Front (military formation)
It is roughly equivalent to an army group in the military of most other countries.
[2] It should not be confused with the more general usage of military front, describing a geographic area in wartime.
After the outbreak of the First World War, the Russian General Headquarters set up two Fronts: Northwestern Front, uniting forces deployed against German Empire, and Southwestern Front, uniting forces deployed against Austria-Hungary.
The Soviet fronts were first raised during the Russian Civil War.
[citation needed] The main fronts during the Russian Civil War and Polish-Soviet War were : Army groups differ from fronts in that a Soviet front typically had its own army-sized tactical fixed-wing aviation organization.
[3] According to Soviet military doctrine, the air army was directly subordinated to the front commander (typically a ground commander).
The reform of 1935 established that in case of a war the peacetime military districts on the border would split upon mobilisation each into a Front Command (taking control of the district's peacetime military formations) and a Military District Command (which stayed behind with the mission of mobilising the reserve formations and putting them at the disposal of the Fronts as replacement troops).
An entire Front might report either to the Stavka or to a theatre of military operations (TVD).
A Front was mobilised for a specific operation, after which it could be reformed and tasked with another operation (including a change of the Front's designation) or it could be disbanded - with its formations dispersed among the other active Fronts and its HQ reintegrated into its original Military District HQ.
Soviet and Russian military doctrine calls the different levels in the command chain (including the Fronts) "Organs of Military Control" (Russian: Органы военного управления).
In 1979 in the years of high confrontation between the countries of the Western liberal democracies and those of the Socialist Bloc the Main Commands of the Troops of a Strategic Directions were reinstated covertly: (Russian: Главное командование войск Северо-Западного направления).
Existed between 10 July and 27 August 1941 under the command of Marshal of the Soviet Union Kliment Voroshilov.
Existed between 10 July and 10 September 1941 under the command of Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Timoshenko.
Existed between 10 July 1941 and 21 June 1942 under the command of initially Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Budyonny, since September 1941 of Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Timoshenko.
It commanded the: Main Command of the Troops of the North Caucasus Direction (Russian: Главное командование войск Северо-Кавказского направления).
Existed between 21 April and 19 May 1942 under the command of Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Budyonny.
It commanded the: Main Command of the Soviet Troops in the Far East (Russian: Главное командование советских войск на Дальнем Востоке).
Existed between 30 July and 17 December 1945 under the command of Marshal of the Soviet Union Aleksandr Vasilevsky.
It commanded the: The degree of change in the structure and performance of individual fronts can only be understood when seen in the context of the strategic operations of the Red Army in World War II.
Soviet fronts in the European Theatre during the Second World War from 1941 to 1945: (time period) (22.6.41.
Pyotr Sobennikov, Pavel Kurochkin, Semyon Timoshenko, Ivan Konev (22.6.41.
Dmitry Ryabyshev, Yakov Cherevichenko, Rodion Malinovsky (14.7.41.
Kliment Voroshilov, Georgy Zhukov, Ivan Fedyuninski , Mikhail Khozin, Leonid Govorov (1.9.41.
Filipp Golikov, Nikandr Chibisov, Konstantin Rokossovsky, Max Reyter (30.12.41.
The Soviet Army maintained contingencies for establishing fronts in the event of war.
During the Cold War, fronts and their staffs became groups of Soviet forces in the Warsaw Pact organization.
[citation needed] The front was to be the highest operational command during wartime.
In addition, the creation of a Polish Front was considered to group the First and Second Armies of the Polish Armed Forces in the East in 1944, and during the Warsaw Pact period, a Polish Front was created, seemingly as a mobilization-only organization.
