While Ryabyshev was withdrawing the main body of his corps, Commissar Nikolai Popel with his group remained in the deep ravine just east of Verba, near the Ikva River. He spent three days there, gathering survivors which were wandering through the surrounding woods and organizing his force into companies and battalions. By the end of the third day, July 4, Popel had slightly over nine hundred men with him. The majority of these men belonged to the VIII Mechanized Corps, but some were soldiers separated from a variety of other units. There even was a small group from 124th Rifle Division, which was surrounded near Vladimir-Volynskiy during the second day of the war. This tiny cluster of men got caught up in the ebb and flow of the chaotic events and linked up with Popel’s unit, over one hundred miles from where 124th Rifle Division was destroyed.
In his own turn, after covering approximately one hundred miles, fighting almost every step of the way and suffering severe privations, Popel’s command rejoined the Red Army on July 23, near a small village of Belokorovichi, southwest of Novograd-Volynskiy.[15] The border battle was over.
Conclusion
SETTING OUT TO FINISH THE LAST SECTION, I scanned through reams of information and books that I have gathered for my research. I felt that an analysis was needed to summarize why the large numbers of Soviet mechanized formations were defeated with such an almost contemptuous ease by their German opponents. My glance fell across a report written on August 5, 1941, by Major General Morgunov, chief of armored forces of the South-Western Front. By the time of writing of his report, not only was the border battle lost, but the line of old fortified regions was pierced as well. In his report, General Morgunov succinctly outlined a majority of main causes leading to the defeat of Soviet mechanized formations in the initial period of the war. What happened to Red Army tank units in Ukraine was mirrored along the whole front.
Below, shortened and edited, are excerpts from Morgunov’s report:
1. From the very first day of war, the mechanized corps were employed incorrectly, because, while the mechanized corps (I’m not talking about all of them) were really a Front-level asset, all of them were assigned to [field] armies. Naturally, cases of reassignment of an individual mechanized corps directly to an army should have been possible, but [only] in instances when situation really demanded it, and this should have been done by grouping them into strike forces.
2. All operations of mechanized corps were conducted without thorough reconnaissance; some units were completely unaware what was happening in their immediate vicinity. There was absolutely no aerial reconnaissance assigned specifically for mechanized corps. Control of the mechanized corps by commanders of all-arms [armies] was poorly organized; units were widely separated… and by the time of the offensive were not in contact with each other. Headquarters of armies were completely not ready to control such large mechanized formations as the mechanized corps. Infantry, as a rule, acted independently, and the overall situation did not permit organization of combined operations.
3. Headquarters of armies completely forgot that equipment has a limited lifespan, that it needs maintenance, minor repairs, refueling and re-arming…. Mechanized corps completely lacked air cover during the road marches, as well as after combat….
4. Information top-to-bottom, as well as with neighboring units, was established very poorly. The war, from the very beginning, assumed fluid character; the enemy turned out to be more mobile. The main feature of his actions is the wide use of encirclements and flank attacks. [Germans] avoid head-on attacks and immediately would employ mobile antitank assets… while encircling around one or (in most cases) both flanks. Our command personnel were poorly trained during peacetime for these very operations; trying, therefore, to defend in close contact with neighbor, while there were no adequate forces to establish such a defense….
There were many shortcomings committed directly by commanders of mechanized formations, such as:
1. Headquarters of mechanized corps, tank divisions, and regiments did not yet possess operational-tactical know-how; they could not reach right conclusions and completely failed to understand plans of army and front commanders.
2. Command personnel is lacking sufficient initiative.
3. Not all the mobile assets, which the corps possessed, were utilized.
4. There was no maneuverability—there was listlessness, sloth in carrying out orders.
5. Operations, as a rule, were demonstrated by head-on attacks, which led to unnecessary loss of equipment and personnel. This happened because commanders at all levels neglected reconnaissance.
6. Inability to organize combat operations along the routes which would interfere with enemy movements, who advanced mainly along roads.
7. Obstacles were not utilized; cooperation with combat engineer troops was nonexistent.
8. The was no attempt to deny the enemy the opportunity to bring up fuel and ammunition. Ambushes along the main enemy routes of advance were not employed.
9. Enemy pressure on [our] flanks led to fear of being encircled, while the tank units should not fear encirclements.
10. Large population centers were not utilized to destroy the enemy and inability to operate in them was discovered.
11. Control, starting from platoon commander to senior commanders, was poor; radio was seldom utilized; too much time was wasted on encoding and decoding [of messages].
12. Crews were extremely poorly trained in preventive maintenance: there were cases when crews abandoned their vehicles with ammunition still in them; there were individual cases when crews left their vehicles and retreated.
13. All units lacked [sufficient] means of evacuation; the ones that did have them, could support mechanized corps and tank divisions only during offensive operations.
14. Personnel was not familiar with new equipment, especially KV and T-34; and was completely untrained in conducting repairs in field conditions. Repair facilities of tank divisions turned out to be incapable to conduct repairs during retrograde operations.
15. Large percentage of command personnel did not know missions, did not have maps, which led to instances when not just individual tanks, but whole units would wander around aimlessly.
16. Existing organization of rear echelons is too cumbersome: commander’s technical deputy, instead of working with combat materiel, as a rule, would remain behind in the rear echelon. The rear support echelons need to be reduced, leaving only those vehicles employed in delivering fuel, ammunition, and food.
17. There was no, as a rule, army-level staging areas for emergency vehicles, and nobody oversaw their operations. Lack of organic evacuation assets on army and front levels, led to inability to evacuate combat equipment.
18. Headquarters turned out to be poorly trained, staffed, as a rule, with officers not having experience of working in tank units.
19. [Too] many people oversaw mechanized formations: front would assign missions, army would assign missions, commanders of rifle corps would assign missions. Employment of the 41st Tank Division of 22nd Mechanized Corps is the vivid demonstration of this issue.
20. Some commanders of mechanized corps turned out to be not up to the task and completely lacked understanding about mechanized corps operations.
Given the reasons above, the Soviet defeat in the battle for northwest Ukraine was unavoidable. Battles are not fought by abstract concepts of corps and division, moved with chess-like precision on a map top. Battles are chaotic conglomerations of very tangible human and mechanical factors with very distinct limits, all wrapped up in a blanket of confusion and lack of information.