"Soviet 1980's Integrated Army Corps" Topic

Hi all,

I am interested in the composition of the above named formation. I know it was made up of various Brigades of all arms and replaced the Division/Front structure, but that's about it. Tried Googling it but came up with only one mention, a pamphlet produced by good old Stronghold Miniatures. There must be a lot more information out there somewhere?

Thanks in advance,

James

I don't know if it'll help you, but I have a hunch that you could use the big WarPac order of battle here.

link

James, this was a short-lived organization tailored to provide a tailor-made operational maneuver group. The name was variously translated as "Independent" or "Unified" (which we preferred in the US) Army Corps. It did not replace conventional organizational structures, but was formed from existing assets. There were only two ever formed: one in the west, in the Byelorussian Military District; and one in the east, in the Transbaikal Military District.

Once we (in the west) knew about these, we watched them like hawks, thinking they were bellwethers for future force development. We couldn't really talk about them, as there was no open-source information on them for a while after their formation. But we got a great boon when the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty required reporting all the organizations and their assets (major weapon systems which were treaty-limited equipment). We first received preliminary data in 1988; then we had some details we could tell the troops about. But by the time the CFE data was finalized concurrently with the treaty signing in 1990, the UACs had both ceased to exist, and all we had was a snapshot of history!
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The 5th Unified Guards Army Corps was located in Ureche, Belorussia. It was activated in 1984, based on the existing 120th Guards Motorized Rifle Division.

It comprised the following major units and subunits:
1st Separate Guards Tank Brigade
2nd Separate Guards Tank Brigade
176th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade
177th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade
310th Guards Artillery Regiment
1045th Guards Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment
1180th Rocket Artillery Battalion
276th Independent Helicopter Squadron
1318th Independent Air Assault Battalion

[Note that this does not quite jibe with the 1st Unified Army Corps listed under the Byelorussian MD (at Minsk) in the OB at the link Norm cited; I'd have to go digging in my old notes to find when things changed: two tank brigades to three; arty regiment changing to a brigade; etc.]

The corps was disbanded in August 1989, and reverted back to the 120th Guards Motorized Rifle Division.
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The 48th Unified Guards Army Corps was located in Kyakhta, Transbaikal. It was activated 1984, primarily from the 5th Guards Tank Division.

It comprised:
3rd Separate Guards Tank Brigade
4th Separate Guards Tank Brigade
178th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade
179th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade
861st Artillery Regiment
940th Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment
1181st Rocket Artillery Battalion
277th Independent Helicopter Squadron
1319th Independent Air Assault Battalion

The corps was disbanded in March 1988 [which is why it does not appear on the OB Norm cites], and reverted back to the 5th Guards Tank Division [which appears in the Far East MD (in Vladivostok) in that OB].
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There was a lot of confusion about these organizations, especially when it came to tracking the reorganization and redesignation of subordinate units. We thought for a while that the creation of tank and motorized rifle brigades in the UACs would herald a force-wide structural change, but it didn't happen. Again, to go into more detail, I'd have to go digging stuff out of storage!

Hope that helps.

Allen

Anonymous writes:

link might be a good place to ask for a start.

Thanks everyone, all your contributions are most useful and informative. I now have a lot of extra leads and data to go through and (Bill) I have joined the Yahoo group.

James

Allen,

do you have any info on the combat support and service support elements? The formation as you describe is without signals and engineer units and also transport, medical etc.

Also do you perhaps have a theory as to why this organisation was tried? What advantages did it offer over the existing structure?

James

On one hand, we "knew" the complete structure—more or less. On the other, we couldn't say in an unclassified product, as that knowledge came from primarily signals intelligence. What's listed there was open source, coming from the CFE reporting data. Only units (down to seprate battalion) holding treaty-limited equipment were required to be identified. I'm actually surprised now, looking at it, that the UACs' engineer units were not listed, as they should have contained reportable items. In general, you can use the "tail" structure of the original motorized rifle or tank division as a starting point, but some assets were expanded to the scale and with items usually found at army-level (such as the aviation and air assault assets).

The declared role of the UAC was as a front-level operational maneuver group. It was structured for independent operations outside the umbrella of support, and so was given longer-ranged artillery and rocket systems, organic aviation, the air assault battalion, etc. To use an existing division for the same role would have required stripping its parent army of such assets.

Hope that helps. Any questions, feel free to email me at aecurtisATgteDOTnet

Allen

Thanks Allen