"Russian Infantry Unit strengths in 1813" Topic

I am building the 3rd and 4th Divisions that served in the Russian Army in 1813.

There are lots of very useful lists available on the internet listing units, and in some cases indicating the number of battalions in each regiment. In the Nafziger book on Lutzen, his OOB for the May campaign state these tend to be 1 battalion strong regiments.

What I cannot get information on is what were the actual strengths of these regiments. Lieven's book indicates that the records kept by the HQ were to put it mildly, a shambles. So I am guessing that these figures just don't exist anymore.

I can have a guess at average strength ( no fun though!), but what I am thinking is that in May, the battalion would be near to full strength because the 2nd battalion and any reinforcements would immediately be absorbed, rather than a 2nd battalion be fielded.

BUT, after reading the accounts in Nafziger and Lieven's books, it seems the infantry could have been in a vey bad state, with battalions at possibly half strength.

So I am not sure which way to go with this.

I would like the TMP's thoughts on this approach please as I am limited to English language sources, all of which are secondary at best!

In February 1813 each infantry regiment could be represented by a single battalion of 350 men. Replacements were still being organised in Russia and still had to march to the front. Petre's work on 1813 contains summaries of the numbers.

I would advise caution. Unless you plan to fight a single battle over and over again to the end of time, you need to build forces in such a way that they'll work for every battle you wish to fight. Either settle on a good average, or overbuild a bit. Don't get locked into a rules system which would require you to rebase your troops for Day 2 if they took casualties on Day 1. (Don't laugh. There are some.)

von der Osten-Sacken und von Rhein, Militärisch-politische Geschichte des Befreiungskrieges im Jahre 1813, calculates (vol. IIa, p. 577 f.) for the Russian 2nd infantry corps at Großgörschen 5500 infantry men in 14 battalions (another 4 battalions – 1500 infantry men – had been detached).

This is based on a list by Bogdanovich for 25 April 1813, deducting a few hundred men for losses whoch occured since that day.

Plotho gives for 2nd May 1813: 19 battalions of 300 men each.

Bernhardi, Toll, vol. 2, p. 516 f., calculates a strength of maximum 7000 infantry men on 2nd May 1813, inlcuding the detached battalions.

Oliver – thank you, that is great information.
That confirms my gut feeling that they were well below strength and remained so until the Armistice.

This will making gaming the early campaign fascinating.

From PPH Heath's Leipzig 1813,

he has 2nd Corps being the 3rd and 4th Divs as total strength of 5200 with all the infantry and eger regiments having 2 Bn each for 24 Bn (so just over 200 per Bn). Also that their artillery was 2 position, 1 light and 2 horse batteries. This is for Oct 1813 at Leipzig.

Thank you all.

I do have access to all the Nafziger books, but as I say, the MAY 1813 lists speak of one battalion per regiment, and that is where I was focusing my question.

Thank you for the post Armistice info, but I actually have that.

Please keep the Jan – June info coming though.

I would follow Roberts advice, in Empire 60 =1 a full strength battalion should be 12 figures for a musketeer battalion, I am building for Borodino which would put them a few more than 1813. I build them 12 – 10, just use 1 of 2 for later battles, or remove a company.

I do not know where the indications of 1 battalion come from.

I checked Mr. Nafziger's sources for the May battles (Plotho, Der Kreig …. 1813 & 1814, T. 1. and Bogdanovich, …. 1813 goda). Only place where I see a callout for 1 battalion is for the "Riajsk Infantry Regiment" (Ряжский пехотный полк / Ryazhskiy pekhotnyy polk). Otherwise, I think you can take the regiments as fielding two battalions.

I am not seeing any individual strengths for the regiments or battalions, but the summary strengths for Russian formations work out to about 350-400 per battalion, as noted by other posters above. I would model them a tad larger at 432 rankers per battalion (18 files per platoon), for the reasons noted by other colleagues above. This seems to have been the target for allocation of replacements after the losses in 1812. For comparison a full strength unit was considered to be 576 rankers (24 files per platoon) and if a unit fell below 288 rankers (12 files per platoon) it was considered ready for consolidation or other removal from the order of battle. 18 files per platoon would be a natural milestone for re-staffing plans.

Contrary to French practise, the Russians did not run recruits directly into "active" battalions as replacements, without any real training except "on-the-job". The recruits being sent to the units in early 1813 were from the drafts of late 1811. There were no drafts in 1812 except for the militia ("opolchenie"), so I think that lower battalion strengths in late 1813 are more likely than in the first half of the year.

I am checking the regimental histories to see if I can get more data. So far I can confirm the structure of 3rd Division Infantry as given by Mr. Nafziger : it is the same as for 1812, except that the Selginskiy Infantry regiment has been removed (their cadres were sent back to the Russian interior to re-man with new-formed recruit battalions – and did not return to service until the siege of Modlin at the end of April).

I will come back with more if I find anything useful.

I can't help with your specific question but I'd counsel against being too precious about this.

As long as the opposing sides' units are in the correct proportions, you should end up with a playable game. This will not be the case if one side is based on establishment strengths while the other is based on campaign strengths.

I'm lucky that in doing 1 stand = 1 brigade, my Russians are fairly generic.

In the rules I use, a "brigade" means about 1500-2000 infantry, but you can change that if you need to.

Which means that for early 1813,I can either shift that ratio for both sides, or use one Russian stand to equal a whole division.

Le Breton -

Many thanks for your information. The one battalion comes from the Russian OOb for Bautzen on the USACAC website.

3rd Division: Generalmajor Count Schachafskoi
Brigade: Colonel Schilvinsky
Mourmansk Infantry Regiment (1)
Revel Infantry Regiment (1)
Tchernigov Infantry Regiment (1)

Brigade: Colonel Kapustin
20th Jager Regiment (1)
21st Jager Regiment (1)

4th Division: Generalmajor Pischnitzky
Brigade: Colonel Treffurt
Krementsoug Infantry Regiment (1)
Volhynie Infantry Regiment (1)
Riajsk Infantry Regiment (1)

Brigade: Colonel Ivanov
4th Jager Regiment (1)
34th Jager Regiment (1)
Tobolsk Infantry Regiment (1)

Interestingly, later in the same OOB are listed units with a count per regiment. This is for the 18th Division:

Brigade: Generalmajor Bernodossov
Vladimir Infantry Regiment (1)(21/502)
Dnieper Infantry Regiment (1)(23/488)

Brigade: Colonel Heidenreich
Kostroma Infantry Regiment (1)(28/482)
Tambov Infantry Regiment (1)(22/520)

Brigade: Generalmajor Karnielov
28th Jager Regiment (1)(12/527)
32nd Jager Regiment (1)(24/532)

Note that the 3rd and 4th Divisions have two brigades of three regiments rather than the conventional three brigades of two regiments. The 18th Division has the conventional organisation, albeit all three Divisions are fielding one battalion rather than two. You could consider the likelihood that 3rd and 4th Divisions were at a lower regimental strength than those in the 18th Division, hence the temporary reorganisation of three regiments per brigade rather than two.

von der Osten-Sacken und von Rhein, vol. IIb., p. 525 gives for 18th May 1813, based on Bogdanovich:

3rd Division: Generalmajor Count Schachafskoi

Colonel Kapustin
Revel Infantry Regiment (2)
20th Jager Regiment (2)
21st Jager Regiment (1)

Lt.Colonel v. Wolff
Mourmansk Infantry Regiment (2)
Tchernigov Infantry Regiment (2)

4th Division: Generalmajor Pischnitzky

Colonel Talysin
Tobolsk Infantry Regiment (2)
4th Jager Regiment (2)
34th Jager Regiment (1)

Colonel Treffurt
Volhynie Infantry Regiment (2)
Krementsoug Infantry Regiment (2)
Riga (=Riajsk?) Infantry Regiment (1)

Plotho gives only 11 battalions.

Oliver -

You can see how confusion can arise!! Two sources that contradict each other.

Allan – thanks , makes sense to me, but then Bogdanovich says there were two battalions in May…………

Some may this is a touch over the top, but I find it interesting as it shows the potential to misrepresent a force on the tabletop using various sources.My experience is that if you field units as near as possible to their real fighting strength, a lot of what you read in accounts of battles becomes clearer.

Thanks to all so far in contributing.

The 3rd and 4th Divisions together number 11 regiments, each apparently still with the cadre of one or two Bns. If Plotho is correct, his figure suggests that these puny Bns were generally combined into meaningful units as Regts. Do we have any further evidence that this was practice?

My real interest is actually in the Campaign of France the following year, by which time the strengths had again dwindled further.

laretenue – we visited Montmirail two weeks ago, and my 2018 project is to refight it in 15mm…………….

Desmondo – that's my pet battle. Its a great visit, which leaves you enough to discover for yourself. And it's perfect for Corps-level gaming.

Thinking in tabletop orbat terms, I have often wondered whether many deployed battalions by that time were actually regiments or more resembled scattered companies. I think I know what I would regard as safer on the battlefield, particularly given the raw quality of most of the manpower.

These considerations apply not just to the Russian infantry, but even more to the French line Corps.

We might pursue this further, but I don't wish to derail the thread.

laretenue – a fascinating battle in many ways. We spent 3 hours walking the southern part, tracing the attacks of the Guard. The villages are basically unchanged in size and they give you a real feel for their defensive use. The terrain is extremely challenging to recreate on the tabletop, but I am determined to try.

Your point about unit sizes and combining battalions is true, but proving this would be nice to do.

My language skills are not upto reading source material in French or Russian, so I have to rely on English secondary sources

"Plotho gives only 11 battalions."
Doesn't he say "regiments"?

I checked the regimental for the 21st Jagers. They did combine with the 20th in January, and sent their cadre home to re-build the regiment, to re-appear not in the same divsion in April. However, instead of actually combining, they had a battalion under the command of the 20th Jagers.

Very quickly, the 20/21 Jagers seem to have been reinforec by, I think, upwards of 800 liberated prisoners formed into a sort of march battalion under a Major Nazimov.

And that would give us 3 working battalins each a tad above 400 rankers, as per Osten-Sacken for May.

"Some may this is a touch over the top, but I find it interesting as it shows the potential to misrepresent a force on the tabletop using various sources …. clearer"

I agree …. and I think that to rally flesh this out is a non-trivial research effort, going regiment by regiment and battalion by battalion.

"Plotho gives only 11 battalions."

I quoted from von der Osten-Sacken und vom Rhein, without checking.

link

In Beilagen p. 119 (at the end of the book they have their own numbering), Plotho lists the 11 regiments.

On Beilagen, p. 125, he gives for Miloradovich 11 battalions of 500 men each.

Plotho gives OOB data for Lutzen on pages 111, 112 and 113. He lists nine regiments within the OOB (pages 111 and 112). A summary is provided on page 113 suggesting 19 battalions @ 300 men per battalion totalling 5700 men.
This doesn't seen right. What have I mis-read?

According to von der Osten-&c., vol. IIa, p. 578, Plothos seems to be in error here in several details concerning the ordre de bataille.

Thanks Oliver.

I am working on the Battle of Kalish (Feb 1813) at which the Russian 3rd and 4th Divisions were present. The Nafziger OB for that battle is 813BBD but I think it has some issues. Perhaps a better OB (but I have no idea where they got it) is on the Napolun website here:
link
This OB might also have issues as it lists each Russian division with only 1200 men each.
The write up on the battle on the German Wiki has some info but not much detail:
link
Yet another OB (in French this time) is here:
PDF link

I think some Napoleonic armies merged some battalions when they became understrength on campaign. So although the official record might show there are two or three or more battalions in a regiment, for any particular battle there could be less.

To reflect this and a number of other complications we base our figures on a "battalion like base". This allows us to balance the game perhaps in a more realistic manner. So today all the battalions would represent roughly 500 men. Another day maybe 400 or 700, etc.

Makes problems like this disappear.

The 27th division at Borodino had it's standard 12 battalions, at Leipzig the same division had 7 battalions.
The others dissolved to bring the remaining battalions closer to full strength.