Chernyakhovsky followed Onischuk’s mixed battalion in his own command BT-7TU and, according to Soviet accounts, personally engaged a German Pz.IV medium tank (possibly from the 1.Panzer-Division) at a range of 800 meters. When his 45mm AP rounds failed to penetrate at this range, Chernyakhovsky maneuvered his BT-7 closer and knocked out the Pz.IV with a flank shot from 400–500 meters.
Onischuk sent his deputy, Major Boris P. Popov, on a flanking maneuver through the woods with seventeen BT-7 light tanks and Popov succeeded in overrunning some German infantry and a couple of 3.7cm Pak guns. Popov, coming from a peasant background and with only a secondary education, lacked the training of his German panzer counterparts but was recklessly brave and steadfast. He pressed the attack even as the Germans began to rally and his BT-7 was struck repeatedly and set afire. When Popov attempted to exit his burning tank, he was shot and killed by German infantry; he would soon be posthumously decorated as a Hero of the Soviet Union (HSU). Although Chernyakhovsky’s hasty attack inflicted some damage, three hours of fighting cost him seventeen of forty tanks engaged and he ordered Onischuk to disengage. Realizing that the Germans were too strong, Chernyakhovsky decided to regroup and wait for reinforcements.
While Shestopalov’s corps was beginning a piecemeal attack on the supposed flank of Panzergruppe 4, there was considerable armoured activity occurring to the east around Raseiniai and Kedainiai. After easily overrunning the 48th Rifle Division northeast of Taroggen, the 6.Panzer-Division advanced 55km and occupied Raseiniai by the afternoon of 23 June. Generalmajor Landgraf’s two panzer kampfgruppen secured separate bridgeheads over the Dubysa River and he paused the division in Raseiniai to refuel and re-arm. Meanwhile, General-major Egor N. Solyankin’s 2nd Tank Division force-marched 100km from Kedainiai in order to retake Raseiniai. Solyankin’s division included six different tank types, including thirty-two KV-I, nineteen KV-II and fifty T-34, further complicating combat logistics. The KV heavy tanks fared particularly poorly on the long road march due to clogged air filters and transmission malfunctions; nearly half broke down en route to the battlefield. However, Solyankin managed to get a good portion of his force near Raseiniai late on 23 June and he planned to attack at dawn the next morning.
Oddly, the 6.Panzer-Division was not expecting a major Soviet armoured counterattack, even though reconnaissance aircraft from Panzergruppe 4 had spotted tanks approaching from Kedainiai. Thus the Germans were doubly shocked on the morning of 24 June, when not only were they attacked by a large Soviet armoured group, but also by three different types of tanks that they did not even know existed. Solyankin directed his main effort – two tank regiments and part of a motor rifle regiment – against Kampfgruppe Seckendorff.
The Soviet tanks attacked in waves, with the light BT and T-26 types out front, followed by T-34s and then the KV heavy tanks. Although shocked by the appearance of T-34, KV-I and KV-II tanks, the German panzerjäger followed doctrine and did not engage with their 3.7cm and 5cm Pak until the Soviet tanks were within 200 meters. The German AP rounds simply bounced off and then the Soviet heavy tanks overran the panzerjägers and part of Kradschützen-Abteilung 6. No German infantry had yet been overrun by enemy tanks in the Second World War and this was terrifying. After bashing their way through Kampfgruppe Seckendorff, three KV heavy tanks led by Major Dmitry I. Osadchy forded the Dubysa River and attacked part of Schützen-Regiment 114. The KV tanks managed to overrun part of a German artillery battery before being engaged by direct fire from 15cm howitzers. Although the howitzers could not penetrate the KV’s thick armour, they managed to blow off the tracks, immobilizing them.
The 6.Panzer-Division was shocked by the violence of this attack. Most histories of the Battle of Raseiniai depend upon Erhard Raus’ account, even though he was only lightly engaged in this action.[5] Raus’ account focuses on his efforts to destroy a single KV-2 that managed to get behind his kampfgruppen and sever his supply line, but says little about the decimation of Kampfgruppe Seckendorff. The Soviet attack subsided when the commander of the 3rd Tank Regiment was killed by shell splinters and his tanks ran low on fuel and ammunition. The Soviet pause granted the Germans a short reprieve. Due to constant Soviet bomber attacks on the German supply columns crossing the Lithuanian border, Panzergruppe 4 had kept its available 8.8cm flak batteries in the rear and none were available near the front at Raseiniai. Reinhardt quickly ordered a flak battery to move forward to support 6.Panzer-Division and, in the meantime, Landgraf was on his own against Solyankin’s tanks. Oberst Richard Koll, commander of Panzer-Regiment 11, led a counterattack with his diminutive Pz.35(t) light tanks and a handful of Pz.IV against the Soviet tanks pounding on Schützen-Regiment 114, but this was a hopeless gesture and Koll broke off the attack after suffering significant losses. Another odd thing about the Battle of Raseiniai is the absence of the Luftwaffe; the arrival of Stukas might have tipped the balance, but they were nowhere in sight.
Solyankin launched six separate attacks on 24 June, which considerably upset the Germans, but Soviet armour power waned as fuel and ammunition were exhausted. Soviet combat logistics fell apart. Most of the T-26 and BT-7 light tanks, as well as the motorized infantry, were lost early in the battle, leaving the remaining KV and T-34 tanks unsupported. The Soviet heavy tanks made one last effort to break through to Raseiniai late in the day, but by this point an 8.8cm flak battery and a 10cm heavy howitzer battery had arrived and they succeeded in immobilizing several tanks, causing the attack to falter.
Although stunned by the Soviet counterattack at Raseiniai, Reinhardt spent the day skillfully directing the 1.Panzer-Division and 36.Infanterie-Division (mot.) around Solyankin’s open flank. Meanwhile, Manstein’s 8.Panzer-Division had marched almost unopposed into Kedainiai, overrunning Solyankin’s rear area units. By nightfall on 24 June, Solyankin’s 2nd Tank was enveloped on both flanks. The next morning, Solyankin attempted a breakout with his remaining heavy tanks in the lead, which caused 1.Panzer-Division some tense moments when Kampfgruppe Westhoven was attacked by KV heavy tanks near Vosiliskis. Once again, the panzerjägers were unable to stop the Soviet heavy tanks and the Germans were forced to use 8.8cm flak and 10cm howitzers in the anti-tank role. Afterwards, Reinhardt spent the next day reducing the encircled 2nd Tank Division and Solyankin was killed in action on 26 June. While the Battle of Raseiniai was a Soviet defeat, Solyankin’s division had effectively held up Reinhardt’s entire corps for three whole days.
By the time that the 2nd Tank Division was surrounded at Raseiniai, Shestopalov’s 12th Mechanized Corps was nearly surrounded near Kaltinenai by German infantry from the I and XXVI Armeekorps. The Soviet 23rd and 28th Tank Divisions fought doggedly against the AOK 18 on 24–25 June, but their T-26 and BT-7 light tanks were rapidly picked off by German panzerjägers. After two days of combat, the corps exhausted its supplies and was reduced to about 20 per cent of its armour. Recognizing that his forces were too weak to hold Lithuania, never mind throw the Germans back across the border, Kuznetsov ordered Shestopalov and the remaining infantry from the 8th Army to withdraw north of the Dvina River. Chernyakhovsky conducted a skillful rearguard action with the remnants of his 28th Tank Division, enabling the bulk of the corps to escape. During the retreat, Shestopalov was wounded and then captured, dying soon afterward in German captivity.