"Uniform of the Russian army that invaded USA in 1864" Topic

OK, its an imagi-nation thing – but Russia really did have quitr a few fur trading settlements along the US/Canadian west coast. Fort Ross (about an hour north of San Farncisco) was their southernmost major settlementand and was sold shortly before gold was discovered.

Anyway, the scenario is that Russia invades the US as the Civil War is raging to claim their rightful heritage (did we mention gold).

The difficult question is this – What did the Russian invasion army look like? There is information about the Crimean War, and about the 1877 Russo Turkish Wars, but what would they look like in the mid 1860's.

Also – no European nation took heavy cavalry into North America. Why not?

Re your second question, heavy cavalry requires a lot of forage and therefore will probably have difficulties unless the populations density/agricultural intensity is higher than most regions in North America; and it requires suitable terrain to conduct massed charges, also at a premium in most parts of eastern North America.

Furthermore, any overseas operation must be supported by a limited amount of shipping space. Would you rather have a regiment of cuirassiers who might come in handy twice in a campaign, or a regiment of light dragoons who would come in handy every day?

Cossacks would have been extremely useful troops in North America…

You might search for Russian uniforms worn during the "January Uprising" in Poland (1863-4).

Or here: TMP link

Jim

The reason the Americans, British and French didn't use heavy cavalry in the Eastern part of North America is because the trees (gulleys, swamps, boulders, etc) got in the way. The role of cavalry was taken over by native allies or rangers or similar. By the time the prairies was reached the enemy was not another "European" power but native Americans who had no heavy cavalry tradition and tended to avoid direct combat. I believe that the Mexicans did have "heavy" cavalry regiments in the Mexican-American war, although I'm not sure if they operated as such.

Only issue I have, yes I know it is fantasy, but Russia was the only nation in Europe to openly support the US in the Civil War. They even sent part of their fleet to the US to show this support on a goodwill tour.

True, but you could say it was a clever Russian ruse and fill the squadron ships that visited San Francisco full of marines and other troops of various kinds.

Highly plausible effort by the Russians. After the Crimea War, they put more funding into their Eastern Expansion plans. I wrote several articles back in the early 2000s on their Central Asian efforts.
Enjoy.

Thanks all, very useful. Agree re Cossacks being essential.

I don't intend to field heavies, I agree with the reasoning. Shocked that the real mission of the Goodwill Tour has been outed :D

Two interesting things I found out (probably true of other armies at this time)

1. Jaegers disappeared after the Crimean war except for a few specialist battalions. It seems that the infantry were now being trained in open order warfare so Jaegers were deemed no longer necessary (in 1877 the entire "Army of the South" of 4 Corps had 1 brigade of 4 Jaeger battalions)

2. Dragoons became mounted infantry (again) in effect. Not sure when it happened, as even though they have infantry style kepis they are still in the cavaly brigades, put with the Uhlans in 1877.

I think the obvious answer is that any Russian invaders will be whatever Russians you have whose basing and scale are compatible with your ACW armies. If you have zero Russians on hand, decide whether your next project is going to be the Crimean War or Russia's eastern conquests. This is a parallel universe, after all, so changes in Russian uniform and equipment can be varied a few years in whichever direction is most helpful.

Remember the Goodwill Tour can also be used to do recon and establish espionage and sabotage networks. (N.B. Polish and Jewish refugees may speak the right language, but are very poor prospects. Might do better with Irish or Mexicans.)

Very wise words Robert, its a big commitment to build an army that may have few opponenents.

The background is some of the guys have built 12mm Warlord Epic ACW armies, and we were kicking around the idea of "what if" the Western powers actually did get involved.

France and Britain actively supported the Confederacy for a while, Spain maybe has an interest in getting back some of its terrain, and Russia wants it's lands back. Sadly we cannot think of a reason the Austrians may get involved….

There are no Russians yet. For some reason the idea of the Russians intrigues me more than French, the obvious army to build with an eye on other opponents. It may be because I have actually been to Russian River and Fort Ross etc

Austrian involvement is easy: remember The Emperor Maximillian of Mexico is a Habsburg prince, and there were a few non-French Europeans in his army--a Belgian Legion and an "Austro-Mexican Brigade," I think. Surely a mind capable of conceiving an entire Russian invasion can find a way of ramping up these forces to however many Austrians you need! How about a replay of the Trent incident, with some zealous naval officer offending Austrian diplomats, for a start?

Robert, that is incredible! I don't suppose you could suck the Prussans in as well, in any way :D

The Warlord stuff is 13.5mm, so you need to find compatable manufacturers. Peter Pig ACW fits in with the Warlord stuff pretty well. I presume other small/true 15mm metal figures would fit in with Epic plastics.

For Russians, I would go with Crimean War uniforms.

Prussian involvement. Hmm. Do you care which side? For them to support the US, someone else with a navy would have to be on the US side--at least enough to provide transport.

But the obvious thing is a diplomatic trade-off. Remember a few years earlier Piedmontese troops are showing up in support of France and Britain in the Crimea. Piedmont has no interest in the Crimean War as such: they just want Britain and France to owe them a favor as they attempt to unify Italy a few years down the road. Possibly Bismarck could offer Napoleon III a corps in return for French neutrality in the event of a Prussian-Austrian war? For this sort of thing it doesn't have to be likely--only possible.

I think it unlikely but I have also learned never to try to second guess a Russian

I would think that the Russians could draw on their colonial troops in Asia to get a few regiments to push the boundaries of Mother Russia – plus of course as noted as many Cossacks as they could jam into a boat

For the infantry –

link

I would think about the Askari Colonial Russians

link

Robert-good thinking (We don't care about sides, just reasons to shoehorn European armies into the Civil War :) )

Frederick – good plan, some troops in that uniform would be cool. It would be far easier to ship out replacemnets from closer to their Pacific ports.

I was also thinking about Askari type troops, who maybe look a lot more like ACW troops (native dress and all that :D ) It seems there was quite a bit of political turmoil at the time that the Russians could play on. "A group of Southern sympathizers in the state made plans to secede with Oregon to form a "Pacific Republic" – maybe that's how this all starts.(There's an interesting bit of subtext around the new Russian colonisers finding common cause with those who had just been colonised by the Yanquis.)

It seems to me that by 1865 Russians would want San Fran as their main base, so the first major operation would probably be to take it.I was thinking they'd send a c Corps sized force.

Historically, Russia openly supported the Union during the ACW: link
I think a much more likely scenario involves Britain invading from the north and France invading from the south. Then Russia could come to aid of the Union, with an eye on reclaiming parts of her Northwest US territory.

For uniforms in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest, why not the same uniforms they wore when conquering Central Asia?

Nick: Excellent re: reasons to invade / who fights who.

I'm going to go with the regulars Russian Green mainly (as I like it), but was thinking of some guys in these uniforms to signify hurriedly brought over / locally recruited militia types.

I assume thos are undyed tops, wonder if they'd all dye it butternut in the Americas?

freecloud, eastern Washington and Oregon are pretty dry, so it wouldn't all be wooded terrain. Although the Central Asian uniforms look like militia, the corps sent to Central Asia were highly trained, with some of the best officers. But it's your alternative history, so go with your hunches. It would be cool to somehow get the Plains Indians involved as well as the Civil War era fort at Fort Point San Francisco, built to guard the gold shipments.

Russia plans to seize San Francisco (and the gold trade).

Plains Indians is an excellent touch!

Re Uniform colour I also want this army to interfere in European politics 1866 – 70 :)

Point taken re central asian uniform troop quality, could be "best" units.

Russia was a huge supporter of the United States. They even sent fleets to New York and San Francisco to show their support during the ACW. I don't see this war happening. More likely a dispute with Britain over the border in the Northwest. Maybe the US and Russia as allies attack the British in British Columbia. It's your dime, do as you want.

link

That's really interesting – in effect the Russian Navy provided a squadron to keep San Francisco safe, and another one for New York.

Thanks all, fascinating thread. I am building the army in 13mm Warlord Epic, as that is what we are all building the ACW armies in, and I am converting some Warlord Epic Napoleonics for the job.

I've written up my figure conversion assumptions, plus a picture of them and also showing 13mm vs some actual 15mm figs if that is useful.

link

By the way, if anyone is interested in the evolution of the Russian army over this period, I found this very interesting PhD thesis about the lessons they learned from the wars from Crimea to 1870. There are a lot of interesting snippets about the period, not just for Russian army builders

PDF link

I've used it to estimate the TO&E of a Russian army of the mid 1860's (I can't find an actual TO&E, so I interpolated btwn Crimea and Russo Turkish war)