Battle of Moscow

Battle of Moscow
Part of the Eastern Front of World War II
Soviet anti-aircraft gunners on the roof of the Hotel Moskva
Date 2 October 1941 – 7 January 1942 (3 months and 5 days) Location Moscow Oblast, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union Result Soviet victory End of Operation Barbarossa Beginning of Soviet counterattacks Germany fails to seize Moscow
Belligerents
Germany	Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Adolf Hitler Walther von Brauchitsch Franz Halder Fedor von Bock Heinz Guderian Walter Model Günther von Kluge G.H. Reinhardt Adolf Strauss	Joseph Stalin Georgy Zhukov Aleksandr Vasilevsky Ivan Konev Semyon Timoshenko Boris Shaposhnikov Konstantin Rokossovsky Leonid Govorov Semyon Budyonny Pavel Belov Lev Dovator † Nikolai Vatutin Issa Pliyev Vasily Chuikov Mikhail Katukov Vasily Kuznetsov Pavel Rotmistrov
Units involved
Army Group Centre 2nd Panzer Army 3rd Panzer Army 4th Panzer Army 2nd Army 4th Army 9th Army	Western Front 16th Army 19th Army 20th Army 22nd Army 29th Army 30th Army 1st Shock Army Cavalry Group "Dovator" Cavalry Group "Belov" Reserve Front 24th Army 31st Army 32nd Army 43rd Army 49th Army Bryansk Front Operational Group Ermakov 3rd Army 13th Army 50th Army
Strength
As of 1 October 1941: 1,184,000–1,929,406 men[1][2][3][4][5] 1,000–2,470 tanks and assault guns[6][7] 14,000 guns Initial aircraft: 549 serviceable;[8][9][Note 1] at time of counter offensive: 599[10]	As of 1 October 1941: 1,252,591 men[11] 1,044[12]–3,232 tanks 7,600 guns Initial aircraft: 936 (545 serviceable);[8] at time of counteroffensive: 1,376[10]
Casualties and losses
German strategic offensive: (1 October 1941 to 10 January 1942) October: 62,870 November: 46,374 December: 41,819 January: 23,131 German estimated: 174,194 KIA, WIA, MIA (see §7)[13] Soviet estimated: 581,000 killed, missing, wounded and captured.[14]	Moscow Defense:[15] (30 September 1941 to 5 December 1941) 514,338 killed or missing 143,941 wounded Moscow Offensive:[15] (5 December 1941 to 7 January 1942) 139,586 killed or missing 231,369 wounded Total: 1,029,234 (see § Casualties)

The Battle of Moscow was a military campaign that consisted of two periods of strategically significant fighting on a 600 km (370 mi) sector of the Eastern Front during World War II, between October 1941 and January 1942. The Soviet defensive effort frustrated Hitler's attack on Moscow, the capital and largest city of the Soviet Union. Moscow was one of the primary military and political objectives for Axis forces in their invasion of the Soviet Union.

The German Strategic Offensive, named Operation Typhoon, called for two pincer offensives, one to the north of Moscow against the Kalinin Front by the 3rd and 4th Panzer Armies, simultaneously severing the Moscow–Leningrad railway, and another to the south of Moscow Oblast against the Western Front south of Tula, by the 2nd Panzer Army, while the 4th Army advanced directly towards Moscow from the west.

Initially, the Soviet forces conducted a strategic defence of the Moscow Oblast by constructing three defensive belts, deploying newly raised reserve armies, and bringing troops from the Siberian and Far Eastern Military Districts. As the German offensives were halted, a Soviet strategic counter-offensive and smaller-scale offensive operations forced the German armies back to the positions around the cities of Oryol, Vyazma and Vitebsk, and nearly surrounded three German armies. It was a major setback for the Germans, and the end of their belief in a swift German victory over the USSR.^[16] As a result of the failed offensive, Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch was dismissed as supreme commander of the German Army on 19 December, with Hitler replacing him in the position.

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