First Guards Tank Army and new exercises

Hard for me to pass on articles on the First Guards Tank Army. That was one of the two Soviet tank armies in the Voronezh Front at Kursk during the defensive operations there. Its operations are discussed in some depth in my book. I found that the First Tank Army at Kursk under Katukov was much better handled than the Fifth Guards Tank Army under Rotmistrov, although Rotmistrov is now much more famous than Mikhail Efimovich Katukov.

Next Stop Berlin?

Article is here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/31/world/europe/russia-military-exercise-zapad-west.html

The important part of the article are:

  1. Russia is doing a 100,000 man exercise this late summer near the Baltic States (who are members of NATO). western Russian, Belarus and Kalingrad (near Poland, also a NATO member).
  2. It includes of course the First Guards Tank Army.
    1. “Its establishment represents the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union that so much offensive power has been concentrated in a single command.”
  3. There is some concern that Russia forces moved into Belarus may not leave.

Anyhow, it is probably just some shirtless swagger and signaling and I would be hesitant to read more into it than that.

There is also a pretty neat map in the article.

 

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.

Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.

His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019)

Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

Articles: 1455

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One comment

  1. […] This youtube video has just been released called “Mapping Russia’s Mostly Costly Tank Losses Ukraine War.” I found it interesting. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adE5GlQ2Ly4It references our old friend from the Battle of Kursk, Katukov’s First Guards Tank Army. See: First Guards Tank Army and new exercises | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)  […]

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