Infantry and Cavalry

At the start of the Civil War the Spanish Army had 40 regimentos de infanteria (infantry regiments), two tercios de la Legion Extranjera (Foreign Legion regiments), a batallon ciclista (bicycle battalion), eight montana (mountain) battalions, six cazador (light infantry) battalions, six amentralladora (machine gun) battalions and two guard battalions. There were also colonial troops consisting of five regiments of Moroccan Regulares (regulars), five regiments of the army of the puppet Caliph of Morocco, the Mehal'la and a battalion of infantry in the colony of Ifni. There were three battalion-sized units of naval infantry.

Each Spanish regiment had two battalions with a strength of around 700 men each and theoretically sufficient weapons to equip a third battalion. Each battalion was made up of four rifle companies, one machine gun company and a heavy weapons platoon. Foreign Legion tercios were made up of three battalions, called banderas consisting of three rifle companies and a machine gun company. The infantry battalions were equipped with 19 light machine guns, eight heavy machine guns, eight mortars and one infantry gun each. The bicycle battalion had 28 LMG, 24 MG, and 28 mortars. Machine gun battalions had a TOE of 450 men with four LMG's, 24 MG's and four mortars. Colonial regiments consisted of three infantry battalions, called tabors, with a TOE of 450 each and 3/4 the weapons allotment of a metropolitan battalion, the Mehal'la units, however had no infantry guns.

The standard infantry weapon of the Spanish army was a domestically produced 7 mm Mauser M-1893, bolt action rifle. The most common machine guns were the Hotchkiss 7mm M-25 and the heavy Hotchkiss M-14. There were a few 9mm Star S135 and Gollat submachine guns with the elite infantry units: Foreign Legion, light infantry, naval infantry and mountain battalions. The mortars were either 50mm or 81mm Spanish Valeros, which were copies of French Brandt designs. Most of the infantry guns were ancient 70mm Schneider M-08 mountain guns, elite units being equipped with new 45mm Arellano L-32's.

There were 10 cavalry regiments in Spain, with 12 squadrons of Regulare cavalry organized in six tabors and a regiment of Mehal7a cavalry in Morocco. Each regiment on the peninsula was supposed to have four squadrons, with a total strength of 1200 with a heavy weapons allocation of 16 LMG's, eight MG's and two mortars. The Regulare tabors had a strength of 450 with half the heavy weapons allocation of a regiment. The cavalry used the same weapons as the infantry, their rifle being a carbine version of the infantry weapon.

Artillery

The artillery was organized into 17 ligero (light) regiments, two montana (mountain) regiments, four pesado(heavy) regiments, two agrupaciones moviles (mobile units) in Morocco, four costa (coast defense) regiments and a number of independent units, including two defensa contra aviones (antiaircraft) battalions. The basic unit was the bateria (battery) of four guns; three baterias made up a grupo, three grupos made up a light regiment, although in practice the third grupo was not active like the third battalion of infantry regiments. Guns for the third grupo did exist, but not the other equipment necessary to mobilize them.

The heavy and mountain regiments had only two grupos. The coast defense regiments were each of unique composition, depending on the nature of the area they were to defend. The mobile units in Morocco had a different composition, they had seven batteries, six light and one heavy.

The most common artillery piece in the Spanish Army, as with many armies of the period, was the French 75mm Schneider M-06. Approximately 60% of all Spanish artillery was made up of this gun. It was to make up two of the three grupos of the mobilized light artillery regiments, but in practice was the entire equipment of most of them. The light batteries in Morocco and on the islands had the modern Spanish- built Vickers 105mm M-22 gunhowitzers; the mountain regiments and the grupo in Asturias had 105mm Schneider M-19 mountain guns.

The heavy regiments had one grupo of 150mm Krupp M-13 guns and one grupo of domestically made 155mm Schneider M-1917 howitzers. There were 192 mostly fixed weapons in the four coast defense regiments, 132 of these being large calibers from 101.6mm to 381mm. Many of the larger pieces were very old, originally having been mounted in turn of the century warships. There were some mobile batteries of 127mm Elswick Mark I guns and a few antiaircraft pieces. The only antiaircraft weapons possessed in any numbers were Danish 20mm Madsen M-33's and French Hotchkiss 13.2mm antiaircraft machine guns. There were no antitank guns in Spain in 1936.

Specialist Troops

Spain's miniscule motorized forces were organized into two carro de combate (tank) regiments and one grupo de autoametralladoras-canon (armored car unit). The armored regiments only had 20 operable tanks between them, 10 Renault FT-17's, five Schneider M-16's and five Trubia A-4's, a domestically produced tank based on the FT-17 armed with two 8mm machine guns.

The armored regiments also possessed about 62 Latil armored personnel carriers. Originally purchased for the artillery, these were armed with one machine gun and carried eight troops and two crewmen at a top speed of 30 kph. The Grupo de Autoametralladoras-canon was equipped with 28 new armored cars. These were Spanish-made, based on the 1932 Dodge 1-ton truck and were armed with 2 Hotchkiss 8mm machine guns.

Engineer units were equipped with World War One French equipment. There was one zapador (sapper) regiment of two battalions and 12 independent battalions, one for each division. There was also a bridge- building battalion.

Paramilitary units

Spain had large and well equipped militarized police forces ' There were three separate organizations, the Guardia Civil, Carabineros and Guardia de Seguridad y Asalto. All three were better equipped with small arms than the army. The Guardia Civil was organized into 24 tercios of 213 companies, with a strength in July 1936 of 34,320. It was the police of rural Spain. The Carabineros served as the border guard and customs police of Spain, fielding 15,790 men organized in 10 Zonas with 110 companies.

The Guardia de Seguridad y Asalto (commonly called the Asaltos) served as urban and riot control police. The Asaltos were a recently formed force, created by the Republic as a counterweight to the very right-wing Guardia Civil. They were dispersed in 117 separate companies with strength of 17,500 in July 1936.

More Spanish Army

Introduction
Army on the Eve of the Civil War
Organization of Spanish Army 1936
Distribution of Spanish Army July 1936
Disposition and Characteristics of Spanish Air Force and Navy 1939