Myanmar Army

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.

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.

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.

### British and Japanese rule

In the 1930s, several Burmese organizations, including Dobama Asiayone, wanted independence from British rule. Thakin Aung San and 29 others, known as the “30 Comrades”, trained under the Japanese army. They formed the Burmese Independence Army (BIA), which later became the Burmese Defense Army (BDA). After World War II, they briefly became the Patriotic Burmese Force (PBF) under British control.

### Post-Independence Era

When Myanmar gained independence in 1948, the army was small and divided. It was reorganized by merging the British Burma Army and Patriotic Burmese Forces. Early units were often based on ethnicity, including battalions for Bamar, Karen, Kachin, Chin, and Gurkha soldiers.

## Organisation

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.

### Expansion and Modernisation

Since 1988, the army has increased its personnel, weapons, and mobility. It added armoured and artillery units, including T-69II tanks and armoured personnel carriers. The army became stronger in conventional warfare and jungle operations.

### 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. Examples of RMCs in 2010 include:

|Regional Military Command (RMC)|Badge|States & Regions|Headquarters|Strength|Notes||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|Northern Command ()||Kachin State|Myitkyina|46 Infantry Battalions plus an additional 3 Battalions as Border Guard Force units|||
|Northeastern Command ()||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.||
|Eastern Command ()|||Southern Shan State and Kayah State|Taunggyi|35 Infantry Battalions plus an additional 2 Battalions as Border Guard Force units||
|Southeastern Command ()||Mon State and Kayin State|Mawlamyine|56 Infantry Battalions plus an additional 13 Battalions as Border Guard Force units|||
|Southern Command ()||Bago and Magwe Regions|Toungoo|32 Infantry Battalions|||
|Western Command ()||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 ()||Ayeyarwady Region|Pathein|11 Infantry Battalions|||
|Northwestern Command ()||Sagaing Region|Monywa|49 Infantry Battalions|||
|Yangon Command ()||Yangon Region|Mayangone Township-Kone-Myint-Thar|41 Infantry Battalions|||
|Coastal Region Command ()||Tanintharyi Region|Myeik|45 Infantry Battalions|||
|Triangle Region Command ()|||Eastern Shan State|Kyaingtong (Kengtung)|40 Infantry Battalions plus an additional 4 Battalions as Border Guard Force units||
|Central Command ()||Mandalay Region|Mandalay|25 Infantry Battalions|||
|Naypyidaw Command ()||Naypyidaw|Pyinmana|Formed in 2006 – 18 Infantry Battalions|||
|Eastern Central Command ()|||Middle Shan State|Kholam|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.

### Defence academies & colleges

|Academies|Locations|
| --- | --- |
|National Defence College – NDC|Naypyidaw ()|
|Defence Services Command and General Staff College – DSCGSC|Kalaw ()|
|Defence Services Academy – DSA|Pyin U Lwin ()|
|Defence Services Technological Academy – DSTA|Pyin U Lwin ()|
|Defence Services Medical Academy – DSMA|Yangon ()|
|Military Institute of Nursing and Paramedical Science – MINP|Yangon ()|
|Military Computer And Technological Institute – MCTI (Former Military Technological College-MTC, Pyin Oo Lwin)|Hopong ()|

### Training schools

|Training Schools|Locations|
| --- | --- |
|Officer Training School (OTS)|Bahtoo Station|
|Basic Army Combat Training School|Bahtoo Station|
|1st Army Combat Forces School|Bahtoo Station|
|2nd Army Combat Forces School|Fort Bayinnaung|
|Artillery Training School|Mone Tai|
|Armour Training School|Maing Maw|
|Electronic Warfare School|Pyin U Lwin|
|Engineer School|Pyin U Lwin|
|Information Warfare School|Yangon|
|Air, Land and Paratroops Training School|Hmawbi|
|Special Forces School|Fort Ye Mon|

## Order of battle

- 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

## Related pages

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

## Further reading

- Samuel Blythe, 'Army conditions leave Myanmar under strength,' Jane's Defence Weekly, Vol. 43, Issue 14, 5 April 2006, 12.

## Other websites

- Role of officers in Burmese Army (Part 1)  Bo Htet Min, _Mizzima_, 23 January 2010

## Infobox (military unit)

- **unit name**: Myanmar Army
- **native name**:

- **image**: Shoulder Sleeve of Myanmar Army.svg
- **image size**: 160px
- **caption**: Emblem of the Myanmar Army
- **type**: Army
- **role**: Ground warfare
- **nickname**: Tatmadaw (Kyi)
- **motto**: * 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
- **battles**: *South-East Asian theatre of World War II, Indochina theater of World War II
**Burma campaign
***Burma campaign (1942–1943), Japanese invasion
***Burma campaign (1944–1945), Allies recapture
*Internal conflict in Myanmar
**Rohingya conflict
**1960–61 campaign at the China–Burma border, Kuomintang invasion
**Communist insurgency in Burma, Communist insurgency
**Karen conflict
***Battle of Insein
***Maw Pokay incident
***Fall of Manerplaw, Siege of Manerplaw
***Battle of Kawmoora
***2010–2012 Myanmar border clashes, 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 (2023–present), Rakhine offensive
***Operation 0307, Kachin offensive(2024)
****Battle of Kawkareik
****Siege of Myawaddy
- **anniversaries**: 27 March 1945
- **commander1**: Senior general (Myanmar), Senior General Min Aung Hlaing
- **commander1 label**: Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services, Commander-in-Chief (Army)
- **commander2**: Four-star rank (Myanmar), Vice-Senior General Soe Win (general), Soe Win
- **commander2 label**: Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services and Commander-in-Chief of Myanmar Army, Commander-in-Chief (Army)
- **commander4**:  Zaw Min Tun (general), Major General Zaw Min Tun
- **commander4 label**: Tatmadaw, Spokesperson of the Commander-in-Chief (Army)
- **identification symbol**:
- **identification symbol label**: Flag of the Myanmar Army
- **identification symbol 2**:
- **identification symbol 2 label**: Shoulder sleeve of Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Army
- **identification symbol 3**:
- **identification symbol 3 label**: Shoulder sleeve infantry and light infantry
- **identification symbol 4**:
- **identification symbol 4 label**: Former flag (1948–1994)