16th Army

Rokossovsky's 16th Army became the shield of Moscow's northwestern approaches, holding the Volokolamsk highway and the Istra reservoir line through the worst weeks of October and November 1941. Its famous Panfilov division and Dovator's cavalry traded space for time against the 4th Panzer Group, then held firm when the December counteroffensive began. Rebuilt with Siberian reinforcements, the army joined the winter offensive toward Rzhev, pressing the German 9th Army through the snow. Rokossovsky's handling of this army made his reputation as the Red Army's finest defensive commander. Rokossovsky, disgraced and imprisoned in the purges before being recalled in 1940, directed the defence from a headquarters that moved five times in six weeks; his army's stand on the Istra line is studied in Russian staff colleges as the textbook meeting of an exhausted attacker and a prepared defence. Dovator was killed in December. The tracks recorded here are schematic headquarters-area positions, not surveyed front lines.