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zoux posted:I hope they aren't dismounting their helicopters to fight on the ground Uh, yeah, they do that all the time. You know, infantry inserting via helicopter and then the helo fucks off while the infantry does infantry things.
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Dec 8, 2020 19:55
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turns out the modern front lines are hazardous for most personnel transports.
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Dec 8, 2020 19:56
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Nebakenezzer posted:So ships that could keep up with the fleet but were fast/small enough to waste trash mobs of PT boats? Sort of, and the role gradually evolved over the years. Drach has a few good videos on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiVmLk6JzNg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rlLlsYQ6lQ
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Dec 8, 2020 19:59
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Stairmaster posted:turns out the modern front lines are hazardous for most personnel transports. Old ones were too. Horses died in huge numbers in wars, and a significant chunk of any dismounted cavalry squadron was dudes in the rear making sure the horses didn't run away or get killed or something.
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Dec 8, 2020 19:59
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Cyrano4747 posted:Uh, yeah, they do that all the time. Well I was trying to joke about Cobra pilots or something!
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Dec 8, 2020 20:00
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Nebakenezzer posted:So ships that could keep up with the fleet but were fast/small enough to waste trash mobs of PT boats? 1890s torpedo boats were completely different things from PT boats.
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Dec 8, 2020 20:04
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Cyrano4747 posted:Uh, yeah, they do that all the time. The US even experimented with having the HQ element of an armored cavalry squadron in Vietnam be airmobile to allow maximum flexibility in its positioning during dispersed operations.
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Dec 8, 2020 20:13
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airmobile / heliborne infantry are just straight up dragoons
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Dec 8, 2020 20:58
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All of the cavalry squadrons (ie manned by cavalry scouts) in the US Army are dismount oriented organizations. Whether it's a humvee, Stryker, or a Bradley it's just their platform to get around and the only differences in equipment from their infantry counterparts is more/better communications and optical/observation capabilities. Depending on the time frame and country dragoons were used for different things but their frequent use for skirmishing and reconnaissance blurs the lines between dragoons and light cavalry in general.
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Dec 8, 2020 21:23
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Don't you see more vehicle mounted heavier weapons in such formations?
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Dec 8, 2020 22:27
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What are the definitive books on horse cavalry? I'm curious about how their functions shifted from flanking and skirmishing to... whatever they were in the modern era, especially. I assume there aren't many books on horses in war that stretch to the 20th C?
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Dec 8, 2020 22:50
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early 20th c has lots of good horse action. maybe less Glorious Charges but still some very important stuff, especially if you go eastwards. Russian Civil War, Polish-Soviet war had some good things and of course Xinjiang was a good one for cav.
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Dec 8, 2020 22:56
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The key thing to understand about cavalry tactics in the late middle ages through the napoleonic era is that: the British were bad at it. Except Cromwell and he overthrew the monarchy, for a bit. e: what is the most recent war in which horse cavalry was used successfully?
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Dec 8, 2020 23:07
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CommonShore posted:To what extent could caracole vs sabre shock be something of a (for lack of a better term) metagame tactical decision? Well, through the 17th century cavalry charging into pike-and-shot infantry formations didn't have a good time. The various wars of Sweden and Poland are a good example, Polish cavalry absolutely slaughtered Swedish foot at Kircholm in 1605, but by the 1650's Swedish invasion of Poland it could no longer overrun Swedish infantry formations at will. Various countries/realms/proto-states had very different types on infantry, for example the Polish foot were supposedly not up to the standard of their neighbours.
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Dec 8, 2020 23:07
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Weka posted:Don't you see more vehicle mounted heavier weapons in such formations? Only in the sense that they might have slightly more vehicles than soldiers. Other than Bradleys, which are used by both infantry and cavalry units, neither infantry nor scouts are going to be fighting from their vehicles from anything other than a support by fire position with a humvee or Stryker. In Stryker formations both the infantry and scouts man variants with AT capabilities. The infantry crews the variant that fires TOW missiles and the scouts man the variant that fires 105mm rounds. Neither of these is capable of carrying dismounts.
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Dec 8, 2020 23:13
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zoux posted:The key thing to understand about cavalry tactics in the late middle ages through the napoleonic era is that: the British were bad at it. Except Cromwell and he overthrew the monarchy, for a bit. It seems to be a built in rule that British cavalry in the age of gun powder was worlds best practice at CHARGING but worlds worst practice at *rallying* afterwards. They just never trained for it. I'm guessing a lot of this came from fox hunting. The French per-revolution had some bad cavalry. I have read that one of the reasons they changed to heavy cavalry charging instead of using pistols was previously they would ride up, shoot their guns at 10 feet, miss competently with every shot, and then get charged while trying to reload. One of the reasons for Napoleon's success I think was how he inherited a new tactical theory that had been built up after the 7 years war. quote:e: what is the most recent war in which horse cavalry was used successfully? US Special Forces acted as dragoons on horse back in Afghanistan. Don't think it helped win the actual war though.
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Dec 8, 2020 23:54
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zoux posted:The key thing to understand about cavalry tactics in the late middle ages through the napoleonic era is that: the British were bad at it. Except Cromwell and he overthrew the monarchy, for a bit. WWII with the Battle of Krasnobrod?
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Dec 9, 2020 00:01
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zoux posted:The key thing to understand about cavalry tactics in the late middle ages through the napoleonic era is that: the British were bad at it. Except Cromwell and he overthrew the monarchy, for a bit. Arguably Cromwellian horse was OK because it was drawn from non-traditional British Cav sources. The British had good cavalry in the Napoleonic era, it was just German.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:01
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Caracole was a useful tactic because only part of the infantry was equipped with muskets, and the og muskets had a slow rate of fire. When armies started to use faster firing muskets and more musketeers its effectiveness diminished. And Swedish cavalry didn't charge intact infantry formations, they used musketeers and lighter field guns to support their cavalry charges.Edgar Allen Ho posted:Didn’t ACW cavalry follow fairly different doctrine to contemporary european cavalry? There’s nothing equivalent to lancers or cuirassiers, and they all seem to basically be dragoons. ACW cavalry were essentially militia dragoons, and proper cavalry requires longer training. And ACW infantry and artillery weapons were so effective, that even good cavalry would have been best used as dragoons or they would have just died in their first charge. That would have made some good poetry but nothing else. Panzeh posted:I don't think it's really true that cavalry ditched carbines and pistols during the Napoleonic Wars. Perhaps for shooting up formed infantry, but IIRC Napoleon actually deliberately asked for more carbines for his cavalry for the 1812 campaign in Russia, due to the need for them in not-so-pitched battles. Yeah, only part of cavalry's job happened in large battles. Napoleonic infantry had fast firing muskets, and effective firing methods, so a cavalry unit that tried to out-shoot infantry formations wouldn't have fared very well, but guns were very useful in skirmishes and looting peasants. Ataxerxes posted:Well, through the 17th century cavalry charging into pike-and-shot infantry formations didn't have a good time. The various wars of Sweden and Poland are a good example, Polish cavalry absolutely slaughtered Swedish foot at Kircholm in 1605, but by the 1650's Swedish invasion of Poland it could no longer overrun Swedish infantry formations at will. Various countries/realms/proto-states had very different types on infantry, for example the Polish foot were supposedly not up to the standard of their neighbours. The Polish infantry wasn't very good, because the Polish nobility didn't want to pay taxes for it, partially because that would have helped the king.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:11
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zoux posted:I hope they aren't dismounting their helicopters to fight on the ground One man in four stays behind to hold the reins of the helicopters.
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Dec 9, 2020 01:42
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The Lone Badger posted:One man in four stays behind to hold the reins of the helicopters. Otherwise the enemy could do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVIGh2bSsxY
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Dec 9, 2020 01:54
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Charging home with the sabre usually involves substantial reforming and you should shoot at the other dudes on your way in, so yeah, you should have a pistol. Napoleonic cav carried pistols. Your primary way that you are supposed to be decisive on the battlefield may be the sword but that is not the majority of the work that the cavalryman does. It's almost all picquet, outpost, and recon. Guns are very convenient for this purpose. Would they be facing other cavalry more often while performing picquet, outpost, and recon, or infantry? Comstar posted:The French per-revolution had some bad cavalry. I have read that one of the reasons they changed to heavy cavalry charging instead of using pistols was previously they would ride up, shoot their guns at 10 feet, miss competently with every shot, and then get charged while trying to reload. One of the reasons for Napoleon's success I think was how he inherited a new tactical theory that had been built up after the 7 years war. Was it just don't reload in front of the enemy? I've read that Frederick the Great retrained his cavalry after the War fo the Austrian Succession but from what to what I don't know. Did the Prussians influence French development? KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Arguably Cromwellian horse was OK because it was drawn from non-traditional British Cav sources. What was so OK about Cromwellian cavalry? Were they just so good due to being members of the elect? ChubbyChecker posted:Caracole was a useful tactic because only part of the infantry was equipped with muskets, and the og muskets had a slow rate of fire. When armies started to use faster firing muskets and more musketeers its effectiveness diminished. And Swedish cavalry didn't charge intact infantry formations, they used musketeers and lighter field guns to support their cavalry charges. Caracole seems to me to be the gunpowder equivalent of horse archers riding around an enemy shooting arrows at them, and like horse archers their biggest weakness was an enemy armed with superior ranged weapons. ChubbyChecker posted:The Polish infantry wasn't very good, because the Polish nobility didn't want to pay taxes for it, partially because that would have helped the king. They also saw the proper use of infantry differently. The Poles and Russians adopted pikes later then other European armies, but they were enthusiastic adopters of guns. They saw infantry as support for the cavalry, so they'd usually have the infantry entrench in a good position and shoot at any enemies that got close while the cavalry reformed behind them. Consequently infantry made up a much smaller proportion of their armies since cavalry was the dominant branch. As infantry got better at fighting cavalry coped by trying to reform along Western lines. Russia succeeded but Poland didn't.
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Dec 9, 2020 01:59
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Panzeh posted:The US even experimented with having the HQ element of an armored cavalry squadron in Vietnam be airmobile to allow maximum flexibility in its positioning during dispersed operations. That's pretty interesting what did it involve?
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Dec 9, 2020 02:37
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White Coke posted:Caracole seems to me to be the gunpowder equivalent of horse archers riding around an enemy shooting arrows at them, and like horse archers their biggest weakness was an enemy armed with superior ranged weapons. p much yes
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Dec 9, 2020 02:38
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It's not really a military history question, per se, but uhh, how big is the incoming SecDef Lloyd Austin? 
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Dec 9, 2020 03:01
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White Coke posted:Would they be facing other cavalry more often while performing picquet, outpost, and recon, or infantry? Infantry also performed picquet and outpost duties, so if you're cavalry on recon (a more active mode) you would encounter both other cavalry and infantry. But it doesn't matter too much. You're there to look at things. If you encounter a small number of infantry you ignore them. If you encounter cav you wave hello to your counterparts and keep your eye on your exits. If you encounter a large number of infantry you use your superior mobility to gently caress off. The advantage of cavalry is mobility and ground coverage for the number of men employed, and ease of communication. Say you have a little village along a fordable river. You can garrison the village with say, a couple of companies of infantry (200 men), and put a small patrol at each ford. However, if an enemy cav patrol shows up they're hosed and your primary mode of warning will be gunfire, which is useless if you don't have patrols in audible contact with each other - so that means a series of static outpost positions and a lot of walking. Or, you could garrison the village with a troop of cavalry (80 men), and have them ride on patrol. If someone comes, they send a rider back to troop commander in the village and keep looking at things. They can cover many times more frontage effectively compared to similar numbers of infantry. The disadvantage if you garrison with cavalry is that if the enemy makes a concerted effort you absolutely are not going to try to hold that village. Infantry can hold ground and needs to be dug out. Cavalry can't hold ground. Most cav work in the Napoleonic wars is extremely important but excruciatingly dull.
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Dec 9, 2020 03:02
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Lawman 0 posted:That's pretty interesting what did it involve? The Squadron Commander flies overhead and coordinates the troops. I wrote a paper a long time ago based on the 3/4 Cav's defense of Tan Son Nhut Airbase on the first day of the Tet Offensive. The Squadron Commander flew overhead as the Troop moved from their base to Tan Son Nhut the Squadron Commander flew overhead to perform route recon, guide the troop around obstacles and roadblocks, and coordinate the Troop's movements while utilizing a bird's eye view. Modern commanders basically do the same thing using drones.
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Dec 9, 2020 03:10
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White Coke posted:As infantry got better at fighting cavalry coped by trying to reform along Western lines. Russia succeeded but Poland didn't. The quality of Polish cavalry stayed quite good even after there wasn't an independent Polish state. And the lancers even had somewhat of a renaissance during and after the Napoleonic wars because of the Polish uhlans.
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Dec 9, 2020 03:18
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Memento posted:It's not really a military history question, per se, but uhh, how big is the incoming SecDef Lloyd Austin?
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Dec 9, 2020 04:32
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ChubbyChecker posted:The quality of Polish cavalry stayed quite good even after there wasn't an independent Polish state. And the lancers even had somewhat of a renaissance during and after the Napoleonic wars because of the Polish uhlans. Ugh. I meant to say they reformed their militaries along western lines, not just their cavalry. And yeah, Polish lancers were so good everyone else copied them down to the uniforms, a lot like the Hussars.
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Dec 9, 2020 04:56
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HEY GUNS posted:If our Secretary of Defense is bigger than theirs, his threat display will intimidate them. This is how diplomacy works. Also, I am an elk. Is that why dress uniforms went for really big hats and epaulets at one point?
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Dec 9, 2020 05:03
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Finally a SecDef who will guarantee the troops' freedom to press
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Dec 9, 2020 05:28
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Memento posted:It's not really a military history question, per se, but uhh, how big is the incoming SecDef Lloyd Austin? There's a picture of him with Robert Gates that is possibly even better: 
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Dec 9, 2020 06:22
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Hey does anyone here recognize the quote "sometimes history needs a push"? It sounds like a movie line but google is only giving me spurious motivational memes. Tom Morello wrote that on his new wah pedal.
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Dec 9, 2020 09:15
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Well I can tell you that everyone on the Web is attributing it to Lenin. But they’re not citing any particular work, which is very sus.
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Dec 9, 2020 09:25
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The real utterer of that remark appears to be Andrei Zhelyabov, the context being the 1881 assassination of Alexander II. Tracing it to a contemporary source is left as an exercise to the reader.
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Dec 9, 2020 09:37
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Hey, thanks a lot! This thread is the best.
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Dec 9, 2020 10:12
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ChubbyChecker posted:The Polish infantry wasn't very good, because the Polish nobility didn't want to pay taxes for it, partially because that would have helped the king. Yeah, Sweden sorta went the other side roung. The masters thesis of a dear friend (and his upcoming PhD thesis) is about the transformation of the Swedish army from the semi-feudal "nobility is supposed to turn up with their own troops and some infantry" of mid 1550's to the beginning of the reign of Gustavus Adoplhus. The Kircholm defeat was in part due to king Johan and Karl (sons of Gustaf Vasa) trying to cut corners in outfitting their soldiers (musketeers are cheap! they need no armor!) and ending up with infantry that was good for garrison duties and cross-border raiding (which was wery frequent on the eastern borderlands of Sweden) but couldn't really hold its own in a pitched battle, especially not against the charge of the Polish hussars. By the time Gustavus went to war in Germany he had had the time to both have his native regiments drilled well and to hire good mercenaries, something none of his predecessors could afford, with regards to either time or money.
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Dec 9, 2020 11:35
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Ataxerxes posted:Yeah, Sweden sorta went the other side roung. The masters thesis of a dear friend (and his upcoming PhD thesis) is about the transformation of the Swedish army from the semi-feudal "nobility is supposed to turn up with their own troops and some infantry" of mid 1550's to the beginning of the reign of Gustavus Adoplhus. The Kircholm defeat was in part due to king Johan and Karl (sons of Gustaf Vasa) trying to cut corners in outfitting their soldiers (musketeers are cheap! they need no armor!) and ending up with infantry that was good for garrison duties and cross-border raiding (which was wery frequent on the eastern borderlands of Sweden) but couldn't really hold its own in a pitched battle, especially not against the charge of the Polish hussars. By the time Gustavus went to war in Germany he had had the time to both have his native regiments drilled well and to hire good mercenaries, something none of his predecessors could afford, with regards to either time or money. When I was contemplating on the cavalry, I thought about drilling. Were the native Swedish troops actually better drilled than their opponents? And iirc the musketeers didn't wear armor because it hindered loading the long muskets.
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Dec 9, 2020 12:37
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I’m currently serving with a master chief who personally met the incoming sec def who’s a giant himself and said that’s he’s at least 6’6”.
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Dec 9, 2020 12:46
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