On 6 October, in the opening stages of the Battle of Debrecen, the Hungarian Third Army was badly mauled near Arad. Very quickly, the army was scattered near the town of Kecskemét. Rodion Malinovsky's 2nd Ukrainian Front attempted a pincer maneuver to encircle Army Group Fretter-Pico. The 2nd Ukrainian Front's southern pincer sliced easily through the Hungarian Third Army. This southern pincer was spearheaded by Soviet General Issa Pliyev's Mobile Group Pliyev. Later, in the same battle, Mobile Group Pliyev was encircled and badly mauled by Army Group Fretter-Pico ("Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico"). The northern pincer was stalled and turned back by veteran German "panzer" forces. The Hungarian Second Army was an integral part of the victorious German-Hungarian "Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico".