We welcome you to THE JOURNAL OF THE SOVIET ARMY, a new monthly Internet journal devoted solely to orders of battle of the Soviet Army 1917-92.   In this journal we will provide orders of battles of Soviet Army campaigns and battles, and unit histories from the Soviet period. Much of this material is from Russian archives and formerly classified Soviet published material. We will, from time to time, also provide analyses of Soviet Army organizational structure, tactics, doctrine and theory.

Our first article details the rifle regiments of the Soviet Army 1939-45. Begun originally for Orbat.com's history magazine, to permit JSA subscribers to access the past seventeen installments, we include all regiments covered to now.  I am also now including the fates of the Regiments in the post-war period, with special thanks to Igor’ Ivlev.

We follow with an extensive order of battle for the Western Front on June 22nd, 1941, previously published in Orbat.com, heavily upgraded.  At a massive 66 pages, it’s the most extensive one to date!

Next, we continue with the order of battle from the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) of the USSR during the Second World War, this time the Brigades.  The August issue will continue the NKVD order of battle with the Border Guards Detachments as of 22 June 1941.

The Air Regiments Studies Group provides 10 Aviation Regiments from the period September 1939 to March 1941.  These include the identification of the Regiment, where it was based at, which higher headquarters it was assigned to, the ground service units supporting it and the amount and type of aircraft it had on hand, all on the 1^st of each month. In a little bit of redesign, the link above will go to another Introduction page, which will then list the individual Regiments provided.  These are intended to provide an advance look at a massive project your editor has begun with a group of Soviet Air Force enthusiasts. The project will document in great detail Air Regimental assets during the Second World War and in the immediate post-war period.  The project's scale can be appreciated when we consider there was an estimated 1,200 and 2,400 Regiments formed during the war.

The next article is from our second new contributor, Michael Avanzini.  It details the order of battle of the Soviet Army for Operation ‘Mars’, the attempt to destroy the German 9^th Army in the Rzhev salient during late fall of 1942.  This is meant as a companion piece to the German order of battle Mr. Avanzini provided to the history magazine.

Next, we provide Mr. Pehlivanov’s article on the Soviet forces in Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.  This article was previously listed in the history magazine.

Lastly, we provide Mr. Sewell’s article on the participation of the Soviet Air Force during the Korean War of 1950-1953.  Mr. Sewell has informed the editor that this article will be updated at a later date with more details as information becomes available.

We have other projects underway. The speed with which these materialize depends entirely on what we can find by way of financial resources. The acquisition, translation, and organization of archival material from Russia is an expensive process.

Craig Crofoot
July 10, 2003