A tank corps () was a type of Soviet armoured formation used during World War II. Pre-war development of Soviet mechanized forces In Soviet Russia, the so-called armored forces (броневые силы) preceded the Tank Corps. They consisted of the motorized armored units (автобронеотряды) made of armored vehicles and armored trains. The country did not have its own tanks during the Civil War of 1918–1920. In January 1918, the Red Army established the Soviet of Armored Units (Совет броневых частей, or Центробронь), later renamed to Central Armored Directorate and then once again to Chief Armored Directorate (Главное броневое управление). In December 1920, the Red Army received its first light tanks, assembled at the Krasnoye Sormovo Factory. In 1928, it began the production of the MS-1 tanks (Малый Сопровождения -1, where M stands for "small" and S – for "convoy"). In 1929, it established the Central Directorate for Mechanization and Motorization of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army. Tanks became a part of the mechanised corps at this point. During this time, and based on the experience of the Civil War with its sweeping movements of horse-mobile formations, Soviet military theorists such as Vladimir Triandafillov and Konstantin Kalinovsky elaborated the principles of combat use of armored units, which envisioned a large-scale use of tanks in different situations in cooperation with various army units. In the mid-1930s, these ideas found their reflection in the so-called Deep Operation and deep combat theories. From the second half of the 1920s, tank warfare development took place at Kazan, where the German Reichswehr was allowed to participate. In 1930, the First Mechanised Brigade had its own tank regiment of 110 tanks. In 1932, the first Mechanised Corps had over 500 tanks, and it was probably the first armoured unit of operational significance anywhere in the world. That same year, the Red Army established the Military Academy of Mechanisation and Motorisation of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army (which became the Malinovskiy Mechanised Force Academy and is today part of the Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation). In 1931–1935, the Red Army adopted light, medium, and later heavy tanks of different types. By the beginning of the 1936, it had already had four mechanised corps, six separate mechanised brigades, six separate tank regiments, fifteen mechanised regiments within cavalry divisions and considerable number of tank battalions and companies. The creation of mechanised and tank