OMSBON - Independent Special Purpose Motorized Brigade

The program of combat training included instruction in firing from various types of weapons, combat tactics, topography, orientation skills, demolitions skills, hand-to-hand combat, unarmed self defense, parachuting, radio communications, automobile and motorcycle driving, and first aid. Special attention was devoted to survival skills and the struggle in the austere partisan environment, and the ability to operate alone.Much time was given to physical hardening of the soldiers. The training of junior leaders, demolition instructors (534 demolition instructor specialists and 5,255 demolition specialists were trained), parachutists (more than 3,000 persons were trained in parachute skills), radio operators, and mine specialists was organized.

The insertion of OMSBON special detachments into the enemy rear was accomplished by pilots of the 101st Long Range Aviation Regiment, commanded by Hero of the Soviet Union V. S. Grizodubova [female]. They executed landings at partisan airfields, transferred wounded soldiers, women and children, German documents captured by agents and underground agents, and captured German officers to Moscow. It was normal for the pilots of this regiment and the OMSBON aviation detachment to make a flight across the front line of 1,000 kilometers or more. The radio school and the communications company trained male and female radio operators for the maintenance of radio communications with the Center and front headquarters, and performance of independent tasks. Thus, a former student of the history department of MIFLI, radio operator G. N. Yefimova, performed missions over the course of a year in fascist-occupied Novorossiysk.

Political preparation occupied a large place in the training of OMSBON personnel.the brigade newspaper Victory for Us was published. Its first issue appeared on 7 November 1941. The editor was A. G. Trugmanov, a journalist who worked on the newspapers Izvestiya and Komsomolskaya Pravda, and on All-Union radio. The verses of OMSBON men S. P. Gudzenko and Yu. D. Levitanskiy, the articles of I. Yu. Davidov, and the cartoons of O. I. Tsinovskiy (now a merited artist of the RSFSR) with captions by brigade poets were printed in the newspaper. Their satirical posters were popular.Many of them later found their way from the pages of division newspapers to the boards of TASS windows, and some even into special publications. V. M. Kozhevnikov, A. A. Surkov, A. T. Tvardovskiy, I. G. Ehrenburg, and D. Ibarruri appeared on the newspaper pages. Brigade fighting men, commanders, and political workers were its main correspondents. On 12 February 1942, «Pravda» specially noted the experience of the work of the Red Army newspaper Victory for Us.

In late August 1941, OMSBON began the insertion of special detachments and special groups into the enemy rear. The detachment Combat of V. L. Neklindov was one of the first to cross the front line. A raid into the enemy's rear of D. N. Medvedev's detachment Mitya, lasting many months, began almost simultaneously. The foundations of the future Bryansk partisan territory were partially laid by its combat activities and political work (commissar G. N. Kulakov). The detachment conducted dozens of successful combat operations, and in January 1942, having grown tenfold, returned to Moscow. On 12 February of the same year, Pravda wrote: «The partisan detachment commanded by D. Medvedev has returned from the deep rear area. This detachment traversed the territory occupied by the enemy for four months, and during this time accomplished more than a few glorious deeds.» The participants of this raid subsequently made up the core of D. N. Medvedev's new detachment- «Pobediteli» [Victors] led by commissar S. T. Stekhov, which operated in the Ukraine for two years. Afterwards, the commander told about the affairs of both detachments in his books «Sil'nyye dukhom» and «Eto bylo pod Rovno». The legendary agent N. I. Kuznetsov fulfilled the tasks of the Motherland as a member of Pobediteli in 1942–44. The formation of other detachments and groups took place as well in the fall of 1941.

In October 1941, when Moscow was declared to be in a state of siege, OMSBON temporarily became part of the garrison of the capital, and participated in combat activities in the Moscow environs. On the night of 16 October 1941, both OMSBON regiments, which had been deployed in the Mytishchin and Pushkin districts, were put on alert and redeployed to Moscow. The brigade headquarters received to order «Prepare to defend the area of Sverdlov, Red, Mayakovskiy, and Pushkin Squares..., upholding revolutionary order in the surrounding streets.» The brigade's soldiers prepared to defend the sector: Dzerzhinskiy Square to «Moscow-3» rail station of the Yaroslav Railroad; and Pushkin Square to the Krasnaya Presnya rail station of the Western Railroad. OMSBON conducted patrols, participated in the construction of defensive lines, in the preparation of important facilities for demolition, and carried out reconnaissance and diversionary activities in the territory of Moscow, Kalinin, Tula, and Ryazan areas.

On October 1941, the Military Council of the Moscow Defense Zone adopted a decision concerning the construction of a continuous barrier zone in the outlying areas of Moscow. OMSBON played a specific role in this. Major M. N. Shperov's composite detachment of 1,100 men (11 detachments) was attached to the Western Front, and participated in the creation of minefields on the Mozhaysk, Naro-fomin, Tula, Podol'sk, Volokalamsk, and Ostapov axes, the southern sector of the Kalinin Front, and in the regions Klin to Solnechnogorsk and Rogachev to Dmitrov. In the October to November 1941 period, OMSBON prepared 67 kilometers of highway and 19 bridges for demolition, planted 12,000 antitank and 8,000 anti-personnel mines, and 160 large explosive charges. Thirty enemy tanks, twenty armored vehicles, sixty-eight troop carriers, nineteen light vehicles with officers, and fifty-three motorcycles were blown up on these obstacles. On 7 November 1941, brigade forces participated in a parade on Red Square. From there, the path of the composite detachment once again lay straight to the front line.