Artillery Reserve of the Supreme Command

(ARVGK), artillery and infantry mortar units of various sizes which are organizationally separate from combined arms units. The ARVGK is used in wartime on the major operational axes according to the decision of the Supreme Command for the quantitative and qualitative strengthening of field artillery. The ARVGK includes various kinds of artillery, including heavy caliber and superdestructive artillery, rocket-launching artillery, antitank artillery, and antiaircraft artillery. It was first formed in the German Army in 1914, in the French and Russian armies in 1917, and in the Red Army in 1918. The Red Army’s most extensive development and widest use of the ARVGK took place during the Great Patriotic War. By the end of the war the Red Army included ten artillery corps, 105 artillery and infantry mortar divisions, 97 separate artillery and infantry mortar brigades, and a great many separate ARVGK regiments and battalions. This permitted the carrying out of large-scale artillery operational maneuvers and the concentration of great numbers of artillery pieces at the breakthrough sectors.