In mid-November it moved with its Corps to join the 3rd Shock Army in Kalinin Front and played a leading role in the Battle of Velikiye Luki, both in the encirclement of the German garrison of that city and then in fighting off several relief attempts.

Due to the circumstances of wartime it would not receive its banner and its subunits would not be redesignated until February 27, 1943; therefore they fought under their previous designations throughout the Battle of Velikiye Luki.

On October 12 it was moved to the Reserve of the Supreme High Command, where by the start of November it was assigned to the newly-formed 5th Guards Rifle Corps, initially as its only division, and at the disposal of the General Staff.

[2] At this time the personnel of the 46th Guards were noted as being 70 percent fully equipped; more than half had combat experience and one in four was a Communist Party member or a Komsomol.

By 0800 hours on November 25 the Corps had seized a bridgehead of about 14 square kilometres, and the 494th Guards Regiment captured the villages of Skorotovo, Feshkovo, and Obzho.

The division soon crossed the Nevel railway on a 1,000m front north of Chernozem Station on the left flank of 9th Guards, and General Karapetyan reported that German resistance was much weaker there than on other sectors.

Karapetyan proposed to Corps headquarters a plan to send demolition groups into the German rear under cover of darkness, and Beloborodov approved.

Shortly before the artillery preparation began Beloborodov was informed that the German relief force had launched a strong attack on the 508th Guards Regiment, which was fighting hard.

As he drove towards Karapetyan's headquarters he was stopped by a lieutenant who informed the Corps commander that German troops had broken through and were approaching the village of Brukhny.

Elements of the relief force managed to join up with the Shiripino grouping overnight but were unable to proceed further due to Soviet counterattacks.

Before dawn the 9th Guards and 357th began their planned attack and by the morning of December 4 organized resistance in the Shiripino pocket had ceased, with just small groups of the 83rd Infantry and the relief force escaping to the south.

During most of this period the front facing the 46th Guards was relatively quiet and by the 16th a lull fell over the battlefield as the LIX Army Corps paused to regroup.

The next day elements of LIX Corps wedged forward to within 1,000m of the Velikiye Luki-Novosokolniki road but on January 6, despite the commitment of the 331st Infantry and 707th Security Divisions, the German force was held.

Its goal was to encircle and eliminate at least part of the salient but in the early going the 46th and 9th Guards, reinforced by the 45th Ski and 184th Tank Brigades, were held by numerous counterattacks.

The next morning the Corps advanced 4–4.5km along its entire front and reached the line of Suragino, Izosimovo, Korin, Berezovo, Ostrovka and Ptakhino.

[10] The 46th Guards immediately found itself in difficulty due to enfilade fire from a German strongpoint on Ptahinskaya height, named for the nearby village.

After extensive study of the situation Romanenko had formed an assault group of 115 men that stormed the position in darkness at bayonet point.

Despite these spectacular early successes the German high command quickly assembled reserves to contain the advance while being unable to regain any lost ground.

This caught the Soviets by surprise and while 3rd Shock and 6th Guards Army to the east hastily organized a pursuit this did nothing but harass the retreating Germans.

[19] In the three nights before the Soviet summer offensive the 6th Guards made an approach march of 110km to a new sector of 1st Baltic Front 30km wide that had been vacated by 43rd Army to the south.

2nd Guards Corps was in the Army's second echelon and even on the second and third days was struggling to keep up with the lead elements which had reached the Western Dvina River but not yet broken through the German defenses there.

By the afternoon of June 29 the remnants of IX Corps were holding a small semi-circle about 75km southwest of Polotsk with a gap over 50km wide stretching to its north, giving 6th Guards Army free rein to advance towards the Baltic states.

[22] Since September it had been subordinated to the 22nd Guards Rifle Corps,[23] The division remained in Latvia for the duration of the war helping to contain and reduce the former Army Group North in the Courland peninsula.