divisional insignia

[Panzermeyer]

Hello,

I am looking for the divisionnal patches of the different actors of WW2 in Europe.

I would like to find the divisional patches of the Russian units if there is a website dedicated to that ...

But I am not sure there are such patches, perhaps just banners with honorific citations ... could you help me please ?

Many thanks !

Regards,

David

[DougD]

David,

the soviets did not use divisional insignia / patches like the western allies did. The unit standards would have the name and number, but the uniforms would be identical from rifle unit to rifle unit.

DougD

[Panzermeyer]

Ok, thanks for your answer DougD. So there was no disctinctive markings from one unit to an other on vehicles, tanks etc ? Really no flag at least for the parade ? Was it considered as too individualistic ?
When a unit had been awarded the guard status or an honorific citation was it then simply included in the unit's name ?

Is this kind of patch only found in the modern russian army then ?
http://www.angelfire.com/tx2/russian...borne76th.html

And what is this ? I don't understand russian but it seems post WW2 too because of the tank profile on one badge rather looking like a T55/62/64 serie.
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Bu...153/patch1.htm

David

[vikingraider1]

These are all post war Soviet and modern Russian patches. As Doug says there were no distictive patches worn on uniforms until after World War Two. The appearance of the Soviet Soldier in combat was relatively drab compared to their German or American counterpart.
The same went for vehicles, although many tanks bore various slogans which were applied by either the crew, the factory where they were manufactured or by varous organisations that had "sponsored" the vehicle.

[otlichnik]

David,

Most has been said already.

Any patches you see are very modern, post-Soviet really. There are now many, many Russian ones.

Even the banners that Doug writes of all come in a few standard patterns - M1940, M1942, Guard's etc. and only the name and number differs.

I have seen the odd symbol painted on a vehicle that is meant to be a unit symbol. However, these are tactical markings only, used for a battle or specific operation. They are non-standard. I have only ever seen them shown in books for model makers.

The most unique thing about a Soviet unit was its full end-of-war title which included honorifics for battles it participated in (Riga, Minsk, Ternopol, etc) and awards it got (twice red banner, order of Kutozov, etc). So you get things like (and I am just making this one up) the "75th Guards Order of the Red Banner and Order of Kutuzov Kiev and Uman Rifle Division".

Shawn

[Panzermeyer]

Thanks to all of you for your lights.
Could it be possible to have a link to see such a standard banner, just to have an idea of how it looks like ?

David

[Panzermeyer]

Hello,

Sorry, it's me again :rolleyes:

An ukrainian on an other forum told me that :

"Here's what I can describe verbally without having a scanner or light pen, but, of course there was much more logos existing:

4th Guards Tank Corps: two oak leaves placed in a form of V letter, with large |''' letter (like rotated L) between leaves.

3rd Tank Bde: vertically stretched rhombus with a large "B" letter and small "1" lower index inside;

4th Guards Tank Bde: archer's arrow, placed horisontally, looking left, with a small "/|" letter over it

23rd Guards Mech Bde: donkey

25th Guards Tank Bde: archer's arrow, placed horisontally, looking left, with a small "6" letter (looks like 6 number) over it

25th Guards Tank Bde: archer's arrow, placed horisontally, looking left, with a small "|/|" letter over it

36th Guards Tank Bde: ravaged bear standing on its back legs

41st Guards Tank Bde: massive short arrow looking like
/\
--
|
==

(this arrow is the sign of 7th Mech Corps, in fact, and is repeated for all integral units as you'll see below)

44th Tank Bde: two thick short horisontal lines
===
===

45th Tank Bde: three thick short horisontal lines
===
===
===

47th Tank Bde:
//==\\
|| o ||
====

51st Tank Bde: a circle with a horisontally stretched ellipse inside

54th Guards Tank Bde: two circles one in other and "1" number inside

55th Guards Tank Bde: two circles one in other and "2" number inside

56th Guards Tank Bde: two circles one in other and "3" number inside

64th Guards Tank Bde (circles are connected with vertical line so it resembles a key):

6|4
OO

95th Tank Bde: two triangles one in another, the internal one is painted.

112th Tank Bde: a stylized bird

116th Tank Bde: vetical-stretched rhombus made of dashed lines with dashed horisontal line cutting it apart
A
V
In the upper half of the rhombus is written the number of battalion (1 or 2), in the bottom half the code of 116th Bde - "45" number.

/ \
/ 1 \
-----
\45/
\ /


135th Tank Bde: looks like a heart (or upward turned a s s ) in the circle

37th Guards Tank Regiment: rhinoceros

51st Tank Regiment:

/ \
/ B \
-----
\24/
\ /

58th Heavy Tank Regiment: the same 7th Mech Corps arrow (as of 41st Guards Tank Bde) but placed inside the triangle.

77th Tank Regiment: the same 7th Mech Corps arrow (as of 41st Guards Tank Bde) but placed inside the rectangle.

78th Heavy Tank Regiment: horisontally stretched rhombus with large Russian D letter inside (**** if I know how to describe the lookout of Cyrillic D letter verbally).

84th Heavy Tank Regiment: the same 7th Mech Corps arrow (as of 41st Guards Tank Bde) but placed inside the circle.

85th Heavy Tank Regiment: rhinoceros at the phone of the star

366th Guards SPG Regiment: quite complex insignia
_ _
/ / |
/ |
_| |

There were also many insignias for air units, I may list some of them as well, if you're interested.

Some artillery units had their insignias as well: f.ex. 231st Corps Artillery Regiment in 1941 had the following insignia: knight's shield was the general regimental symbol, while each battalion had its one personal symbol inside the regimental shield: 1st Bn (107mm) battalion - camel, 2nd (mixed 122mm and 107mm) - stork, 3rd (152mm) - fir and 4th (artillery recon) - trapezium."

What should I think from that ? Are these unit insignia unofficial, more tactical markings etc. ? But Rhinoceros, Donkey, Bear etc. don't seem to be tactical markings ... any idea ?

Best regards,

David

[otlichnik]

David,

Nice list but a bit of a hodge podge I am afraid. What it certainly is not is a list of official unit markings. All relevant histories are pretty clear in that these did not exist.

What is seems to be is a list of markings associated with individual vehicles at specific times likely from certain units.

I say likely from certain units as official Soviet picture captions are not very good. Often a book or article editor post-war added what they want to. Some photo captions are clearly accurate, but others, including some famous ones, have been shown with captions mentioning many different units, places and times. Those in German sources are even worse.

The list shows what are clearly tactical markings - rows, lines, bars, crosses, etc. - as well as individual vehicle identifiers - such as numbers or letters in diamonds, etc. In many of the cases I think what is shown would have only been seen on one specific tank, not all in a unit.

I remember in the 1980s the Soviet military had a standardised set of vehicle markings to show where a vechile fit within a battalion - i.e. marks for coy and platoon. But these would be the same for every battalion.

As for the more artistic ones - animals - they would either be individual art or very unofficial unit markings. I would want to see such a marking on a number of vehicles before I would think it was not just an individual marking. Individual art would be tolerated more than a unit marking - individual art tells enemy intelligence nothing, a unit marking, even if unoffial does provide potentiall valuable info to enemy intell. Operational security was the responsibility of SMERSH units to police.

Some markings may come from post-war when security was more lax.

You can see several examples of banners in the flag and banner section. I tried to load an image here but discovered it was already loaded there.

Shawn

[DougD]

Shawn is correct, I have never seen unit insignia ( official anyway) from WWII. There may have been a few in the red air force, but this was few and far between. The soviets were not in the habit of unit insignia.

Here is a photo of a typical late war unit flag, for the 180th "Kievskaya" Rifle Division. The flag would not really differ for, say, the 204th artillery division; just the letters and numbers really.

That does not mean that soviet unit flags are not complex, they are, but not per unit. During the russian civil war there were unique flags per unit, but during the war the flags were based on status and year made, not unit.

DougD

[Panzermeyer]

I am grateful for your kind and patient help.

Cheers,

David