The Mga offensive or Third Battle of Lake Ladoga () or fifth
Sinyavino offensive
The Sinyavino offensives were a series of Soviet offensives in 1941–1943 during World War II around the Sinyavino Heights, east of Leningrad, to lift the Siege of Leningrad. The area was only fully liberated during the Leningrad–Novgorod offe ...
was an unsuccessful offensive operation by Soviet troops between 22 July and 25 September 1943 to break the
siege of Leningrad
The siege of Leningrad was a Siege, military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the city of Leningrad (present-day Saint Petersburg) in the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front of World War II from 1941 t ...
.
Prelude
Leningrad
had been surrounded since 8 September 1941.
The Soviets had launched several counterattacks in 1941, 1942 and most recently in Spring 1943 with the failed
Operation Polar Star.
The only success so far had been achieved in January 1943, when during
Operation Iskra
Operation Iskra (), a Soviet military operation in January 1943 during World War II, aimed to break the Wehrmacht's siege of Leningrad. Planning for the operation began shortly after the failure of the Sinyavino Offensive (1942), Sinyavino Offe ...
, a land corridor was opened between Leningrad and the rest of the Soviet Union.
However, the land corridor remained within range of German artillery on the
Sinyavino Heights, and the Red Army planned a new attack for July 1943.
The attack was to be carried out by the
8th Army (
Filipp Starikov
Filipp Nikiforovich Starikov (; – 2 October 1980) was a Soviet military commander.
Biography
Starikov was born in the village of Novo-Torzhatskaya in Urzhumsky District in Vyatka Governorate (now in Kirov Oblast). He entered the Imperial Rus ...
) of the
Volkhov Front
The Volkhov Front () was a major formation of the Red Army during the first period of the Second World War. It was formed as an expediency of an early attempt to halt the advance of the Wehrmacht Army Group North in its offensive thrust towards L ...
(
Kirill Meretskov
Kirill Afanasievich Meretskov (; – 30 December 1968) was a Soviet Union, Soviet military commander. Having joined the Communist Party in 1917, he served in the Red Army from 1920. During the Winter War of 1939–1940 against Finland, he had t ...
) and the
67th Army (
Mikhail Dukhanov) of the
Leningrad Front
The Leningrad Front () was formed during the 1941 German approach on Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) by dividing the Northern Front into the Leningrad Front and Karelian Front on August 27, 1941.
History
The Leningrad Front was immediately ...
(
Leonid Govorov
Leonid Aleksandrovich Govorov (; – 19 March 1955) was a Soviet Union, Soviet military commander. Trained as an artillery officer, he joined the Red Army in 1920. He graduated from several Soviet military academies, including the Military Aca ...
) against the troops of the
German 18th Army
The 18th Army (German: ''18. Armee'') was a World War II field army in the German ''Wehrmacht''.
Formed in November 1939 in Military Region (''Wehrkreis'') VI, the 18th Army was part of the offensive into the Netherlands (Battle of the Netherlan ...
(
Georg Lindemann
Georg Lindemann (8 March 1884 – 25 September 1963) was a German general during World War II. He commanded a division in Poland and France, a corps in the Balkans and Russia, 18th Army outside Leningrad, and later Army Group North. His cousi ...
) of
Army Group North
Army Group North () was the name of three separate army groups of the Wehrmacht during World War II. Its rear area operations were organized by the Army Group North Rear Area.
The first Army Group North was deployed during the invasion of Pol ...
(
Georg von Küchler
Georg Carl Wilhelm Friedrich von Küchler (30 May 1881 – 25 May 1968) was a German Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) of the ''Wehrmacht'' during the Second World War, who was subsequently convicted of war crimes. He commanded the 18th Army ...
).
The goal of the operation was to defeat the enemy group in the area of
Mga
Mga () is an types of inhabited localities in Russia, urban locality (an urban-type settlement) in Kirovsky District, Leningrad Oblast, Kirovsky District of Leningrad Oblast, Russia. Population:
The name is almost certainly derived from the iden ...
, restore control over the
Kirov Railway
Railway between Murmansk on the Arctic Ocean and Saint Petersburg on the broad gauge Russia">Baltic Sea
The Kirov Railway (; until 1935 ''Murman Railway'') is a Russian gauge">broad gauge Russian railway network that links the Murman Coast ...
and ensure a reliable railway connection between Leningrad and the rest of the Soviet Union.
The battle
On 22 July 1943, at 6:35 a.m., after an hour and a half of artillery fire and a massive air strike, the Soviet troops went on the offensive.
The units of the first echelon of the 8th Army immediately managed to capture the first line of defense of the enemy, but the offensive did not advance any further. In late July, the Soviet command brought into battle the
379th and
165th Rifle Divisions, which replaced the
18th and
256th Divisions, but this did not change the situation in favor of the Red Army. The divisions that entered the battle suffered heavy losses, as German units put up fierce resistance and constantly counterattacked.
On 12 August, in a renewed attack, the Soviet 8th Army took the strong enemy bridgehead east of the Nasija River near Porechye, but failed to breakthrough towards Mga, despite the introduction into battle of the last reserve of the 8th Army - the
311th Rifle Division. The German command was able to quickly strengthen the defense. For several days, Soviet troops tried to advance further, but did not achieve significant results.
The same happened in the northern direction of the front. On 22 July, at the same time as the troops of the 8th Army, units of the 67th Army went on the offensive, and partially broke the enemy's defenses, but failed to exploit the initial success. The German command strengthened its defenses with reserves, sending the
58th,
126th (from the 16th Army), and at the end of the operation the
61st Infantry Divisions and the Soviet offensive was halted. Fierce fighting lasted several weeks and both sides suffered heavy losses.
At the end of August, the fighting gradually began to subside. Despite fierce fighting, the Soviet troops failed to reach the targets set before the start of the operation, and the front line in the area of the
Sinyavino Heights differed only slightly from the front line at the beginning of the Soviet offensive.
Second attack (15–25 September 1943)
On the orders of the Stavka, the front commanders Govorov and Meretskov prepared a new offensive only a few weeks after the failure of their first operations. This time the goals were much more narrowly defined and now only included taking the Sinyavino Heights.
The Leningrad Front had refreshed the
30th Guards Rifle Corps
3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious and cultural significance in many societies ...
in the Leningrad area and then relocated it to the area south of Shlisselburg. There it became temporarily subordinated to General Duchanov's 67th Army. The plan was to use this unit to attack the Sinyavino Heights directly from the north. To the left of the corps it was to be supported by the 43rd and 123rd Rifle Divisions, and to the right by the 120th, 124th and
196th Rifle Divisions. In addition, the 11th and 268th Rifle Divisions were already positioned in front of the Sinyavino Heights. The 8th Army of the Volkhov Front under General Starikov was to support the offensive with an attack between Voronovo and Gaitolovo.
On the morning of 15 September 1943, the attack began again. On this occasion, the Red Army implemented a new artillery concept. This time the Soviet artillery did not pause in their fire when the Soviet infantry was moving forward. The attack of the 30th Guards Rifle Corps with its three divisions was more successful than a few weeks before. The German
11th and
290th infantry divisions were surprised by the new artillery concept and so the Soviet attack units succeeded in gaining several hundred meters of terrain on the Sinyavino Heights. But the 18th Army command moved the
28th Jäger Division as well as the
215th and
61st infantry divisions to the front. With this measure, the German leadership quickly sealed off the Soviet intrusion. In the days that followed, the units of the Soviet 67th Army continued to run against the German defense in order to advance into the lowlands to Mga. However, these attempts were unsuccessful. The attack by the Soviet 8th Army from the east also barely gained ground.
On 18 September 1943, the Stavka therefore again approved the cessation of offensive operations. On 24 September, the fighting for the heights flared up again briefly before the front stabilized again.
Sources
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Google translation*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mga, Offensive
Conflicts in 1943
1943 in the Soviet Union
Battles and operations of the Soviet–German War
Military operations of World War II involving Germany
Strategic operations of the Red Army in World War II
July 1943 in Europe
August 1943 in Europe
September 1943 in Europe