66th Armoured Regiment is an armoured regiment which is part of the

Armoured Corps An armoured corps (also mechanized corps or tank corps) is a specialized military organization whose role is to conduct armoured warfare. The units belonging to an armoured corps include military staff, and are equipped with tanks and other armou ...

of the

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...

Formation

The regiment was raised on 1 September 1966 by Lieutenant Colonel (later Major General) Narinder Singh at Ahmednagar as the "66th Cavalry". The name was changed on 14 January 1967 to 66th Armoured Regiment. The first officers for the regiment came from the Armoured Corps, but the Junior Commissioned Officers and men were drawn from the

Regiment of Artillery The Regiment of Artillery is a combat/fighting arm of the Indian Army, which provides massive firepower during all ground operations of the Indian Army. It is a successor to the Royal Indian Artillery (RIA) of British Indian Army, which itsel ...

. The Regiment broke new ground by recruiting Ahirs and

Maratha The Marathi people ( Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed as ...

s, classes which had not previously served in the Armoured Corps. It also started inducting

South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territ ...

ns from 1968. Unlike other regiments, there are no single-class squadrons, but classes mixed right down to tank troop level.

Equipment

The regiment was raised with

Sherman tank } The M4 Sherman, officially Medium Tank, M4, was the most widely used medium tank by the United States and Western Allies in World War II. The M4 Sherman proved to be reliable, relatively cheap to produce, and available in great numbers. It w ...

s and re-equipped in November 1969 with

Vijayanta The ''Vijayanta'' (en: "Victorious") was a main battle tank built in India based on a licensed design of the Vickers Mk.1. The Vijayanta was the first indigenous tank of the Indian Army. The prototype was completed in 1963 and the tank entered ...

tanks. In 1987, the Regiment converted to

T-72 The T-72 is a family of Soviet/Russian main battle tanks that entered production in 1969. The T-72 was a development of the T-64, which was troubled by high costs and its reliance on immature developmental technology. About 25,000 T-72 tanks h ...

tanks.

Operations

The 66th Armoured Regiment fought in the

Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a military confrontation between India and Pakistan that occurred during the Bangladesh Liberation War in East Pakistan from 3 December 1971 until the Pakistani capitulation in Dhaka on 16 Decem ...

as the integral armoured regiment of the 15th Infantry Division (

XI Corps 11 Corps, 11th Corps, Eleventh Corps, or XI Corps may refer to: * 11th Army Corps (France) * XI Corps (Grande Armée), a unit of the Imperial French Army during the Napoleonic Wars * XI Corps (German Empire), a unit of the Imperial German Army * ...

). For its performance in operations, it was awarded the

theatre honour A battle honour is an award of a right by a government or sovereign to a military unit to emblazon the name of a battle or operation on its flags ("colours"), uniforms or other accessories where ornamentation is possible. In European military t ...

"Punjab 1971". After the war, the 66th participated in full strength in the Republic Day Parade of 26 January 1972, which was the victory parade to commemorate India's victory in the 1971 war. The regiment has also participated in Operation Trident, Operation Vijay,

Operation Parakram Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Ma ...

and in counter insurgency operations. The Regiment again took part in the Republic Day Parade in 1991 with its newly acquired T-72 tanks.

Presentation of Guidon and Standard

On 6 November 1979, the Regiment became the youngest to be presented with the "Guidon" by the then President of India Mr

Neelam Sanjiva Reddy Neelam Sanjiva Reddy (; 19 May 1913 – 1 June 1996) was an Indian politician who served as the sixth President of India, serving from 1977 to 1982. Beginning a long political career with the Indian National Congress Party in the independence ...

. On 6 December 2004, the Chief of Army Staff General Nirmal Chander Vij presented the "Standard" to the Regiment to commemorate the Regiment's 38 years of dedicated service to the nation and valour of the 1971 War.

Notable personnel

One of the commandants of the regiment, Lt Col Vishwa Nath Sharma, went on to become the Chief of the Army Staff from 1988 to 1990.

Regimental Insignia

The regiment cap badge depicts a

tank within a diamond-shaped tank troop formation sign and is devoid of the national emblem, the regiment number or the regimental motto. The shoulder title consists of the numeral "66" within a diamond-shaped tank troop formation sign in brass. The Regimental colours are ‘Flame Orange and Charcoal Grey’, which signify qualities of ‘strength and resilience’. The Regimental Motto is मान या वीरगति (Maan Ya Veergati), which translates to "Honour or Valiant Death". The regiment has gained notoriety for adopting the Death's Head emblem to emblazon their tanks, despite official disapproval. The death's head has a scroll with the regimental motto inscribed. The death's head motif (in silver plate) is used as the officer's pouch badge. The emblem very closely resembles that of the

17th/21st Lancers The 17th/21st Lancers was a cavalry regiment of the British Army. It was formed in England by the amalgamation of the 17th Lancers and the 21st Lancers in 1922 and, after service in the Second World War, it amalgamated with the 16th/5th The Quee ...

, an erstwhile cavalry regiment of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

from 1922 to 1993.

References

{{Indian Army Armoured Corps , state=expanded Armoured and cavalry regiments of the Indian Army from 1947 Military units and formations established in 1966