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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 Banner orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov" Tank Division was formed in September 1945 at Sherlovaya Gora, Chita Oblast, from the 5th Guards Tank Corps. In mid 1957 it became the 122nd Guards Motor Rifle Division. Half a century later, in June 2009, the descendant formation became the 35th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade.

Second Formation

The second formation drew its heritage from an illustrious Soviet World War II cavalry formation, the 5th Guards Cavalry Corps (Honorifics Don-Budapest Red Banner). After the end of World War II, the corps relocated from Ploiești in Romania, where it was part of the Southern Group of Forces, to Novocherkassk in Rostov Oblast, by the fall of 1945. The corps was reorganised as the 5th Guards Cavalry Division on 6 May 1946, part of the North Caucasus Military District. Its two cavalry divisions, the 11th Guards and 12th Guards, became regiments with the same numbers in the new division. A third regiment, the 7th Guards Cavalry Regiment, was renumbered from the 37th Guards Cavalry Regiment. On 6 September 1951, the division was awarded the honorific "named for E.A. Shchadenko", in honor of Soviet cavalry commander Efim Shchadenko. On 18 November 1954 18th Guards Heavy Tank Division was formed from 5th Guards Cavalry Division.

With the beginning of the Nikita Khrushchev era, the Strategic Rocket Forces were increasingly emphasised at the expense of the Ground Forces, and the Ground Forces were reduced and reorganized. On 5 March 1962, the division dropped the designation "Heavy" and became simply the 18th Guards Tank Division. Between 1 and 2 June 1962, the division was involved in the Novocherkassk massacre, the suppression of a strike caused by food shortages. On 11 January 1965, the division was renumbered the 5th Guards Tank Division to reflect its World War II title.

In April 1966, the division was transferred to Kyakhta, on the Mongolian–Russian border, to reinforce the Transbaikal Military District in the light of deteriorating relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC). On 22 February 1968, the division was awarded the Order of the Red Star. By May 1970, the division was part of the 29th Army. The division was expanded into the 48th Separate Guards Army Corps, as an experiment in rapid reaction units along with the Belorussian Military District's 120th Guards Motor Rifle Division, from 1982 to 1989. The three tank regiments and single motor rifle regiment of the division were expanded into two tank brigades and two motor rifle brigades, and the 1319th Air Assault Regiment and 373rd Separate Helicopter Regiment, both newly formed, were added to the corps.

Yuri Budanov commanded the division's 160th Guards Tank Regiment in 1999–2001.

The 57th Army Corps was upgraded in status to Army level in 2003. The 29th Army was subsequently disbanded.

Adam Geibel wrote that 5th "Don" Guards Tank Division, stationed in Buryatia, had received ‘a few’ of the initial group of 150 T-90s produced.

On 1 June 2009, the division became the 37th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, as part of the 2008 Russian military reform. The brigade included more than 200 tracked vehicles and more than 100 wheeled vehicles in 2013. Elements of the brigade fought in the war in Donbas and were located in the Northern operational area in February 2015. The 37th's troops fought in the Battle of Debaltseve during this time, where their heavy equipment and weaponry was crucial to the defeat of Ukrainian forces in the battle. In September 2016, a conscript from the brigade was run over by a Kamaz truck while sleeping during an exercise. On 23 March 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, reports emerged from a Ukrainian journalist, social media video and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, that the brigade commander Colonel Yuri Medvedev had been run over by an armoured vehicle near Makariv driven by a mutinous soldier angered by the brigade's close to 50% combat losses suffered during the battle of Makariv. The commander was evacuated to Belarus, although reports of his condition varied.

Subordinated units

The division's second formation included the following units:

• 108th Tank Regiment
• 140th Guards Tank Regiment
• 160th Guards Tank Regiment
• 311th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment
• 861st Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment
• 940th Anti-aircraft Rocket Regiment

References

Citations

1. Holm, Michael. "5th Guards Tank Division (I)". www.ww2.dk. Retrieved 27 May 2017.
2. ^ Holm, Michael. "5th Guards Tank Division". www.ww2.dk. Retrieved 27 May 2017.
3. Feskov et al 2013, pp. 232–233.
4. Baron 2001, p. 72.
5. ^ Feskov et al 2013, p. 201.
6. Feskov et al 2013, p. 571.
7. Alyohin 2009, pp. 281–282.
8. Feskov et al 2013, pp. 125–126.
9. Geibel, Adam (April 1999). "India's Latest Armour Addition – the T-90s". Defence Journal. Retrieved 28 May 2017.
10. "Войсковая часть 69647 (37-я ОМСБр)" [Military Unit 69647 (37th OMSBr)]. voinskayachast.net (in Russian). 28 October 2015. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
11. "Части 36-й армии ВВО приведены в высшую боевую готовность" [36th Army units put on high alert]. RIA Novosti (in Russian). 14 July 2013. Retrieved 28 May 2017.
12. Sutyagin, Igor (March 2015). "RUSI Briefing Paper: Russian Forces in Ukraine" (PDF). Royal United Services Institute. p. 3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 6 April 2016.
13. Czuperski, Maksymilian; Herbst, John E.; Polyakova, Alina; Wilson, Damon (6 June 2015). "Putin's Secret Warriors: Russian Soldiers Sent to Fight in Ukraine". Newsweek. Retrieved 28 May 2017.
14. Lisina, Yana (27 September 2016). "Военный КАМАЗ раздавил солдата-срочника на учениях в Бурятии" [Military KAMAZ crushes conscript soldier on exercises in Buryatia]. Komsomolskaya Pravda (in Russian). Retrieved 28 May 2017.
15. "Russian Colonel run over with tank 'and killed' by own troops in Ukraine". 25 March 2022.
16. "Mutinous Russian troops ran over their own commander, say western officials". TheGuardian.com. The Guardian. 25 March 2022. Retrieved 26 March 2022.

Bibliography

• Alyohin, Roman (2009). Воздушно-десантные войска: история российского десанта [Airborne Troops: History of the Russian Paratroopers] (PDF) (in Russian). Moscow: Eksmo. ISBN 9785699332137.
• Baron, Samuel H. (2001). Bloody Saturday in the Soviet Union: Novocherkassk, 1962. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804740937.
• Feskov, V.I.; Golikov, V.I.; Kalashnikov, K.A.; Slugin, S.A. (2013). Вооруженные силы СССР после Второй Мировой войны: от Красной Армии к Советской [The Armed Forces of the USSR after World War II: From the Red Army to the Soviet: Part 1 Land Forces] (in Russian). Tomsk: Scientific and Technical Literature Publishing. ISBN 9785895035306.

v t e Divisions of the Soviet Union 1957–1989
Airborne	7 31 44 Training 76 98 103 104 105 106 107
Artillery	2 15 20 Training 26 34 51 55 81 110 149
Aviation	1 6 12 16 22 36 55 95 Mixed 95 Fighter 119 326
Motor Rifle	Guards 1st – 18th 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 11 14 15 16 17 18 20th – 39th 20 21 23 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 42nd – 66th 42 45 47 48 50 51 (I) 51 (II) 53 55 57 59 62 63 64 66 70th – 97th 70 72 77 81 83 86 87 90 92 93 94 97 109th – 144th 109 112 113 114 115 120 122 123 128 144 Training 2 16 34 37 42 53 62 63 66 80 92 100 112 4th – 27th 4 9 12 13 15 18 19 21 22 24 27 32nd – 49th 32 33 35 40 41 43 44 46 47 48 49 52nd – 69th 52 54 56 58 60 61 62 65 67 68 69 71st – 99th 71 73 74 75 78 79 80 82 84 85 88 89 91 92 93 95 96 99 100th – 119th 100 101 102 108 110 111 114 116 117 118 119 121st – 135th 121 124 125 126 127 129 130 131 134 135 145th – 199th 145 146 147 148 149 150 152 155 157 164 180 192 197 198 199 201st – 295th 201 203 207 213 242 245 254 265 266 270 272 295 Training 43 56 61 67 78 121 129 150
Rocket	4 7 8 10 13 14 18 19 23 24 27 28 29 35 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 49 54 62
Tank	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 20 21 22 23 24 Training 25 28 29 30 31 32 34 36 37 40 41 42 44 Training 45 Training 47 48 Training 51 60 75 78 79 90 117 Training 193
Other	OMSDON
Guards units marked in bold unless they are in a Guards section.

• Tank divisions of Russia
• Tank divisions of the Soviet Union
• Military units and formations disestablished in 2009
• Military units and formations of Russia in the war in Donbas