Myanmar Army

Myanmar Army
တပ်မတော် (ကြည်း)  (Burmese) lit. 'Tatmadaw (Kyi)' 'Armed Forces (Army)'
Emblem of the Myanmar Army[a][1]
Founded	1945 (1945)
Country	Myanmar
Type	Army
Role	Ground warfare
Size	Active personnel: 150,000[2] Reserve personnel: 20,000[3] Paramilitary personnel: 55,000[4] Draftees: ~30,000 (estimates of the ninth batch of the service) Reserves: Border Guard Forces (23 battalions)[5] People's militia groups (46 groups)[5] University Training Corps (5 corps)[6]
Part of	Myanmar Armed Forces
Nickname(s)	Tatmadaw (Kyi)
Motto(s)	ရဲသော်မသေ၊ သေသော်ငရဲမလား။ ("If you are brave, you will not die, and if you die, hell will not come to you.") ရဲရဲတက်၊ ရဲရဲတိုက်၊ ရဲရဲချေမှုန်း။ ("Bravely charge, bravely fight, and bravely annihilate.") လေ့လာပါ၊ လေ့ကျင့်ပါ၊ လိုက်နာပါ။ ("Study, Practice and Follow Up.") တပ်မတော်အင်အားရှိမှ တိုင်းပြည်အင်အားရှိမည်။ ("Only when the military is strong will the nation be strong.") အသက်သွေးချွေး စဉ်မနှေးပေးဆပ်သည်မှာတပ်မတော်ပါ။ ("Never hesitating always ready to sacrifice blood and sweat is the Tatmadaw.)" တပ်နှင့်ပြည်သူမြဲကြည်ဖြူ သွေးခွဲလာသူတို့ရန်သူ။ ("Military and the people join in eternal unity, anyone attempting to divide them is our enemy.") တစ်သွေးတည်း၊ အသံတစ်သံ၊ အမိန့်တစ်ခု။ ("One blood, one voice, one command.") တပ်မတော်သည်အမျိုးသားရေးကိုဘယ်တော့မှသစ္စာမဖောက်။ ("The military shall never betray the national cause.") တပ်နှင့်ပြည်သူ လက်တွဲကူပြည်ထောင်စုဖြိုခွဲသူမှန်သမျှချေမှုန်းကြ။ ("Military and the people, cooperate and crush all those harming the union.") စည်းကမ်းရှိမှတိုးတက်မည်။ (Only when there is discipline will there be progress.") အမိနိုင်ငံတော်ကိုချစ်ပါ။ ဥပဒေကိုလးစားပါ။ ("Love your motherland. Respect the law.")
Colours	Olive green   Light green   Red   Desert
Anniversaries	27 March 1945
Engagements	Indochina theater of World War II Burma campaign Japanese invasion Allies recapture Internal conflict in Myanmar Rohingya conflict Kuomintang invasion Communist insurgency Karen conflict Battle of Insein Maw Pokay incident Siege of Manerplaw Battle of Kawmoora Border skirmishes Kachin conflict 2009 Kokang incident 2015 Kokang offensive Muse offensive Conflict in Rakhine State (2016–present) Operation Sunrise (2019) Myanmar civil war (2021–present) Chin theater Battle of Mindat Battle of Thantlang Battle of Loikaw (2021) Battle of Loikaw (2022) Operation 1027 Battle of Laukkai Battle of Maungdaw Operation Taungthaman Rakhine offensive Kachin offensive(2024) Battle of Kawkareik Siege of Myawaddy
Commanders
Commander-in-Chief (Army)	Senior General Min Aung Hlaing
Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services and Commander-in-Chief (Army)	Vice-Senior General Soe Win
Spokesperson of the Commander-in-Chief (Army)	Major General Zaw Min Tun
Notable commanders	Major General Aung San[7] General Ne Win[8] General Bo Let Ya[9] Lieutenant General Smith Dun[10] General Kyaw Htin[11] General San Yu[12] General Thura Tin Oo[13][14] General Khin Nyunt Vice-Senior General Maung Aye[15] Vice-Senior General Soe Win[16] Senior General Saw Maung Senior General Than Shwe Senior General Min Aung Hlaing
Insignia
Flag of the Myanmar Army
Shoulder sleeve of Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Army
Shoulder sleeve infantry and light infantry
Former flag (1948–1994)

The Myanmar Army (Burmese: တပ်မတော်(ကြည်း); pronounced [taʔmədɔ̀ tɕí]) is the largest branch of the Tatmadaw, the armed forces of Myanmar. It is responsible for land-based military operations. The Myanmar Army is the second largest active military force in Southeast Asia after the People's Army of Vietnam. Since 1948, it has fought against ethnic and political insurgents in Myanmar.^[17]

The army is led by the Commander-in-Chief of Myanmar Army, currently Vice-Senior General Soe Win. The overall head of the armed forces is Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who holds the rank of Senior General, which is similar to a field marshal. Major General Zaw Min Tun is the official spokesperson for the army.^[18]

In 2011, the Myanmar Army introduced a military draft. All men aged 18–35 and women aged 18–27 can serve two years as enlisted soldiers during national emergencies. Professionals may serve up to three years as officers, with age limits of 45 for men and 35 for women. Military spending in 2011 was about 1.8 trillion kyat (US$2 billion), or 23.6% of the national budget.^[19]

The Myanmar Army is the largest branch of the military and receives most of the defense budget. Its basic unit is the battalion (Tat Yinn), which includes:

• Headquarters company (medical, transport, logistics, signals)

• Four rifle companies (Tat Khwe), each with three platoons (Tat Su)

•Heavy weapons company (mortars, machine guns, recoilless guns)

Battalions are led by lieutenant colonels, with majors as deputies. Light infantry battalions are smaller, usually around 500 soldiers.

Bureaus of Special Operations (BSO)

The BSO are high-level army units like field armies. They coordinate multiple regional commands. The first BSO was formed in 1978. Currently, there are six BSOs overseeing different regions of Myanmar.

Regional Military Commands

The army is organized into Regional Military Commands (RMCs), similar to corps in Western armies. Each RMC manages infantry, light infantry, artillery, and armoured units.^[20] Examples of RMCs in 2010 include:

Regional Military Command (RMC)	Badge	States & Regions	Headquarters	Strength[21]	Notes
Northern Command (မြောက်ပိုင်းတိုင်းစစ်ဌာနချုပ်)		Kachin State	Myitkyina	46 Infantry Battalions plus an additional 3 Battalions as Border Guard Force units
Northeastern Command (အရှေ့မြောက်ပိုင်းတိုင်းစစ်ဌာနချုပ်)		Northern Shan State	Lashio	45 Infantry Battalions	Captured by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army on 3 August 2024. With ceasefire deal brokered by China, MNDAA forces retreated and Tatmadaw forces re-entered into city in 17 April.[22]
Eastern Command (အရှေ့ပိုင်းတိုင်းစစ်ဌာနချုပ်)		Southern Shan State and Kayah State	Taunggyi	35 Infantry Battalions plus an additional 2 Battalions as Border Guard Force units
Southeastern Command (အရှေ့တောင်တိုင်းစစ်ဌာနချုပ်)		Mon State and Kayin State	Mawlamyine	56 Infantry Battalions plus an additional 13 Battalions as Border Guard Force units
Southern Command (တောင်ပိုင်းတိုင်းစစ်ဌာနချုပ်)		Bago and Magwe Regions	Toungoo	32 Infantry Battalions
Western Command (အနောက်ပိုင်းတိုင်းစစ်ဌာနချုပ်)		Rakhine State and Chin State	Ann	43 Infantry Battalions	Captured by the Arakan Army on 20 December 2024. 33 Battalions have been captured by the National Resistance by the end of 2024
Southwestern Command (အနောက်တောင်တိုင်းစစ်ဌာနချုပ်)		Ayeyarwady Region	Pathein	11 Infantry Battalions
Northwestern Command (အနောက်မြောက်တိုင်းစစ်ဌာနချုပ်)		Sagaing Region	Monywa	49 Infantry Battalions
Yangon Command (ရန်ကုန်တိုင်းစစ်ဌာနချုပ်)		Yangon Region	Mayangone Township-Kone-Myint-Thar	41 Infantry Battalions
Coastal Region Command (ကမ်းရိုးတန်းတိုင်းစစ်ဌာနချုပ်)		Tanintharyi Region	Myeik	45 Infantry Battalions
Triangle Region Command (တြိဂံတိုင်းစစ်ဌာနချုပ်)		Eastern Shan State	Kyaingtong (Kengtung)	40 Infantry Battalions plus an additional 4 Battalions as Border Guard Force units
Central Command (အလယ်ပိုင်းတိုင်းစစ်ဌာနချုပ်)		Mandalay Region	Mandalay	25 Infantry Battalions
Naypyidaw Command (နေပြည်တော်တိုင်းစစ်ဌာနချုပ်)		Naypyidaw	Pyinmana	Formed in 2006 – 18 Infantry Battalions
Eastern Central Command (အရှေ့အလယ်ပိုင်းတိုင်းစစ်ဌာနချုပ်)		Middle Shan State	Kholam[23]	Formed in 2011 – 31 Infantry Battalions

Commanders of Regional Military Commands

Regional Military Command (RMC)	Established	First Commander	Current Commander	Notes
Eastern Command	1961	Brigadier General San Yu	Major General Zaw Min Latt	Initially in 1961, San Yu was appointed as Commander of Eastern Command but was moved to NW Command and replaced with Col. Maung Shwe then.
Southeastern Command	1961	Brigadier General Sein Win	Brigadier General Soe Min	In 1961 when SE Command was formed, Sein Win was transferred from former Southern Command but was moved to Central Command and replaced with Thaung Kyi then.
Central Command	1961	Colonel Thaung Kyi	Major General Kyi Khaing	Original NW Command based at Mandalay was renamed Central Command in March 1990 and original Central Command was renamed Southern Command
Northwestern Command	1961	Brigadier General Kyaw Min	Major General Than Htike	Southern part of original Northwestern Command in Mandalay was renamed Central Command in March 1990 and northern part of original NW Command was renamed NW Command in 1990.
Southwestern Command	1961	Colonel Kyi Maung	Brigadier General Wai Linn	Kyi Maung was sacked in 1963 and was imprisoned a few times. He became Deputy Chairman of NLD in the 1990s.
Yangon Command	1969	Colonel Thura Kyaw Htin	Major General Zaw Hein	Formed as Naypyidaw Command in 1963 with deputy commander and some staff officers from Central Command. Reformed and renamed Yangon Command on 1 June 1969.
Western Command	1969	Colonel Hla Tun	Brigadier General Kyaw Swar Oo
Northeastern Command	1972	Colonel Aye Ko	Major General Soe Tint
Northern Command	1947	Brigadier Ne Win	Brigadier General Aung Zaw Htwe	Original Northern Command was divided into Eastern Command and NW Command in 1961. Current Northern Command was formed in 1969 as a part of reorganisation and is formed northern part of previous NW Command
Southern Command	1947	Brigadier Saw Kya Doe	Brigadier General Kyi Theik	Original Southern Command in Mandalay was renamed Central Command in March 1990
Triangle Region Command	1996	Brigadier General Thein Sein	Major General Aung Khaing Win	Thein Sein later became Prime Minister and elected as president in 2011
Coastal Region Command	1996	Brigadier General Thiha Thura Thura Sit Maung	Major General Soe Min
Naypyidaw Command	2005	Brigadier Wei Lwin	Major General Saw Than Hlaing
Eastern Central Command	2011	Brigadier Mya Tun Oo	Major General Myo Min Tun

Each RMC reports to a Bureau of Special Operations for coordination.^[24]

• 14 × Regional Military Commands (RMC) organised in 6 Bureau of Special Operations (BSO)
• 6 × Regional Operations Commands (ROC)
• 20 × Military Operations Commands (MOC) including 1 × Airborne Infantry Division
• 10 × Light Infantry Divisions (LID)
• 5 × Armoured Operation Commands (AOC) (Each with 6 Tank Battalions and 4 Armoured Infantry Battalions (IFVs/APCs).)
• 10 × Artillery Operation Commands (AOC) (with of 113 Field Artillery Battalions)
• 9 × Air Defence Operation Commands
• 1 × Missile Operation Commands
• 40+ × Military Affairs Security Companies (MAS Units replaces former Military Intelligence Units after the disbandment of the Directorate of Defence Service Intelligence (DDSI))
• 45 × Advanced Signal Battalions
• 54 × Field Engineer Battalions
• 4 × Armoured Engineer Battalions
• 14 × Medical Battalions^[25]

• Ne Win
• Than Shwe
• Min Aung Hlaing
• Khin Nyunt
• Aung San
• Zaw Min Tun (general)
• Tatmadaw

• Samuel Blythe, 'Army conditions leave Myanmar under strength,' Jane's Defence Weekly, Vol. 43, Issue 14, 5 April 2006, 12.
• Beech, Hannah (4 April 2021). "Inside Myanmar's Army: 'They See Protesters as Criminals'". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 April 2021.

• Role of officers in Burmese Army (Part 1) Archived 25 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine Bo Htet Min, Mizzima, 23 January 2010