Mixed brigade

Mixed Brigades Brigadas Mixtas
Standard of the 106 Mixed Brigade of the Popular Army of the Spanish Republic
Active	1936–1939
Country	Spanish Republic
Branch	Spanish Republican Armed Forces
Type	Infantry brigade
Role	Home Defence
Part of	Spanish Republican Army divisions
Engagements	Spanish Civil War
Commanders
Notable commanders	Enrique Líster José María Galán

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 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 unit. 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.