A rifle corps (Russian: стрелковый корпус, romanized: strelkovyy korpus) was a Soviet corps-level military formation during the mid-twentieth century. Rifle corps were made up of a varying number of rifle divisions, although the allocation of three rifle divisions to a rifle corps was common during the latter part of World War II.
Unlike army corps formed by Germany and the Western Allies, Soviet rifle corps were composed primarily of combat troops and had only a small logistical component. Because the rifle divisions themselves were also primarily made up of combat troops, the rifle corps were numerically smaller than corps of other nations. The Soviets also formed Guards rifle corps during World War II, although these were often assigned control of regular rifle divisions and sometimes controlled no Guards rifle divisions.
The Red Army as a whole had 27 rifle corps headquarters in its order of battle on 1 June 1938; this had been expanded to 62 by June 1941.[1] When Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Red Army initially had some 32 rifle corps headquarters as part of their order of battle in action against the Germans. Because Joseph Stalin's prewar purge of the Red Army had removed so many experienced leaders, the rifle corps echelon of command in Soviet forces engaged against the Germans dwindled in the face of massive Red Army losses of 1941. The stark shortage of experienced leaders forced the Red Army to have rifle army headquarters directly supervising rifle divisions without the assistance of intervening rifle corps headquarters.[2] The use of rifle corps headquarters never disappeared entirely from the Red Army during World War II, as field armies in areas not fighting the Germans (such as the Far East) maintained their use of rifle corps headquarters during the entire war.
An example of wartime rifle corps organization is that of the 8th Estonian Rifle Corps in 1942:[3]
Of the 8th Rifle Corps' 1942 strength of 26,466 men, only 2,599 (less than 10 per cent) made up the corps headquarters and corps assets, the remainder being assigned to the two rifle divisions.
By November 1941, the Soviet order of battle showed only one rifle corps headquarters still active among the forces fighting the German invasion. By early 1942, however, the Soviets began to reactivate rifle corps headquarters for use as an intermediate command echelon between the rifle armies and rifle divisions. Doubtlessly, the direct command of divisions by army headquarters resulted in too-large spans of control for army commanders and the Red Army desired to reintroduce the rifle corps headquarters once enough experienced commanders and staff officers were available. By the end of 1942, 21 rifle corps headquarters were in action with Soviet forces engaging the Germans. This grew to over 100 by the end of 1943, and reached a peak of 174 either in action against the Germans or as part of the strategic reserve of the Stavka by the end of the war with Germany in May 1945.
Circa September 1945, the 11, 15, 16, 21, 22, 25, 28, 36, 42, 43, 44, 47, 51, 52, 55, 61, 62, 64, 67, 68, 70, 71, 74, 77, 80, 89, 91, 93, 95, 96, 98, 100, 106, 115, 117, 118, 120, 121, 133, and 135th Rifle Corps were disbanded.[4]
A limited number of Rifle Corps remained as part of the Ground Forces post 1945. They were converted to 'Army Corps' in 1955 though they still mostly consisted of Rifle and then Motor Rifle Divisions.