The 38th Red Banner Army (Russian: 38-я армия) was a field army of the Soviet Union that existed between 1941 and 1991.
August 1941 to January 1942
The 38th Army was formed on 4 August 1941 after a large Soviet force had been surrounded by Axis forces in the area of Uman in western Ukraine. Under the command of Lieutenant-General Dmitry Ryabyshev, 38th Army was based on the forces and headquarters of the 8th Mechanised Corps and incorporated other Soviet units then in the Cherkassy area. The army was subordinated to the Soviet Southwestern Front command, and Riabyshev's task was to defend the line of the Dnepr upriver from Kremenchuk, a task that became more urgent after the Soviet forces at Uman surrendered on 12 August and German forces began to close up to the Dnepr.
On 30 August Riabyshev was assigned to command Soviet forces further south and Major-General Nikolay Feklenko was appointed to the command of 38th Army. By then 38th Army (based on seven rifle divisions, four cavalry divisions and two tank battalions) had been made responsible for an additional stretch of the Dnepr southeast of Kremenchuk to the river's confluence with the Vorskla. It was along this section of the Dnepr that the German Seventeenth Army forced a crossing on 31 August. German high command intended to develop this crossing into a bridgehead that would form the southern arm of an encirclement of much of Southwestern Front east of the Dnepr. (The northern arm of this encirclement had already crossed the river Desna 200 kilometres northeast of Kiev).
Feklenko was ordered to eliminate Seventeenth Army's bridgehead as soon as possible, but he was unable to do so. German reinforcements were fed into the lodgement including panzer divisions from the German First Panzer Group, and the Germans were able to enlarge their bridgehead. On 12 September German armoured forces broke through 38th Army's lines and struck north, first to Lubny and then to Lokhavytsa where, on 16 September, they made contact with German armoured forces moving south from Romny. Most of Southwestern Front, including much of 38th Army, was caught in the trap, and few of the encircled Soviet forces escaped.
Maj. Gen. Viktor Tsyganov was appointed to replace Feklenko (Tsyganov's chief of staff was Maj. Gen. Aleksei Maslov), but there was little that Tsyganov could do, despite the Soviet reserves being rushed to eastern Ukraine, to prevent the remnants of his army being pushed back towards Poltava. By the beginning of October 38th Army included six rifle divisions and tank division, but during October, under constant pressure from the German Sixth Army, it was forced to withdraw to the east on the Poltava - Kharkov axis towards the Donets. Since the German mechanized forces in the region had been directed towards Moscow and Rostov, 38th Army easily avoided encirclement by the slow-moving infantry divisions of Sixth Army. Tsyganov's forces abandoned Kharkov on 24 October, and by early November the frontline had begun to stabilize east of the Donets in the Kupyansk area. In December, with Tsyganov's departure from 38th Army, Maslov was appointed to the Army's command and Lieutenant-Colonel Semyon Ivanov became the army's chief of staff.
At the beginning of 1942 Maslov's forces, based on just five rifle divisions, were required to participate in a general offensive by Soviet forces in Ukraine to retake Kursk, Kharkov and the Donbas region. On 5 January the right flank of 38th Army attacked the German Sixth Army's positions northeast of Kharkov in an attempt to advance on Belgorod, but Maslov had failed to disguise his intentions and the German defences were well prepared. By the second week of January Southwestern Front's offensives north of Kharkov, including that of 38th Army, had ground to a halt. However, a complementary offensive further south had been more effective and Soviet forces had made a deep penetration into the German lines south of Kharkov.
February to July 1942
During the late winter and spring of 1942 the frontline in the Kharkov area was relatively static. An additional Soviet army was introduced into the frontline on 38th Army's right, resulting in 38th Army relinquishing responsibility for the northern section of its frontline positions, but acquiring responsibility for more of the frontline further south. Part of these new frontline positions were within the salient into German lines that Southwestern Front had established south of Kharkov in January (the so-called Barvenkovo Pocket). During this time 38th Army experienced two changes in command; Maslov was dismissed in February, and in March Major-General Kirill Moskalenko was appointed to the command of the army. (Ivanov, promoted to the rank of colonel in January 1942, remained as chief of staff).
During the spring of 1942 Soviet high command had been preparing a renewed offensive to take Kharkov. The plan envisaged the envelopment of the city from north and south, the southern arm of the envelopment being based on an advance to the north by an army within the Barvenkovo Pocket off 38th Army's left flank. This offensive opened on 12 May. The attacks north of Kharkov were held by German forces, and in the south the Germans responded by launching an offensive of their own against the shoulders of the Barvenkovo Pocket. The southern shoulder was attacked by powerful mechanised forces on 17 May, and on the northern shoulder the positions of 38th Army's left flank in the Balakliya area were attacked two days later. By 23 May the Soviet forces in the Barvenkovo Pocket, including two entire field armies, a mechanised group, part of a third army and part of 38th Army, had been cut off. By the end of the month the encircled force had been destroyed, less than one in ten of the surrounded personnel being able to effect an escape, and Moskalenko was left defending roughly the same positions in the Kupyansk area that 38th Army had occupied in November 1941. Yet despite his losses, Moskalenko's army, facing the right wing of the German Sixth Army and the left flank of First Panzer Army, at this time included eight rifle divisions amply supported by armour.
On the morning of 28 June the main German strategic offensive of 1942 (Case Blue) opened with an attack from the Kursk area towards the Don at Voronezh. The German objective was to advance down the right bank of the Don to cut in behind Southwestern Front and so isolate it from its sources of supply. By 6 July this objective had become clear to Soviet high command and the next day, in order to avoid a major encirclement, Southwestern Front was authorised to retreat to the east. As the days passed this retreat became increasingly chaotic and by 12 July Moskalenko was struggling to maintain close control over his forces, which were in danger of being surrounded at Markivka. One week later and 100 kilometres further to the southeast, part of 38th Army was surrounded at Millerovo. The rest of Moskalenko's army was able to cross to the relative safety of the left bank of the Don, but on 23 July most of its residual forces were assigned to 21st Army, 38th Army was formally disbanded, and Moskalenko's headquarters was withdrawn into the high command reserve. (Three days later Moskalenko and his headquarters staff were assigned to command the newly formed 1st Tank Army).
August 1942 to June 1943
On 3 August 1942 the 4th Reserve Army, part of the Soviet strategic reserve, was designated as the second formation of 38th Army and was assigned to Bryansk Front on a relatively quiet sector of the frontline northeast of Kastornoe facing part of the German Second Army. The commander of 38th Army was Lieutenant-General Nikandr Chibisov, and its chief of staff was Colonel Anton Pilipenko. In September command responsibility for 38th Army and for 38th Army's sector of the frontline was transferred from the left flank of Bryansk Front to the right flank of the more southerly Voronezh Front. On 13 January 1943 Voronezh Front launched a major offensive against Axis forces on the middle Don in the Rossosh area, employing forces on its left flank and centre. Within days this offensive had proved successful, leaving Second Army in a deep salient, and Soviet high command proposed an extension of the offensive north to the Kastornoe area in an effort to encircle Second Army west of Voronezh. This operation (the Voronezh-Kastornoe Operation) would involve four Soviet armies and would include an attack on Second Army's positions by 38th Army. The operation, hurriedly prepared, commenced on 24 January. Recognising the threat to Second Army, later that day German high command authorised its withdrawal from exposed positions at Voronezh, but the bulk of the army was surrounded when Soviet forces from north and south met at Kastornoe on 28 January. Over the next five days 38th Army was involved in attempts to subdue the surrounded forces of Second Army but on 2 February it was assigned to participate in a general advance of Voronezh Front to the west and southwest (towards Kursk and Kharkov respectively). Chibisov's forces took Tim on 5 February, reached Oboyan on 18 February and by early March were approaching Sumy. However German counter-attacks from south and southwest of Kharkov in the second half of February and the first half of March thwarted efforts by Voronezh Front to advance west of Sumy towards the Desna river. During the second half of March the frontline stabilised around the Kursk Salient, a rectangular salient of 15,000 square kilometres that protruded into German lines north, west and south of the city of Kursk. The salient's frontline, in which 38th Army was positioned in the southwest corner on Voronezh front's right flank south of Koronevo, remained largely unchanged through the rest of March, April, May and June.
July to September 1943
On 5 July 1943 Germany's last strategic offensive on the Eastern Front (Operation Citadel) opened with attacks on the northern and southern shoulders of the Kursk Salient. The objective was to envelop and destroy the defending Central and Voronezh Fronts north and south of Kursk. At that time 38th Army, occupying what was expected to be a relatively quiet sector of the frontline facing VII Army Corps of the German Second Army, was based on six rifle divisions and two tank brigades. The German offensive ran into well prepared Soviet defences, but the offensive in the south made sufficient progress towards Oboyan that Soviet high command, having already committed much of its reserves, had to withdraw forces from quieter sectors. During July Chibisov saw one of his rifle divisions and all of his armour withdrawn for deployment elsewhere.
On 12 July Soviet forces began to go over to the offensive. Although during July and August the forces of Voronezh Front made considerable advances east of the Psel river, advancing south to within 50 kilometres of Poltava, 38th Army's positions on the other side of the Psel (on Voronezh Front's extreme right flank south of Korenevo) changed little. However, by the end of August Soviet forces had penetrated deeply into the German lines north of Korenevo and south of Sumy, prompting, by early September, a general German retreat to the Dnepr. Chibisov's forces took Sumy on 2 September and advanced rapidly west towards Kiev. On 21 September Chibisov was ordered to direct his efforts towards Pukhovka on the lower Desna north of Kiev and to try to develop an encirclement of Kiev from the north. Within a week 38th Army had crossed the Desna and had seized two small bridgeheads across the Dnepr north of Kiev in the Lutezh area. The bridgeheads were subsequently linked to form a viable lodgement on the right bank of the Dnepr, but Chibisov's forces were unable to achieve a breakout.
October 1943 to February 1944