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Miniatures Adventure => Back of Beyond => Topic started by: sepoy1857 on October 22, 2010, 11:13:22 PM

Title: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: sepoy1857 on October 22, 2010, 11:13:22 PM
Browsing through this website they list a whole myriad of units, but which ones saw the most action against the Reds? Which units would be best to paint up (as far as units that can be used for more scenarios)?

http://kolchakiya.narod.ru/uniformology_main.htm (http://kolchakiya.narod.ru/uniformology_main.htm) Loads of good info here if you have some type of online translation program like Babelfish.
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: Mark Plant on October 23, 2010, 10:49:34 AM
The most versatile mounted units out East are Orenburg Cossacks. They saw action from the start to the finish in various guises. As they were distributed around, they can reliably be mixed with anyone.

If you want "officer" cavalry, then the 1st Cavalry Division, with the Tomsk Hussars, Kazan Dragoons, Simbirsk Lancers and Ekaterinburg Lancers is as good as any. (All are 50% lance armed, the name means nothing.)
http://kolchakiya.narod.ru/uniformology/kav_units.htm

Backed by the 1 st Horse-Artillery Battalion.

Best bet for foot is some sort of Rifle unit. This unit is as good as any: http://kolchakiya.narod.ru/uniformology/Ufim_shooter_div.htm
because I know it operated for some time with Orenburg Cossacks, was in the centre of the fighting, and it held up through the great retreat. (Note that these are not those Kornilovs. They are just similarly named in honour of him.)

Rifle units generally had crimson (technically "raspberry" i.e. dark pink) distinctions, so they don't differ much. This one is basically the same:
http://kolchakiya.narod.ru/uniformology/8_Kamsk_shooter_div.htm
Its divisional cavalry was an ex-partisan unit under Shchegolikhin, if that is more to your fancy.

The Izhevsk and Votkinsk units were the longest lasting elite infantry units:
http://kolchakiya.narod.ru/uniformology/ij_vtk_rebels_02.htm
I'm not sure how much they worked with other units however.
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: Lt. Hazel on October 23, 2010, 11:30:49 AM
Thanks for the links Mark! A shame I´m not able to understand Russian  :'( :'(
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: sepoy1857 on October 23, 2010, 10:21:24 PM
Thank you Mark - very helpful. I really enjoy your Pygmy War Website.

@Lt. hazel: If you use Firefox Browser there is an add-on called Babelfish and you can translate anything. It comes in really handy. I have found so much good info in Russian using this translator.
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: Mark Plant on October 23, 2010, 11:49:16 PM
I have found that Chrome browser's built-in Google Translate is the most accurate, though I resort to Babelfish and dictionaries as well.

Sepoy, if you chose specific regiments, I'm happy to help clarify details. And Cuprum and others will probably correct any mistakes I inevitably make.  :D

I expect to add a page about the Orenburg Cossacks and their uniforms over the Christmas break. They're next on my list.
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: cuprum on October 24, 2010, 07:58:48 AM
There is such site:
http://swolkov.narod.ru/bdorg/list-num01.htm
On it the short history of the majority of white military units is stated. A site, unfortunately, only in Russian.
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: sepoy1857 on October 25, 2010, 04:59:35 AM
Thank You Cuprum! Outstanding site; I translate it with Google's Chrome translation feature (thanks to Mark for the tip on that) and it is a goldmine of information. Thanks Again. Is there similar information for Red organizations?
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: Mark Plant on October 25, 2010, 05:33:54 AM
The book Cuprum gives is an excellent resource. I have a paper copy and recommend it to anyone really into the RCW. I generally turn to a Google Translate version as my first option though, as it is much quicker.

It pays to know a few wrinkles in the translators: "shelf" is a regiment, "bellies" are plastoons (Cossacks on foot), "VSYUR" is the AFSR (i.e. Denikin's army). The most dangerous is that a few references to "division" should be battalion or demi-regiment (because the Russian words are very similar).

The similar Soviet one is their Encyclopedia of Civil War and Intervention in the USSR, but it is quite different. It goes only down to divisions without sub-units mostly but gives a more thorough potted history. I've never found an on-line version. The cavalry divisions are here: http://www.pygmywars.com/technical/orbats/redcavalry.html .
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: cuprum on October 25, 2010, 08:03:41 AM
Yes, I have a list of red military units on all fronts. But it in the form of the scanned pages and in Russian. To spread?
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: Mark Plant on October 25, 2010, 08:55:21 AM
Yes, I have a list of red military units on all fronts. But it in the form of the scanned pages and in Russian. To spread?

To what level Cuprum? Please tell me it is down to regiments!
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: cuprum on October 25, 2010, 09:10:20 AM
Unfortunately, only divisional level :-(
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: Leapsnbounds on October 26, 2010, 02:30:25 AM
Thank you the links were very helpful.  A shame that I can't read Russian.
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: sepoy1857 on October 26, 2010, 05:20:15 AM
Hi Mark
Yes I have found a lot of odd phrases: Spare shelves, bellies, Housing (?) and a few others. Figured it was just something missed in the translation, but overall it turns out pretty well with chrome. I have come up with a full list of every unit in the Northwest army in English, but I need to clean it up a bit to make it readable.

If anyone would like a copy in Open Office Doc Format just shoot me a PM with your e-mail addy and I'll send it on to you. Working on compiling the Siberian Theatre next.

@ leapsandbounds: Use an online translator like Google's Chrome Browser; it translates the entire page into English. These sights are a wealth of information.
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: Mark Plant on October 26, 2010, 07:33:44 AM
Generally it's not missed in the translation, it's just the Russian word for "Shelf" and "Regiment" is the same and sometimes the translation software guesses the wrong way. Likewise one translation option for "Corps" is "Housing" and once in a while it gets it wrong.

Plastoons were actually named for their crawling, hence the "Bellies" business. Little do they know that's one word we keep in the original.

When I auto-translate documents to store, I always keep a Russian version too. Two reasons.

If you open a stored page from your desktop, Chrome will still offer to translate. But because it is live you can track down the source of these errors by  hovering with the mouse. Proper names tend to get translated -- the town of "Orel" is the same word as "Eagle", for example -- and this helps track them back.

Also the translators are getting better and better quite fast. So by keeping the original you get to have the most up-to-date version.
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: Hammers on October 26, 2010, 08:34:04 AM
Generally it's not missed in the translation, it's just the Russian word for "Shelf" and "Regiment" is the same and sometimes the translation software guesses the wrong way. Likewise one translation option for "Corps" is "Housing" and once in a while it gets it wrong.

Plastoons were actually named for their crawling, hence the "Bellies" business. Little do they know that's one word we keep in the original.

When I auto-translate documents to store, I always keep a Russian version too. Two reasons.

If you open a stored page from your desktop, Chrome will still offer to translate. But because it is live you can track down the source of these errors by  hovering with the mouse. Proper names tend to get translated -- the town of "Orel" is the same word as "Eagle", for example -- and this helps track them back.

Also the translators are getting better and better quite fast. So by keeping the original you get to have the most up-to-date version.

Solid advice there, Mark.
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: sepoy1857 on October 26, 2010, 11:47:53 PM
Yes thanks Mark. It's an amazing age we live in.
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: Hunlion on November 11, 2010, 02:28:51 PM
Hi Guys,

you can find in the file section of Russian Civil war Yahoo groups a translation of the titles of
http://kolchakiya.narod.ru/uniformology_main.htm

You will find it in the  'Translation' folder.

Hope that help you.

Cheers

Hunlion
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: sepoy1857 on November 12, 2010, 11:02:17 PM
Hi Hunlion
Thanks! I have already translated just about all of those pages (well the ones I am interested in painting anyway) with Google Chrome.
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: Patrice on November 13, 2010, 12:33:46 PM
Thanks for these links it is very interesting (I can read the Russian alphabet and I understand a few words but not many).

I was only looking for a few infos to paint a few soldiers but I am suprised with all these.
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: sepoy1857 on November 14, 2010, 06:51:36 AM
Bonjour Patrice!
I have a lot more links on Siberia - Most are thanks to Michael (Cuprum on the Forum). I posted most of them in the "Useful Links" Sticky folder (at the bottom of the page) http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=6920.0 (http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=6920.0)

Hope these help,
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: Patrice on November 14, 2010, 11:00:01 AM
Thanks Sepoy  :)

I was only looking for some infantry regiment who would have been active in the Far East and have nice shoulder boards in any other coulour than red (as I want to recognize reds from tsarists at first sight in skirmish fighthing, so any miniature with any red sign on him will be bolshevik).

I'll look more closely at all these links, there is no hurry I still have many other figs to paint before these RCW ones.
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: sepoy1857 on November 14, 2010, 11:35:57 AM
No problem! Try these - bright blue shoulder boards;
Uniforms the 15 th Votkinsk and Izhevsk rifle divisions (1919); Izhevsk-Votkinsk Brigade Far Eastern Army (1920-1922)
http://kolchakiya.narod.ru/uniformology/ij_vtk_rebels_02.htm
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: Patrice on November 14, 2010, 12:07:15 PM
Excellent !  :)

And since a long time I have been too lazy to try to read any texts in Russian, this will encourage me to work on it again.
Title: Re: White Siberian units - which were most active?
Post by: sepoy1857 on November 14, 2010, 07:41:52 PM
Mais oui..but if you use Google Chrome Browser it will translate the page automatically from Russian to Francais for you. Enjoy!  There are also some units with Black, white, yellow, or green shoulder boards as well, but it seems most were Red-ish Raspbery.