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Mixed brigade
Mixed brigade (Spanish: brigada mixta) was a basic tactical military unit of the Republican army during the Spanish Civil War. It was initially designed as "pocket division", an innovative maneuverable combined-arms formation. Because of high saturation with specialized troops and services it would have resembled a division, but in terms of manpower it would have been much smaller and amount to some 3,700 men.
Shortages of career officers and NCOs plus inability to provide arms and equipment needed rendered the original mixed brigade pattern unworkable. The Republican general staff kept redrafting the scheme with decreasing proportion of non-infantry sub-units, though even these arrangements proved impossible to implement. Most of the 188 mixed brigades raised during the war were closer to the infantry regiment blueprint.
Assumptions about the nature of the warfare which gave rise to the mixed brigade concept were largely correct. However, the Republic could not have afforded such highly-specialized and well-equipped units. Attempts to implement the scheme put extra strain on the Republican recruitment and logistics system; as a result, the mixed brigade scheme was counterproductive and worked to the detriment of the Republican military capacity.
Origins of the mixed brigade concept are not clear and in historiography there are various theories which point to its beginnings. One is related to debates within the Spanish general staff of the 1920s; banking on experiences of the Rif War, some officers suggested formation of relatively small, flexible combined-arms units. In the early 1930s and influenced by Swiss attempts, two Brigadas Mixtas were ordered to be formed as Spanish mountain troops. During further discussions of the mid-1930s the idea that the Spanish army should include a large number of autonomous units smaller than división organica was gradually taking root.
A somewhat competitive theory claims that the concept was merely an acknowledgement of warfare reality during first weeks of the Civil War. During July, August and September 1936 most fighting took place between improvised, relatively small, lightly armed and highly maneuverable groups, usually referred to as "columns". The Republican general staff reportedly concluded that they should turn this makeshift model into a systematic and structured scheme and units raised in this way should emphasize mobility and flexibility rather than manpower. One more theory credits Soviet military advisers, present in Spain since early October 1936, for coining the concept; one version of this theory holds that the Soviets merely encouraged the Republican general staff to implement the idea which had already been in circulation for some time.
The basic assumption which triggered emergence of the mixed brigade concept was that the war in Spain would be about flexibility rather than manpower. Such a vision elicited the idea that the key army unit should be able to operate independently, without support of other specialized units typically assigned to larger military formations (e.g. unlike a typical infantry regiment, which requires support of other divisional services to achieve military objectives). This in turn produced a conclusion that the key army unit should be a highly maneuverable, combined-arms formation.
The resulting vision was "a cross between a reinforced regiment and a very small division", a "little great unit", "division en miniatura" or a "pocket division": a unit which in terms of manpower would be much smaller than a division, but which would reproduce some of divisional features by means of large proportion of specialized and support sub-units. This vision was eventually embodied in a scheme of a "mixed brigade"; the term "mixed" was to indicate its combined-arms composition, making it different from a typical infantry unit of comparable size. Mixed brigades were supposed to operate independently and to be grouped into a larger formation only for the purpose of waging a particular campaign or battle, but not as its permanent components.
The original scheme as worked out in 1936 envisioned that a mixed brigade would be made of 3,700 soldiers. Internal composition was to be as follows:
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Mixed brigade
Mixed brigade (Spanish: brigada mixta) was a basic tactical military unit of the Republican army during the Spanish Civil War. It was initially designed as "pocket division", an innovative maneuverable combined-arms formation. Because of high saturation with specialized troops and services it would have resembled a division, but in terms of manpower it would have been much smaller and amount to some 3,700 men.
Shortages of career officers and NCOs plus inability to provide arms and equipment needed rendered the original mixed brigade pattern unworkable. The Republican general staff kept redrafting the scheme with decreasing proportion of non-infantry sub-units, though even these arrangements proved impossible to implement. Most of the 188 mixed brigades raised during the war were closer to the infantry regiment blueprint.
Assumptions about the nature of the warfare which gave rise to the mixed brigade concept were largely correct. However, the Republic could not have afforded such highly-specialized and well-equipped units. Attempts to implement the scheme put extra strain on the Republican recruitment and logistics system; as a result, the mixed brigade scheme was counterproductive and worked to the detriment of the Republican military capacity.
Origins of the mixed brigade concept are not clear and in historiography there are various theories which point to its beginnings. One is related to debates within the Spanish general staff of the 1920s; banking on experiences of the Rif War, some officers suggested formation of relatively small, flexible combined-arms units. In the early 1930s and influenced by Swiss attempts, two Brigadas Mixtas were ordered to be formed as Spanish mountain troops. During further discussions of the mid-1930s the idea that the Spanish army should include a large number of autonomous units smaller than división organica was gradually taking root.
A somewhat competitive theory claims that the concept was merely an acknowledgement of warfare reality during first weeks of the Civil War. During July, August and September 1936 most fighting took place between improvised, relatively small, lightly armed and highly maneuverable groups, usually referred to as "columns". The Republican general staff reportedly concluded that they should turn this makeshift model into a systematic and structured scheme and units raised in this way should emphasize mobility and flexibility rather than manpower. One more theory credits Soviet military advisers, present in Spain since early October 1936, for coining the concept; one version of this theory holds that the Soviets merely encouraged the Republican general staff to implement the idea which had already been in circulation for some time.
The basic assumption which triggered emergence of the mixed brigade concept was that the war in Spain would be about flexibility rather than manpower. Such a vision elicited the idea that the key army unit should be able to operate independently, without support of other specialized units typically assigned to larger military formations (e.g. unlike a typical infantry regiment, which requires support of other divisional services to achieve military objectives). This in turn produced a conclusion that the key army unit should be a highly maneuverable, combined-arms formation.
The resulting vision was "a cross between a reinforced regiment and a very small division", a "little great unit", "division en miniatura" or a "pocket division": a unit which in terms of manpower would be much smaller than a division, but which would reproduce some of divisional features by means of large proportion of specialized and support sub-units. This vision was eventually embodied in a scheme of a "mixed brigade"; the term "mixed" was to indicate its combined-arms composition, making it different from a typical infantry unit of comparable size. Mixed brigades were supposed to operate independently and to be grouped into a larger formation only for the purpose of waging a particular campaign or battle, but not as its permanent components.
The original scheme as worked out in 1936 envisioned that a mixed brigade would be made of 3,700 soldiers. Internal composition was to be as follows:
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