Operation Little Saturn
Operation Saturn, revised as Operation Little Saturn, was a Red Army operation on the Eastern Front of World War II that led to battles in the North Caucasus and Donets Basin regions of the Soviet Union from December 1942 to February 1943. The success of Operation Uranus, launched on 19 November 1942, had trapped 250,000–300,000 troops of General Friedrich Paulus' German 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army in Stalingrad. To exploit this victory, the Soviet general staff planned a winter campaign of continuous and ambitious offensive operations, codenamed "Saturn". Joseph Stalin reduced his ambitious plans to a small campaign codenamed "Operation Little Saturn"; the offensive succeeded in smashing Germany's Italian and Hungarian allies, applied pressure on the over stretched German forces in Eastern Ukraine and prevented further German advances to the relief of the entrapped forces at Stalingrad. Despite these victories, the Soviets themselves became over extended, setting up the stages for the German offensives of the Third Battle of Kharkov and the Battle of Kursk.
On 17 May 1942, German Army Groups A and B launched a counteroffensive against advancing Soviet armies around the city of Kharkov, resulting in the Second Battle of Kharkov. By 6 July, General Hermann Hoth's Fourth Panzer Army had taken the city of Voronezh, threatening to collapse the Red Army's resistance. By early August, General Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist's First Panzer Army had reached the oil center of Maykop, 500 kilometres south of the city of Rostov, taken by the Fourth Panzer Army on 23 July; the rapid German advance threatened to cut the Soviet Union off from its southern territories, while threatening to cut the lend-lease supply lines from Persia. However, the offensive began to peter out, as the offensive's supply train struggled to keep up with the advance and spearhead units began to run low on fuel and manpower. Operation Uranus was the codename of the Soviet strategic operation in World War II which led to the encirclement of the German Sixth Army and Fourth Romanian armies, portions of the German Fourth Panzer Army.
The operation formed part of the ongoing Battle of Stalingrad, was aimed at destroying German forces in and around Stalingrad. Planning for Operation Uranus had commenced as early as September 1942, was developed with plans to envelop and destroy German Army Group Center and German forces in the Caucasus; the Red Army took advantage of the fact that German forces in the southern Soviet Union were overstretched around Stalingrad, using weaker Romanian armies to guard their flanks. These Axis armies were deployed in open positions on the steppe and lacked heavy equipment to deal with Soviet armor. Operation Winter Storm, undertaken between 12–23 December 1942, was the German Fourth Panzer Army's attempt to relieve encircled Axis forces during the Battle of Stalingrad. In late November, the Red Army completed Operation Uranus, which resulted in the encirclement of Axis personnel in and around the city of Stalingrad. German forces within the Stalingrad Pocket and directly outside were reorganized under Army Group Don, under the command of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein.
As the Red Army continued to build strength, in an effort to allocate as many resources as possible to the eventual launch of the planned Operation Saturn, which aimed to isolate Army Group A from the rest of the German Army, the Luftwaffe had begun an attempt to supply German forces in Stalingrad through an air bridge. However, as the Luftwaffe proved incapable of carrying out its mission and it became more obvious that a successful breakout could only occur if it was launched as early as possible, Manstein decided to plan and launch a dedicated relief effort. After the defeat of the Romanian Army around Stalingrad and the successful encirclement of the German Sixth Army, Stalin started a counter-offensive nicknamed "Operation Little Saturn" in order to enlarge the area controlled by the Soviet Army in eastern Ukraine until Kharkov and Rostov. Zhukov states the South-Western Front was assigned a mission in which the 1st and 3rd Guard armies and the 5th Tank Army "were to strike out in the general direction of Morozovsk and destroy the enemy grouping in that sector."
They would be supported by the 6th Army of the Voronezh Front. The first stage — an attempt to cut off the German Army Group A in the Caucasus — had to be revised when General Erich von Manstein launched Operation Winter Storm on 12 December in an attempt to relieve the trapped armies at Stalingrad. While General Rodion Malinovsky's Soviet 2nd Guards Army blocked the German advance on Stalingrad, the modified plan Operation Little Saturn was launched on 16 December; this operation consisted of a pincer movement. General Fyodor Isidorovich Kuznetsov's 1st Guards Army and General Dmitri Danilovich Lelyushenko's 3rd Guards Army attacked from the north, encircling 130,000 soldiers of the Italian 8th Army on the Don and advancing to Millerovo; the Italians resisted the Soviet attack for nearly two weeks, although outnumbered 9 to 1 in some sectors, but with huge losses. Manstein sent the 6th Panzer Division to the Italians' aid: of the 130,000 encircled troops, only 45,000 survived after bloody fighting to join the Panzers at Chertkovo on 17 January.
To the south the advance of General Gerasimenko's 28th Army threatened to encircle the 1st Panzer Army and General Trufanov's 51st Army attacked the relief column directly. In a dar
Order of Michael the Brave
The Order of Michael the Brave is Romania's highest military decoration, instituted by King Ferdinand I during the early stages of the Romanian Campaign of the First World War, was again awarded in the Second World War. The Order, which may be bestowed either on an individual or on a whole unit, was named in honor of Michael the Brave, a late 16th-century Prince of Wallachia and Moldavia. Requirements: Awarded to officers only for exceptional deeds on the battlefield, it is the highest ranking Romanian military order. Classes: 3rd, 2nd and 1st Date Instituted: September 26, 1916 Number awarded: 2184 During WW1: 1st class: 16 2nd class: 12 3rd class: 336 During WW2: 1st class: 15 2nd class: 76 3rd class: 1628 The First Class Insignia is referred to as a Grand Commander of the Order. Special Class - During its time as an order of the Kingdom of Romania, this grade was only reserved for the Sovereign, who would receive the insignia of: Collar, Necklet and Star. Since the revival of the Order, the Grand Master does not wear the Collar.
First Class - During the institution of the Order, this grade was awarded to members of the Romanian Royal Family who took part in active service within the military, Foreign Monarchs, Members of the Romanian Government and people at the Sovereigns pleasure. Since its revival this grade has been awarded; the Second Class Insignia of the Order is referred to as a Commander of the Order. The Third Class Insignia of the Order is referred to as an Officer of the Order; this grade was awarded rather than the higher grades. Józef Piłsudski King George V of United Kingdom Ion Antonescu Josip Broz Tito Vasile Atanasiu Alexandru Averescu Radu Bâldescu Nicolae Dabija Corneliu Dragalina Grigore Gafencu Eremia Grigorescu Douglas Haig Michael I of Romania John J. Pershing Radu Korne Mihail Lascăr Leonard Mociulschi Ioan Pălăghiţă Constantin Prezan Corneliu Teodorini Constantin Mihalcea Gheorghe Bâgulescu Virgil BădulescuDuring the Second World War, at a time when Romania was allied with Germany, the Order was awarded to several members of the military forces of other Axis Powers, many in the Wehrmacht: Erwin Rommel Theodor Busse Fedor von Bock Walther von Brauchitsch Dietrich von Choltitz Karl Dönitz Hermann Göring Hermann Hoth Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim Erich von Manstein Friedrich Paulus Wolfram von Richthofen Gerd von Rundstedt Wilhelm Schöning Walter Warlimont Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist Helmuth von Pannwitz Erwin Jaenecke List of military decorations List of Romanian decorations Order of Michael the Brave at worldwar2.ro History of the Order at the Romanian Presidency site Order of Michael the Brave and its recipients at ww2awards.com
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. Nominally a union of multiple national Soviet republics, its government and economy were centralized; the country was a one-party state, governed by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital in its largest republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Other major urban centres were Leningrad, Minsk, Alma-Ata, Novosibirsk, it spanned over 10,000 kilometres east to west across 11 time zones, over 7,200 kilometres north to south. It had five climate zones: tundra, steppes and mountains; the Soviet Union had its roots in the 1917 October Revolution, when the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Russian Provisional Government which had replaced Tsar Nicholas II during World War I. In 1922, the Soviet Union was formed by a treaty which legalized the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian and Byelorussian republics that had occurred from 1918. Following Lenin's death in 1924 and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s.
Stalin committed the state's ideology to Marxism–Leninism and constructed a command economy which led to a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization. During his rule, political paranoia fermented and the Great Purge removed Stalin's opponents within and outside of the party via arbitrary arrests and persecutions of many people, resulting in at least 600,000 deaths. In 1933, a major famine struck the country. Before the start of World War II in 1939, the Soviets signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, after which the USSR invaded Poland on 17 September 1939. In June 1941, Germany broke the pact and invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theatre of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at intense battles such as Stalingrad and Kursk; the territories overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Soviet Union.
The post-war division of Europe into capitalist and communist halves would lead to increased tensions with the United States-led Western Bloc, known as the Cold War. Stalin died in 1953 and was succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev, who in 1956 denounced Stalin and began the de-Stalinization; the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred during Khrushchev's rule, among the many factors that led to his downfall in 1964. In the early 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, but tensions resumed with the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. In 1985, the last Soviet premier, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost and perestroika, which caused political instability. In 1989, Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist governments; as part of an attempt to prevent the country's dissolution due to rising nationalist and separatist movements, a referendum was held in March 1991, boycotted by some republics, that resulted in a majority of participating citizens voting in favor of preserving the union as a renewed federation.
Gorbachev's power was diminished after Russian President Boris Yeltsin's high-profile role in facing down a coup d'état attempted by Communist Party hardliners. In late 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union met and formally dissolved the Soviet Union; the remaining 12 constituent republics emerged as independent post-Soviet states, with the Russian Federation—formerly the Russian SFSR—assuming the Soviet Union's rights and obligations and being recognized as the successor state. The Soviet Union was a powerhouse of many significant technological achievements and innovations of the 20th century, including the world's first human-made satellite, the first humans in space and the first probe to land on another planet, Venus; the country had the largest standing military in the world. The Soviet Union was recognized as one of the five nuclear weapons states and possessed the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, it was a founding permanent member of the United Nations Security Council as well as a member of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the World Federation of Trade Unions and the leading member of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact.
The word "Soviet" is derived from a Russian word сове́т meaning council, advice, harmony and all deriving from the proto-Slavic verbal stem of vět-iti, related to Slavic věst, English "wise", the root in "ad-vis-or", or the Dutch weten. The word sovietnik means "councillor". A number of organizations in Russian history were called "council". For example, in the Russian Empire the State Council, which functioned from 1810 to 1917, was referred to as a Council of Ministers after the revolt of 1905. During the Georgian Affair, Vladimir Lenin envisioned an expression of Great Russian ethnic chauvinism by Joseph Stalin and his supporters, calling for these nation-states to join Russia as semi-independent parts of a greater union, which he named as the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia. Stalin resisted the proposal, but accepted it, although with Lenin's agreement changed the name of the newly proposed sta
Socialist Republic of Romania
The Socialist Republic of Romania refers to Romania under Marxist-Leninist one-party communist rule that existed from 1947 to 1989. From 1947 to 1965, the state was known as the Romanian People's Republic; the country was a Soviet-aligned Eastern Bloc state with a dominant role for the Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its constitutions. As World War II ended, Romania, a former Axis member, was occupied by the Soviet Union, the sole representative of the Allies. On 6 March 1945, after mass demonstrations by communist sympathizers and political pressure from the Soviet representative of the Allied Control Commission, a new pro-Soviet government that included members of the outlawed Romanian Workers' Party was installed. More members of the Workers' Party and communist-aligned parties gained control of the administration and pre-war political leaders were eliminated from political life. In December 1947, King Michael was coerced to abdicate and the People's Republic of Romania was declared.
At first, Romania's scarce post-war resources were drained by the "SovRoms", new tax-exempt Soviet-Romanian companies that allowed the Soviet Union to control Romania's major sources of income. Another drain was the war reparations paid to the Soviet Union. In the 1950s, Romania's communist government began to assert more independence, for example, the withdrawal of all Soviet troops from Romania by 1958. In the 1960s and 1970s, Nicolae Ceaușescu became General Secretary of the Communist Party, Chairman of the State Council and assumed the newly established role of President in 1974. Ceaușescu's denunciation of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and a brief relaxation in internal repression helped give him a positive image both at home and in the West. However, rapid economic growth fueled in part by foreign credits gave way to an austerity and political repression that led to the fall of his totalitarian government in December 1989. A large number of people were executed or died in custody during communist Romania's existence, most during the Stalinist era of the 1950s.
While judicial executions between 1945 and 1964 numbered 137, deaths in custody are estimated in the tens or hundreds of thousands. Many more were imprisoned for political, economical or other reasons and suffered abuse, torture and/or death. Geographically, Romania bordered the Black Sea to the east; when King Michael, supported by the main political parties, overthrew Ion Antonescu in August 1944, breaking Romania away from the Axis and bringing it over to the Allied side, Michael could do nothing to erase the memory of his country's recent active participation in the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Romanian forces fought under Soviet command, driving through Northern Transylvania into Hungary proper, on into Czechoslovakia and Austria. However, the Soviets treated Romania as conquered territory, Soviet troops remained in the country as occupying forces under the pretext that Romanian authorities could not guarantee the security and stability of Northern Transylvania; the Yalta Conference had granted the Soviet Union a predominant interest in Romania, the Paris Peace Treaties failed to acknowledge Romania as a co-belligerent, the Red Army was sitting on Romanian soil.
The Communists, as all political parties, played only a minor role in the first Michael's wartime governments, headed by General Constantin Sănătescu, though their presence increased in the one led by Nicolae Rădescu. This changed in March 1945, when Dr. Petru Groza of the Ploughmen's Front, a party associated with the Communists, became prime minister, his government was broad-based on paper, including members of most major prewar parties except the Iron Guard. However, the Communists held the key ministries, most of the ministers nominally representing non-Communist parties were, like Groza himself, fellow travelers; the King was not happy with the direction of this government, but when he attempted to force Groza's resignation by refusing to sign any legislation, Groza chose to enact laws without bothering to obtain Michael's signature. On 8 November 1945, King Michael's name day, a pro-monarchy demonstration in front of the Royal Palace in Bucharest escalated into street fights between opposition supporters and soldiers and pro-government workers, resulting in dozens of killed and wounded.
Despite the King's disapproval, the first Groza government brought women's suffrage. However, it brought the beginnings of Soviet domination of Romania. In the elections of 19 November 1946, the Communist-led Bloc of Democratic Parties claimed 84% of the votes; these elections were characterized by widespread irregularities, including intimidation, electoral fraud, assassinations Archives confirm suspicions at the time that the election results were, in fact, falsified. After forming a government, the Communists moved to eliminate the role of the centrist parties. A show trial of their leadership was arranged, they were put in jail. Other parties were forced to "merge" with the Communists. In 1946 and 1947, several high-ranking members in the pro-Axis government were executed as war criminals for their involvement in the Holocaust and for attacking the Soviet Union. Ant
Field army
A field army is a military formation in many armed forces, composed of two or more corps and may be subordinate to an army group. Air armies are equivalent formation within some air forces. A field army is composed of 100,000 to 150,000 troops. Particular field armies are named or numbered to distinguish them from "army" in the sense of an entire national land military force. In English, the typical style for naming field armies is word numbers, such as "First Army". A field army may be given a geographical name in addition to or as an alternative to a numerical name, such as the British Army of the Rhine, Army of the Niemen or Aegean Army; the Roman army was among the first to feature a formal field army, in the sense of a large, combined arms formation, namely the sacer comitatus, which may be translated as "sacred escort". The term is derived from the fact that they were commanded by Roman emperors, when they acted as field commanders. While the Roman comitatensis is sometimes translated as "field army", it may be translated as the more generic "field force" or "mobile force".
In some armed forces, an "army" has been equivalent to a corps-level unit. Prior to 1945, this was the case with a gun within the Imperial Japanese Army, for which the formation equivalent in size to a field army was an "area army". In the Soviet Red Army and the Soviet Air Forces, an army was subordinate in wartime to a front, it contained at least three to five divisions along with artillery, air defense and other supporting units. It could be classified as either tank army. In peacetime, a Soviet army was subordinate to a military district. Modern field armies are large formations which vary between armed forces in size and scope of responsibility. For instance, within NATO a field army is composed of a headquarters, controls at least two corps, beneath which are a variable number of divisions. A battle is influenced at the field army level by transferring divisions and reinforcements from one corps to another to increase the pressure on the enemy at a critical point. NATO armies are commanded by a general or lieutenant general.
Armeeoberkommando Military unit Military history List of numbered armies
Bombing of Stalingrad
Stalingrad, a Soviet city and industrial centre on the river Volga, was bombed by the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II. German land forces comprising the 6th Army had advanced to the suburbs of Stalingrad by August 1942; the city was firebombed with 1,000 tons of high explosives and incendiaries in 1,600 sorties on 23 August. The destruction was monumental and complete, turning Stalingrad into a sea of fire and killing thousands of civilians and soldiers. Further fire-attacks were mounted against the ruined city for the next two days, enveloping it in dense volcano-like black smoke clouds that stretched 3.5 kilometers into the sky. In accordance with Adolf Hitler's demand to exterminate all traces of Soviet resistance, Soviet forces hiding in the rubble were subjected to nonstop German airstrikes until the Soviet counteroffensive in late November 1942. Luftflotte 4 flew 1,000 sorties per day on average from 23 August to 22 November, the bulk of which were directed at Stalingrad.
Luftwaffe General Martin Fiebig's Fliegerkorps VIII was tasked in July 1942 with providing air support for the German 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army as they captured Stalingrad and secured the northern flank of the German advance to the Caucasus oilfields. Fiebig's superior's, Generaloberst Wolfram von Richthofen’s Luftflotte 4 held a 1,600 kilometer eastern frontage in July and concentrated its efforts on Stalingrad, with the air support missions in the Caucasus under Kurt Pflugbeil's Fliegerkorps IV and at the Voronezh battle being given a lower priority. Logistics for Fliegerkorps VIII received the highest preference, as Richthofen saw the capture of Stalingrad as the key to German success on the entire Eastern Front. Richthofen requested additional Junkers Ju 52 transport groups from Oberkommando der Luftwaffe and transferred Pflugbeil's groups, as well as his road transport companies, to the administrative authority of a new, specially created, "Stalingrad transport region", he ordered better procedures and greater efforts to maximize efficiency.
His activities bore fruit as the Luftwaffe lifted ammunition and fuel to the front. The army implemented its own initiatives to increase supply effectiveness, the insufficient perfection of which had undermined the speed of the German advance since the beginning of Case Blue in June. By the third week of August, the 6th Army and Fliegerkorps VIII were receiving sufficient supplies to undertake without undue difficulties their primary mission of capturing Stalingrad. During the Battle of Kalach, Fliegerkorps VIII provided the German XIV and XXIV Panzer Corps' with decisive air support as the Soviet 62nd Army was encircled and destroyed west of Kalach from 8–11 August through the application of superior German firepower from all sides and from above. 50,000 prisoners were taken by the Germans, 1,100 Soviet tanks were destroyed or captured and the road to Stalingrad was laid bare. LI Army Corps penetrated across the Don north of Kalach on 21 August, forcing the surprised and helpless Red Army formations to the south to fall back on Stalingrad.
XIV Panzer Corps crossed the Don the next morning across two enormous pontoon bridges created by German engineers. Fiebig's air corps shot down 139 Red aircraft in three days and inflicted massive damage on Soviet ground forces. On 21 August Richthofen flew across the Don in his Fieseler Fi 156 and was shocked at the carnage of dead Soviet bodies and destroyed tanks. Hours after Richthofen's sightseeing, Kampfgeschwader 76's Junkers Ju 88 medium bombers exterminated two surprised Soviet reserve divisions on open fields 150 kilometers east of Stalingrad. Richthofen was excited and delighted by the one-sided massacre and wrote in his diary: "Blood flowed!"Within two days of crossing the Don, Gustav Anton von Wietersheim's XIV Panzer Corps rolled forth to reach the Volga river at Spartanovka in the northern suburbs of Stalingrad at 1600 hours on 23 August. Stavka, the Soviet supreme command, was shocked by the speed of Wietersheim's advance, it was accomplished thanks to an overwhelming deluge of German airpower.
Fliegerkorps VIII flew 1,600 unbroken sorties, blasting a path for the Panzer spearheads by dropping 1,000 tons of bombs on 23 August. Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers, Focke-Wulf Fw 190 ground attack aircraft and Heinkel He 111 and Junkers Ju 88 medium bombers bombed and strafed the paralyzed Soviets, refueled, restocked their ordnance and flew more missions as the German aircraft never broke the cycle. Fliegerkorps VIII lost only three aircraft that day, while destroying 91 Soviet aircraft in a single day and inflicting immeasurable damage on the Soviet soldiers and civilians on the ground, it was only the first half of Fliegerkorps VIII's attacks that day as the second great air offensive of 23 August was carried out against the city of Stalingrad itself. From 3:18 pm on 23 August 1942 and through the night into 24 August units of Generaloberst von Richthofen’s Luftflotte 4 attacked the city. Medium Bomber strength employed included elements of KG 27, KG 51, KG 55, KG 76, I/KG 100.` During 23 August Luftflotte 4 flew 1,600 sorties and dropped 1,000 tons of bombs on the city destroying it, while three aircraft were lost.
Buildings crumbled under the blast effects of high explosives, while the extensive use of incendiaries torched factories and houses. Wooden houses were incinerated, leaving only their chimneys on the surface. In the first few hours of bombing, the headquarters of the city's air defenses were bombed. Stalingrad was enveloped in dense, volcano-like black clouds of smoke that stretched 3,500 meters into the sky; the destruction was monumental and complete as the entire city was put on fire and Soviet families either
Military organization
Military organization or military organisation is the structuring of the armed forces of a state so as to offer such military capability as a national defense policy may require. In some countries paramilitary forces are included in a nation's armed forces, though not considered military. Armed forces that are not a part of military or paramilitary organizations, such as insurgent forces mimic military organizations, or use ad hoc structures, while formal military organization tends to use hierarchical forms; the use of formalized ranks in a hierarchical structure came into widespread use with the Roman Army. In modern times, executive control and administration of military organization is undertaken by governments through a government department within the structure of public administration known as a Ministry of Defense, Department of Defense, or Department of War; these in turn manage Armed Services that themselves command formations and units specialising in combat, combat support and combat-service support.
The civilian or civilian executive control over the national military organization is exercised in democracies by an elected political leader as a member of the government's Cabinet known as a Minister of Defense. Subordinated to that position are Secretaries for specific major operational divisions of the armed forces as a whole, such as those that provide general support services to the Armed Services, including their dependants. There are the heads of specific departmental agencies responsible for the provision and management of specific skill- and knowledge-based service such as Strategy advice, Capability Development assessment, or Defense Science provision of research, design and development of technologies. Within each departmental agency will be found administrative branches responsible for further agency business specialization work. In most countries the armed forces are divided into three or four Armed services: army and air force. Many countries have a variation on the standard model of four basic Armed Services.
Some nations organize their marines, special forces or strategic missile forces as independent armed services. A nation's coast guard may be an independent military branch of its military, although in many nations the coast guard is a law enforcement or civil agency. A number of countries have no navy, for geographical reasons; some other variations include: Bangladesh: Army, Air Force, Border Guards, Coast Guard Brazil: Army, Air Force, Firefighters Chile: Army, Air Force, National Police Croatia: Army, Air Force and Air Defence Egypt: Army, Air Force, Air Defense France: Army, Air Force, National Guard Greece: Army, Air Force Germany: Army, Air Force, Joint Support Service, Joint Medical Services Hungary: Army, Air Force India: Army, Air Force, Strategic Forces Command, Coast Guard, Paramilitary Forces Indonesia: Army, Air Force, Marines Iran: Army, Air Force and Air Defense Force, Revolutionary Guard Italy: Army, Air Force, Military Police Japan: Japan Ground Self Defense Force, Japan Maritime Self Defense Force, Japan Air Self Defense Force Latvia: Land Forces, Naval Forces, Air Force, National Guard Netherlands: Army, Air Force, Gendarmerie Norway: Army, Air Force, Home Guard, Cyber Defence Force Pakistan: Army, Air Force, Frontier Corps, Pakistan Coast Guard, Maritime Security Agency, Gilgit Scouts, Pakistan National Guard, Airports Security Force, Frontier Constabulary, National Command Authority Philippines: Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard Poland: Land Forces, Air Force, Special Forces, Territorial Defence Force People's Republic of China: Army, Air Force, Strategic Rocket Force, Strategic Support Force, People's Armed Police Republic of China: Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, Reserve Force, Military Police Russian Federation: Ground Forces, Aerospace Forces plus three independent arms of service South Africa: Army, Air Force, Military Health Service Spain: Army, Air Force, Civil Guard, Emergencies Unit, Royal Guard Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka Army, Sri Lanka Navy, Sri Lanka Air Force, Sri Lanka Civil Security Force Turkey: Land Forces, Air Force, Naval Forces, Coast Guard, War Academies United States: Army, Air Force, Coast Guard United Kingdom: Army, Air Force, Marines Venezuela: Army, Air Force, National Guard, National Militia Vietnam: Ground Force, Air Force, Border Guard, Coast GuardIn larger armed forces the culture between the different Armed Services of the armed forces can be quite different.
Most smaller countries have a single organization that encompasses all armed forces employed by the country in question. Third-world armies tend to consist of infantry, while first-world armies tend to have larger units manning expensive equipment and only a fraction of personnel in infantry units, it is worthwhile to make mention of the term joint. In western militaries, a joint force is defined as a unit or formation comprising representation of combat power from two or more branches of the military. Gendarmeries, including equivalents such as Internal Troops, Paramilitary Forces and similar, are an internal security service common in most of the world, but uncommon in Anglo-Saxon countries where civil police are employed to enforce the law, there are tight restrictions on how the armed forces may be used to assist, it is common, at least in the European and Nort
Kingdom of Romania
