Great War - Imperial Russian Army - III Corps

I have decided to base my Russian forces around the elements engaged at Stalluponen and Gumbinnen in 1914.

3rd Army Corps

• 25th Infantry Division
• 1st Brigade
• 97th Infantry Regiment (4 Battalions)
• 98th Infantry Regiment (4 Battalions)
• 2nd Brigade
• 99th Infantry Regiment (4 Battalions)
• 100th Infantry Regiment (4 Battalions)
• 25th Artillery Brigade (2 divisions each of 3 eight gun batteries)
• 27th Infantry Division
• 1st Brigade
• 105th Infantry Regiment (4 Battalions)
• 106th Infantry Regiment (4 Battalions)
• 2nd Brigade
• 107th Infantry Regiment (4 Battalions)
• 108th Infantry Regiment (4 Battalions)
• 27th Artillery Brigade (2 divisions each of 3 eight gun batteries)
• 3rd Cavalry Division
• 1st Brigade
• 3rd Dragoons (6 Squadrons)
• 3rd Lancers (6 Squadrons)
• 2nd Brigade
• 3rd Hussars (6 Squadrons)
• 3rd Don Cossacks (6 Squadrons)
• 3rd Horse Artillery Battalion (2 six gun batteries)
• 5th Rifle Brigade
• 17th Rifle Regiment (2 Battalions)
• 18th Rifle Regiment (2 Battalions)
• 19th Rifle Regiment (2 Battalions)
• 20th Rifle Regiment (2 Battalions)
• 5th Rifle Artillery Battalion (24 Guns in 3 eight gun batteries)
• 3rd Howitzer Artillery Battalion (1 division of 2 six gun batteries)
• Corps Troops
• 3rd Sapper Battalion
• 4th Pontoon Battalion
• 2nd Telegraph Company
• 9th Aeronautical Company 

Great-War-Eastern Front updates

The very nice people over at Pendraken have been cracking out additions to their WW1 range at a prodigious rate. So I asked Pete to pick up a largish package from Salute.  This will enable me to crack on and update both the Russian and Imperial German units to Roughly Corps sized formations.  As usual now I have read what I ordered I have no idea of the rationale behind some of the numbers so was probably suffering from word blindness at the time :)

Germans

• 1st Corps
• 150 Infantry - Rough equivalent of 50 bases (3 figs to a base) which should give me the Infantry component for 1st Infantry Division of Francois's 1st Corps.
• 6 Field Guns - Divisional Artillery for the 1st Infantry. 
• 3 Howitzers - Howitzer Battalion for the 1st Infantry

• 1st Cavalry Division
• 30 Kuirassiers - Two regiments for the 1st and 4th Cavalry Brigades.
• 30 Dragoons - One regiment the for 1st Cavalry Brigade, the other to use as Jager Zu Pferde for the 2nd Cavalry Brigade.
• 90 Dismounts - Roughly 30 bases which is hopefully more than I will every need

Russians

• Imperial Russian Army
• 120 Infantry - Rough equivalent of 40 bases which is no where near enough for the 16 battalions needed for a second Russian division.  Get these painted up and then add the missing units.
• 3 MGs - Enough for very early games where the MG Coy is at Regimental level
• 15 Cavalry - Two per base in my armies so 7 bases or just over one Regiment (6 sotnia per regiment)
• 15 Cossacks
• 3 Field Guns - Again only half of what I need so will need more and I haven't accounted for the horse artillery for the cavalry formations yet either.

What is still to do...

So forgot the horse artillery and the third Field artillery Abteilung for the Germans.

The old Uhlans will get moved into Divisional Cavalry.

I haven't added any MG units for the Germans, For very early 1914 games that isn't a problem but will need to add more as I go forward.

Russian Cavalry organisation needs about 24 bases per Division which is the same as the Germans. But the Germans only have 1 division in the East so will need a a few more for the Russians.

Russian Infantry need 16 battalions per division so I will need about two more packs pretty soon.  Will see how the new marching poses fit in.

Great War - 1914 Russians (update)

With the impetus to get some SB units finished, I have returned to the Eastern Front.  This is the area that my interest in WW1 started with rather than the Western Front.

My Russian forces are based on a "standard" Infantry Division.  They were based around a Pendraken Starter set with some small additions to get me up and running for the SB playtesting.

Since the play test games I have added more units to provide:

• Two Brigades of 2 Regiments Each of 4 Battalions of Infantry.
• Regimental MG Companies
• Divisional Cavalry Regiment
• Two field regiments of 76.2mm Guns
• One Heavy Regiment of 122mm Guns

GWSH and others seem to suggest the Russians were poorly provided with Artillery compared to the Imperial German Army.  The Batteries were deemed to be inefficient by still retaing 8 gun strucutres rather than 6 pieces.  Stone (The Eastern Front 1914 - 1917) makes a statement on Page 38 that "...their regular Divisions (German) had eighteen such weapons (field-mortars) to fifty-four field cannon, whereas the Russian army, in 1914, had only six per division (and forty-eight field-cannon).  This give me a benchmark for the Germans of:

3 Batteries of 6 Howitzers
9 Batteries of 6 Field Guns

Which translates the Russians to:
1 Battery of 6 Howitzers increasing to two batteries following the reforms
6 Batteries of 8 Field Guns

Great War - Eastern Front Cavalry

As the Eastern Front Cavalry operations were the spark that set this particular fire off running I thought it was about time they had some more attention.

First up are a couple of new German bases.  The one on the left is a standard Uhlan base which will just be added to the pile of cavalry being painted up to give me the 1st Cavalry Division for some early 1914 games.  In the middle is my Cavalry Brigade command stand for GWSH and on the right is a WIP for the dismounted cavalry that both SB and GWSH can use.  These will go on to fill up 1st Kavallerie Divisionen which is now in the painting queue.

From a slightly different angle

 And the other side

The Russian Brigade HQ being worked up

Great War - Russian

I have no history for any Russian unit at present so this unit will be a generic formation present at Stalluponen or Gumbinnen in 1914.
Elements of the Starter Army I bought a long time ago. I have now started adding units to it. The white undercoated bases have now been painted so I have just under two full regiments painted up (two of which is about half the necessary Infantry so the Divisions are massive). My next Pendraken Order has 90 Infantry in it which will begin to fill the Infantry up for this. Need to look at the Artillery support which is historically weak with only two artillery battalions per Division with a total of 6 - 8 Batteries, compared to a German division which has 12 Batteries, in 4 Battalions. Might have to rely on the Stoicism of the infantry to enemy firepower to hold the line!
So Pendraken Order has arrived only to find that I ran out of bases as I did a few extra German troops during the week...Doh! More on order but currently means I only have 10 battalions of Russians done for Monday's game! If my mate can get a pack in the post to me tomorrow I can be upto 13 Battalions! Only another 3 left to order then which will be another two packs of RP1 Infantry. At least I have all the MGs!