49th Guards Rifle Division

Last updated

49th Guards Rifle Division (13 October 1942 – 22 October 1945)
Active1942–1945
CountryFlag of the USSR (1936-1955).svg  Soviet Union
Branch Red Army flag.svg Red Army
TypeDivision
RoleInfantry
Engagements Battle of Stalingrad
Second Jassy–Kishinev Offensive
Siege of Budapest
Vienna Offensive
Decorations
Battle honours Kherson
Commanders
Notable
commanders
Vasily Margelov

The 49th Guards Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Red Army. The division was formed in October 1942 from the 2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division.

Contents

Formation

The 49th Guards Rifle Division was formed in the Western Front reserves near Moscow on 13 October 1942 from the remains of the 2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division. The unit was immediately assigned to the newly formed 13th Guards Rifle Corps in the 2nd Guards Army. They were sent south to the Stalingrad area in December 1942 and went into action south of Stalingrad. When formed, its order of battle was as follows:

Later the division helped liberate Kherson (the name "Khersonskaya" was conferred on the division). It took part in the liberation of Romania and Hungary.

The division ended the war in Austria. By this time the division had the following honorifics: Khersonskaya, Order of the Red Banner, Order of Suvorov 2nd Class.

Postwar

After the end of the war the division became a part of the Southern Group of Forces, being reorganised as the 33rd Guards Mechanised Division. [1] In September 1949 the 33rd Guards Mechanized Division [2] arrived in Timișoara from the Odessa Military District, becoming part of the Special Mechanized Army. The 33rd Guards Mechanized Division was detached to the Special Corps and fought in Operation Whirlwind, the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. [3] After the end of the operation, the division became part of the newly reformed Southern Group of Forces. On 4 June 1957, the division became the 33rd Guards Motor Rifle Division. [4] The division was based at Győr with the 38th Army. In 1958 it moved to Kishinev and became part of the 14th Army. The division was disbanded there on 8 October 1960. [5]

Commanders

69th Rifle Division

107th Tank Division

107th Motorized Rifle Division

2nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division

49th Guards Rifle Division

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">8th Guards Combined Arms Army</span> Russian Ground Forces formation

The 8th Guards Order of Lenin Combined Arms Army is an army of the Russian Ground Forces, headquartered in Novocherkassk, Rostov Oblast, within Russia′s Southern Military District, that was reinstated in 2017 as a successor to the 8th Guards Army of the Soviet Union's Red Army, which was formed during World War II and was disbanded in 1998 after being downsized into a corps. Military Unit в/ч 61877.

A tank corps was a type of Soviet armoured formation used during World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">3rd Guards Tank Army</span> Military unit

The 3rd Guards Tank Army was a tank army established by the Soviet Union's Red Army during World War II. The 3rd Tank Army was created in 1942 and fought in the southern areas of the Soviet Union and Poland, then in Germany and Czechoslovakia until the defeat of Germany in 1945. Postwar, the army served as occupation troops in East Germany, went through several name changes, and was finally deactivated in 1969.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">51st Army (Russia)</span> Military unit

The 51st Army was a field army of the Red Army that saw action against the Germans in World War II on both the southern and northern sectors of the front. The army participated in the Battle of the Kerch Peninsula between December 1941 and January 1942; it was destroyed in May 1942 with other Soviet forces when the Wehrmacht launched an operation to dislodge them from the peninsula. The army fought in the Battle of Stalingrad during the winter of 1942–43, helping to defeat German relief attempts. From late 1944 to the end of the war, the army fought in the final cutting-off of German forces in the Courland area next to the Baltic. Inactivated in 1945, the army was activated again in 1977 to secure Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the army continued in existence as a component of the Russian Ground Forces. The army was active during two periods from 1941 until 1997.

The 3rd Shock Army was a field army of the Red Army formed during the Second World War. The "Shock" armies were created with the specific structure to engage and destroy significant enemy forces, and were reinforced with more armoured and artillery assets than other combined arms armies. Where necessary the Shock armies were reinforced with mechanised, tank, and cavalry units. During the Second World War, some Shock armies included armoured trains and air–sled equipped units.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">97th Guards Mechanized Brigade (Ukraine)</span> Military unit

The 97th Guards Mechanized Brigade was a rifle, and then a motor-rifle division of the Soviet Union's Army, before becoming a mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, based in Slavuta in western Ukraine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">22nd Mechanized Brigade (Ukraine)</span> Ukrainian Ground Forces formation

The 22nd Mechanized Brigade is a formation of the Ukrainian Ground Forces. It traces its origins to the 66th Guards Rifle Division, originally a formation of the Red Army and later of the Soviet Ground Forces.

The 15th Rifle Division was a military formation of the Red Army formed by renaming the Red Army's Inza Revolutionary Division on 30 April 1919. The division was active during the Russian Civil War and World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Uranus Soviet order of battle</span>

The Soviet order of battle for Operation Uranus details the combat units of the Soviet forces that fought in Operation Uranus, the Soviet strategic counteroffensive that led to the encirclement of the German troops in Stalingrad. The order of battle lists units present on 19 November 1942, the day the operation began, from north to south.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">28th Army (Soviet Union)</span> Soviet Army formation

The 28th Army was a field army of the Red Army and the Soviet Ground Forces, formed three times in 1941–42 and active during the postwar period for many years in the Belorussian Military District.

The 266th Rifle Division was a rifle division of the Soviet Red Army during World War II. The 266th was formed three times during the war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">18th Rifle Division</span> Military unit

The 18th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Soviet Union's Red Army during the Russian Civil War, Polish–Soviet War, Winter War and World War II. The division was formed a total of five times during this period.

The 11th Tank Division was a Soviet tank division initially formed in 1940 at Tiraspol and destroyed in 1941; it was then formed as a tank corps in May 1942. This unit was subsequently reorganized as the second formation of the 11th Tank Division in 1945.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">19th Guards Mechanized Brigade (Belarus)</span> Belarusian Ground Forces formation

The 19th Guards Mechanized Brigade is a formation of the Armed Forces of Belarus based in Zaslonovo, a few kilometers east of Lepiel. The brigade traces its history back to the 1942 formation of the 2nd Guards Mechanized Corps of the Soviet Army during World War II. Subsequent designations during the Cold War included 2nd Guards Mechanized Division and 19th Guards Tank Division. Following the Cold War, the 19th Guards Tank Division was relocated to Belarus and became part of their armed forces in 1992. Thereafter, the unit was reduced to a personnel and equipment cadre unit and titled the 19th Guards Base for Storage of Weapons and Equipment before being upgraded to a mechanized brigade in 2008.

The 69th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Red Army and later the Soviet Army, formed twice.

The 207th Rifle Division began its combat path under unusual circumstances. It was partly formed for the first time as a standard Red Army rifle division in the spring of 1941, before the German invasion, but was never completed. A second formation began in April 1942 and was completed on June 1, after which it was sent to the Stalingrad Front. Heavily depleted in counterattacks against the north flank of German Sixth Army, by November the survivors were reassigned and the division disbanded. The 207th was formed for a third time in June 1943, and fought its way through the central part of the Soviet-German front, ending the war in the heart of Berlin in the battle for the Reichstag. The division saw postwar service in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.

The 120th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Red Army, formed three times. Its first formation became the 6th Guards Rifle Division for its actions in the Yelnya Offensive. Its second formation became the 69th Guards Rifle Division for its actions in the Battle of Stalingrad. The division was reformed a third time in late April 1943. It was disbanded "in place" with the Central Group of Forces in the summer of 1945.

The 64th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Soviet Union's Red Army which existed between 1942 and 1945.

The 8th S. I. Morozov Guards Rovno Red Banner Order of Suvorov Cavalry Division was a cavalry division of the Red Army during World War II. Postwar, it was stationed in Ukraine as the 10th Guards Mechanized Division, which was reorganized as the 83rd Guards Motor Rifle Division in 1957 before being disbanded in 1959.

References

  1. Feskov et al 2013, p. 71
  2. Drogovoz 2003, p. 397.
  3. Feskov et al 2013, p. 425.
  4. Feskov et al 2013, p. 205.
  5. Feskov et al 2013, pp. 162, 164.

Sources