Thank you for the World Cup, the anniversary was not only modest - the most modest. But, as they say, since each is his own, then we will rejoice accordingly. Someone won victories on the football fields, and we will fast forward to 75 years ago, in the hot 1943 year.
Digress a little. In general, the path of each military unit is sometimes an interesting thing.
Why is July 1943 considered to be the date of formation of the 20th Combined Arms Army?
Because on the basis of the order of the Supreme Command Headquarters No. 46194 dated June 26, 1943, the 4th Tank Army of the second formation was formed on the basis of the 19th Cavalry Corps on July 15, 1943.
To avoid confusion:
The 4th Panzer Army of the first formation was formed on August 1, 1942 on the basis of the Supreme Command Headquarters Directive No. 994124 of July 22, 1942 on the basis of the 28th Army.
Without completing the formation and equipment, the army was thrown into the meat grinder of the Voronezh and Stalingrad fronts near the city of Kalach. The 4th Panzer Army had to take on the blow of the southern grouping of the 6th German Army north of Kalach.
In the course of fierce battles, the 4th Panzer Army stopped the enemy's offensive, while frustrating his attempts to cross the Don and capture Stalingrad on the move. Then the army, along with other front troops, fought fierce defensive battles.
On October 22, 1942, all that remained of the tank army was transformed into the 65th Army, which continued its combat path under the command of Pavel Ivanovich Batov.
We're talking about the 4th Panzer Army of the second formation.
The second 4th Panzer Army, as mentioned above, was formed on July 15, 1943 on the basis of the Supreme Command Headquarters order of June 26, 1943 on the basis of the 19th Cavalry Corps.
The first army commander was Lieutenant General of Tank Forces Vasily Mikhailovich Badanov. A man of the most interesting destiny.
Vasily Mikhailovich Badanov dreamed of working as a teacher all his life. Teach "smart, kind, eternal." But this is how fate decreed that it was mainly adults who had to teach him (although he still worked in the field of teaching).
Lieutenant of the Russian Imperial Army Badanov taught the Germans, Austro-Hungarians and Bulgarians in 1915-1917 on the South-Western Front.
The commanders and the chief of staff of the rifle brigade of the Red Army in 1919 taught the harsh men of A. V. Kolchak on the Eastern Front. Explained the advantages of Soviet power in the 1920s in Belarus.
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Vasily Mikhailovich, quite naturally, again went to teach the Germans. Fortunately, no one gets used to it.
Major General Badanov went down in the history of that war with his lesson in Tatsinskaya. An unparalleled feat, when the 24th Panzer Corps, after a 240-kilometer march with a simultaneous breakthrough of the enemy's defenses, reached the village of Tatsinskaya, where on December 24 it defeated the strategic Luftwaffe airfield based there. At this time, the enemy divisions under the command of Rous and Balk were already advancing towards Tatsinskaya in order to encircle the corps that had broken through.
But Badanov's corps, which received the name "Tatsinsky", having destroyed over 300 transport aircraft, escaped from the seemingly inevitable defeat.
For this operation, Badanov received the Order of Suvorov, 2nd degree, No. 1.
In general, Badanov was not very fond of awards, but such people did not fight for orders. Fact.
So, the army created under Badanov's control on July 20 was included in the Western Front, from July 30 - on the Bryansk Front. As part of the fronts, the army participated in the Oryol operation.
On September 20, the 4th Panzer Army was withdrawn to the reserve of the Supreme Command Headquarters, and on February 27, 1944, it was included in the 1st Ukrainian Front. And she began her journey to the West.
From March to April, during the Proskurov-Chernivtsi operation, the army successfully led the offensive, liberating more than 400 settlements and by mid-April reached the foothills of the Carpathians.
Unfortunately, in March 1944, during the Proskurov-Chernivtsi operation, Lieutenant General Badanov was seriously wounded and contused. After being cured, he never returned to the army, and in August of the same year, he was appointed head of the department of military educational institutions of the Main Directorate for the formation and combat training of armored and mechanized troops of the Soviet Army.
The commander was appointed Dmitry Danilovich Lelyushenko, "General" Forward! ".
The army under his command, as part of the 1st Ukrainian Front, participates in the Lvov-Sandomierz, East Carpathian and Vistula-Oder operations.
In the final stages of the war, units of the 4th Guards Tank Army of D. D. Lelyushenko participated in the Silesian and Berlin operations, after which Nazi Germany, in fact, ended.
But the most famous operation by that time was already the 4th Guards Tank Army was the march to Prague, where the uprising of the Czechoslovak patriots began on May 5. The 3rd and 4th Guards Tank Armies of Generals Rybalko and Lelyushenko drove the last nail into the coffin of fascism, preventing Prague from drowning in blood.
After the end of the war, the 4th Guards Tank Army was included in the Central Group of Forces.
In 1946, the army was renamed the 4th Guards Mechanized Army. Its corps were transformed into divisions. In November 1946, due to a decrease in the personnel of the Armed Forces of the USSR, the 4th Guards Mechanized Army was transformed into the 4th Guards Separate Personnel Tank Division. Accordingly, its divisions were transformed into separate personnel regiments, regiments into separate personnel battalions or divisions, separate battalions into separate personnel companies or batteries.
During 1949, a full-blooded 4th Guards Mechanized Army was formed from separate cadre units, consisting of the 6th and 7th Guards Mechanized and 10th Guards Tank Divisions.
In 1958, it was renamed the 4th Guards Tank Army again.
In 1960, it was reorganized into the 20th Guards Combined Arms Army.
This is the legacy.
Today, the 20th Army is actually a shield of the western direction exactly where you can (and should) expect trouble. That is, the border with Ukraine.
Army units close just this, the most possible direction for the actions of the "potential":
- 3rd Motorized Rifle Vislenskaya Red Banner, Orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov Division;
- 144th Guards Motorized Rifle Elninskaya Red Banner, Order of Suvorov Division;
- 1st Separate Guards Tank Ural-Lviv Order of the October Revolution, Red Banner, Orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov Volunteer Brigade named after Marshal of the Soviet Union R. Ya. Malinovsky ("Black Knives", if anyone does not know);
- 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade;
- 448th missile brigade;
- 236th artillery brigade;
- 9th Guards Lviv-Berlin Orders of Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the Red Star Command Brigade;
- Separate logistics team.
Few? Perhaps. Considering, however, that until recently, the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division was just a brigade, and the 1st TB is just a storage regiment, the work has been done quite impressive. The issue of quality is always an acute issue, but nevertheless.
Today, the army has a new commander (since May 2018), the Guard, Major General Andrei Ivanaev.
75 years is not just a term, it is still a date. Returning to the beginning, I think that such a date could have been set … noisier, or something …
It's a shame that 100 times more people gathered for the match of someone on July 6. Of course, football performed by world-class giants is more interesting and patriotic, but nonetheless.
How to mark such a date correctly?
The honest answer is I don’t know.
But my personal opinion is that the seventy-fifth anniversary of the army is a somewhat more significant thing than kicking a bubble inflated with air. Although this is a matter of taste.
What can you tell us about the celebration? Everything was very … family-like, or something. Without attracting the broad masses, which, in fact, upset. All their own, and nothing more.
The first part consisted of the laying of wreaths and flowers at the Eternal Flame on Victory Square.
Then the action shifted to the city concert hall, where everyone present was shown a film about the history of the 20th Army from the press service of the Western Military District. I was pleased with the presence in the film of shots taken at different times by the film crew of the "Military Review".
Young Army men were present in the hall. All colors and stripes.
There were many speeches, from the commander of the Western Military District, Colonel-General Andery Kartapolov, to local officials and representatives of the State Duma.
If to single out, then a rather dashing speech by Vladimir Anatolyevich Shamanov.
Comrade Shamanov attended the meeting not so much as a representative of bureaucratic or deputy structures, but in his own way. The fact is that in 1998-1999, being "on vacation" between the two Chechen wars, Major General Shamanov served as chief of staff of the 20th Army.
Naturally, then there were awards and a concert.
On the street, meanwhile, there was a compromise.
A compromise between all sorts of prohibitions, for mundiale, and the desire to show and carry out something. Therefore, the exhibition of equipment of the 20th Army (more than modest, I note) was pushed into the parking lot near the church.
Okay, at least something.
The most interesting thing is that people came to the exhibition. Despite even Friday.
I consider it very useful to try to shake the cannon at the armored personnel carrier with your hands or to smell it yourself, what the mouth of the "Grad" smells like. Well, you need it, as well as around whatever you spin it.
Moreover, once with your own eyes and ears to perceive what a shot from a tank gun is - and there will be more useful information than from five years of banging your head against "ghouls".
We need more of this. And these events should be shown more widely. Not just "to everyone who sees," but to everyone who should get it.
Yes, they showed us a "wonderful miracle", a new mobile agitation center for a contract in the army. Actually, we talked about this, the folding container-dining room has been turned into a mobile office. All-in-one box concept.
In general, there is enough space for 3-4 specialists to work, a useful thing. Especially - on all such trips. The main thing is not to be idle.
In general, the impressions from the celebration / celebration of the 20th Army's jubilee were twofold. Really really wanted to shout: "It will not be enough! Not enough !!!"
Honestly, more is needed, and not on a TV screen. Really and personally, with boyish hands and eyes. More history (since it is not at school), more technology (since they are raving about it), more communication with those who serve on the equipment (by the way, the guys who were very nicely answering children's questions with cars), more is needed …
Many readers who have been observing me for a long time will say that it’s nothing special, but again I’m dissatisfied.
By the way. And that could not have happened, for the championship. At least like this: in the corner near the church. And that is bread, as they say. When will there be something else …
And the film about the 20th Army was very good. Short but capacious. And some wordings were in the brain no worse than a howitzer. Like "suppressing the insurrection in Czechoslovakia." Good wording.
And the performance of the orchestra of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, which was specially brought from Moscow for the sake of such a date, was simply magnificent.
But I repeat - more is needed.
