From 24 June to 25 June 1941, rokossovsky's 9th Mechanized Corps held the Germans south of Lutsk, Oreka, and Klevan, and repelled the German 13th and 14th Panzer Divisions in two consecutive days of fighting. In fact, Rokossovsky's forces succeeded in blocking the German attempt to cut off the Road from Rivne to Lutsk, a determined defense that could hold off the German attack. However, before Rokossovsky could further strengthen his defensive line, a new order was sent to his headquarters.
The order came from General Potapov of the 5th Army of the Southwestern Front, which required Rokossovsky to lead the 9th Mechanized Army to launch a counterattack against the Germans in accordance with the requirements of the General Staff, in the direction of the Dubno area. Naturally, this counterattack was not at the tactical level, but a firm counterattack at the strategic level, with the 9th Mechanized Army's left wing being the 19th Mechanized Army and the right flank being the 22nd Mechanized Army, and the two mechanized armies would also be put into the counterattack. The order was sudden, but what surprised Rokossovsky most was that it did not mention anything about the joint action of the three mechanized armies, in other words, that there would be no cooperation between the three mechanized armies in the counterattack.
It was a suicidal order, and rokossovsky accused in his memoirs that no one had allowed the three mechanized armies to fight together, nor did he consider the difficulty of the three mechanized armies suddenly moving from a state of march to a combat state, let alone that the troops had been engaged with the powerful German army for two days and nights, not to mention that the mechanized army of his friend was far inferior to his, and a considerable part of the troops had not yet reached the battlefield. In this regard, Rokossovsky can only think that the Southwestern Front Command does not understand the battlefield situation at all, let alone the General Staff.
The Order of the Front was to demand that the 9th Mechanized Corps launch a counter-assault on the German flanks and to destroy the Germans to restore the battlefield situation to the pre-war state. Although this order is full of pride and ambition, it is seriously inconsistent with the actual situation on the battlefield. Before 26 June, the Germans had launched a powerful offensive in the direction of Zhytomyr, Vladimir, Vronsky and Rivne, and could even be said to be the main direction of the German main force, and if a counter-assault was launched, there would be no return, and no success would be possible.
It is true that orders are ultimately to be carried out, but they must also be adjusted according to the actual situation. Rokossovsky chose to keep his troops fighting the enemy in front of him, and to contain the enemy through tenacious fighting. In the circumstances of the time, Rokossovsky's orders were correct, and he made rational arrangements through the battlefield situation he had explored.
But from another point of view, Rokossovsky's orders are also dangerous, because he almost modified the orders of his superiors, and if he is held accountable afterwards, then he himself will be severely punished. In fact, this counterattack was Dubno's counterattack, but Rokossovsky was not aware of the determination of his superiors to counterattack at the time.
But Rokossovsky's order proved correct, for both of his friendly mechanized armies suffered a crushing defeat. The 19th Mechanized Corps was attacked by the Germans while trying to counterattack, and the mechanized corps was forced to retreat in the direction of Rivne during the German offensive.
The situation was worse for the 22nd Mechanized Army, where german attacks inflicted heavy losses, with the commander, General Kondrushev, killed at the beginning of the battle, and the chief of staff, Tamruach, who took over command, had to withdraw his troops northeast of Lutsk. In the evening, a division commander of the 22nd Mechanized Army came to Rokossovsky's headquarters, claiming that the 22nd Mechanized Army had been completely destroyed, and Rokossovsky angrily rebuked the coward, telling him to hurry back to the 22nd Mechanized Army to continue the fighting.
However, from the actual situation, the situation has reached the extreme, and Rokossovsky's 9th Mechanized Army has been unable to hold the line, and they can only defend their defensive areas in the hope of being able to block the offensive from the German army. The Germans attacked Rivno from the direction of Lutsk, while more Germans attacked the 9th Mechanized Corps from the south. As a mechanized army with few tanks, Rokossovsky could not expect his mechanized army to launch any counter-assault, the only thing he could hope for was to face the Germans with artillery fire.
At that time, the counter-assault orders from the Front were one after another, and Rokossovsky ignored these orders and instead used artillery to attack the enemy. He set up an ambush on the road from Lutsk to Rivne, ambushed an entire artillery regiment on the edge of the woods on both sides of the road and behind the frontal blocking positions, and the 20th Tank Division, which was responsible for blocking the German army, blocked the enemy on the road, leaving the German troops crowded together on the road. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Rokossovsky ordered the artillery to open fire on the Germans, and the unsuspecting Germans were immediately blown up on their backs, and the German attack ended in failure.
The Germans, enraged by the defeat, sent bombers to retaliate, but these tricks had long been within Rokossovsky's calculations, and the advantage of not blind counter-assault was that the troops could dig enough bunkers and be able to move relatively calmly on the defensive area.
When the German bombers retaliated, Rokossovsky had already let the tanks and artillery hide in the bunkers, and the infantry either ran into the artillery holes or simply hid in the woods, and the German bombing had no effect at all. The ambush was tactically successful, but it could not solve anything strategically, and Rokossovsky was in desperate need of intelligence from friendly neighbors, or simply a complete report on the state of the battle on the front line, but none of this he had now.
Rokossovsky could not have obtained valuable information from his own people, after all, communications had not yet been restored, valuable information had been obtained from captured German colonels. According to the confession of the German colonel and the documents and maps carried, it was learned that the defensive line of the Soviet 5th and 6th Armies had been penetrated by the Germans, and the Germans rushed through the junction of the two armies, and the German armored forces were detouring back to the Soviet rear along the gap to try to expand the results, and the troops were pointing directly at Zhytomyr. Unfortunately, from this information, the main force of the German army was killed from the south of the defensive zone of the 9th Mechanized Army, which happened to be in the main direction of the German attack.
Bad news came one after another, and the 131st Motorized Division of the 9th Mechanized Army was repulsed along the Stehl River, and the German follow-up troops had already killed them. The 9th Mechanized Corps under Rokossovsky's command was constantly dwindling in constant fighting, losing out on the vast majority of T-26 light tanks and BT fast tanks.
The right flank of the 5th Army had been repulsed by the Germans, and now the 5th Army had lost the possibility of holding the existing defensive line, and the troops had to retreat to the old fortified area. Rokossovsky's 9th Mechanized Army was also no better, and they now had to fight and retreat, and finally built fortifications in Vronsky's New Town.
From a practical point of view, this Dubno counterattack, which Rokossovsky was completely unaware of at the time, had failed and failed completely, and Rokossovsky's 9th Mechanized Army was a very small loss, although the mechanized army also lost almost all of its technical equipment and half of its combat strength, and Rokossovsky even had to gather the routs of other units to replenish his own strength, and the situation of the entire mechanized army can only be described as dangerous. But the 9th Mechanized Corps has not yet been defeated, Nor has Rokossovsky been defeated, and the battles that belong to them will continue.
Reference: Memoirs of Marshal Rokossovsky's War
Soviet-German War 1941-1945
Clash of Giants: Soviet-German War