ROW III Koltov Corridor - Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

German Army Group Center was surrounded or on the run. Operation Bagration was a huge success for the Soviets. To the south, the Soviets attacked a month later in July. Army Group South was forced to send key mechanized units north to help Army Group Center. But they remained strong especially in light of the broken and wet terrain of western Ukraine. Marshall Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front attacked on July 13. Initially, the German line held solid so Konev decided to send in his exploitation forces early. On the 16th the ground rumbled from the tracks of the 3rd Guards Tank Army passing into the Koltov Gap - a land bridge between several local rivers. Still, the sector was crossed by many smaller streams and was not classic "tank county". Early in the war when the Germans occupied Ukraine they recruited local men into the SS Galician Division (infantry). On their home ground the SS was positioned to defend east of Lvov and hold the corridor. References: Stalingrad to Berlin, Earl Ziemke, Barnes and Nobel Books, New York, 1996 (first published in 1968). Scorched Earth, Paul Carell, Schiffer Military History, 1994 Panzer Battles, FW Von Mellenthin, Ballantine Books, New York, 1971 Bagration 1944, Steven Zaloga, Osprey Military, 1996 Map drawn with the help of a topo found at: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/soviet_maps.html