Elements of the army, apparently 4th Battalion, 29th Light Tank Brigade, took part in the German–Soviet military parade in Brest-Litovsk on September 22, 1939.

General Colonel Pavlov, Commander of the Western Front, had decided to redeploy some of 4th Army’s troops early in 1941, and John Erickson wrote that 12th Rifle Division was accordingly moved into Brest, and HQ 14th Mechanised Corps to Kobrin, which in Erickson’s words, ‘deprived 4th Army simultaneously of its reserve and its second echelon.’[3] It should be clearly understood that John Erickson (historian) was writing in the pre-1990 period when formation designations could be unclear, sometimes to the point of deliberate deception (Soviet 'maskirovka').

According to Sharp the 12th Rifle Division was identified by the Germans on the Western Front, but the unit was assigned to the Far East for the entire war.

Some units faced several difficulties; when General Major A.A. Khorobkov, the army commander, saw his officers on 10 June, General Major Stepan Oborin, 14th Mechanised Corps commander, emphasized that more than half his soldiers were untrained recruits, that his artillery had received guns for which there was no ammunition, and that he only had enough lorries to make a quarter of the corps mobile – the rest would have to march.

However the Army staff felt the plan had no chance of success, and so it proved; when the attack was launched the next day, only insignificant progress was made.

Source:[citation needed] Commander Lieutenant General Aleksandr Korobkov Order of Battle for Operation Barbarossa At the end of September 1941, the Fourth Army was formed for the second time, retaining its Independent status until December while remaining in the Reserve of the Supreme High Command (RVGK, the Stavka Reserve).

From January 1942 to November 1943, the Fourth Army fought on the front in Volkhov and Leningrad while also doing many rear-area duties.

Unlike in other parts of the Eastern Front, the Red Army was not making significant gains in the north by 1943.