The Red Banner Leningrad-Pavlovsk Motorized Rifle Regiment is a structural combat unit of the 90th Guards Tank Division, recreated a year ago. Having completed the “preferential holidays” as a young military formation, he replenished the contingent of units and formations of the Central Military District, which are now holding a report on the results achieved in the final academic year at the training grounds.
Actually, under the shoulders of Captain Bitner's subordinates this year there was already one test - control exercises in the spring. However, for beginners, that crediting period was more of a test one. Although the commander of a tank company himself is sure: "If the task was to report as usual, they would have done it."
And this is not bravado. Even in the old days, being part of the Ural motorized rifle brigade, tankers were the locomotive of the unit's combat training. Then Ivan Bitner commanded a tank platoon.
When recreating the 90th Guards Tank Division, the command of the military district decided to keep the successful tank unit in the regular structure of the reconstructed motorized rifle regiment. In it, Ivan Bitner, as the most trained officer, took on a tank company. Moreover, the most “credited” one is the first. Captain Bitner explains: “Whoever serves, he knows that unit number one, as a rule, is the leader at all planned events held in a military unit. This was the case with the former brigade. This is the case in the motorized rifle regiment: all checks are carried out mainly at our base; ostentatious activities - also by our forces."
At the same time, I would like to emphasize: everything that was entrusted to the company, the personnel worked on a new set of standard military equipment. Not on those combat vehicles that during several previous years the crews cherished, maintained and, as they say, adapted for themselves, but on T-72B samples received from the district storage base. As a result, the tankers entered the first year of combat training in combat vehicles that did not undergo intense field operation and had a maximum mileage of a meager three hundred kilometers.
It would seem, own and rejoice. After all, they didn’t move to second hand. But, as the tankers say, "unfinished products must still be put into operation."
We must once again focus and prove that the company deserves the honorary name of the strike unit.
The tankers spent exactly a month in the fleet of combat vehicles: in the process of scheduled maintenance, they changed the preservative lubricant to the operational one, where required, “refreshed” the gaskets, connecting hoses, pipes, and painted the vehicles. And already during the first serious test - at the finish of the winter field exit, participating in a bilateral tactical exercise as part of the 90th Guards Tank Division, Captain Bitner's subordinates were recognized as the best. From Chebarkul to Yekaterinburg, to the "winter apartments", the unit returned with an honorary addition in its regular name: it became the first shock tank company. As a special encouragement, the commander of the troops of the Central Military District then invited the tankers of the company to a meeting in Yekaterinburg of the Victory echelon, and Colonel-General Vladimir Zarudnitsky personally presented the military personnel with commemorative black knives - a symbol of the 10th Ural Volunteer Tank Corps, glorified in the Great Patriotic War. Among the encouraged were Ivan Bitner and his command crew - the driver-mechanic corporal Alexei Petrov and the gunner-operator Junior Sergeant Konstantin Grigoriev. By the way, in the same line-up they are the winners at the regional qualifying stage of the Central Military District "Tank Biathlon - 2017".
The shock company also has transfers to distant and unfamiliar training grounds, including in the Rostov region, participation in the Ural International Military-Technical Forum "Army-2017", demonstration performances on a tank and a foot race as part of the regional "Race of Heroes".
We coped with all the tasks, and did not let the regiment command down in anything. “First of all,” Captain Bitner eagerly explains, “there are no random people in the company. Its backbone is the military, who showed themselves with dignity even in the brigade level. And the divisions that came to us during the re-creation of the division successfully passed the test tests developed by me”.
Someone will say: this is something new in military practice. “Understand what you want,” Captain Ivan Bitner counters, “but I have carte blanche from the regiment command to select motivated, professionally oriented and long-term personnel for the shock company.”
To this end, the company commander has developed a series of questions, the answers to which will most accurately show the degree of training of specialists. At the beginning of the test, I ask the candidate to name the conditions for the third practice shooting exercise, says Captain Bitner. - It's like a multiplication table for a student. If a person begins to get confused, then what to talk about further? It is immediately clear from the answer: during the period of his previous service, the guy was only listed in a tank unit."
Hearing from me that these days the command of the regiment is considering the first shock tank company as the leader when passing the final check, Captain Ivan Bitner was not surprised. He explained: “I myself strive to make this the norm for my company. Each of the contract tankers understands that there will be nothing new, unusual for us during the check. The same thing is to come as we did day after day in the park and at the training grounds in the summer. You just have to once again concentrate and prove that the company deserves the honorary name of the strike unit. We are ready for the exam!"
