The 90th Guards Tank Division was a division of the Soviet Army, and then of the Russian Ground Forces. It was first activated in 1932 as the 82nd Rifle Division. In 1939 it was renamed the 82nd Motorized Rifle Division, and the same year took part in the Battle of Khalkin Gol. It was renamed the 3rd Guards Motorized Rifle Division in March 1942. It took part in the summer battles of 1942 with the Western Front and the failed Operation Mars in November/December 1942. After moving back into Stavka Reserves in June 1943, it was reorganized into the 6th Guards Mechanized Corps on 28 June 1943, being merged with the 49th Mechanised Brigade.
The new Corps became part of the 4th Tank Army under General Lieutenant V.M. Badanov. Its first action was at Orel, the counterattack (Operation Kutuzov) on the northern side of the Kursk bulge after the German defeat at the Battle of Kursk proper. John Erickson writes that '..at 1100 on 26 July, two of Badanov's corps (11th Tank and 6th Guards Mechanised) put in a ragged attack towards Bolkhov. For the next few hours, under the very gaze of Bagramyan and Badanov, both corps were heavily battered by the concealed German tanks and assault guns.' For the remainder of 1943, it was in reserve. It took part in the winter battles in the Ukraine in 1944 (Proskurov-Chernovitsy), then the L’vov-Sanodmierz Operation in the summer. It then participated in the Lower Silesia, Upper Silesia, Berlin, and Prague operations. In August 1944 it was given the honorific 'Lvov' for its part in the liberation of that city.
The Corps then became the 6th Guards Mechanised Division (1945–57) and then 6th Guards Motor Rifle Division (1957–82, GSFG). In 1982 it became the 90th Guards Tank Division in 20th Guards Army at Bernau in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. During its last years in Germany the Division consisted of the 6th and 68th Guards Tank Regiments, the 81st Guards Motor Rifle Regiment, and the 803rd Motor Rifle Regiment (formed from the 215th Guards Tank Regiment after the post 1987 Soviet defensive reorganisations began taking effect). Also part of the Division were the 400th SP Artillery Regiment, the 288th Air defence Missile Regiment, and smaller supporting units.
The division was withdrawn in 1990-93 from Germany to Chernorech'e near Samara in the then Volga Military District and declined to a very low strength. In 1997-99 became the 5968th Base for Storage of Weapons and Equipment. A Russian media report on 14 July 2001 said the 5968th Base was to be broken up to reinforce the 27th Motor Rifle Division and other units.
Its final division honorifics were: Lvov, Order of the Red Banner, Order of Lenin, Order of Suvorov (Russian: Львовская краснознаменная, орденов Ленина, Суворова).
Read more about 90th Guards Tank Division: Regiments, 1980s
Famous quotes containing the words guards and/or division:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“If the technology cannot shoulder the entire burden of strategic change, it nevertheless can set into motion a series of dynamics that present an important challenge to imperative control and the industrial division of labor. The more blurred the distinction between what workers know and what managers know, the more fragile and pointless any traditional relationships of domination and subordination between them will become.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)