The 6th Army is a field army of the Red Army and the Soviet Army that was active with the Russian Ground Forces until 1998, and has been active since 2010 as the 6th Combined Arms Army. It was first formed in August, 1939 in the Kiev Special Military District from the Volochiskaya Army Group (a corps-sized formation). First Formation In September 1939 it participated in the Soviet invasion of Poland. At the beginning of war the Army (6th Rifle Corps, 37th Rifle Corps (which included the 80th, 139th, and 141st Rifle Divisions), 4th and 15th Mechanized Corps, 5th Cavalry Corps, 4th Fortified Region, and 6th Fortified Region (Rava-Ruska), and a number of artillery and other units) was deployed on the Lviv direction. It started the Great Patriotic War as part of the Southwestern Front. The army's headquarters was disbanded 10 August 1941 after the Battle of Uman. In this battle, the 6th Army was caught in a huge encirclement south of Kiev along with the 12th Army. Second Formation It was immediately reformed within the Southern Front on the basis of the 48th Rifle Corps and other units, and defended the west bank of the Dnepr River northwest of Dnipropetrovsk. On 1 September 1941 it consisted of 169th, 226th, 230th, 255th, 273rd, and 275th Rifle Divisions, 26th and 28th Cavalry Divisions, 47th Rifle Regiment (15th NKVD Rifle Division), 269th, 274th, and 394th Corps Artillery Regiments, 522nd High-power Howitzer Artillery Regiment гап б/м, 671st Artillery Regiment of the Reserve of the Supreme High Command (ап РВГК), 14th, 27th Separate Anti-Aircraft Artillery Divisions, and 8th Tank Division. It was then transferred to the Soviet Southwestern Front and took part in defensive actions in the Donbas, the Barvenkovo-Lozovaia operation, and the Second Battle of Kharkov, but along with the 57th Army, was surrounded in the Izium pocket with the loss of 200,000 plus men in casualties alone, and afterwards formally disbanded. Third Formation The Army was reformed in July 1942 for the third time from the 6th Reserve Army, comprising the 45th, 99th, 141st, 160th, 174th, 212th, 219th, and 309th Rifle Divisions plus the 141st Rifle Brigade. It was assigned in sequence to the Voronezh, Southwestern, and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts. In January 1943, the 6th Army smashed through the defensive lines of the Alpini divisions of the Italian 8th Army as part of Operation Little Saturn. In September 1943 it consisted of