1860's Russian Invasion of the USA and Canada Part I

The next major "project" of the gang I regularly play big battles with is ACW using the Warlord Epic figures, at c 13mm scale. We will be using the new Valour & Fortitude ACW lists

Now two "What If's" have always fascinated me about this war:

• What If the British and French came in on the Confederate side? They gave considerable assistance in the early days of the war to the Confederacy.
• What If the Russians decided to re-take their Alaskan, US and Canadian Western Seaboard territories? Post Crimea they had redoubled their push Eastwards. Why not re-take these, what with the US in a massive civil war and Canada militarily inconsequential. Besides, Gold had been found in some of the areas the Russian had relinquished.

We discussed it and it became clear that playing ACW with Foreign power involvement would be fascinating to game and everyone was up for it. For me it was a toss up between French and Russians, but a Russian invasion would be more unusual, and also fascinating for a whole lot of geopolitical reasons at the time. Also, a Russian army of the 1860's could fight Turks, interfere with European wars and play the Great Game as well. Besides, I've been to Fort Ross in California (the southernmost major Russian settlement, about an hour North of San Francisco), and fired the cannon there, so that clinched it. Russians it would be.

However, finding 1860's Russian figures in 15mm is very hard, never mind 13mm, but two things were on my side:

• Firstly, at 13mm scale there is a lot than can be unseen/forgiven
• Secondly, we are all of that generation that grew up using Airfix French Napoleonics and plastecine for Russians and Austrians, and Foreign Legion, US Cavalry and Union infantry for all sorts of things.
  
• Thirdly, Russian uniform changed markedly post Crimea, but it is hard to get good sources until the 1877 Turkish wars. Besides they were notorious for being slow to re-equip units with new stuff and also had a wide variety of "uniforms" anyway, so some latitude (and "assumptions") could be made. 

Looking at the Warlord Epic 13mm Prussian Napoleonic models (same scale as their ACW models) it was clear that their Prussian Landwehr set wore what is essentially the ubiquitous Russian forage cap, and had a big blanket rolled over their tunics. In 13mm scale that's pretty much a shoo-in for the Russian poor bloody infantryman and his beloved greatcoat. Plus, the cavalry in the set could be bodged to be 1860's Cossacks, Hussars or Uhlans and the skirmish infantry could likewise be Russian Jaegers with a bit of clipping and filing. 

Looking more carefully at the sets, the Jaegers in the Prussian Line set could possibly be converted to Russian Jaegers in formation, some figures already had those ubiquitous forage caps. Turned out you could buy these troops on eBay without buying the rest of the set, so I did. I also found that the French Imperial Guard Horse artillery set came on its own and had big furry hats and long coats that, in 13mm, made them ideal for Cossack Hosre Artillery.

So, I went off and bought some, and the first test results are shown in the picture below - 1815 Prussian (now 1860's Russian) Jaegers, and French 1815 (now 1860's) Cossack Horse artillery.

 

Test units for 1860's "Russian" Jaegers and  "Cossack" Horse Artillery using 1815 Prussian Jaegers and French Guard artillery. Also showing 15m figures for comparison. I'll paint 'em first and then file the Jaeger hats if its too obvious they are too tall.
 

I have also put some "15mm" figs up to compare: top (grey) = Plastic Soldier WW2 Russians, middle (brown) other 15/18mm WW2 Russians (Battlefront I think), bottom (metal) 15/18mm dark age haries (Museum I think). As you can see, not much difference, so it should be possible to introduce some 15mm figures (especially smaller ones).

Of course the really interesting thing to work out are "how would they fight". Turns out V&F have both Franco Prussian lists and ACW lists, and an older Ruleset (Principles of War) has lists that cover all these armies, so it is possible to interpolate. 

Actually, I lie - the really big question everyone was interested in was "would they bring the heavy cavalry over to the US?". The answer is probably not, for 2 reasons:

• Post Crimea, the Russian believed the day of charging heavy cavavlry was over, and started to convert their Dragoons (the vast bulk of their heavy cavalry) to mounted infantry - i.e. back to real Dragoons
• Just in case though, they kept the Cuirassiers as heavy cavalry, but these were the jewel in the crown and unlikely to be used in such a far away expedition, what with the Prussian machinations of the period.

However, it is entirely possible that their reformulated Dragoons would come over. These troops also had the Russian style kepi, and oddly enough US ACW cavalry with caps are not a million miles away at this scale. 

And maybe they would be able to still put in the odd heavy cavalry charge....

I will write a Part II in a few weeks to show the rest of the models used (and some finished samples), plus some more discussion on the history and geopolitics of Russian re-colonisation of the US in the 1860's and fitting a Russian army to ACW rules.