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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Russia completes reformation of 1st Guards Tank Army |
| 2016-02-11 |
| [Janes] The Russian Ground Forces has completed the reactivation of the 1st Guards Tank Army in Russia's Western Military District (WMD) and is to form two new armoured divisions, the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced. A session of the Defence Ministry Board, chaired by Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, discussed the reactivation as part of the development of Russia's quick reaction force. The session also revealed that Russia will form two new armoured divisions near the cities of Voronezh (in the WMD) and Chelyabinsk (in the Central Military District: CMD) in 2016. According to the MoD, the 1st Guards was reformed on 1 February and will be equipped with T-72B3 and T-80 main battle tanks (MBTs). A Russian tank army is typically equipped with 500 MBTs. Meanwhile, Colonel General Vladimir Zarudnitsky, commander of the CMD, said that the mainstay of the new Chelyabinsk-based armoured division will be cutting-edge MBTs. Chelyabinsk is close to Nizhny Tagil, home of Russian tank manufacturer Uralvagonzavod, and Col Gen Zarudnitsky's comments could well indicate that this unit will be the first to receive the new T-14 Armata MBT and other new Armata-based vehicles. As for the armoured division in the Voronezh Region, the 1st Separate Armoured Brigade has been garrisoned there in the town of Boguchar since 2015. It looks like this brigade will be transformed into a division. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #3 Your father is right with regard to the Russian attitude towards tanks, which differs from the US in that Americans prefer infantry fight infantry and tanks fight tanks, while the Russian think tanks can fight everything. The significance of this announcement is that the 1st Guards Tank Army has its lineage in the 1st Guards Tank Brigade, which deployed in Moscow just after October, 1941, under the command of then General Katukov just after the disaster at Vyaz'ma. The Russians will observe the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Moscow this coming December. Also significant is that October, 1941 was when the Russian disbanded every last one of their armored units and reformed them all as brigades, the basic maneuver component of the tank army, the first of which went into action in November 1942, Stalingrad. It wasn't until 2009 that the Russians went back to reorganizing their forces into brigades, and now the 1st Tank Army emerges as the first of its corps sized forces organized with brigades. Why THAT is significant is that brigade headquarters are usually larger, are staffed with more senior officers, is commanded by a flag officer and is expected to fight independently. And as the article said the 1st Tank Army is deployed near Volodya's capital and is expected to be a fire brigade/rapid reaction force. It will be interesting to see whether Russian commanders decide to make their armies where they can be task organized, or if they will be of fixed size with fixed components. Task organizing make larger formations better able to deal with circumstances as they arise. |
| Posted by: badanov 2016-02-11 17:33 |
| #2 Yes...but the big question is: Will they reactivate Zhukov? |
| Posted by: Rex Mundi 2016-02-11 16:08 |
| #1 I not an ARMA-phile but as I understand from Daddy's tales of war in Germany, tanks are a mobile artillery and mortar platform for advancing infantry and are used to provide occupational defense. Is this a move to provide a capability, or fill a hole in a regional combined arms strategy? |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2016-02-11 12:02 |