4th Guards Kantemirovskaya Tank Division

The 4th Guards Kantemirovskaya Order of Lenin Red Banner Tank Division named after Yuri Andropov (), commonly known as the Kantemirovites, the Kantemirovskaya Division or Kantemir Division, is a Guards armoured division of the Russian Ground Forces.

It has the Military Unit Number 19612 and is one of the key formations of the Western Military District. All of its units, as well as headquarters, are based in the town of Naro-Fominsk, Moscow Oblast, south-west of Moscow.

History

World War II

The direct ancestor of the 4th Guards Kantemirovskaya Tank Division was the Red Army's 17th Tank Corps, initially formed in Stalingrad in 1942 shortly after the 1941 start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II. The 17th Tank Corps commenced its combat history on 26 June 1942, when it deployed to the west of Voronezh, just prior to the Battle of Voronezh. For distinction in combat during the Operation Little Saturn between 17 December and 30 December 1942, the 17th Tank Corps was renumbered as the 4th Guards Tank Corps in January 1943. The Corps received the honorific ''Kantemirovskaya'' after the village of Kantemirovka in Kantemirovsky District, Voronezh Oblast, which its tank sub-units liberated from German occupation in their baptism of fire.

In August 1943 the 4th Guards Tank Corps experienced continuous combat on the Belgorod-Kharkiv sector of the Kursk Bulge. For the courage and heroism shown during the liberation of cities in right-bank Ukraine, including Zbarazh, Ternopil, and Shepetovka in April 1944, the Corps was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Seventeen regiments and separate battalions were awarded honorifics of ''Shepetovsky'', ''Zhitomirsky'', ''Yampolsky'', and ''Tarnopolsky'', in honor of the cities they had taken.

The 4th Guards Tank Corps participated in the 1945 battle for Kraków, for which it was awarded the Order of Lenin. It was among the first Red Army formations to reach the river Elbe, and participated in the capture of Dresden in Germany. The Corps made a sudden redeployment to Czechoslovakia, where they saw their final fighting of World War II in the suburbs of Prague, during the Prague Offensive.

For the courage shown by soldiers and officers of the Corps during wartime, military units were awarded 23 awards, the staff of the Corps was thanked officially by the supreme commander in chief 18 times, 32 of its members were awarded the Hero of Soviet Union (5 of which are forever enlisted in the unit rolls), and more than 20,000 soldiers received awards and medals, five becoming full chevaliers of the Order of Glory.

On 14 June 1945, the 4th Guards Tank Corps became the 4th Guards Kantemirovskaya Tank Division. On 13 September 1945 it was assigned to the Moscow Military District. It was re-deployed to Naro-Fominsk outside of Moscow, which has remained its garrison ever since.

Cold War period

On 11 September 1946 the Division participated in the Day of Tankmen's parade on Red Square in Moscow. On 23 May 1953, the Division's 3rd Guards Motor Rifle Regiment became the 119th Guards Mechanized Regiment. The 275th Guards Artillery Battalion was formed from the 264th Guards Mortar Regiment and the howitzer artillery battalion. The 76th Separate Motorcycle Battalion was converted into a reconnaissance battalion.

The 120th Guards Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment became the 538th Guards Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment in April 1955. The 14th Guards Tank Regiment was disbanded in June 1957. At the same time, the 43rd Guards Heavy Tank Self-Propelled Regiment became the 43rd Guards Heavy Tank Regiment and the 119th Guards Mechanized Regiment was redesignated the 423rd Guards Motor Rifle Regiment.

In 1960 the Division's tank-training battalion was disbanded. In early 1962, the 43rd Guards Heavy Tank Regiment became a regular tank regiment. In February 1962, the 196th Separate Equipment Maintenance and Recovery Battalion and the 339th Separate Missile Battalion were activated. The 106th Separate Sapper Battalion became the 330th Separate Engineer-Sapper Battalion in 1968. In 1972 the separate Chemical Defence Company became the 616th Separate Chemical Defence Battalion. The motor transport battalion was renamed the 1088th Separate Material Supply Battalion in 1980.

In February 1984, the division received the honorific name "in the name of Yuri Andropov", the Soviet General Secretary at the time. In 1989, the 43rd Guards Tank Regiment was replaced by the 14th Guards Tank Regiment. During the Cold War, the division was maintained at 80% strength.

The division was one of the two major divisions deployed in Moscow in August 1991 as part of the attempted hardline coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. The coup's failure strengthened Boris Yeltsin's position in the Russian SFSR, and soon afterward in the Russian Federation, of which he became President.

Russian Federation

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the 4th Guards Tank Division became a part of the Russian Ground Forces, the land forces of the Russian Federation. During the most serious crisis of Yeltsin's premiership, the 1993 constitutional crisis, the Division was one of several key divisions that had given their reluctant support to Yeltsin by October 4, the decisive point in the crisis.

In the early 1990s the division came under the command of the famous 1st Guards Tank Army, along with the 144th Guards Motor Rifle Division. The 1st GTA had relocated from the former East Germany to Smolensk when the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany was disbanded at the beginning of the 1990s. It was disbanded in 1998, as was the 144th MRD. Thereafter the Kantemirovskaya Division came under the command of the 20th Guards Army.

The division's units participated in the First Chechen War of 1994-1996, and personnel took part in peacekeeping operations in South Ossetia during 1997, in Kosovo in 1998 to 2002, later participating in the Second Chechen War of 1999-2009. During this period, it was one of the Russian Army's "constant readiness" divisions, with at least 80% manpower and 100% equipment holdings at all times.

In May 2005, eight T-80BV tanks from the division took part in the parade in Moscow to mark the 60th anniversary of VE Day. In December 2005 the Russian Defence Minister, Sergei Ivanov, visited the Division. In early 2006 the Division's 13th Tank Regiment participated, along with other 20th Guards Army units, in the joint Russian-Belarusian "Shield of Union" military exercises.

Kantemirovsky Street in Moscow is named in honour of the 4th Guards Tank Division.

In 2009, the division was reduced to the 4th Separate Guards Tank Brigade later that year, still stationed at Naro-Fominsk. In May 2013, the Kantemirovskaya division was reformed from the tank brigade.

, two years after the division was reconstituted, the Russian Armed Forces planned to rebuild the famous Soviet-era 1st Guards Red Banner Tank Army by including both the 4th Guards Tank Division and the 2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division as well as one tank and rifle brigade (from the 1990s up to its 1998 disbandment the 4th Guards TD formed part of the army).

Russo-Ukrainian War

On February 24th, 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The 1st Guards Tank Army was tasked with the capture of Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, and in the 4th Guards Tank Division's case, the country's second most populous city, Kharkiv. During the opening hours, the division failed to isolate the city which was later criticized by western intelligence officers as "hesitant and amateurish." According to a Russian casualty log, the division's parent unit allegedly lost 131 tanks as well as 409 troops during this time period. Some estimates placed the division's tank losses at nearly 80 percent. Following the failure to capture Kharkiv, the 1st Guards Tank Army's commander General-Lieutenant Sergey Kiel, was suspended. On May 3rd the Division was returned to Russia for refitting.

On May 13, 2022, the division became the first Russian formation to be individually singled out as committing war crimes in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That day, the first war crimes trial began in Kyiv of a soldier from the division who was ordered to shoot an unarmed civilian, reportedly to avoid the chance that the positions of the Russian invaders would be reported to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

By September 2022, the division, while deployed as part of the 1st Guards Tank Army, despite not being fully reconstituted during its rest and refit in May, experienced the Ukrainian Kharkiv counteroffensive. Prior to this, Ukrainian deep strikes on the division's supply lines, coupled with the general lack of close air support along the front contributed to the division's already divided, demoralized, and damaged force structure. At the beginning of the counteroffensive, Ukraine's 4th Tank Brigade attempted to encircle 4th Guards Tank Division units outside of Izium leading to the division's retreat north across the border into Russia. Following the losses sustained at Izium, independent analysis placed 90 T-80U losses, or a tank regiment's worth at full strength with many still intact, for a tank notably used primarily by the division.

Current structure

The 4th Guards Tank Division consists of a brigade headquarters, two tank regiments, one motor rifle regiment, an artillery regiment, an anti-aircraft missile regiment, a reconnaissance battalion, and several directly subordinated combat support and combat service support battalions and companies. According to a report from the Institute for the Study of War, in March 2018 the division contained:

*Division Headquarters based in Naro-Fominsk commanded by Colonel Oleg Tulinov (Military Unit Number 19612)
**137th Reconnaissance Battalion, Naro-Fominsk
**165th Medical Battalion, Naro-Fominsk
**413th Communications Battalion, Naro-Fominsk
**330th Engineering Battalion, Naro-Fominsk
**1088th Logistics Battalion, Naro-Fominsk
*, Naro-Fominsk
* 13th Guards Tank Regiment, Naro-Fominsk
* 423rd Guards Motor Rifle Regiment, Naro-Fominsk
*275th Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment, Naro-Fominsk
*538th Guards Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment, Naro-Fominsk
Harris & Kagan list the 49th Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade at Smolensk as part of the division, but the division already has an anti-aircraft rocket regiment, assignment of two such units would be non-standard in terms of Russian division organization, and Russian websites do not list the 49th AARB as part of the division.

In 2008, the 4th Guards Tank Division had approximately 12,000 personnel in active service.Moscow Military District
warfare.ru, Russian Military Analysis. Retrieved on 1 September 2008.

Division commanders

* Major General Nikolai Filippenko (1952–1957)
* Major General Boris Kurtsev (1957–1960)
* Major General Vladimir Dorodnov (1960–1965)
* Major General Yury Momotov (1979–1982)
* Major General Vladimir Kartmazov (1982–1985)
* Major General Ivan Denisov (1985–1987)
* Major General Nikolay Loktionov (1987–1989)
* Major General Vladimir Chuzhikov (1989–1991)
* Major General Boris Nikolayevich Polyakov (1991—1994)
* Major General Alexander Denisov (1995–1998)
* Major General Yevgeny Fuzhenko (1999–2002)
* Major General Anatoly Yolkin (2002–2003)
* Major General Alexander Romanchuk (November 2003 – July 2006)
* Major General Sergey Kuralenko (July 2006 – June 2009)
* Colonel Sergey Youriévitch Nekrasov (June 2009 - Octobre 2010)
* Colonel Andrey Mordvichev (April 2011 – March 2012)
* Major General Sergei Kombarov (March 2012 – August 2015)
* Major General Andrey Kolesnikov (August 2015 – August 2018)День рождения Дивизии
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* Major General Vladimir Zavadsky (August 2018 – June 2021)
* Colonel Yevgeny Nikolayevich Zhuravlyov (June 2021 – present)

Unit decorations

Traditions

Anniversaries

The anniversary of the formation of the division is celebrated on June 29 every year, with festive events being held in Naro-Fominsk. On the divisional parade ground, servicemen are awarded state and departmental awards. In recent years, participants in the celebrations have seen demonstration performances from cadets of the Moscow Higher Military Command School, as well as had the opportunity to visit the exhibition of weapons and military equipment. Day of Tankmen celebrations are also held by the division.

Parades

The division participates in both the ground and mobile columns of the Moscow Victory Day Parade on Red Square, representing the forces of the Western Military District in the former. The division in its current form took part in its first parade in 2013, days after its recreation. It was only as a result of its participation in the Moscow Victory Parade of 1945 that it received the honorific of ''Kantemirovka''. The unit's participation of the three-hour Tankmen Day parade in 1946 was decreed by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

Divisional museum

In Naro-Fominsk, there is a Museum of Military Glory of the tank division. After restoration work in 2017, the area of the exhibition halls was increased. It consists of over 3,000 exhibits, including military equipment and weapons. More than 10,000 people visit the museum annually, and over the years, the museum was visited by the military leadership as well as representatives of over 100 foreign delegations from Europe, The Americas, Asia and Africa. Since 1987, there has also been a museum of the division as part of Omsk's Boarding School No. 14.

Equipment

The division's principal vehicles are the T-80U, T-80BV and T-80BVM main battle tanks and the BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle. It makes limited use of the BTR-80 and MT-LB armoured personnel carriers, as well as the 2S19 Msta-S self-propelled artillery system, BM-21 ''Grad'' and BM-27 "Uragan" MLRS.

The division's two tank regiments are equipped with the T-80U and smaller numbers of the T-80UE-1. Its motor rifle regiment is equipped with a mix of T-80BVs and the upgraded T-80BVMs which it began to receive in company-sized batches in 2020.“Броня крепка! Обзор состояния танковых войск Вооружённых сил России,” soldat.ru, https://www.soldat.ru/news/1254.html. Retrieved 19 March 2022.

Equipment Summary*

See also

*2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division, commonly known as the Tamanians or Taman Division, is another elite Guards armoured division of the Russian Ground Forces
*Russian Guards

References

{{Russian divisions

Tank divisions of Russia
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Military units and formations established in 1942
Military units and formations disestablished in 2009
1942 establishments in the Soviet Union
Military units and formations awarded the Order of the Red Banner
Military units and formations of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine