"Russo-Turkish War 1768-1774" Topic

I have been watching Ekaterina on Amazon and I'm intrigued with the Russo-Turkish war of 1768 to 1774. I have the usual questions. What was the organization of the Russian army? Were grenadiers brigaded separately from Musketeers if so in what ratio of musketeers to grenadiers? What about cavalry? Russian possessed the standard 18th century cavalry types: cuirassiers, dragoons and hussars as well as I'm assuming Cossacks. Was there a need for heavy cavalry when fighting the Ottomans? Could 7 Years War Russian figures be used for this conflict?
Thanks,
Andrew

A fairly obscure period without a lot of scholarship in the English language. I, too, have found it quite fascinating.

"The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774; Catherine II and the Ottoman Empire" by Brian L. Davies is useful, but not definitive wrt orders of battle and particular battles.

The Russians did brigade their grenadiers during most of the major battles of this war. Also formed units of "light troops" screening advancing brigade squares. Dragoons formed the majority of Russian cavalry, but units of mounted Moldovan and Ukrainian volunteers were often used on the flanks of the battle line.

I decided to game this period in 54mm, using the rules by "All The King's Men."

Here's a link to a blog with several battle reports of games involving the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774.

zodanga.blogspot.com

I have Brian L Davies book and wrote a review on it, see link below.

Chapter 4 covers the Russian army from mid centaury and includes the changes underway at the start of Catherine's Turkish War.
The cavalry in particular was still in a bit of a mess.
I agree that the grenadiers were brigaded together but I am not sure if it was all of the time, I have them separate in my army.
"Besides a fifth company of grenadiers in certain regiments, Rumiantsev established separate four company grenadiers and Jaeger battalions"

Page 125 August 1769 attack on Khotin: 1st Army consisted of
2 cuirassier regiments
12 carabinier
5 hussar
3 grenadier
27 line inf
6000 don cossacks
3000 ukrainian cossacks
unknown qty of moldavian arnauts
100 field guns
10 small unicorns
32 regimental guns

My 15mm army for this period uses 7YW figures however there is a change when Potemkin gets his hands on the army later on and they get issued with different uniforms and silly hats/helmets.

As for Dragoons, I an really very unsure over this, in my army I have mainly Dragoons but the book clearly states that after analysing the 7YW experiences that they wanted to increase the ratio of heavy cavalry. The six regiments of Horse grenadiers were scrapped and combined with 13 of the 20 Dragoon regiments to form 19 regiments of carbiniers.

I saw this as being virtually Dragoons but a bit heavier than previously.

link

Christopher Duffy's Russia's Way to the West