Red Army cavalry

[Pat Holscher]

A famous WWII image, but one I don't think we've had linked in here before.

http://editorial.gettyimages.com/source ... d=53368325

Pat

[Ken McPheeters]

I remembered that there has been some exchange regarding WWII Russian use of cavalry and thought you might enjoy this passage from <u>Thunder in the East, The Nazi-Soviet War 1941-1945</u> by Evan Mawdsley.

The context of this passage is post-Stalingrad, March-September of 1943.

"Soviet mobile forces still included a substantial amount of cavalry, more than in other wartime armies. It helped that the Red Army had a strong cavalry tradition with the Civil War 1st Cavalry Army, and that [Field Marshal] Zhukov was a cavalryman. The broken country and the weak transport infrastructure suited the use of cavalry, especially after the weakening of air and mobile forces on the German side. They were very valuable forces for the exploitation of attacks. In September 1943 there were still eight Soviet cavalry corps, equipped with traditional horse cavalry and light tanks. In May 1944 the Stavka [central political/military command entity immediately under Stalin's control] issued an order stressing the great effect of cavalry if used properly, i.e. on a mass scale at army group (rather than army)level, supported by armour and aviation, and operating on the enemy's open flanks. The spearhead of the Soviet cavalry, developed before the war and much used in the offensives of 1943-1945, was the 'Cavalry-Mechanized Group'. The most successful of the new generation of cavalry leaders was General I.A. Pliev, who commanded cavalry-mechanized groups in the Ukraine, Hungary, and Manchuria; and he was later to be the commander of the Soviet forces deployed in Cuba in 1962."

The book is fairly cumbersome and I don't recommend it for light reading, but it is an interesting study of the command structures of both armies, the forces available to the respective armies, the manner in which the forces were employed and fought, the various campaigns, and the participation of the national leadership and how the leadership affected the outcome on the battlefield. One interesting characteristic of the Soviet Senior Command staff that emerges from this work is that almost to a man, all were veterans of the 1st Cavalry Army that gained a considerable fame during the Russian Civil War and were decidedly Stalin's favorites.

Best, Ken

[Pat Holscher]

Thanks Ken.

I'm within a few pages of finishing "Ivan's War", an examination on the Soviet soldier of WWII. I'll post it as a review when I'm done. It had a few passages as well, but this one is more interesting, to say the least.

I'd like to read a really good examination of the Soviet Army in WWII. I'd hoped Ivan's War would be that, but for reasons I'll detail in the post, I have mixed feelings about it.

Pat

[Pat Holscher]

By the way, Ken's mentioning of Zhukov is interesting in that it's one of the common myths of the Red Army during WWII that, after the purges, a few old cavalrymen, like Budenny, hung on and made the Army particularly incompetent, but the emergency of the German invasion required Stalin to rethink things, and a new crop of able commanders rose to the top.

That's not completely inaccurate. Stalin had purged boatloads of Red Army commanders. And Budenny did survive the purges, crony of Stalin's that he was. But the new crop of commanders that rose up during WWII included some notable cavalrymen, like Zhukov, so it isn't true that Red Army cavalry officers were shunted aside.

Also of note, something that's often also missed about the WWII generation of Soviet commanders is that they were subject to a second, albeit non-lethal, purge. Zhukov is a good example. After the war he was posted in a dead end position where the public wouldn't notice him, and where he'd pose no threat to Stalin. Not that he really posed a threat to Stalin anyway, but Stalin wouldn't tolerate any rivals for the glory of winning WWII.

Sounds pretty grim, but there were all sorts of oddities like that in post WWII USSR. Repatriated POWs, for example, were treated nearly as badly as Vlasov's German sympathizers. Not because they'd really done anything wrong, but because the Soviet government feared what they'd say about what they'd seen in Europe in non Communist countries. Even men who'd been detailed to guard Vlasov's men as POWs were isolated and virtually imprisoned as the fear is that they'd have heard things about capitalism. Lots of Red Army combat veterans were kept in camps inside the USSR for years until the could be more or less debriefed and warned not to talk.

Pat

[Ken McPheeters]

Good points, Pat. Another myth that is dispelled in <u>Thunder in the East</u> is that once removed from command due to failures on the battlefield, the senior Soviet commanders were permanently disgraced and forgotten. Far from the truth. Those men were continuously "recycled", making for some interesting career tracks. I'm looking forward to your take on <u>Ivan's War</u>. I was going to dive into it next.

I'm also recommending <u>WERMACHT</u> - a study of the German army's responsibility for and participation in the war crimes, blame for which heretofore has been limited to and directed at the Special Units. This study is the result of a reexamination of German military history by Germans in the 1970-1990 time frame, and the revelations go far towards answering the old question, "How could this have happened?" After reading the book, you're left with the impression that no other outcome was possible given the political and social climate in Germany at the time.

[Pat Holscher]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Ken McPheeters</i>
<br />Good points, Pat. Another myth that is dispelled in <u>Thunder in the East</u> is that once removed from command due to failures on the battlefield, the senior Soviet commanders were permanently disgraced and forgotten. Far from the truth. Those men were continuously "recycled", making for some interesting career tracks. I'm looking forward to your take on <u>Ivan's War</u>. I was going to dive into it next.

I'm also recommending <u>WERMACHT</u> - a study of the German army's responsibility for and participation in the war crimes, blame for which heretofore has been limited to and directed at the Special Units. This study is the result of a reexamination of German military history by Germans in the 1970-1990 time frame, and the revelations go far towards answering the old question, "How could this have happened?" After reading the book, you're left with the impression that no other outcome was possible given the political and social climate in Germany at the time.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Ken, I just put my review of up Ivan's War today, in the review section. If you read the book, I'll be curious as to your opinions.

On the Soviet Army, I know there's another recent book out on it and WWII, but I don't know the name of it. I wish I did, as I didn't pick it up when it came out, and I now wish I had.

I'll pick up Wehrmacht, it sounds good, and it sounds like it provides a needed examination of the conduct of the bulk of the regular German forces in the war.

A good one on the German Army is Cooper's "The German Army: 1932-1945" (I think that's the title). Cooper dispels much of the myth surrounding the "Blitzkrieg" tactics of the WWII German Army, arguing that it's tactics were much less armor based, and much less competent, than generally believed.

Pat

[luigi]

A good one on the German Army is Cooper's "The German Army: 1932-1945" (I think that's the title). Cooper dispels much of the myth surrounding the "Blitzkrieg" tactics of the WWII German Army, arguing that it's tactics were much less armor based, and much less competent, than generally believed.

Pat

Well, than it must be said that it were the opponents who were even more incompetent...
It must be said that the first big example of Blitzkrieg, namely the Polish invasion, was on the werge of disaster if the Russian hadn't backstabbed Poland on the other end of tehir border. Poland was actually giving quitef a run for the money to the Wehrmacht.
The french campaign showed that France and Britain didn't learn much from WWI, in fact it was more or less the fotocopy of WWI plan, only with better means and mobility. Also minor campaigns, like the greek one, succeeded that easily, adding to the myth of invincibility, due to the fact that German Army, unlike the Italian one, for example, did know how and when to engage a fight: with almost all the Greek army tyed in the Albanian front it was no wonder Germans could defeat the greeks in a matter of weeks... anyway, as the say goes, in the land of the blinds, the one-eye-sighted is king

[Pat Holscher]

A good one on the German Army is Cooper's "The German Army: 1932-1945" (I think that's the title). Cooper dispels much of the myth surrounding the "Blitzkrieg" tactics of the WWII German Army, arguing that it's tactics were much less armor based, and much less competent, than generally believed.

Pat

Well, than it must be said that it were the opponents who were even more incompetent...
It must be said that the first big example of Blitzkrieg, namely the Polish invasion, was on the werge of disaster if the Russian hadn't backstabbed Poland on the other end of tehir border. Poland was actually giving quitef a run for the money to the Wehrmacht.
The french campaign showed that France and Britain didn't learn much from WWI, in fact it was more or less the fotocopy of WWI plan, only with better means and mobility. Also minor campaigns, like the greek one, succeeded that easily, adding to the myth of invincibility, due to the fact that German Army, unlike the Italian one, for example, did know how and when to engage a fight: with almost all the Greek army tyed in the Albanian front it was no wonder Germans could defeat the greeks in a matter of weeks... anyway, as the say goes, in the land of the blinds, the one-eye-sighted is king

Cooper pretty conclusively demonstrates in his book that general thesis that Blitzkreig tactics existed is pretty flawed. It's generally believed that the Germans had an advanced armor/air rapid advance strategy they used everywhere. Almost the same sort of thing that the US developed in the 70s and 80s called the "Land Air Battle".

The Germans did have armor, of course. And they had good aircraft, and an excellent ground attack airplane in the Stuka dive bomber. All that is true. But the bulk of their invading force was infantry of the old type. And of course they had a lot of horse drawn support.

Poland's problems in the war were widespread, but a simple one was that their terrain simply didn't favor the defense, and they had to defend and prepare to defend an invasion from both sides. The Poles had successfully defeated the Soviets in the 1920s, when invaded from the East, but armor hadn't been any sort of real factor in that war. Armor was new, in a really usable form, to some extent in 1939, and aircraft had advanced enormously. Even as it was, however, the German still had to field a lot of armor that they regarded as obsolete themselves, which they were still doing when they invaded the USSR.

The Germans really made use of their assault on Poland to create a film based myth on how modern their army was. You can occasionally find film footage of advancing German infantrymen, some of whom still carried G98s, but not often. I've wondered if the Germans didn't make an effort to weed out all such film, so as to not show how basic their army remained. But that started they myth of a really modern mechanized German army.

The invasion of Poland did give the German armor proponents enough influence in the German army so that they had a major influence on tactics during the invasion of France, where German armor obtained temporary operational independence. But that was its high water mark. German infantry inserted its influence thereafter, and German armor never again acted with true independence.

None of this is to say that the Germans didn't have armor, they certainly did. But it didn't really operate with the independence that it's imagined too. And the German infantry remained so influential that the Germans are really the only army to field what were really infantry tanks, in the form of "assault guns". These weapons were potent, but their production took away from the number of tanks that could be produced.

[Pat Holscher]

To the right of us, in the field, I saw German infantry running as fast as their legs could carry them, while the two squadrons of our regiment charged forward with sabres drawn. It was the first time I had seen a real cavalry charge and it was an impressive and unforgettable sight. The riders were slashing at the fleeing Germans right and left. The experienced riders were doing this very professionally, cleaving heads in half. The younger men, mounted on smaller Mongolian horses, were not so effective, but still I saw Germans fall from their blows as well. Fewer and fewer Fritzes were left standing on the field. Those slashed and slitted by sabres never again rose from the wet, boggy, earth.

On the Roads of War, page 106.

[Pat Holscher]

I must say such sabre charges did not happen often, and in most battles the riders fought on foot, using horses only as a means of transportation. When we encountered strong German resistance, we would get off our horses and fight as infantry., while the grooms (there were about ten per squadron) would gather our horses and take them to a safe spot. It was only i fthe Germans panicked and fled that we charged with sabres. During the two years of fighting in a cavalry regiment, I only saw some five charges.

On the Roads of War, 107.

[Pat Holscher]

The tank squadron of the 104th Tank Regiment was driving somewhere on a parallel road, but we did not see them. All of a sudden, the road entered a large field. That was an airfield with aircraft on it. It was completely quiet. The Germans did not expect to see us there.

Draw sabres! We charged towards the aircraft. My gun followed the riders, but no artillery support was necessary: pilots and ground crew fled in all directions, abandoning the aircraft. There were two-engined planes and gliders lined up on the field. We captured them almost without a single shot in a sabre charge!

On the Roads of War, page 170.

[Pat Holscher]

Two days later, we caught up with our division. Before that, however, we had to beat off strong German assaults, during which the 2d Squadron, under Guards Senior Lieutenant Oleinikov, again enjoyed a moment of glory. They waited till the German armor was refueling in a forest and was thus out of action, before charging the Fritzes in the open with sabres. The charge was so fast an unexpected, the Germans had little time to react. When the German tank crews realized they were effectively stranded, they blew up their tanks. This cavalry charge was supported by heavy MG fire from mobile MG cavalry carriages, just as in the Russian Civil War, and Machine-Gunner Davidenko was firing his Maxim at the Germans non-stop while on the move.

On the Road of War, page 108.

[Pat Holscher]

1941

[Pat Holscher]

A classic photograph of a Soviet cavalry unit mounted on panjes. Note that the rider on the far right is carrying a saber, the scabbard for which is barely visible under his winter smock:

http://i32.tinypic.com/v3zuvq.jpg

[Pat Holscher]

I think this photo was published in Operation Barbarossa In Photographs, which mostly consists of German photos (it's a German book, mostly made up of photos provided to the author). Anyhow, the same book contains a really interesting photo, which unfortunately I can't put up due to the copyright, of a group of retreating Germans mounted on panjes. For those with access to the book, it's a really interesting photo, as we don't often see Germans mounted on panjes, although they certainly used a lot of them.

In this case, the German soldiers are indicated to have been on a long retreat and to have fallen behind the lines for awhile. It must have been a private photo, as it certainly wouldn't have been published as a news photo by the Germans. The soldiers look beat up and tired, and their tack is really a mess, and partially improvised. Well worth looking at, for those who can find it. Anyhow, it depicts the panje in use as a saddle mount in a different context with some simularities (white winter camo, for interest), and some marked contrasts, given that we're looking at the ultimate victor in the photo linked in here.

The panjes, however, have the same disinterested appearance in both photos.

(As an aside, we have some neat photos up here somewhere of Imperial Russian troops mounted on panjes during WWI, and even before WWI.)

[Reiter]

Hi Pat,

are you sure, that on these picture are Panje-horses? I have found this picture in my book from Janusz Piekalkiewicz and he wrote, that it is a Sibirian Patrol with "Mongolian horses".
By the way: its a wunderful book (not really the text) but with very much interesting pictures from cavalry-units from british, french, german, us, soviet, italian, slovakian, japanies army and so on.
Back to the horses: When I was last year in Mongolia on Tour with these ponies (350km on horseback), some people told me of the mong. horses which were the soviet "Red Army". And on the way to or in europe, some horses run away and came alone home to his owner. They have a great endurance. Mongolian people said to me that in future it should be build a monument for Mongolian military horses.

Horrido!

Nicole

[Pat Holscher]

Hi Pat,

are you sure, that on these picture are Panje-horses? I have found this picture in my book from Janusz Piekalkiewicz and he wrote, that it is a Sibirian Patrol with "Mongolian horses".
By the way: its a wunderful book (not really the text) but with very much interesting pictures from cavalry-units from british, french, german, us, soviet, italian, slovakian, japanies army and so on.
Back to the horses: When I was last year in Mongolia on Tour with these ponies (350km on horseback), some people told me of the mong. horses which were the soviet "Red Army". And on the way to or in europe, some horses run away and came alone home to his owner. They have a great endurance. Mongolian people said to me that in future it should be build a monument for Mongolian military horses.

Horrido!

Nicole

Nicole, I'm not at all sure, and Janusz Piekalkiewicz may be correct. However, the type depicted closely recalls other panje photographs, which makes me wonder. I suspect that both Piekalkiewicz and I are speculating, but given the very heavy use of panjes by both the Soviets and the Germans on the Eastern Front, there's at least a high likelihood of the hroses being panjes. I can't discount the possibility that they're Mongolian horses, however (although they appear more panje like to me). The Mongolian horse is a fairly primitive pony sized horse, so that possibility exists. We have yet to explore the use of Mongolian horses by the Soviets or Imperial Russians, and we likely ought to.

I agree on your assessment of Piekalkiewicz's book. Right now, it stands alone as the only one volume history, or the only global history, of the cavalry of WWII. It misses a lot, and there's a lot more information and photos out there, and it'd be nice to see somebody write a new text. I suspect more is known now than when Piekalkiewicz wrote his book, which ironically is often the case when time passes by. We've dug up a lot of information here that he misses, but we still hope to learn more about a lot he notes. A new book would be most welcome.

By the way, I'd really encourage you to post a thread on your Mongolian trip. That sounds very fascinating indeed.

[Pat Holscher]

Soviet cavalrymen in 1942. I think the trooper on the far left might be carrying a German MP 38 or MP 40.

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f? ... f516b07e1e

[Pat Holscher]

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f? ... 3f4d222a53

[Pat Holscher]

Famous image of Soviet cavalry charge:

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f? ... 8142f4d6b0

This is supposed to depict Cossacks in December, 1941, near Moscow.