Russia American Civil War

[10thMountain]

Hello,
       Has anyone tried gaming Russian involvement in the American Civil War? I know their navy had some ships in New York harbor during the war.
Thank you

[Hwiccee]

We have sort of and still do occasionally.

We did a 'what if' campaign based on the idea that the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 spread to become a 'World War'. Basically all of Europe joined in that war and eventually the US also intervened and sent an army to Europe.

We then thought how about doing the other way round. We started doing British and/or French intervention in the war on the side of the Confederates. Then we learnt of the Russian and Prussian support of the Union and so added them into things. These were one-off games and not some kind of campaign. The games were often based on real battles with extra or different forces. So we did the 2nd battle of Brandywine 1860 something with British fighting Union force - https://www.wfgamers.org.uk/acw-and-european-intervention/acw-battle-of-brandywine. On other occasions we added in 'foreign' armies. So we did Gettysburg but the Confederates had a British and a French 'Corps as allies and the Union had a Prussian and Russian 'Corps' as allies.

It was all very 'what if' but fun and interesting to do. We still play 'one-off' games like this but less regularly now.

Here is something we did on British/French intervention - https://www.wfgamers.org.uk/fire-and-furia-francese/british-intervention-in-acw - but nowadays we use these rules - https://www.wfgamers.org.uk/FUFF

[10thMountain]

Any possible scenarios? Any suggestions?

[Duttons Whitecoat]

Well, Russian sold its colony in Alaska to the US in 1867, and previously had a colony in California until the 1840s. So a what-if could have the Russians developing and expanding these instead of running them down, and coming into conflict with US settlers moving west and the US Army. Maybe you could have forces supporting the Confederacy in the western theatre – just a thought.

[10thMountain]

Thank you to all.

[Extrabio1947]

The Alaska scenario is a good one, since Russian colonists were already present.  As the Russian army moved south, consider what would happen when Cossacks made contact with Apaches, Sioux, or Blackfeet?

And of course, as the Russians moved down from Alaska, they stir up the Brits in Canada, still worked up over that whole Crimean affair (those nice Perry figures come to mind).

Lots to play with, here...

[Will Bailie]

If you want to look more closely at conflict on the Pacific coast:

I used to live in Esquimalt on Vancouver Island.  In 1865, the headquarters of the Royal Navy's Pacific Squadron was moved from Valparaiso, Chile to Esquimalt.  Prior to the move, earlier in the 1860s, the RN had started building facilities at Esquimalt.  The RN also maintained a significant presence in the area due to the Pig War standoff on nearby San Juan from 1859 to 1871.

The RN Pacific Fleet presence was at least partially motivated by fear of Russia - the first facilities in Esquimalt were put in place during the Crimean War.  Remember that during the Crimean War there was a failed attack by a combined British and French fleet against Petropavlovsk (in Kamchutka). 

So, if the Russians are interested in supporting the Union, and they have a recent history of conflict with the British, and there is a British RN presence, which is coincidentally engaged in a long-standing armed standoff with US troops.  Gaming a version of "Pig War gone hot" is already a fun "what-if", so why not add some Russian forces intervening on the side of the Union?

Let's see:  the Union Army and USN are present on San Juan (and of course in the Washington Territory).  The Royal Navy and Royal Marines are also present, as is local Canadian Militia, including the Victoria Pioneer Rifle Corps, an all-Black volunteer militia.  It would be easy to add a Russian Navy presence - the Imperial Russian Navy sent a flotilla of six ships to San Francisco in 1863, it would be easy for them to steam up the coast to the Straight of Georgia, or to sail over from Petropavlovsk or Vladivostok.

Just an idea!

[Hwiccee]

Clearly you could have the Russians fighting on either side in the civil war. We are talking a 'what if' situation and so anything is possible. But in reality the Russians were pro-Union, or perhaps more accurately they were anti-British and the British were pro-Confederate and they made this clear during the war. I think that actual intervention in the war by Russia was very unlikely and was only likely if Britain/France intervened on the Confederate side. They would then have the problem of how to get to America when their navy was very weak and the British/French navies were the 2 best in the world. So if Russia had intervened this would more likely have led to fighting in Europe or Asia, i.e. places the Russians could get to by land, and not in America.

This of course can be ignored in 'what-if' scenarios.

10thMountain: As I mentioned what we often did was use existing battles and switch forces. I am not sure what kind of battles you fight but we fight large battles with whole armies - i.e. not a few regiments a side but 6 Corps a side or whatever.

Generally European formations were, in theory, considerably bigger than civil war formations. A Russian infantry division was in theory about 16,000 strong and that is around the kind of size a US Corps might be. Of course the 16,000 is full strength and ir would be less, often a lot less, in practice but a Russian Corps was 3 infantry divisions and a cavalry division & so would be considerably bigger.

So generally we would swap a smaller European formation for an American formation. We might say do Gettysburg with the Confederates having French allies. So we would fight the battle as normal but instead of 3 Confederate Corps we would use 2 Confederate Corps and 1 French division. Because the Russians were not a very good army at the time we would perhaps use 2 of their divisions. So in our alternative Gettysburg instead of 7 Union Corps the players might have  6 US Corps and 2 Russian infantry divisions.

You can do the above with any real civil war engagement. You can also 're-imagine' battles from other wars. We never did this but you could perhaps do the '2nd Battle of the Alma'. The real battle of the Alma was in 1854 in the Crimea and was Russians fighting the British and French. The Russians are defending a hill protecting the route to an important city. So the 'alternative' 2nd Alma could be in 'Alma, Pennsylvania' in 1862 or 63. The Confederates, perhaps with British or French allies, have slipped past the Union army and are marching on Washington. The Russians take up position on Alma hill, Pennsylvania to block the advance for their allies and battle commences.

So in effect you are doing the real battle of Alma & would use the terrain & Russian forces. But their enemy this time would be Confederates replacing all or some of the real British and French that fought in the real battle.

Finally of course you can just do plain 'one-off' battles with so many units a side. As mentioned European units tend to be larger than America units so you would have to look at actual size rather than the name. So a Russian Regiment was, in theory, around the four times the size of an American Regiment - a Russian battalion was about the same size as an American regiment.

We used the organisation of the various nations that they used in their own wars of the era. Fr the Russians this was the Crimea war of the 1850's. This was as follows - remember the numbers are full strength and actually strength would be a lot less.

Infantry Division: These had 2 Brigades each of 2 regiments of 4 battalions of about 1000 men. So 16 battalions per division with in theory 16,000 men but perhaps 8 to 12,000 in practice.

There were usually 32 guns attached - 4 batteries of 8 guns.

Cavalry Division: These had 2 Brigades each of 2 regiments of about 1300 men. So 4 regiments per division & in theory about 5,000 men - again less in practice.

There were usually 16 guns attached - 2 batteries of 8 guns.

A Russian Corps was usually 3 Infantry divisions and 1 Cavalry division. They also had 1 Rifle battalion (about 1,000 men) per Corps.

The Russian army was not great at this time. Mostly they still used muskets, rather than rifles, and the artillery was old fashioned. They were still a 'Napoleonic' army in many ways and used old fashioned tactics.

I hope that helps