Soviet Machine Gun/Artillery Divisions-what were they?

[Matt Wiser]

This is a type of Soviet division that does raise eyebrows. While there was one in the Kuriles for coastal defense, just what were the others for? Border defense duty would be my guess, but what was a Machine-Gun Artillery unit composed of? All eight were in the Far East.

They can be found here: http://www.ww2.dk/new/army/msd/msd.htm

Just scroll down.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

As near as I can make it out, they appear to be artillery focused, combined arms, fortress type units (hopefully that makes sense) specifically to secure the Russian-Chinese border or Russian-Japanese border.
The following webpage gives some info on one such unit but it is best read in conjunction with the pages from wikipedia (links given below)

https://military.wikia.org/wiki/126th_Machine_Gun_Artillery_Division
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/69th_Covering_Brigade_(Russia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18th_Machine_Gun_Artillery_Division

[Vespers War]

I found an old UK manual from the mid-90s (the 1996 Army Field Manual, Volume II) that lists what they thought a Machine-Gun Artillery Division consisted of at the time. It's pretty defensive, with just enough armor for localized counter-attacks.

1 Recce Company (28 BMP-2, 6 BTR-80, 6 BRDM-3)
1 Engineer Battalion
1 Anti-Tank Battalion (12 MT-12 Rapira, 12 9P148 Konkurs, 17 BTR, 6 AGS-17, 6 2S3 Akatsiya)
1 Tank Regiment (95 T-72B, 65 BMP-2, 24 2S1 Gvozdika, 18 9K115 Metis, 4 2S6 Tunguska, 6 9K35 Strela)
1 Air Defense Regiment (30 9K331 Tor)
1 MLRS Regiment (54 BM-21 Grad)
1 Artillery Regiment (72 2S3 Akatsiya)
3 Machine-Gun Artillery Regiments

Each MGAR has:
4 MG Battalions (each with 3 MG companies and 1 special weapons group of 1 anti-tank company, 1 mortar battery, 1 grenade launcher platoon, and 1 air defense platoon)
1 Mechanized Battalion (1 tank company, 3 motorized rifle companies, and 1 special weapons group)
1 Self-Propelled Artillery Battalion of 3 batteries
1 Anti-Tank Battalion of 4 batteries, 2 of guns and 2 of self-propelled ATGMs
1 Air Defense Battalion of 3 self-propelled batteries
1 Engineer Company
3 Tank Companies each of 10 dug-in tanks
2 Artillery Battalions each of 3 dug-in batteries
1 Casemate Company with 18 prefabricated retractable turrets for machineguns, grenade launchers, or ATGMs

[Adm.Lee]

This sounds a little like the brigades that the Red Army had at the start of WW2, the ones that formed the "Stalin Line", and existed throughout the war. I'm really only familiar with them from WW2 games, but they're often classed as "fortress" or "fortified area" units, dedicated to defending an area with fixed fortifications.

[mpipes]

Of note, these units also operated T-34/85s and T-54s as mobile defense assets. These units were purely intended for defense operations and could call in extensive artillery fire.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

This sounds a little like the brigades that the Red Army had at the start of WW2, the ones that formed the "Stalin Line", and existed throughout the war. I'm really only familiar with them from WW2 games, but they're often classed as "fortress" or "fortified area" units, dedicated to defending an area with fixed fortifications.

From what little info I could find, I believe these units are basically the inheritors of that task. Some of them have unit histories that date back to similar units in WW2 so in some cases, what we are seeing now in these machine gun artillery units is the continuation of those WW2 units and their purpose.

[Ursus Maior]

I reckon so, too, yes. One unit e. g. was tasked with defending the Kuril Island. This unit, 18th Machine Gun Artillery Division, is to hold out only for 1-4 days against a Japanese attack until reinforcements arrived from Russia proper. The units were however first line troops and as such personnel was (close to) 90 percent active.