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Composition of the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division | |||||||
The division's 167th, 156th and 249th Rifle Regiments were composed of between 2,000 and 2,500 men each, and were usually divided into three rifle battalions, comprising between 600 and 800 men each commanded by a major and a commissar. A rifle battalion consisted of three rifle companies, a machine company, a mortar company, each comprising 180 to 200 men and headed by a captain and a company commissar. Each rifle company consisted of three rifle platoons, a mortar platoon, and a six man antitank detail. A rifle platoon comprised up to sixty men, commanded by a Lieutenant or master-sergeant, and was organized into three to five rifle squads, each usually consisting of nine riflemen and a machine gunner, commanded by a sergeant or junor sergeant. The 224th Artillery Regiment comprised some 900 men, divided into three battalions, each equipped with two cannon batteries and on Howitzer battery. In addition, the political section of the Lithuanian Division played a special role in the selection of candidates for the divisions "Special Company" and courses that trained what was to be an administrative cadre for 'liberated' Lithuania. This company was of course unique to the Lithuanian Division. The majority of its officers and men were drawn from ranks and were trained to operate as partisans, propagandists, and intelligence agents behind enemy lines, primarily in German-occupied Lithuania. The division also had Soviet counterintelligence units. The intensity of their activity was largely a function of the number of men from what was actually a foreign country, many of whose citizens, during the Soviet hegemony and the early days of the war, were considered sworn enemies of the Soviet Union. |
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156th Rifle Regiment 167th Rifle Regiment 249th Rifle Regiment 224th Artillery Regiment 18th Reconnaissance Company 93rd Sapper Battalion 367th Truck Company 351st Truck Company 148th Anti-Aircraft Battery (up to 1 June 1943) 73rd Separate Signals Battalion 80th Medical and Sanitation Battalion 23rd Separate Chemical Defense Company 62nd Mobile Field Bakery 965th Divisional Veterinary Hospital 1668th Field Postal Station 1209th Field Office of the State Bank Division |
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