Appendix A: Army Units

Appendix A: Army Units

APPENDIX A: ARMY UNITS The translations do not follow the usage of any particular English- speaking army. Cavalry terms are in brackets (Table A.1). The cavalry regiment had the administrative standing of a cuerpo (self- administering unit), but was actually a battalion-sized unit. In the artil- lery, the company is called battery and an artillery battalion is a grupo. The infantry regiment was a cuerpo and a tactical unit (usually with three battalions in wartime). Two regiments formed a brigade. However, since the nineteenth century, the Spanish regiments rarely fought as tac- tical units. Instead, their battalions were distributed among other feld commands, although battalions of the same regiment could be grouped together. This was also the case in the Civil War. In fact, the Nationalist infantry’s organization resembled the British regimental system, since the pre-war regiments (and even separate battalions) left in the rear cadres which operated as depot units responsible for the organization and train- ing of many of the new wartime battalions, which remained affliated to their parent units. In the Republican army, each mixed brigade was the parent unit of its organic infantry battalions. The infantry had other regiment-sized tactical units. The light infantry (cazadores) and mountain infantry separate battalions were grouped in half-brigades (two or three battalions each). And during the Civil War, the Nationalist army grouped their divisions’ infantry in tactical units of three or four battalions, which were indistinctly named regiment, half- brigade or agrupación. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 339 J.V. Herrero Pérez, The Spanish Military and Warfare from 1899 to the Civil War, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-54747-3 340 APPENDIX A: ARMY UNITS Table A.1 Spanish army units and their translation Spanish army Translation Regimiento Regiment Batallón (Regimiento/Grupo) Battalion (Regiment/Group) Compañía (Escuadrón) Company (Squadron) Sección Platoon (Troop) Pelotón Section Escuadra Squad A special case was the Moroccan troops. In the Spanish army’s reg- ulares, both the infantry battalion and the group of cavalry squadrons were called tabor, and infantry and cavalry tabores were grouped into mixed regimental groups (grupos de fuerzas regulares indígenas) for administrative purposes until the end of the Civil War. The mehal-las were also regimental groups of tabores, although their establishments were lower than those of the regulares units. APPENDIX B: ARMY OFFICER RANKS The translations do not follow the usage of any particular English- speaking army. The offcer rank code of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is used as comparative reference for foreign equivalents (Table B.1). The rank of capitán general is the highest one in the Spanish army, but became more of an extraordinary reward for a very distinguished career after 1900, in the style of marechal de France after 1870 (although this actually is a state dignity, rather than a military rank). This rank must not be confused with the position of territorial captain general, who was the general offcer commanding one of the major military regions or dis- tricts (a new OF-9 rank of general de ejército—‘army general’—was intro- duced in 1999 for the offcer appointed chief of the army general staff or chief of the defence staff). Before 1918 the ranks of alférez (which can be literally translated as ‘ensign’) and teniente were called respectively segundo teniente (second lieutenant) and primer teniente (frst lieutenant). During the Civil War, the Republican army adopted a single general offcer rank, simply called ‘general’, from early 1937 to late 1938, and then reintroduced the ranks of brigadier general, major general and lieu- tenant general. It also substituted the term mayor for that of comandante (in the Spanish army, a mayor was the offcer in charge of the adminis- trative and fnancial affairs of a cuerpo; in a regiment, he usually had the rank of comandante). © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 341 J.V. Herrero Pérez, The Spanish Military and Warfare from 1899 to the Civil War, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-54747-3 342 APPENDIX B: ARMY OFFICER RANKS Table B.1 Spanish army ranks and their translation Spanish army NATO rank code Translation Capitán General OF-10 Captain General OF-9 Teniente General OF-8 Lieutenant General General de División OF-7 Major General General de Brigada OF-6 Brigadier General Coronel OF-5 Colonel Teniente Coronel OF-4 Lieutenant Colonel Comandante OF-3 Major Capitán OF-2 Captain Primer Teniente/Teniente OF-1 First Lieutenant Segundo Teniente/Alférez Second Lieutenant APPENDIX C: BASIC SPECIFICATIONS OF TANKS, 1921–1939 See Table C.1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 343 J.V. Herrero Pérez, The Spanish Military and Warfare from 1899 to the Civil War, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-54747-3 344 APPENDIX C: BASIC SPecifications OF TANKS, 1921–1939 Table C.1 Basic specifcations of tanks, 1921–1939 Model Weight Max. speed Armament Max. armour Crew (tonnes) (km/h) (mm) Schneider 13.5 6.7 1 x 75 mm 11.4 7 CA 1 gun 2 x machine gun Renault FT 6.7 7.7 1 x machine 16 2 gun Trubia, Serie A 8.1 30 3 x machine 20 3 gun or 1 x 40 mm gun 2 x machine gun CV 3/35 3.2 42 2 x machine 15 2 gun PzKpfw IB 5.8 40 2 x machine 13 2 gun T-26 Model 9.4 31 1 x 45 mm 15 3 1933 gun 1 x machine gun BT-5 11.9 52a 1 x 45 mm 15 3 gun 1 x machine gun aOn tracks; its maximum speed on wheels was 72 km/h Sources Javier de Mazarrasa, Blindados en España. 1ª Parte: la Guerra Civil 1936–1939 (Valladolid: Quirón, 1991), pp. 17, 22; Artemio Mortera Pérez, Los carros de combate ‘Trubia’ (1925–1939) (Valladolid: Quiron, 1993), p. 29; F. Cappellano and P.P. Battistelli: Italian Light Tanks 1919–45 (Oxford: Osprey, 2014), p. 46; Bryan Perrett, German Light Panzers 1932–42 (Oxford: Osprey, 1998), p. 48; Steven J. Zaloga, T-26Light Tank. Backbone of the Red Army (Oxford: Osprey, 2014), p. 20; Steven J. Zaloga, BT Fast Tank: The Red Army’s Cavalry Tank 1931–45 (Oxford: Osprey, 2016), p. 26 GLOSSARY Africanista in the Spanish military environment of the 1909–1939 period, an offcer who volunteered for frontline service in Morocco, especially in forces like the Regulares (q.v.) and the Legión (q.v.), with the purpose of speeding up his career through battlefeld achievements. Agrupación (i) a task force or temporary grouping whose strength could go from a battalion-sized detachment to a feld army-sized command; (ii) the name of some regiment or brigade-sized units. Bandera (i) an alternative term for a company in a Spanish tercio (q.v.) of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; (ii) an infantry or tank battal- ion of the Spanish Legion; (iii) an infantry battalion recruited from vol- unteers from Falange (a Spanish fascist political party) in the Civil War. Cazador (literally, ‘hunter’) a light infantryman or a light cavalry trooper. Cuerpo (i) a self-administering unit (it was usually the regiment, but smaller units down to company size could also be cuerpos, as well as some artillery and engineer corps territorial commands); (ii) a term for the branches of the army which had been originally set up as single regiments (e.g., the artillery corps) or were not a tactical arm. Estado Mayor the body of offcers performing staff duties at the head- quarters of a major unit or an equivalent military command; the army’s General Staff was called Estado Mayor Central, which must not be confused with the Estado Mayor General (the general offcer list). © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 345 J.V. Herrero Pérez, The Spanish Military and Warfare from 1899 to the Civil War, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-54747-3 346 GLOSSARY Grupo (i) an artillery battalion; (ii) in the cavalry, either a tactical sub- unit (stronger than a squadron) of a regiment or a self-administering grouping of squadrons (usually smaller than a regiment); (iii) a self- administering grouping of companies in the engineer and service sup- port corps. Legión (i) a volunteer fghting force of the Spanish army, recruited from Spaniards and foreigners, and founded as Tercio (q.v.) de Extranjeros in 1920; (ii) a regimental group of banderas (q.v.) of El Tercio (q.v.) from 1934 to 1937. Regulares regular infantry and cavalry troops recruited mostly from Moroccan native volunteers (specialist sub-units were manned by Spaniards) and led by Spanish offcers. Tercio (i) the term for the Spanish infantry regiment of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; (ii) the frst name of the Spanish Legión (q.v.), founded as Tercio de Extranjeros and later retitled El Tercio, until 1937; (iii) the name of some regiment or brigade-sized units; (iv) an infantry battalion recruited from requetés (ultraconservative monarchist Carlist militiamen) in the Civil War. INDEX A Alfonso XIII, 18, 147, 152, 266 Abd el-Krim, 144, 145, 213, 275 Alléhaut, Emile, 272 Academia General Militar (Saragossa) Alonso Vega, Camilo, 165 behaviour of graduates in 1936, 174 Aranda, Antonio, 256 bill to reopen, 180 Ardant du Picq, Charles, 76, 106 closure, 176, 192 Artillery (tactical arm) entrance requirements, 162 employment in Morocco, 18, 40, 88 and German offcer training, 170 Nationalist combined bombard- guidelines, 170, 330 ment, 219, 221 indoctrination in, 174 Republican improved use, 191 judgements on, 174 Republican misuse, 283, 312, 315 origins, 106, 161 Artillery Board, 112 removal of textbooks, 169, 330 Artillery corps, 3, 14, 42, 43, 45, 114, staff, 330 115, 146, 191, 242, 245, 268, style of education, 167 276, 279, 281, 329, 332, 345.

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