RCW military organization.

[WarlordFish]

Does anyone have any idea how the Reds and the Whites organized their forces during the civil war? All I've ever been able to find in my own reading and research are numbers on over all manpower sizes from different periods during the conflict. I'd love to know how each side organized their basic fighting units, how many men were in a Red Guard squad, or a White Officer squad, or what have you. But I'm slowly coming to the opinion that this information just doesn't exist, if because documents recording this information have never been translated, or if because there never was any formal standardization of fighting men during the war.

If anyone has any ideas I'm all ears. I'm trying to organize my pending RCW project and for some unhealthy reason I'm trying to organize my squads as "realistically" as possible. I can find plenty of information on how US, French, British, and German squads and companies and brigades were organized through out the entirety of the Great War, but the best I can find on the Russians during their civil war can be summarized with "there was a lot of em and some of them had guns"

[Mark Plant]

At squad level, it was whatever they had. Given that whole divisions might number a 2,000 men and everyone was short on equipment and commanders/officers (except the VA with too many), the "paper" versions of the lower organisational charts were rarely enforced.

The information definitely exists somewhere. I've never bothered to find them though, as my interest stops at companies.

[Alexander Kutepov]

If Mark is not interested in that information, then Cuprum might have it. That said you might want to have battalions consisting of companies as the basic unit for movement and fighting purposes. I'm working on a combined 6mm (Bayonet, Saber, Mgs) 2mm (terrain, artillery, armor) for the 1919 battle of Orel.

[John Boadle]

I agree with Mark Plant, there was nothing consistent or meaningful at the level of squads on either side in this period. There is nothing to indicate that the men of a (typically extremely understrength) platoon or company were even normally organised into squads as such.  The tactics that existed operated at higher levels than this. The period just isn't suitable for wargaming at the level of squads, imho. There are a lot of fascinating aspects to the RCW, but I think you would have to go for a higher level of game and/or a level of abstraction.

[WarlordFish]

Alrighty, you guys have pretty well confirmed what I already assumed was the case. This is both good and bad, as it gives me carte blanche to organize my project as I see fit and with the resources I have at my disposal. That still though leaves me with a conundrum in where to start.

Now unfortunately I'm not building a small scale project where I have the liberty to work in companies, platoons, or battalions, as I'm using 28mm minis and am not nearly crazy enough to make 28mm companies. I'm also using FFoL Bigger Battles and Beyond the Empire as my rules which both give me an incredible amount of flexibility in how I choose to organize my toy soldiers.

That being said I'm still not too sure where to start. My foundation is very simple: more Reds than Whites with the Reds being poorer quality (save for Cheka and Sailors) than the Whites. Other than that, if anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears.

[Alexander Kutepov]

You could use each figure as its own company. Depending on the front you could use up to four miniatures per battalion for whites (Imperial Russian Army Standard) and three for most 1919-20 Bolsheviks IIRC. Nationalists, Anarchists, Germans are more speculative maybe one to three miniatures (companies) per battalion. But keep in mind that all armies of this time counted unit strength and quality differently. Mark Plant goes into depth on this topic on his site. So, the long and short of it is best to have a Regiment made up of Battalions consisting of Companies.

[Mark Plant]

I think companies/squadrons are the best base for an RCW game. It was the standard unit of manouevre.

This also allows you to mix different troops types with a semblance of reality. Units of sailors and red conscripts, say, didn't really mix below about battalion. Likewise a cavalry squadron might assist infantry, but a platoon wouldn't very often.

[Dr Bogo]

We generally use a rough 1:10 figure ratio, with 10-man units representing company-sized regular formations, 8-12 cavalry figures for squadrons, and larger units for irregular formations. This can be and is flexed depending on the scenario though, for more 'Pulpy' games it can be pushed down to 1:5 or even 1:1.

[armchairgeneral]

My Osprey Combat 11, WW1 Russians vs Germans, gives a Russian platoon at 55 with 4 squads, giving a squad at about 10 - 12? Maybe the Reds and Whites would have stuck with this as far as they could? There were 4 platoons to a company and 4 companies to a battalion. So a unit of 10 figures can represent anything you want if the Reds and Whites stuck with this organisation.

[thestoats]

@armchairgeneral even before the February Revolution the Russian army was transitioning to a triangular form of organization, so I doubt that the Reds and Whites, whose armies were in an even more pitiful state, would revert to an organization more intensive on logistics.

[cuprum]

In the initial period of the war, a “squad” system operated on all opposing sides, in which spontaneously organized units fought among themselves. And of course there was no talk of any strict organizational structure. All the so-called companies, battalions, regiments and even divisions were just conventions.
As the war progressed, the structure became more or less streamlined. In the Red Army it was a division of three brigades, each with three regiments. But the number of these units could seriously change over time, either drying out as a result of losses, or returning to normal as a result of replenishments.
I think you can use the standard army structure, just some of your battalions you can proudly call regiments, and companies - battalions.