The Counterattack of the 7th Mechanized Corps, 5-9 July 1941

摘要

The war between Germany and the Soviet Union witnessed some of the largest tank battles in bistory. Most accounts of the Russo-German war label the battle of Kursk, specifically the fighting around the village of Prokhorovka on 12 July 1943, as the largest tank battle in history. However, since the fall of the Soviet Union, more details have come out regarding other, lesser known, battles that involved even more tanks. One of these engagements was the counterattack by the Red Army's 20th Army using two of the newly created mechanized corps. During the period 5-9 July 1941, the Soviet 5th and 7th mechanized corps launched a counterattack with over 1,000 tanks against elements of two German mobile corps around the village of Senno in what is now Belarus. Almost unknown in the West and virtually ignored in the Soviet Union, study of this battle sheds light on the condition of the Red Army in the first weeks of the war and on the lessons that influenced the future development of large-scale armored formations in the Red Army.