User:Kges1901/4th Tank Army (1942)

The 4th Tank Army was a field army of the Red Army during World War II, active from August to October 1942.

Battle of Kalach
The headquarters of the 4th Tank Army was formed in accordance with a 22 July Stavka directive as part of the Stalingrad Front from the headquarters of the 28th Army, destroyed in the Second Battle of Kharkov. The 4th Tank Army and 1st Tank Army were formed for a counterattack against the advancing German troops in Case Blue, with the 4th Tank Army planned to be ready for action by 1 August. Under the command of former 28th Army commander Major General Vasily Kryuchenkin, the army included the Aleksandr Shamshin's 22nd Tank Corps and Abram Khasin's 23rd Tank Corps, as well as three rifle divisions sent west from the Far Eastern Front and two anti-tank and anti-aircraft artillery regiments. Both tank corps had suffered heavy losses at Kharkov and were rebuilding in the rear of the 63rd Army north of the upper Don. On 24 July Stalin ordered front commander Vasily Gordov to quicken the pace of the formation of the 1st and 4th Tank Armies and launch a counterattack to save the 62nd Army from encirclement. The 23rd Tank Corps was still in area of Kalach on the eastern bank of the Don, and the 22nd Tank Corps gathering in the 63rd Army sector north of the Don. On 26 July Gordov ordered the 1st and 4th Tank Armies, supported by the 21st, 62nd, and 64th Armies and the aircraft of the 8th Air Army, to launch a counterattack against the northern pincer of the German 6th Army. The 4th Tank Army's objectives were as follows:

22nd Tank Corps and 133rd Tank Brigade will cross to the western bank of the Don on the night of 27–28 July and attack westward from the Trekhostrovskaya and Peskovatka line in the morning to reach the Verkhne-Golubaya region by day’s end. Cooperating with 1st Tank Army, destroy the opposing enemy in successive attacks toward Verkhne-Buzinovka and restore the situation on 62nd Army’s right wing.

While on paper the two tank armies represented a powerful force, due to their rushed formation in four days, they suffered from a lack of cohesion and communications, having had only six hours at night to prepare the counterattack.

The 23rd Tank Corps was transferred to the 1st Tank Army on 27 July, leaving the army with the 18th and 205th Rifle Divisions, the 5th Destroyer Anti-Tank Brigade, the 22nd Tank Corps (133rd, 173rd, 176th, 182nd Tank Brigades, 22nd Motor Rifle Brigade, and 51st Separate Motorcycle Battalion), the 1253rd Destroyer Anti-Tank Regiment, and the 25th Anti-Tank Rifle Battalion by 31 July.

The 1st Tank Army attacked on 27 July as planned but the 4th Tank Army went into action piecemeal and uncoordinated two days later. By 17:00 on 27 July only seventeen tanks from the 22nd Tank Corps had crossed the Don to their jumping-off positions, with the corps losing significant numbers tanks due to breakdowns. On 28 July the army continued to cross the Don, moving toward the Verkhne-Buzinovka region and by the morning of the day were along the Khmelevskaya-Verkhne-Golubaya-Yevlampiyevsky-Malonabatovsky line, between 52 and 60 kilometer southeast of Kletskaya. By 15:00, the forward units of the 22nd Tank Corps took the Ventsy and Oskinsky regions, while 176th Tank Corps moved forward to the front in the Vertyachy region.

The 22nd Tank Corps entered combat on 29 July, with 125 out of 180 tanks remaining due to breakdowns, and was committed without proper reconnaissance and infantry support. The 182nd and 173rd Tank Brigades went into action with only 96 tanks having suffered 36 breakdowns and Shamshin kept the 176th Tank Brigade with 29 tanks in reserve while deploying the KV-equipped 133rd Heavy Tank Brigade and 22nd Motor Rifle Brigade in the forests west of Trekhostrovskaya on his extreme right. The first two attacks by the 182nd and 173rd Tank Brigades against Ventsy and Mukovninsky, held by troops of the 100th Jäger Division, 113th Infantry Division, and a kampfgruppe from the 16th Panzer Division, were repulsed with the loss of eleven T-34s and two T-70s.

On 30 July, the corps resumed its attacks, with the 176th Tank Brigade on the left entering battle to attack Osinovsky, but the 133rd Tank and 22nd Motor Rifle Brigades were still stuck on the east bank of the Don. The 176th, 182nd, and 173rd Brigades lost 25 T-34s, 11 T-70s, and five T-60s during the day with the commander of the 176th being killed. The remnants of the encircled Group Zhuravlyov and 13th Tank Corps managed to link up with the 22nd Tank Corps during the day, with the 13th Tank Corps' 66 remaining tanks forming the 22nd's new 169th Tank Brigade. However, Shamshin's ineffective performance resulted in the failure to secure the escape of the majority of the encircled Group Zhuravlyov. Shamshin's corps and the 184th and 192nd Rifle Divisions continued daily attacks of dwindling effectiveness against the defenses of the German VIII Army Corps south of the Kremenskaya and Sirotinskaya bridgehead for the next several days. By 6 August, the 22nd Tank Corps had lost 80 percent of its tanks, underscoring the failure of the counterattack.