Russian Tank Troops

The Russian Tank Troops is the armored warfare branch of the Russian Ground Forces. They are mainly used in conjunction with the motorized rifle troops in the main areas and perform the following tasks:

  • in defence – on direct support of the motorized rifle troops in repelling the enemy's offensive and application of counter-attacks and counter-strikes;
  • in offence – on delivering powerful cleave strikes deeply, developing success, defeating the enemy in meeting engagements and battles.

The Tank Troops are made up of tank divisions, tank brigades, tank regiments and tank battalions of motorized rifle brigades which are highly resistant to the damaging effects of nuclear weapons, have high firepower, high mobility and manoeuvrability. They are able to make full use of the results of nuclear fires - nuclear destruction of the enemy - and, ideally, can quickly achieve the ultimate military goals of any combat or operation.

The combat capabilities of tank formations and subunits enable them to lead active combat operations, day and night, in significant isolation from other troops, to smash the enemy in meeting engagements and battles, on the move to overcome the extensive areas of contamination, to force water barriers, as well as to quickly build a solid defence and successfully resist the attack of superior forces of the enemy.

Further development and increase of the combat capabilities of the Tank Troops are carried out mainly at the expense of its framing with more advanced types of tanks, in which there is the optimal combination of such vital military properties as high firepower, manoeuvrability and reliable protection. In improving the organizational forms the main efforts are focused on giving them the combined-arms nature, what to the utmost suits the content of modern operations (combat actions).[1]

Units

At the time of the Fall of the Soviet Union there were five tank divisions stationed on the territory of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic: the 1st Tank Division (Kaliningrad), the 4th Guards Tank Division; the 5th Guards Tank Division; the 21st Guards Tank Division; and the 40th Guards Tank Division (Sovetsk).[2] In September 1993 the 1st Tank Division became the 2nd Tank Brigade; then a weapons and equipment storage base in 1998; and then, finally, was disbanded in 2008.[3]

In the twenty-first century, a tank brigade is the second largest, after the tank division, of the formations of the Russian Tank Troops. According to the shtat (Table of Organization and Equipment), on average, there are about two to three thousand personnel in a tank brigade. In the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation the specified tank brigade commander's rank is colonel.

Today the formations of the Tank Troops include:

References

 This article incorporates text by Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation available under the CC BY 4.0 license.

  1. "Tank Troops". Mil.ru. Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation. Retrieved 15 December 2017.
  2. Feskov et al 2013.
  3. Michael Holm (2015). "1st Insterburgskaya Red Banner Tank Division".
  4. Catherine Harris and Frederick W. Kagan (March 2018). "Russia's Military Posture: Ground Forces Order of Battle" (PDF). www.criticalthreats.org. pp. 22, 50. Retrieved 30 March 2020.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  5. "Russian Military Transformation Tracker".
  6. Catherine Harris and Frederick W. Kagan (March 2018). "Russia's Military Posture: Ground Forces Order of Battle" (PDF). www.criticalthreats.org. pp. 19, 44. Retrieved 30 March 2020.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  7. "Указ Президента Российской Федерации от 30.06.2018 № 387 'О присвоении 68 танковому полку почетного наименования'". publication.pravo.gov.ru. Retrieved 2018-07-02.

Further reading
  • V.I. Feskov, Golikov V.I., K.A. Kalashnikov, and S.A. Slugin, The Armed Forces of the USSR after World War II, from the Red Army to the Soviet (Part 1: Land Forces). (В.И. Слугин С.А. Вооруженные силы СССР после Второй Мировой войны: от Красной Армии к Советской (часть 1: Сухопутные войска)) Tomsk, 2013. Improved version of 2004 work with many inaccuracies corrected.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.