The Army was soon assigned to Central Front, where it joined the advance toward Oryol in late February and March 1943, but proved ineffective due to low standards of training and leadership.

In the early stages of the Lvov-Sandomierz offensive in July it assisted in taking this objective, then moved into southeast Poland, playing a leading role in forcing the Vistula and holding the bridgehead on its west bank.

[4] Timoshenko was not immediately aware that Army Group Center had taken Orsha and had completed an encirclement of Western Front's forces north of the Dniepr River, east of that city and west of Smolensk.

He was accused of having, on July 13, ordered the division's communications equipment buried in the ground, and effectively destroyed, when this measure "was not required by the combat situation..." He was given a five-year suspended sentence but remained in command.

However, by the end of the day word had reached Timoshenko that 22nd Army, which was supposed to be advancing south of Velikiye Luki, was in fact facing defeat from the forces of 3rd Panzer Group moving northward.

[14] When the offensive officially resumed on September 1 the 162nd attacked toward Fomenki and Hill 230.3 without any success, falling back to its start line and bombarding German strongpoints for the rest of the day.

[17] Khomenko decided to fire a preemptive artillery bombardment between 11.00 and 11.30 hours on October 1 in an effort to disrupt the German forces which, by then, were clearly massing against his left flank.

After holding out for 15 days, the three divisions staged a successful breakout to the north on October 27, and reached the lines of 29th Army before the end of the month, covering some 75km and causing damage and confusion in the German rear.

By this time the Front's southern shock group, and indeed all the Soviet forces in the Izium salient, were in danger of encirclement and destruction due to the counteroffensive launched the same day by 1st Panzer Army in the area of Barvinkove.

[36] Having attained this success, 6th Army did not press the offensive on this sector, but instead began to withdraw the two panzer divisions back to Lyptsi as a preliminary to redeployment toward the Barvinkove salient, where the Soviet situation was going from bad to worse.

This had been planned as part of a larger effort involving the 162nd and 278th Rifle Divisions, with four more tank brigades, but this failed due to lack of command and control and the 162nd suffered significant losses.

[43] In order to escape the Army's forces would have to cross a broad corridor carved out by XXXX Panzer Corps, which would prove impossible for most formed units, although many small groups and individuals had greater luck.

In the event, this deployment schedule was impossible to meet, due to shortages of rolling stock, damage to the rails themselves, and winter weather, so the start of Central Front's offensive was postponed until February 25.

On February 24 Rokossovskii's chief of operations reported, in part, that the Army had largely completed unloading and was proceeding on two march routes, with the 175th, 162nd and 106th approaching Kolpny with the rear of the column passing through Livny.

Already on February 20 the XXXX Panzer Corps of Army Group South had struck the advancing forces of Southwestern Front, scoring immediate gains in the Barvinkove area.

On March 14 two infantry divisions of 2nd Army began a counterattack east of Hlukhiv against a thin screen on the left flank of Central Front which soon put 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps in an untenable position.

He focused on fighting in the second half of March for the villages of Svetlyi Luch, Novaia Ialta, Rzhavchik, Muravchik and Hill 260.2 which led to losses of 8,849 personnel killed and wounded, as well as a good deal of equipment.

[61] Fighting along Central Front's line continued through July 6-7, until Rokossovskii declared to his army commanders that "We have won the defensive battle, and our new mission is to finish off the defeated enemy by the launching of a decisive offensive."

German resistance was stubborn, based on covering detachments of infantry and tanks (some disabled from the earlier fighting) as the main forces fell back to their July 5 jumping-off positions.

[78] With the left flank of 2nd Army collapsing north of Kalinkavichy the two panzer divisions were ordered to hold back Batov's advance while arrangements were made to withdraw to a new defense line along the Ipa.

1st Guards Tanks entered Kalinkavichy at 0400 hours on January 14, finding it empty of German troops, linking up with elements of 61st Army, while Batov regrouped the bulk of his forces to join 18th Corps at and beyond the Ipa.

19th Corps deployed its 115th Rifle Brigade, 82nd, and 162nd Divisions from left to right, aiming at the strongpoints at Kaplichy, Novoselki, and Tsidov before advancing 5km-10km into the rear to envelop the defenses at Ozarichy from the south.

The advance resumed on the morning of October 20, and the Corps made gains along the road leading to Ozarichy over two days, before running into heavy opposition, including counterattacks with tanks.

After a quick reorganization on January 26 the attack was resumed the next day and broke the defense of LVI Panzer Corps on a 5km front, taking Kryukovichy while the forward detachments of the shock group pushed about 3km deep.

The Army had nine reinforced rifle divisions under command and was to use five of them to penetrate the defense on a 4km-wide sector between Zviniache and Krasuv, developing the advance toward Rava-Ruska, defeating the German grouping in that area in the process.

Overnight, reconnaissance detachments had determined that the German forces holding the forward defensive positions in front of 13th and 3rd Guards Army had begun to withdraw under cover of rearguards.

By July 23 the main forces of the Army, following up the successes of 1st Guards Tanks, reached the San River near Kulno, while 102nd Corps was fighting on a line from Kulikuv to Klodno-Vel, north of Lviv.

The Army's task was to attack on a 3km-wide front in the direction of Nasielsk on the first day, outflank Modlin from the north and then drive west to help prevent the German Warsaw grouping from retreating behind the Vistula.

During April 18-19 the Front launched intensive reconnaissance efforts in preparation for the crossings, including the elimination of German advance parties in the lowlands between the East and West Oder.

On the following day 70th Army beat off eight German attacks, captured Penkun, and advanced 15km, completing the breakthrough of the Oder defensive line; 47th Corps was now on the east bank of the flood plain of the Randow River from Krakow to Radwitz.