Quote Originally Posted by antillies View Post
That seems plausible, but would you happen to have a source on that?
Not right off the top of my head. Something I remember from reading WWII histories. Could be misremembering it, but I don't think so.

Quote Originally Posted by antillies View Post
It just seems a bit odd to me that units would be labeled specifically to indicate they are a combined arms unit, when most units were (and are) inherently combined arms (take the 5th Guards Tank Division; it, like most Soviet armored divisions, had tanks, infantry, artillery, and other support units operating in cooperation).
They're ad hoc feild formations, akin tothe German kampfgruppe, US RCT or task force, or Brit's battlegroup,on a larger scale. The difference is that a standard tank division, for example, is tank heavy 3 tank rgmts and 1 infantry rgmt, all part of the same division. A command would be more balanced, using a mix of of subunits from different divisions, dictated by necessities of the operation and what was available in the feild. Maybe a couple tank rgmts from this division, an motor rifle rgmt from that division, anda motorized rifle rgmt from a completely different division.

Looking at it again, however, I suspect that the GDs were simply using the term in a non-standard manner.