The 6th Guards

Order of Red Banner The Order of the Red Banner () was the first Soviet military decoration. The Order was established on 16 September 1918, during the Russian Civil War by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. It was the highest award of Sovi ...

Tank Army was a

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; ...

army An army, ground force or land force is an armed force that fights primarily on land. In the broadest sense, it is the land-based military branch, service branch or armed service of a nation or country. It may also include aviation assets by ...

of the Soviet Union's

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

, first formed in January 1944 as the 6th Tank Army,Glantz (Companion), p. 66. and disbanded in

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

in the 1990s after the

dissolution of the Soviet Union The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Declaration No. 142-Н of ...

. During its service in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the army was commanded by Lieutenant General of Tank Troops (later Colonel General) Andrei Kravchenko.

World War II

Initially commanding the 5th Mechanised Corps and the 5th Guards Tank Corps, the 6th Tank Army's first major operation was the suppression of the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket in January–February 1944. It then fought in the Iassy-Kishinev Offensive during August 1944 before gaining a Guards title in September 1944. Under its new title, it was soon engaged in the

Battle of Debrecen The Battle of Debrecen, called by the Red Army the ''Debrecen Offensive Operation'', was a battle taking place from 6 to 29 October 1944 on the Eastern Front in Hungary during World War II. The offensive was conducted by the 2nd Ukrainia ...

on the

2nd Ukrainian Front The 2nd Ukrainian Front () was a front of the Red Army during the Second World War. History On October 20, 1943, the Steppe Front was renamed the 2nd Ukrainian Front. In mid-May 1944 Malinovsky took over the 2nd Ukrainian Front. During t ...

, before fighting against the Germans during

Operation Frühlingserwachen Operation Spring Awakening () was the last major German offensive of World War II. The operation was referred to in Germany as the Plattensee Offensive and in the Soviet Union as the Balaton Defensive Operation. It took place in Western Hungary ...

in March 1945. Pushing west, the tank army moved south of

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, Austria and pivoted to the north in a wide encircling maneuver that cut Vienna off from the rest of the German ''Reich''. At the end of the war, one of its subordinate formations, the 2nd Guards Mechanised Corps, ended operations in the area of

Benešov Benešov (; ) is a town in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 17,000 inhabitants. The town is known for the Konopiště Castle. Administrative division Benešov consists of 15 municipal parts (in brackets population ...

, Czechoslovakia, on 9 May 1945. The 6th Guards Tank Army was then moved to the

Transbaikal Military District The Transbaikal Military District () was a military district of first the Soviet Armed Forces and then the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, formed on 17 May 1935 and included the Buryat Republic, Chita Oblast, and Yakutia. Chita was ...

in order to take part in the

Soviet invasion of Manchuria The Soviet invasion of Manchuria, formally known as the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation or simply the Manchurian Operation () and sometimes Operation August Storm, began on 9 August 1945 with the Soviet Union, Soviet invasion of the Emp ...

. The army, under the command of

Colonel General Colonel general is a military rank used in some armies. It is particularly associated with Germany, where historically General officer#Old European system, general officer ranks were one grade lower than in the Commonwealth and the United States, ...

Andrei Kravchenko spearheaded the

Transbaikal Front The Transbaikal Front () was a front formed on September 15, 1941, on the basis of the Transbaikal Military District. Initially, it included the 17th and 36th armies, but in August 1942 the 12th Air Army was added to the front, and, finally, in ...

's offensive against the Japanese

Kwantung Army The Kwantung Army (Japanese language, Japanese: 関東軍, ''Kantō-gun'') was a Armies of the Imperial Japanese Army, general army of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1919 to 1945. The Kwantung Army was formed in 1906 as a security force for th ...

on 9 August 1945. The 6th Guards Tank Army consisted of the 5th Guards Tank Corps, and

7th Seventh is the ordinal form of the number seven. Seventh may refer to: * Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution * A fraction (mathematics), , equal to one of seven equal parts Film and television *"The Seventh", a second-season ep ...

and 9th Guards Mechanised Corps, and many smaller formations, in all, a total of 1,019 tanks and

self-propelled gun Self-propelled artillery (also called locomotive artillery) is artillery equipped with its own propulsion system to move toward its firing position. Within the terminology are the self-propelled gun, self-propelled howitzer, self-propelled mo ...

s. For this operation, the tank army was restructured such that the infantry, artillery, and armored components were much more balanced than they had been during the war against the Germans. This was the first example of what proved to be the standard Soviet mechanized army organization during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

. During the

, the Army was operating as part of the

, and during the Khingano-Mukden Operation, the Army was tasked to advance 800 kilometers.

Cold War

It was stationed in Mongolia, reporting to the

, for 15 years after the war. It still included the

5th Guards Tank Division The 5th Guards Tank Division was an armored division of the Soviet Ground Forces and Russian Ground Forces, active from 1945 to 2009, in two different formations. First Formation The 5th Guards "Stalingradsko-Kievskaya Order of Lenin Red Banne ...

(First Formation, "Stalingrad-Kiev"). The friendship with China of those days and the

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

military reductions changed the fate of the Army, and in 1959 it was relocated to Dnipropetrovsk (now

Dnipro Dnipro is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper River, Dnipro River, from which it takes its name. Dnipro is t ...

) in the

Kyiv Military District The Kiev Military District (; , abbreviated ) was a military district of the Imperial Russian Army and subsequently of the Red Army and Soviet Armed Forces. It was first formed in 1862, and was headquartered in Kiev (Kyiv) for most of its exist ...

. 22nd Guards Tank Division joined the army in 1957. Toward the end of the 1980s it appears to have retained four Guards Tank Divisions – the 17th, 42nd (the former 42nd Guards Rifle Division) and the 75th (formerly the

75th Guards Rifle Division The 75th Guards Rifle Division () was a Red Army Division (military), infantry division during World War II and afterwards, which later became the 75th Guards Tank Division and was finally disbanded in the 1990s. The 75th Guards Rifle Division wa ...

, plus the 22nd Guards Tank Division (disbanded September 1990). On 11 November 1990, following the disbandment of the 22nd and the 75th Guards Tank Divisions, the reorganisation of the 42nd Guards Tank Division as the 6299th Base for Storage of Weapons and Equipment, and the arrival of the 93rd Guards Motor Rifle Division from the

Southern Group of Forces The Southern Group of Forces (YUGV) was a Soviet Armed Forces formation formed twice following the Second World War, most notably around the time of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. First Formation On June 15, 1945, the 26th and 37th Armies (fr ...

, the Army had on hand 462

main battle tank A main battle tank (MBT), also known as a battle tank or universal tank or simply tank,Ogorkiewicz 2018 p222 is a tank that fills the role of armour-protected direct fire and maneuver in many modern armies. Cold War-era development of more po ...

s, all

T-64 The T-64 is a Soviet tank manufactured in Kharkiv, and designed by Alexander Morozov. The tank was introduced in the early 1960s. It was a more advanced counterpart to the T-62: the T-64 served in tank divisions, while the T-62 supported i ...

s, 228 BMPs and BTRs, 218 other pieces of equipment of various types, including the surface-to-surface missiles of the 107th Rocket Brigade at

Kremenchug Kremenchuk (; , , also spelt Kremenchug, ) is an industrial city in central Ukraine which stands on the banks of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. The city serves as the administrative center of Kremenchuk Raion and Kremenchuk urban hromada within ...

, and five helicopters (with the 16th Separate Mixed Aviation Squadron at Podgorodnoe).

Ukrainian service

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it became part of the

Ukrainian Ground Forces The Ukrainian Ground Forces (SVZSU, ), also referred to as the Ukrainian army, is a land force, and one of the eight Military branch, branches of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It was formed from Ukrainian units of the Soviet Army after Declaratio ...

. In March 1992 Major General

Volodymyr Shkidchenko Volodymyr Petrovych Shkidchenko (; born January 1, 1948) is a Ukrainian military officer, General of Army of Ukraine. Minister of Defence of Ukraine from November 12, 2001 to June 25, 2003. External links Biography 1948 bir ...

returned home to become the army's commander. He was promoted to lieutenant general by Edict 642/92 of 31 December 1992. Shkidchenko was released from command of the 6th Guards Tank Army by Presidential Edict No. 220/93 June 19, 1993, to be appointed to another post. The first reference to the 6th Army Corps, the successor formation, appears in Ukaz N 350/93 of the President of Ukraine on 21 August 1993. Thus it appears the 6th Guards Tank Army was disbanded by redesignation sometime between June and August 1993. The 6th Army Corps was based at

Dnipropetrovsk Dnipro is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper River, Dnipro River, from which it takes its name. Dnipro is t ...

and consisted of several brigades, including the 17th Armored Brigade and the

93rd Mechanized Brigade The 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade "Kholodnyi Yar" () is a formation of the Ukrainian Ground Forces formed in 1992. It has been described as "one of the most brutally effective" of Ukraine’s front-line brigades. By January 2023, Western an ...

. It was disbanded in 2013 and being replaced by

Operational Command South The Operational Command South ( OC South, ) is a formation of the Ukrainian Ground Forces in the southern part of Ukraine, which was formed in January 1998 as the Southern Operation Command on the basis of the Odesa Military District and was headq ...

Commanders

The army was commanded by the following officers during its existence. * Colonel General Andrei Kravchenko (20 January 1944 June 1947) * Lieutenant General

Vladimir Zhdanov Vladimir Ivanovich Zhdanov (; 29 April 1902 – 19 October 1964) was a colonel-general of tank troops in the armed forces of the Soviet Union. He was a major general in the Soviet Red Army during World War II. Military career In 1941, Zhdanov beca ...

(June 1947 30 April 1949) * Lieutenant General Ivan Dremov (30 April 1949 27 February 1958) * Lieutenant General Evgeniy Fominykh (27 February 1958 May 1960) * Lieutenant General Gennady Obaturov (May 1960 13 July 1966) * Lieutenant General Vladimir Makarov (13 July 1966 13 June 1969) * Lieutenant General Gennady Zakharov (13 June 1969 26 February 1971) * Lieutenant General Pyotr Shkidchenko (26 February 1971 17 August 1973) * Lieutenant General Yuriy Terentev (17 August 1973 May 1978) * Lieutenant General

Vladimir Osipov Vladimir Nikolaevich Osipov (; 9 August 1938 – 20 October 2020) was a Russian writer who founded the Soviet samizdat journal ''Veche'' (Assembly)''.'' The journal is considered to be an important document of the nationalist or Slavophile stra ...

(May 1978 6 January 1981) * Lieutenant General Valery Sokolov (6 January 1981 December 1983) * Lieutenant General

Sergey Karsakov Sergey may refer to: * Sergey (name), a Russian given name (including a list of people with the name) * Sergey, Switzerland, a municipality in Switzerland * ''Sergey'' (wasp), a genus in subfamily Doryctinae The Doryctinae or doryctine wasps ar ...

(December 1983 September 1985) * Lieutenant General Vladlen Tsvetkov (September 1985 May 1988) * Lieutenant General Valentyn Boryskin (May 1988 July 1989) * Colonel General Vasyl Sobkov (July 1989 2 May 1991) * Lieutenant General Vitaly Radetsky (3 May 1991 April 1992)

Notes

References

*Feskov et al., The Soviet Army in the Period of the Cold War,

Tomsk Tomsk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Tomsk Oblast in Russia, on the Tom (river), Tom River. Population: Founded in 1604, Tomsk is one of the oldest cities in Siberia. It has six univers ...

University Press, 2004 *David M. Glantz, Companion to Colossus Reborn, Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005. . *David M. Glantz, When Titans Clashed, Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995. . {{Armies of the Soviet Army Tank armies of the Soviet Union Armies of Ukraine Military units and formations established in 1943 Military units and formations disestablished in 1993 Guards Armies