2nd Guards Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division
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The 2nd Guards 'Tamanskaya' Motor Rifle Division, also known as the Tamanskaya Division, Taman Division and Taman Guards (Cyrillic: гвардейская мотострелковая Таманская дивизия, Guards Motor Rifle Tamanskaya Division), is one of the most famous divisions of the Russian Ground Forces. Deployed in the Moscow Military District, it is headquarted in Alabino; most of its units are based in Kalininets. It is one of the Russian Army's 'constant readiness' divisions, meaning that it is required to have at least 80% manpower and 100% equipment strength at all times; it is thus readily deployable. As a motor rifle division, its role is roughly comparible to western mechanised infantry divisions. The division is primarily charged with the specific defence of Moscow itself, and forms part of the 20th Army under the overall command of Lt. General Andriy Tretyak. Its motto is "Rodina chest' slava", which translates as "Motherland, honour and glory".
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[edit] Recent history
The division has played a prominent role in two of the major political crises of recent Soviet and Russian history. In 1991, it was one of the divisions deployed in Moscow as part of the hardline coup attempt against the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev; however, it was a tank unit attached to the division that switched sides at the decisive point in the coup's course. Boris Yeltsin delivered a speech standing on top of tank no. 110, strengthening his own position both domestically and abroad significantly.
2 years later, the division once again came to Yeltsin's rescue, during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis. The stand-off between the Russian Parliament and Yeltsin, against the backdrop of massive public demonstrations in Moscow against Yeltsin's government, had by the 2nd of October bought Russia to the brink of civil war. Between the 2nd and 4th of October, the army considered its position. By sunrise of the 4th, they had given their support to Yeltsin. That day, tanks from the Tamanskaya Division opened fire on the Parliament building, where the Parliament's supporters were barricaded. This episode consolidated Yeltsin's power; it was the deadliest street fighting in Moscow since 1917.
Since then, the division has seen service in Chechnya: it is known to have contributed to the force that brought the republic back under Russian control in 1999 and 2000, during the Second Chechen War. A 'tactical group' from the 15th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment deployed to Chechnya in early 2000, serving in the south of the republic and the Argun Gorge after the end of major combat operations to maintain security. In 2004, it was visited by a delegation of foreign military attaches. The Kalininets base has also recently provided the venue for the Miss Russian Army contest.
[edit] Rearmament in 2007
On the 22 January 2007, the Russian news agency Interfax reported comments from the commander of the Moscow Military District, Col. General Vladimir Bakin. He stated that the Tamanskaya Division's 1st Guards Motor Rifle Regiment had been re-equipped with a battalion of T-90 main battle tanks, replacing its old T-80s, a battalion of BTR-80 armoured personnel carriers (this presumably refers to the modernised BTR-80A variant, which has improved firepower and armour, among other things), as well as a battalion of new self-propelled howitzers and 'C2' command and control systems. Bakin also said that the regiment's 3rd Battalion had begun re-equipping with the BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle, of which the regiment as a whole was due to receive 129 by the end of the year.
Furthermore, according to Interfax: "Bakin stated that the First Guards Regiment had already undergone training for operating new materiel. "The regiment was the first in the Russian army to successfully master new arms and materiel. Last year, the regimental personnel were graded highly on their performance, he said." [1]
This rearmament may represent the first publically-known deployment of the T-90 in the Russian Army outside of the 5th Guards 'Don' Tank Division, based at Kyakhta in the Siberian Military District, which has been entirely equipped with such tanks in recent years. (Tanks observed in the service of the 74th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, when it withdrew from Chechnya in 2001, may have been T-90s or heavily modernised T-72s. [2]) There have been rumours in circulation for some time now that all the T-90s currently in service were to be accumulated in the Tamanskaya Division, but these rumours lack reliable sources. If any such move is to occur, it may take place in 2007, but January's partial rearmament of the division does not seem to signal the beginning of such a move, since the T-90s and other modern armoured vehicles now with the division are newly-purchased ones.
[edit] Lineage
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- 127th Rifle Division (July 1940 - September 1941)
- 2nd Guards Rifle Division (September 1941 - October 1943)
- 2nd Guards Tamanskaya (Motor) Rifle Division (October 1943 - December 1953)
- 23rd Guards Tamanskaya Mechanised Division (December 1953 - March 1957)
- 23rd Guards Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division (March 1957 - November 1964)
- 2nd Guards Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division (November 1964 - present)
[edit] Subordinate units, fighting strength and equipment
As of 2004, the Tamanskaya Division consisted of the following units:
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- 1st Guards 'Sevastopolsky' Motor Rifle Regiment, Kalininets
- 15th Guards 'Shavlinsky' Motor Rifle Regiment, Kalininets
- 283rd Guards 'Berlinsky' Motor Rifle Regiment, Kalininets
- 1st Guards 'Chertkovsky' Tank Regiment, Kalininets
- 147th Guards 'Sevastopolsky' Artillery Regiment, Kobyakovo
- 1117th Air Defence Regiment, Kobyakovo
- 136th Guards Independent Intelligence Battalion, Kalininets
- 1174th Independent Anti-Tank Battalion
- 211st Guards Independent Engineer Battalion
- 614th Independent Chemical Battalion
- 47th Guards Independent Signal Battalion
- 190th Independent Maintainance Battalion
- 1063rd Independent Supply Battalion
- 370th Independent Medical Battalion
Overall, the division numbers around 12,000 soldiers [3]. Its principal vehicles are the T-90 and T-80 main battle tanks, BTR-80 armoured personnel carrier and the BMP-2 and BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles.
