7th Guards Tank Division 7th Guards Tank Division The 7th Guards Tank Division was a tank division of the Soviet Army during the Cold War. The division traced its heritage back to the 7th Guards Tank Corps, formed during World War II in July 1943 from the 15th Tank Corps for its performance in Operation Kutuzov, the Soviet counteroffensive after the Battle of Kursk. It was part of the 3rd Guards Tank Army during the war, and was converted into a tank division like the rest of the tank corps in 1945. Stationed in Czechoslovakia postwar, it was briefly downsized into a regiment in
Tanks in World War II Italians also labeled the machine gun armed L3/35 a "light tank", although it is more commonly called a tankette. Like the US Army (which utilized French and British tanks in World War I), the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) did not have tanks of its own in World War I, so it started out by purchasing foreign tanks for evaluation during World War I and right after the war ended. Like many other nations, the Japanese initially didn't embrace the tank, as it didn't have the cavalry tradition. Cavalry was used for reconnaissance in the mountainous countryside, and initially, as with