The 42nd Guards Motor Rifle Division was formed originally as the 111th Rifle Division in Vologda in 1940, and became the 24th Guards Rifle Division in March 1942. It was based in the North Caucasus following World War II; it seems to have become 42nd Guards MRD in 1957, while at Grozny.
In 1987 it became 173 Guards District Training Centre, and it comprised in 1991 of three motor rifle regiments, one tank regiment, one Guards training artillery regiment and one air defence regiment. These units were the 70th, 71st and 72nd Motor Rifle Regiments; the 392nd Tank Regiment; the 50th Guards Training Artillery Regiment and the 1203rd Anti-aircraft Missile Regiment. In November 1990 it had a total of 219 tanks, 187 being T-55s. By June 1993 173 Guards Training Centre had been disbanded and had handed over half its weapons to the Chechens in order to evacuate the other half unhindered.
The Division did not reform until the late 1990s. Following the beginning of the Second Chechen War it was designated in December 1999 as the permanent garrison force for Chechnya and various military districts started raising its regiments separately in 2000. The division was intended to have a strength of 15,500 men. Its headquarters was established at Khankala outside Groznyy, with the 71st Motor Rifle Regiment also at the same base. 71st MRR was raised in the Volga Military District. 70th Motor Rifle Regiment was formed in the Urals MD and located at Shali. 72nd MRR, raised from the 2nd Guards Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division in the Moscow Military District was established at Kalinovskaya, and 291st Motor Rifle Regiment, originating in the Leningrad Military District, was set up at Borzoy.
On 1 July 2000, the Russian military leadership announced that a different place had been selected for stationing one of the regiments of the 42nd Division. Deputy Defence Minister Colonel-General Aleksandr Kosovan said that they had decided on the area of the Borzoy settlement instead of the planned Itum-Kale for its motor rifle regiment. He also said that three of the regiments of the 42nd Division were going to be equipped "to the maximum" by the end of the year. The writer Michael Orr, noted that the 291st MRR had been relocated 'when the tactical vulnerability of the position was appreciated.' The division was equipped with T-62 tanks, with at least one regiment having BMP-1 IFVs (infantry fighting vehicles).
The 42nd Division included two Chechen battalions, the Vostok and Zapad units. The two battalions were apparently GRU Spetsnaz units but under the operational command of the 42nd Division.
Following the 2008 Russian military reforms, the division was probably disbanded by 2009.
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