanks "- this is almost everything that the enemy had in the zone of the Soviet counterattack and with which, after the listed losses, he continued the offensive in the Smolensk direction.