Subotai wrote:Pat makes an interesting observation -
"To widen the example out, what seems to be the case since World War Two is that where infrastructure and terrain suits it, and where the battlefield density of weapons (and the number and type of weapons) does not prevent it, examples of cavalry continue to be found. Certainly we've seen the notable examples of Rhodesia and Angola discussed here, as well as the recent example of Afghanistan."
But I would like to perhaps shift the direction of his thought slightly. I am not sure that it is the battlefield density of weapons so much as the type of warfare selected by at least one of the combatants. The various countries of the world have a pretty good appreciation for the idea that insurgent or revolutionary warfare is the poor man's means of defeating a superior - and indeed technologically advanced - conventional army.
There is no doubt that insurgents can and have locally created a really discouraging density of weapons on a battlefield of their choosing. It seems to me that the need for, as David Galula in pointed out in his excellent work Counterinsurgency Warfare Theory and Practice, you need 20 trigger pullers for every insurgent remains applicable and they have to be in the communities [along with a whole host of other counterinsurgency actions]. Also as other contributors to this forum have noted, a man on horseback is an excellent patrol observer as he can see more and better and the horse can help detect threats.
And back to the Soviets for a moment, if memory serves, they maintained Operational or Theater reserves throughout the war and these reserves consisted of 29% horse mounted cavalry. A Soviet Cavalry Corps consisted of three horse mounted cavalry divisions and a organic tank regiment. Also a cavalry division while about half the size of an infantry division [man power wise] had the same organic artillery that an infantry division possessed. Seems to me that the Soviets concluded that horse mounted cavalry remained viable in a combine arms army. This is interesting in light of the British experience in Palestine and Syria in WWI where their cavalry successfully charged numerous times against heavily machine gun equipped Turk/German positions under the suppressive fire of their own machine guns and the organic Royal Horse Artillery [RHA]; in other words a combine arms environment.
While a horse and a man are large targets, so are tanks and APCs. They do not fight alone but rather as part of a combined arms team, the proliferation of shoulder fired anti-tank weapons has seen to that. The bloody truth is that no one moves successfully - at least not for very long - across a battlefield without suppressive covering fire.
My point then is simply that success on a battle field has remained fairly consistent throughout history -
Find the enemy, fix him in place with superior suppressive [SS] firepower and maneuver to destroy him.
How you maneuver is not as important as whether you can maneuver fast enough, horses do that; the 12th Lancers in Palestine in 1918 are an excellent example. While speed and surprise - such as a night movement/attack - can alternate for SS firepower they only work for a limited time. A brilliant example of this is the taking or redoubt #28 at Yorktown VA at the end of our [American] Revolutionary War. You must either achieve success within that limited time or have the SS firepower on tap. A fairly recent book entitled something like Special Ops, eight case studies, by a navy SEAL discusses this in detail. If I can find the book I will post the real title; it is a very worth while read.
Some interesting points.
When I first posted this thread, I had not yet read the book I most recently quoted from, and this overall topic has developed a lot since then. In some ways, I feel less certain about my initial opinions than I did then.
That something was operating on the Eastern Front to keep horse cavalry viable in that theatre, when it was not on the Western Front (keeping in mind we're speaking of true cavalry, not organic cavalry or horse supported operations, cannot be doubted. And it still seems to me that this was a function of weapons density and terrain. Indeed, I do not think that can be doubted. The vast expanse of Russia, the terrain, and the weather, all caused cavalry to remain viable, as we have seen in some other areas of the globe since then.
Having said that, the thing which I did not fully appreciate at the time of this initial posting was that the Soviets used their cavalry in conventional battles as a sort of very rapid mounted infantry. The author of On The Roads of War emphasizes this, noting that if a large cavalry formation showed up near the front, it was immediately known by the Soviet infantrymen, and the Germans, that an offensive was imminent. As soon as a hole was poked through German lines, cavalry was used to rush through and exploit it. This was a successful tactic on many occasions, but as the author notes it did leave cavalry vulnerable to being cutoff, which happened to his unit on several occasions.
Another interesting item explored by the author was that his unit did engage armor on occasion. Very clearly they were not capable of resisting a large armored advance, but they did encounter and engage armor with their anti-tank gun section.
So, to a degree that is now more plain, it would seem that Soviet cavalry, in 1939-1945, was able to do what Haig had hoped his cavalry would do in 1916-1918. Haig always kept it in reserve, hoping to use it for the Big Breakout. The Soviets actually used it in that role. That the British were not able to can be explained by a number of things. That the Soviets were able to do it some 20 years later, when automatic weapons, tanks, and aircraft, had all advanced considerably in design, is remarkable. Of course, the Germans used cavalry on the Eastern Front as well.
I should note that all this use is separate and apart from partisan, and anti-partisan, use of cavalry by the Soviets and Germans. That use is significantly different, it seems to me, as to make a really separate topic.