The 72nd Guards Mortar Regiment was part of the "Active Army"[clarification needed] from July 7, 1942 to February 5, 1943, and from March 14, 1944 to May 9, 1945. During the Soviet-Japanese war, the regiment operated from August 9 to September 3, 1945.[4]
After the end of the war, the regiment was reorganized as the 653rd Guards Rocket Artillery Regiment. It became the 338th Guards Rocket Artillery Brigade in the 1960s, and in the late 1980s was part of the 15th Guards Artillery Division.[5]
In 2011, the unit was presented with a new Russian battle flag and its old Soviet banner retired to the Historical Museum of the Eastern Military District.[6]
^List No. 13 Artillery, mortar, anti-aircraft machine-gun regiments and air defense regiments of the railway composition of the army during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Moscow. 1960. pp. 268, 274.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Feskov, V.I.; Golikov, V.I.; Kalashnikov, K.A.; Slugin, S.A. (2013). Вооруженные силы СССР после Второй Мировой войны: от Красной Армии к Советской [The Armed Forces of the USSR after World War II: From the Red Army to the Soviet: Part 1 Land Forces] (in Russian). Tomsk: Scientific and Technical Literature Publishing. ISBN9785895035306.