3rd Army (Soviet Union)

The 3rd Army was a Soviet Red Army field army during World War II.

The 3rd Army was formed in 1939 in the Belorussian Special Military District from the Vitebsk Army Group.

Polish Campaign
The Third Army saw its first action in September 1939, taking part in the operation in Belarus and Poland. In the operation, the Red Army seized eastern Poland as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Order of Battle 2 October 1939
 * 10th Rifle Corps
 * 5th Rifle Division
 * 50th Rifle Division
 * 115th Rifle Division
 * 3rd Rifle Corps
 * 139th Rifle Division
 * 150th Rifle Division
 * 3rd Cavalry Corps
 * 7th Cavalry Division
 * 36th Cavalry Division
 * 15th Tanks Corps
 * 25th Separate Motorizied Brigade

Eastern Front
After the start of Operation Barbarossa, it included three corps, including the 4th Rifle Corps, with the 27th, 56th, and 85th Rifle Divisions, as well as the 21st Rifle Corps (including the 24th Rifle Division) and 11th Mechanised Corps (21st and 33rd Tank Division and 204th Mechanised Division).

The 3rd Army saw lots of action in important sectors. The Third Army took part in the operations of the Western, Central, Bryansk, as well as the First, Second, and Third Belorussian Fronts during the defenses of Grodno, Lida, and Novogrudok.

The 3rd Army also took part in very important battles such as the Battle of Smolensk, where German troops captured the city in a difficult two-month campaign, and the Battle of Moscow, in which the Red Army's winter counter-attack led by Marshal Georgy Zhukov drove back Army Group Center over 70 mi away from Moscow. During the second half of the Eastern Front, the 3rd Army took part in the Battle of Kursk, where numerically superior Soviet forces, using good anti-tank defenses, defeated the German forces, thus stopping Operation Zitadelle and robbing the German Army of all hopes of victory on the Eastern Front. The 3rd Army took part in the operations in Bryansk, Gomel - Rechitsa, and Rogachev - Zhlobin. During the final phases of the war, the 3rd Army took part in the attacks on Belarus, East Prussia, and eastern Germany, where it participated in the Battle of Berlin.

On 1 May 1945 the 3rd Army consisted of the 35th Rifle Corps (250th, 290th, and 348th Rifle Divisions), 40th Rifle Corps (5th, 129th, and 169th Rifle Divisions), 41st Rifle Corps (120th Guards Rifle Division, 269th, and 283rd Rifle Divisions), 4th Corps Artillery Brigade, 44th Gun Artillery Brigade, 584 иптап, and other formations and units.

After the war ended, the Army headquarters was withdrawn to the Belarussian SSR, where it was reorganised in August 1945 as the short-lived Headquarters Belorussian-Lithuanian Military District. The Belorussian-Lithuanian Military District, according to a Czech internet source (valka), existed 31 Dec 44 - 9 JUly 1945, whereupon it was succeeded by the Minsk Military District. By this time the army consisted of three Rifle Corps with nine rifle divisions. Later, all of them except the 120th Guards 'Rogachev' Rifle Division were disbanded.

Commanders

 * V.I. Kusnetsov
 * Yakov Kreizer
 * P.S. Pshennikov
 * P.I. Batov
 * F.F. Shmatchenko
 * P.P. Korsun
 * A.V. Gorbatov