Article

2016-02-11 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Russia completes reformation of 1st Guards Tank Army

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by badanov 2016-02-11 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#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|| 2016-02-11 12:02|| Front Page Top

#2 Yes...but the big question is: Will they reactivate Zhukov?

Posted by Rex Mundi 2016-02-11 16:08|| 2016-02-11 16:08|| Front Page Top

#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|| http://www.chriscovert.net 2016-02-11 17:33|| Front Page Top

23:29 swksvolFF
23:23 jvalentour
22:27 Mullah Richard
20:04 DarthVader
19:58 swksvolFF
19:30 swksvolFF
19:14 rjschwarz
19:06 Iblis
18:52 Shipman
18:50 Shipman
18:49 Bobby
18:42 Shipman
18:42 rjschwarz
18:41 rjschwarz
18:39 rjschwarz
18:35 Shipman
18:28 magpie
18:16 Skidmark
18:14 Skidmark
18:14 Shipman
18:14 Shipman
18:13 Shipman
18:13 Skidmark
17:43 g(r)omgoru