How was the performance of the Imperial Russian Army during the Seven Years' War

Question

I am interested in the performance of the Russian military during the Seven Years' War, what were their strengths and weaknesses? How was the performance of traditional Russian units vs non-traditional Imperial units (eg. Cossacks, Bashkirs, Kalmyks etc.). I know that it is a stereotype that the Russian army outnumbers everyone and wins because of that, but was there any truth to this in this war, or did they show other prowess?

I haven't been able to find much up til now aside from Suvrov showing great performance (although I don't know what kind of units he commanded), and the Russian army having poor training and logistics, with many southern units only scoring between 15-35% in a marksmanship trial.

Answer 1

I think this could be answered by reading at the many battles of the 7 years war. But to summarize:

• The Russian army proved qualitative in some regards, that helped Russia to be the most threatening force to Prussia during the war
• Compared to France or Austria over the length of the war, Russian army could even appear superior since it won some victories -A strong point for the Russians consisted in their light cavalry, that avoid Frederick to be able to enter big manoeuvres deep inside Russian territory, or to complete his tactical victories by total destruction of the opposing army
• There were also the artillery, line cavalry and the tenacity of the soldiers described by Frederick himself through a quote: "it's easier to kill them than to take them prisoners"

Eventually, the most important problem encountered by Russia was the lack of political willingness and consistence in fighting Prussia.