Construction troops

Construction troops are military engineering personnel and units who construct and repair buildings and other facilities, notably dams, bridges or roads. Notable examples are the United States Army Corps of Engineers or the Russian Road Troops. This sub-specialty of engineering is confusingly known as civil engineering. They can construct military infrastructure, defensive structures and communications infrastructure, and often deal with provision of housing of troops in both wartime and peacetime. Military construction units and formations may be combined into an independent branch of the armed forces (as, for example, in the Construction Troops (Bulgaria)), or be part of other branches of the armed forces, services, and may also be outside the Armed Forces, being paramilitary or separate organisations. The Sapper army of the Red Army during the Second World War was perhaps the single largest construction formation in the field. Although the organization of military construction engineers into such a large formation was unusual, the use of dedicated troops for military construction was common to many armies during that war. The sapper army troops were in some senses comparable to German Baupionier units and U.S. Army Engineer General Service regiments of the Second World War.