Australia The
Australian Army maintained several construction squadrons of the
Royal Australian Engineers. One surviving squadron is the
17th Construction Squadron. Others were the 21st, 22nd, and 24th Construction Squadrons.
Nazi Germany In
Nazi Germany the
Organization Todt was a construction organism. At the initial stage of the existence of these formations, service in them for
German citizens conditionally corresponded to
alternative civilian service, which currently exists in a number of countries around the world. After November
1942, personnel of German nationality, and then from the spring of
1944, the military personnel of other nationalities were given full status equal to those of the Wehrmacht. There was also another paramilitary organization of Nazi Germany, which included military construction units—the
Reich Labour Service (RAD). In the RAD, from 1935 onward, all German male citizens, and from the start of the Second World War also female citizens, served six months of labor service twice a year (fit young men served this service until conscription into the armed forces). From the spring of 1944, RAD personnel were also given the same status as Wehrmacht personnel.
North Korea The
Korean People's Army is heavily involved in construction activities in the DPRK. In late 2025, two separate batches of about 1,000 soldiers total from the 2215th Construction Brigade under the DPRK Ministry of Defence were sent to construction sites in
Russian regions impacted by the unprovoked
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Mongolia The
Construction and Engineering Forces, also known as the
Corps of Engineers, is a engineer branch of the
Mongolian Armed Forces that specializes in military construction and civil works. They also construct combat defensive positions, serve as military engineering, sappers, and detect mines. They have played a leading role in Armed Forces peacekeeping missions and have successfully participated in UN peacekeeping operations and joint international training exercises.
Soviet Union Military construction units (
colloquially "стройбат" — short for "construction battalion") — is a general term used in specialized literature, combining two main types of organizationally independent administrative and economic units for military construction purposes (military units), such as military construction detachments and construction units, which were part of the
Ministry of Defence, as well as other security and civilian
ministries (
departments) of the
Soviet Union. The primary command and control bodies for the billeting and provisioning of troops in the
Soviet Armed Forces comprising the
military districts and fleets of the
Soviet Navy, and their corresponding structures, the
Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Committee for State Security (
KGB), were the military construction directorates (MCDs) of the districts and the naval construction directorates (NCDs) of the fleets. Overall direction for all these activities was the responsibility of the Deputy Minister of Defence for Construction and Billetting. In the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and later in the
Russian Federation, military construction units were never designated as an independent branch of the armed forces, but existed only as separate military construction units subordinate to the relevant
governing bodies. In the Russian Federation, from
1996 to
2017, alongside military construction units, there were engineering and technical military formations under the
Federal Executive Bodies, which carried out activities in the field of specialized
construction, as well as in the field of operation, restoration, and construction of
telecommunications networks. The military construction directorates were subordinate to the engineering work directorates (UIR), which were subordinate to the chief of work directorates (COW)—the equivalent of the civil construction directorates. The Work Supervisor's Offices were responsible for construction and assembly sites (SMU), construction sites (SU), warehouses, transport bases, and human resources concentrated in military construction units of
districts,
Groups of forces, fleets, and other formations of the USSR Armed Forces and civilian ministries. Military construction units had virtually no weapons. Military construction units typically had a limited number of training
small arms and service weapons for officers, not counting construction, special-purpose, and automotive equipment. Taking into account the number of military construction detachments (around 500 — only in civilian ministries and departments) with an average staff strength of 600-800 people in the 1980s, the personnel of military construction units reached 300-400 thousand people, which at that time quantitatively exceeded such branches of the armed forces as the
Soviet Airborne Forces (60,000),
Soviet Naval Infantry (15,000) and
Soviet Border Troops of the KGB (220,000) — taken together. Despite their widespread use and large numbers, the work of military construction workers in the
civilian economy, as some believed, was contrary to the Constitution of the USSR and the USSR Law on Universal Military Service, and such units themselves were illegal.
Military Construction Detachments (Units) The core of the Military Construction Complex (MCC) of the Soviet Ministry of Defence, as well as the military construction units of other ministries and departments of the Soviet Union, were military construction detachments (MCDs), which had the status of military construction organizations (with corresponding full formal designation), whose task was to perform
construction and assembly and other work in construction,
industrial, logging and other
raw materials enterprises of the USSR. Another type of such formations were separate military construction companies (SMCC), which had a similar status, organizational and staff structure and the same tasks in the field of construction and performance of other works in the interests of defense and security of the state, as well as the national economy of the Soviet Union. Military construction detachments and separate military construction companies were business accounting organizations and were supported primarily by their own funds, earned through their labour. The bulk of the personnel of the VSO and OVSR were
workers who were not
military personnel, but had a special status—military construction workers. The term "military builders" was introduced by Resolution of the
Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 787 of 18 September 1964 and was enshrined in the "Regulation on the military construction detachments of the USSR Ministry of Defense" of 1965, before that the term "workers of military construction detachments" was used.
United Kingdom and United States Many countries worldwide have "military construction formations," primarily those with fairly large armed forces, the most significant of which are part of the
US Army Corps of Engineers. Many
British Army construction activities were carried on by the
Military Works Force. However the first enlisted construction force was the
Soldier Artificer Company, a unit raised in
Gibraltar in 1772 to work on improving the fortifications there. The United States Navy formed the Construction Battalions, popularly known as
Seabees, during the
Second World War. Their origins however stretch back to the 1930s, when the Navy
Bureau of Yards and Docks began providing for "Navy Construction Battalions" (CB) in contingency war plans. In 1934, Capt. Carl Carlson's version of the CB was approved by the
chief of naval operations. The
Air Service, United States Army, extensively utilized Construction Companies during the First World War. The
List of American construction companies in World War I lists their origins and fate. == See also ==