"Organization Input Brigade to Corps" Topic

Okay, for gaming, trying to decide on a fair, historical average of organization from brigade to corps. Based on my research I am thinking 4xbrigades per division, 3xdivisions per Corps.
Now before everyone reminds me I know this varies depending on year, army, battle and side. Thats why I am looking for input on what would be a good average. So do you think the above is a fair average representation across the board so to speak?? Thanks.

3 brigades per division would have been more common.

I'm with donlowry.

I don't think it is consistent enough to make any assumptions. At Chancellorsville the Confederate ANV fielded 6 infantry divisions, with 4 of those allocated to one corps and 2 being detached from another. In terms of brigades there were 1 division with 6 brigades, 2 divisions with 5 brigades, and 3 divisions with 4 brigades. Two months later at Gettysburg the Confederates fielded 9 infantry divisions in 3 corps. 1 division had 5 brigades, 7 divisions had 4 brigades a 1 division had 3 brigades. At the Wilderness a year later the ANV contained 3 corps, 2 of 3 divisions and 1 of 2 divisions. 3 divisions had 5 brigades, 3 divisions had 4 brigades and 1 division had 3 brigades and 1 division was a had 5 brigades under 4 brigade commanders.

For generic Union, I would do 4 regiments per brigade with 3 brigades per division.

Confederate divisions and corps were larger than their Union counterparts, so you need to decide if you want to factor that in, or just make both sides the same.

Union would be three Brigades. CSA could at times be different. Later in the war with the shrinkage of the
size of regiments there could be more than three brigades.

What I did was select brigades I wanted to model (Stonewall, Iron, and the like). I ended up with 6 brigades of Union and 5 of Confederate. Regiments were the basic unit and the count was 27 Union and 26 Confederate (2 regiments VMI and militia are outside of the brigade formation).

Thanks guys. I planned to give the CSA Corps more room to grow to represent the broad variety but wasn't for sure just how broad that should be.
Also trying to keep in mind that the ANV wasn't the only one the CSA had.
Also was debating how much room to give the Union for variation since I know they seemed to stay more uniform.

I'm pretty much with 79th PA, and might add "3 divisions per corps"--with all the usual hedging. ANV, more brigades per division, but generally more variation on the CSA side. If you mean this to apply to any theater and any year--well, I wouldn't. I'd either make it uniform, or pick up a few extra command stands and make it however I felt for a particular battle.

The CSA formations are just so much bigger than Union ones. A CSA Division is often as strong as an entire Union Corps.

I'd have a look at some real OOBs to get an idea (the Volley and Bayonet ACW scenario book is very helpful for this).

Gamer1: With the ANV the number of brigades in a division was dictated by perceived operational needs, and to some degree by historical accident. I am assuming it was similar in the Confederate Army of Tennessee and in the U.S. Armies of the Potomac, Tennessee and Cumberland. When you move away from these larger formations the number of brigades in an infantry division is going to be dictated by the number of brigades in the theatre.

Confederate divisions and corps were larger than their Union counterparts, so you need to decide if you want to factor that in, or just make both sides the same.

That was general true in Virginia, but not necessarily so in the West.

Union
3 brigades per division
3 divisions per corps

Confederate
4 brigades per division
2 divisions per corps in the west until 1864
3 divisions per corps in the west 1864 and onward

The east had the two giant wings under Lee (Longstreet and Jackson), so not really an average to go on. But it was 3 divisions per corps after Chancellorsville.

Thanks again for the input guys, very helpful:) Happy gaming all!!! FYI what I did and what I think I will stick with is I gave each side, more so the CSA some corps that could hold a more brigades than others to reflect how some corps in different areas would be "fatter" than others and the players would have the choice of where they wanted to use them.