Bivouac

BIVOUAC (from the French bivouac - night camp), the order of arrangement of troops for rest in the open air. In modern Red Army regulations (Temporary Field Regulations of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, part II, articles 447–459), a bivouac is defined as "the arrangement of troops outside populated areas" and is contrasted with "the arrangement of troops in populated areas" (according to the old terminology: "in quarters"). A bivouac must satisfy a number of sanitary requirements concerning a) the selection of the bivouac site, b) compliance with sanitary rules during its establishment, and c) the cleanup of the bivouac site upon the departure of the troops. For a bivouac, a dry area is chosen whenever possible, located at least 2 km away from swamps, with firm ground and good slopes for rainwater, sheltered from the wind, preferably in an open forest, in the immediate vicinity and with convenient access to water sources having sufficient quantitative and satisfactory qualitative water reserves. The selection of a site for a bivouac is therefore carried out by the command with the mandatory participation of medical personnel. Older regulations precisely regulated standard distances for each military unit when placing personnel, transport columns, horse picket lines, field kitchens, etc., within defined rectangular areas. With the development of military aviation, such an order proved unsuitable, as it facilitated enemy aerial reconnaissance and the possibility of aerial chemical attacks. Therefore, modern regulations of all armies no longer provide for uniform geometric layouts for bivouacs, putting in first place, along with the requirement of constant combat readiness of the troops, the provision of proper camouflage and compliance with sanitary rules during the setup of the bivouac. The most essential of the latter concern: a) the location and type of latrines (trenches), which must not be arranged between tents, but are placed 100–150 paces away from the bivouac, taking into account the direction of prevailing winds; b) the assignment of areas for kitchens, located not far from the water collection point; c) the order of use of rivers and lakes, with points for water collection, watering horses, bathing, and laundry being arranged along the flow of rivers in the specified sequence. Norms for supplying field troops with marching property do not generally provide for equipping fighters with tents in the cavalry, artillery, and transport columns, which bivouac without tents; other branches of service have marching tents, usually consisting of 6 panels, with each fighter carrying one panel himself. Upon vacating a bivouac site, the troops are obligated, under the responsibility of the command and the medical service, to bring their deployment site into proper sanitary condition: burn dry garbage, bury latrines, collect all kinds of waste (offal, manure, canned food cans, etc.) into special pits and also bury them, placing markers above these pits and the sites of former latrines, etc.