Background
The First Battle of Kiev was the German name for the operation that resulted in a very large encirclement of Soviet troops in the vicinity of Kiev during World War II. This encirclement is considered the largest encirclement in the history of warfare (by number of troops). The operation ran from 7 August to 26 September 1941 as part of Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. In Soviet military history, it is referred to as the Kiev Strategic Defensive Operation, with somewhat different dating of 7 July – 26 September 1941.
Much of the Southwestern Front of the Red Army (Mikhail Kirponos) was encircled but small groups of Red Army troops managed to escape the pocket, days after the German panzers met east of the city, including the headquarters of Marshal Semyon Budyonny, Marshal Semyon Timoshenko and Commissar Nikita Khrushchev. Kirponos was trapped behind German lines and killed while trying to break out.
The battle was an unprecedented defeat for the Red Army, exceeding even the Battle of Białystok–Minsk of June–July 1941. The encirclement trapped 452,700 soldiers, 2,642 guns and mortars and 64 tanks, of which scarcely 15,000 escaped from the encirclement by 2 October. The Southwestern Front suffered 700,544 casualties, including 616,304 killed, captured or missing during the battle. The 5th, 37th, 26th, 21st and the 38th armies, consisting of 43 divisions, were almost annihilated and the 40th Army suffered many losses. Like the Western Front before it, the Southwestern Front had to be recreated almost from scratch.
The Panzer armies made rapid progress. On 12 September, Kleist’s 1st Panzer Group, which had by now turned north and crossed the Dnieper river, emerged from its bridgeheads at Cherkassy and Kremenchug. Continuing north, it cut across the rear of Budyonny’s Southwestern Front. On 16 September, it made contact with Guderian’s 2nd Panzer Group advancing south, at the town of Lokhvitsa, 120 miles east of Kiev. Budyonny was now trapped and soon relieved by Stalin’s order of 13 September.
After that, the fate of the encircled Soviet armies was sealed. With no mobile forces or supreme commander left, there was no possibility to effect a break out. The infantry of the German 17th Army and 6th Army of Army Group South soon arrived, along with 2nd Army (also on loan from Army Group Center and marching behind Guderian’s tanks). They systematically began to reduce the pocket assisted by the two Panzer armies. The encircled Soviet armies at Kiev did not give up easily. A savage battle in which the Soviets were bombarded by artillery, tanks and aircraft had to be fought before the pocket was overcome. By 19 September, Kiev had fallen, but the encirclement battle continued. After 10 days of heavy fighting, the last remnants of troops east of Kiev surrendered on 26 September. Encircled became several Soviet armies, 5th, 37th, 26th, and separate detachments of 38th and 21st armies. The Germans claimed 600,000 Red Army soldiers (up to 665,000) captured, although these claims have included a large number of civilians suspected of evading capture.
During withdrawal from Kiev, on 20-22 September 1941 at Shumeikove Hai near Dryukivshchyna (today in Lokhvytsia Raion) perished several members of headquarter staff Mikhail Kirponos(commander), Mikhail Burmistenko (member of military council), and Vasiliy Tupikov (chief of staff). Some 15,000 Soviet troops managed to breakthrough the encirclement.
By virtue of Guderian’s southward turn, the Wehrmacht destroyed the entire Southwestern Front east of Kiev during September, inflicting 600,000 losses on the Red Army, while Soviet forces west of Moscow conducted a futile and costly offensive against German Army Group Center near Smolensk. These operations, such as the Yelnya Offensive, were conducted over very bad terrain against defenders in fortified strong points, and nearly all of these counter-offensives ended in disaster for the Red Army. As a result of these failed offensives, Red Army formations defending Moscow were seriously weakened. With its southern flank secured, Army Group Center launched Operation Typhoon in the direction of Vyazma in October.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kiev_(1941)
The Game
We could not do a Barbarossa month without including a big tank scrum! As such, we decided to do a game of the attempted Soviet breakout from the Kiev pocket. For the game, we basically told the three Soviet forces that they could use all their early war Soviet tanks and armored cars (as in all they owned)! The limitation was they could only have one KV1 or T34. This resulted in a force of over 160 tanks and armored cars, which included T26s, BT5s, BT7s, T28s, T35s, BA10s BA20s, T38s and T60s. Against this onslaught stood three German Panzer companies. One with PzIIIs and two with Px38Ts. Each had a platoons of PzIVs and PzIIs, with a few armored cars and sdkfz10/4s sprinkled in.
The game board was 14 foot wide and 5 foot deep. It was mostly rolling terrain with some woods and towns sprinkled around to keep things interesting.
The Soviet’s decided to go wide and cover the board (even then the tanks got in each others way!). The Soviet heavy force attacked up the middle against the PzIIIs, with the two Soviet light forces attacking the flanks against the Pz38T companies.
The Soviet heavies went forward hard and fast up the middle. However, they could not withstand that massed PzIII 50mm fire and were quickly worn down to only a handful of tanks, taking only a few Germans with them. The Soviets on the left tried to concentrate down the far flank to overwhelm the Germans. However, it was just too much armor for the frontage and the bottleneck became a killing ground for the Germans, resulting in the destruction of the attacking Soviets. On the Soviet right, the fight was much more promising. The Soviets surged forward and then got into a long range gun duel with the Pz38Ts. While the Soviets took a lot of losses, they also inflicted heavy losses on the Germans. It looked like the breakthrough was going to happen, until the timely arrival of the PzIIIs from the center (they repositioned once the center was clear). This secured the line and ensured the destruction of the remaining Soviet armor. What a bloodbath! Hostoric German victory.
– Manteuffel