Mongolian People's Army
Encyclopedia
The Mongolian People's Army (Mongolian
Mongolian language
The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...

: Монголын Ардын Арми or Монгол Ардын Хувьсгалт Цэрэг) or Mongolian People's Revolutionary Army was established on 18 March 1921 as a secondary army under Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 command during the 1920s and during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

Creation of the army

One of the first actions of the new Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party
Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party
The Mongolian People's Party formerly the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party is an ex-communist political party in Mongolia. The party is abbreviated MPP in English and ' in Mongolian...

 authorities was the creation of a native communist army in 1920 under the leadership of adept cavalry commander Damdin Sükhbaatar in order to fight against Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n troops from the White movement
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...

 and Chinese forces
Occupation of Mongolia
The Occupation of Mongolia by the Beiyang Government of the Republic of China began in October 1919 and lasted until early 1921, when Chinese troops in Urga were routed by Baron Ungern's White Russian and Mongolian forces, who, in turn, were defeated by the Red Army and its Mongolian allies by...

. The MPRP was aided by the Russian SFSR Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

, which helped to secure the Mongolian People's Republic and remained in its territory until at least 1925.
However, during the native revolts of the early 1930s and the Japanese border probes beginning in the mid-1930s, Soviet Red Army troops in Mongolia amounted to little more than instructors for the native army and as guards for diplomatic and trading installations.

Cold war era

During the Pei-ta-shan Incident, elite Qinghai
Qinghai
Qinghai ; Oirat Mongolian: ; ; Salar:) is a province of the People's Republic of China, named after Qinghai Lake...

 Chinese Muslim cavalry were sent by the Chinese Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...

 to destroy the Mongols and the Russians in 1947.

The military of Mongolia
Military of Mongolia
The military of Mongolia has four branches: general purpose forces, border defense forces, internal security forces, and air force. This is a peace-time structure...

n's purpose was national defense, protection of local communist establishments, and collaboration with Soviet forces in future military actions against exterior enemies, than by until 1990 Democratic Revolution in Mongolia
1990 Democratic Revolution in Mongolia
The 1990 Peaceful Democratic Revolution in Mongolia was a democratic revolution that started with hunger strikes to overthrow the Mongolian People's Republic and eventually moved towards the democratic present day Mongolia and the writing of the new constitution. It was spearheaded by mostly...

.

Political indoctrination

The central Political Administration Unit was established in the army in 1921 to supervise the work of political commissars (Politruk) and party cells in all army units and to provide a political link with the Central Committee of the MPRP in the army. The unit served to raise morale and to prevent enemy political propaganda. Up to one third of army units were members of the party and others were in the Mongolian Revolutionary Youth League.

The Red Mongol Army received sixty percent of the government budget in early years and it to expanded from 2,560 men in 1923 to 4,000 in 1924 and 1to 7,000 in 1927. The native armed forces stayed linked to Soviet Red Army intelligence groups and NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....

, Mongolian secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....

, and Buryat
Buryats
The Buryats or Buriyads , numbering approximately 436,000, are the largest ethnic minority group in Siberia and are mainly concentrated in their homeland, the Buryat Republic, a federal subject of Russia...

 Mongol Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...

 agents acted as administrators and represented the real power in the country albeit under direct Soviet guidance.

Training

By 1926 the government planned to train 10,000 conscripts annually and to increase the training period to six months. Chinese intelligence reports in 1927 indicated that between 40,000 and 50,000 reservists could be mustered at short notice. In 1929 a general mobilization was called to test the training and reserve system. The expected turnout was to have been 30,000 troops but only 2,000 men presented. This failure initiated serious reforms in recruiting and training systems.

Strength

In 1921-1927 the land forces, almost exclusively horsemen
Cavalry
Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...

, numbered about 17,000 mounted troops and boasted more than 200 heavy machine gun
Machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....

s, 50 mountain howitzer
Howitzer
A howitzer is a type of artillery piece characterized by a relatively short barrel and the use of comparatively small propellant charges to propel projectiles at relatively high trajectories, with a steep angle of descent...

s, 30 field gun
Field gun
A field gun is an artillery piece. Originally the term referred to smaller guns that could accompany a field army on the march and when in combat could be moved about the battlefield in response to changing circumstances, as to opposed guns installed in a fort, or to siege cannon or mortars which...

s and seven armored cars, 20 light tank
Tank
A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...

s

Basic units

The basic unit was the 2,000-man cavalry regiment
Regiment
A regiment is a major tactical military unit, composed of variable numbers of batteries, squadrons or battalions, commanded by a colonel or lieutenant colonel...

 consisting of three
squadrons. Each 600-plus-man squadron was divided into five companies,
a machine gun company, and an engineer
Civil engineering
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...

 unit. Cavalry regiments were organized into larger units--brigades or division
Division (military)
A division is a large military unit or formation usually consisting of between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers. In most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, and in turn several divisions typically make up a corps...

s--which included artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

 and service support units. The chief advantage of this force was mobility over the great distances in Mongolia: small units were able to cover more than 160 km in 24 hours.

List of Mongolian Army division and other units
* 1th Cavalry Division
* 2th Cavalry Division
* 3th Cavalry Division
* 4th Cavalry Division
* 5th Cavalry Division
* 6th Cavalry Division
* 7th Cavalry Division
* 8th Cavalry Division
* 9th Cavalry Division
* 10th Cavalry Division
* 7th Motorized Armored Brigade
* 3d Separate Tank Regiment
* 3d Artillery Regiment
* Aviation Mixed Division

Uniform

Because it was established on a Soviet military system the People's army used similar uniforms with the Red Army, only with Mongolian distinctions. Until 1924 People's army personnel wore traditional deel
Deel (clothing)
A deel is the traditional clothing commonly worn for many centuries among the Mongols and other nomadic tribes of Central Asia, including various Turkic peoples, and can be made from cotton, silk, or brocade....

 which had shoulder insignias. In the mid 1930s the army adopted Soviet Gymnasterka
Gymnasterka
Gymnasterka was a Russian military shirt-tunic comprising a pullover style garment with a standing collar having double button closure. In addition two upper chest pockets, with or without flaps may have been worn. It had provision for shoulder boards and sometimes reinforced elbows and cuffs...

 and developed its true rank and distinction system. All personnel were distinct by their sleeve and collar insignias from general population when the gymnastyorka was rather popular. After the Battle of Khalkhin Gol
Battle of Khalkhin Gol
The Battles of Khalkhyn Gol was the decisive engagement of the undeclared Soviet–Japanese Border Wars fought among the Soviet Union, Mongolia and the Empire of Japan in 1939. The conflict was named after the river Khalkhyn Gol, which passes through the battlefield...

, slight modifications were made and in 1944 all uniforms and insignias were changed paralytically with Soviet uniform modifications. The shoulder insignia and camouflage cloaks were introduced. Beginning with the 1960s both equipments and uniforms of People's army began to modernize. In all as a Warsaw pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...

 country Mongolian People's army had a close resemblance to Soviet Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 in appearance and structure.

Military actions

Units of Mongolian People's Army supported and allied with a Soviet Red Army in the Battle of Khalkhyn Gol in 1939 and on the western flank of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in 1945. Domestically, it took part in the suppression of the 1932 armed uprising.

Light equipment

Mosin-Nagant
Mosin-Nagant
The Mosin–Nagant is a bolt-action, internal magazine-fed, military rifle invented under the government commission by Russian and Belgian inventors, and used by the armed forces of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and various other nations....

,

PPSh-41
PPSh-41
The PPSh-41 was a Soviet submachine gun designed by Georgi Shpagin as an inexpensive, simplified alternative to the PPD-40. Intended for use by minimally-trained conscript soldiers, the PPSh was a magazine-fed selective-fire submachine gun using an open-bolt, blowback action...

,

PPSh-43,

Russian M1910 Maxim
Russian M1910 Maxim
The PM M1910 was a heavy machine gun used by the Russian Army during World War I and the Red Army during World War II. It was adopted in 1910 and was derived from Hiram Maxim's Maxim gun, chambered for the standard Russian 7.62x54mmR rifle cartridge...

,

SG-43 Goryunov,

DShK
DShK
The DShK 1938 is a Soviet heavy machine gun firing the 12.7x108mm cartridge. The weapon was also used as a heavy infantry machine gun, in which case it was frequently deployed with a two-wheeled mounting and a single-sheet armour-plate shield...



Degtyaryov machine gun

Artillery and mortars

37 mm anti-tank gun M1930 (1-K)
37 mm anti-tank gun M1930 (1-K)
37-mm anti-tank gun model 1930 was a Soviet light anti-tank gun used in the first stage of the German-Soviet War.-Description:1-K was a Soviet anti-tank gun initially developed by the German company Rheinmetall. The gun was closely related to the German PaK 35/36...



76 mm regimental gun M1927

45 mm anti-tank gun M1937 (53-K)

76 mm regimental gun M1943

Armoured vehicles during World War II

This is a list of Mongolian People's Army tanks and armour during the 1922s-WWII period.

Armored cars

  • Russian Austin Putilov
    Austin Armoured Car
    Austin Armoured Car was a British armoured car produced during the First World War. The vehicle is best known for its employment by the Russian Army in the First World War and by different forces in the Russian Civil War....

     (two examples)
  • Soviet FAI
    FAI armoured car
    The FAI armoured car was a replacement for the D-8 armoured car, used by the Soviet Union from the early 1930s to early 1940s....

  • Soviet BA-6
  • Soviet BA-10
    BA-10
    The BA-10 was an armored car developed in the Soviet Union in 1938 and produced till 1941. It was the most produced Soviet pre-1941 heavy armored car – 3311 were built in three versions. These versions were the BA-10, the BA-10M , and the BA-10ZhD...

  • Soviet BA-64
    BA-64
    The BA-64 was a 4×4 light armoured car, employed by the Soviet Army from 1942 into the early 1960s for reconnaissance and liaison tasks.The BA-64B was nicknamed 'Bobik' by its crews. The total recorded number of BA-64s produced differs even in Russian sources...


Mongolian People's Army Aviation in 1925–1945

In May 1925 a Junkers F.13
Junkers F.13
The Junkers F.13 was the world's first all-metal transport aircraft, developed in Germany at the end of World War I. It was an advanced cantilever-wing monoplane, with enclosed accommodation for four passengers. Over 300 were sold...

 entered service as the first aircraft in Mongolian civil and military aviation and in march 1931, the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 donated three Polikarpov R-1s to the Mongolian Peoples Army, with Mongolia purchasing a further three R-1s. In 1932, an uprising broke out against Collectivization. Both Soviet and Mongolian-operated R-1s took part in actions against the rebellion, carrying out reconnaissance, leaflet dropping
Airborne leaflet propaganda
Airborne leaflet propaganda is a form of psychological warfare in which leaflets are scattered in the air. Military forces have used aircraft to drop leaflets to alter the behavior of people in enemy-controlled territory, sometimes in conjunction with air strikes...

 and bombing missions Chinese intelligence reports in 1945 the Mongolian People's Air Force had been with a 3 fighter and 3 bomber aviation-regiment
Regiment
A regiment is a major tactical military unit, composed of variable numbers of batteries, squadrons or battalions, commanded by a colonel or lieutenant colonel...

 and one flight school and more air squadrons
Squadron (aviation)
A squadron in air force, army aviation or naval aviation is mainly a unit comprising a number of military aircraft, usually of the same type, typically with 12 to 24 aircraft, sometimes divided into three or four flights, depending on aircraft type and air force...

. Mongolian People's Army Aviation demonstrated its full potential during the Khalkyn gol war which was its largest engagement. Apart from intercepting intruding aircraft, People's Aviation was used heavily to repress domestic rebel movements.

Mongolian People's air force has operated a variety of aircraft types

Bomber and ground-attack aircraft

  • Polikarpov R-1-Unknown number
  • Polikarpov R-5
    Polikarpov R-5
    The Polikarpov R-5 was a Soviet reconnaissance bomber aircraft of the 1930s. It was the standard light bomber and reconnaissance aircraft with the Soviet Air Force for much of the 1930s, while also being used heavily as a civilian light transport, in the order of 7,000 being built in...

    -40
  • Ilyushin Il-2
    Ilyushin Il-2
    The Ilyushin Il-2 was a ground-attack aircraft in the Second World War, produced by the Soviet Union in very large numbers...

    -70

Fighter aircraft

  • Polikarpov I-15
    Polikarpov I-15
    The Polikarpov I-15 was a Soviet biplane fighter aircraft of the 1930s. Nicknamed Chaika because of its gulled upper wings, it was operated in large numbers by the Soviet Air Force, and together with the Polikarpov I-16 monoplane, was one of the standard fighters of the Spanish Republicans during...

    -50
  • Polikarpov I-15
    Polikarpov I-15
    The Polikarpov I-15 was a Soviet biplane fighter aircraft of the 1930s. Nicknamed Chaika because of its gulled upper wings, it was operated in large numbers by the Soviet Air Force, and together with the Polikarpov I-16 monoplane, was one of the standard fighters of the Spanish Republicans during...

    bis-Unknown number
  • Polikarpov I-16
    Polikarpov I-16
    The Polikarpov I-16 was a Soviet fighter aircraft of revolutionary design; it was the world's first cantilever-winged monoplane fighter with retractable landing gear. The I-16 was introduced in the mid-1930s and formed the backbone of the Soviet Air Force at the beginning of World War II...

    -1
  • Yak-7-Unkhown number
  • Yak-9-31.

Transport aircraft

  • Lisunov Li-2
    Lisunov Li-2
    The Lisunov Li-2, originally designated PS-84 , was a license-built version of the Douglas DC-3. It was produced by the GAZ-84 works at Moscow-Khimki, and subsequently at GAZ-33 at Tashkent-Vostochn. The project was directed by aeronautical engineer Boris Pavlovich Lisunov.-Design and...

  • Gan-3 (Stal-3. this airplanes frame is made with stainless steel. Stal means stainless steel in Russian but Gan is a Mongolian word)
  • Kalinin K-5
    Kalinin K-5
    |- References :* * *...

  • Yakovlev Yak-6
    Yakovlev Yak-6
    |-See also:...

  • Junkers F-13
  • Junkers W 33
    Junkers W 33
    The Junkers W 33 was a German-built singled-engine transport aircraft. It was aerodynamically and structurally advanced for its time , a clean, low-wing all metal cantilever monoplane. Almost 200 were produced...

  • Nakajima Ki-34-12
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