How long can we keep horse cavalry viable?

[SavoyTruffle]

I'm of the thought that the internal combustion engine was what would render horse cavalry obsolete, but the change obviously wasn't overnight.

Tanks were invented to break trench warfare from my understanding, but if I'm not mistaken efforts to use armored vehicles were underway.

That said, what is the latest possible date horse cavalry would play a significant role on the battlefield, assuming no massive trench warfare on the Western Front for a possible POD?

 

[Ato]

I'm of the thought that the internal combustion engine was what would render horse cavalry obsolete, but the change obviously wasn't overnight.

Tanks were invented to break trench warfare from my understanding, but if I'm not mistaken efforts to use armored vehicles were underway.

That said, what is the latest possible date horse cavalry would play a significant role on the battlefield, assuming no massive trench warfare on the Western Front for a possible POD?

Cavalry units were used in action in WWII by the soviets. Of course they were pretty much just horse mobile infantry, but it still counts.

IIRC the Mongolians still have such units in their order of battle.

 

[SavoyTruffle]

horse mobile infantry

So dragoons?

I guess I'm looking more for traditional cavalry (i.e. man and horse as a unit, rather than the horse as transport), but that's interesting.

 

[NHBL]

I think that the relatively portable machine gun removes cavalry in the sense of man and horse as a unit, but dragoons--as long as there's vast areas with little infrastructure, fought over by nations that don't have the logistics to simply bring their own infrastructure in, three will be a place for dragoons.

 

[yulzari]

The man/horse unit only functions as a weapon system if you use a sword/lance/pistol at touching range. You only have one hand free to operate the weapon of choice. The shock of the ton of horse itself being part of the weapon system not just the delivery system.

Otherwise they are the transport part of mounted infantry. Pre magazine rifle the social cachet (coolness to modern folk amongst you) of cavalry against mounted infantry has lead to all mounted infantry units from the very earliest dragoons to the Australian Light Horse of WW1 to gravitate to the more glamorous cavalry role and the mounted charge. Mounted infantry has a role in certain situations of ground ill suited to vehicles but needing better mobility than on foot.

 

[DER386]

Horse mounted troops (probably more like Dragoons) were used by the US in Afghanistan

 

[hipper]

I'm of the thought that the internal combustion engine was what would render horse cavalry obsolete, but the change obviously wasn't overnight.

Tanks were invented to break trench warfare from my understanding, but if I'm not mistaken efforts to use armored vehicles were underway.

That said, what is the latest possible date horse cavalry would play a significant role on the battlefield, assuming no massive trench warfare on the Western Front for a possible POD?

1917 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Beersheba_(1917)

 

[Ato]

So dragoons?

I guess I'm looking more for traditional cavalry (i.e. man and horse as a unit, rather than the horse as transport), but that's interesting.

Well they were a unit, in the same way that mechanized infantry are in a unit with their APCs.
Cavalry actually fighting from horseback was a dodgy proposition even back in the late 19th century. Rife fire had just got too accurate and a mounted soldier was too big a target to survive long.
It wasnt combustion engined that obsoleted cavalry in the combat role, but the magazine fed rifle and smokeless powder.

There were occasional instances of sucessful cavalry charges as late as WW2, but almost universally these have been attacks of oportunity against unprepared foes.
A prepared infantry force can cut cavalry to peices long before the horseman are in a position to do any damage. And that is without machineguns.

 

[RodentRevolution]

Of interest in considering the exact faced point at which cavalry went obsolete is the fact that at El Mughar Cavalry carried the initial Turkish position after infantry had failed. At Izbushensky the Savoia Cavelleria faced around three times their numbers. The issue with both instances though is that the cavalry force took heavy casualties most critically among horses and in the case of my first example acted in concert with other arms to complete its mission.

Indeed it was recognised by the time of the Great War in British Cavalry doctrine that cavalry would need a base of fire to support a charge. The cavalry regiments were therefore equipped with proportionally many machine guns as the infantry battalions of the BEF (4 a piece in 1914) and also had specialised artillery support from the Royal Horse Artillery. Properly supported cavalry can and did as noted above carry positions that a similar or even larger force of infantry might falter against.

However the big impediment of horsed cavalry is its much larger logistic footprint and consequently its exposure to the disruptive effects of attack by artillery and aircraft. There was at lease one instance of British aircraft breaking up large pro-Bolshevik cavalry formations in the Russian Civil War.

Thus the issue becomes one of diminishing returns for the expense of maintaining cavalry. Yes they can manoeuvre more quickly than foot infantry but mounted infantry can be raised at a pinch in war time for far less expense and in addition as the 20th century goes on motorised infantry becomes increasingly viable in most kinds of terrain a typical army is looking to control. It is hard to be sure exactly when this happened but sometime in the 1920-30s seems to be the point at which the dial decisively swung against cavalry.

 

[marathag]

The biggest problem is what eliminated Horses from farming.
Internal Combustion Engines was cheaper, and you only had to'feed' ICE when they were doing work, and could let the machinery sit idle with little care or months on end.

Horses you have to feed and care for 24/7/365. a single Horse had the logistic footprint of 10 men for fodder and water

ICE can always be repaired, while with a horse, sometimes all that was salvageable was meat.

 

[Loki-L]

Aren't there still actual cavalry units around in the some places in Asia? Wikipedia gives us the 61st Cavalry Regiment of the Indian Army which is said to be the largest non-ceremonial horse-mounted cavalry unit remaining in the world.

Obviously mechanized version have taken over for most normal cavalry purposes in the wake of WWI, but it is not like nobody today actually uses horses anymore.

Horses for example are great for crowd control, which is why you see them still used by police forces in many cities. Obviously they would not be as useful in a situation where a military force was trying to keep the peace and there were still plenty of people shooting at them, but in reasonable peaceful nation building situations they might find a use.

Horses don't need oil, but that is only a minor advantage.

Horses are cheap compared to some more expensive vehicles, that however only is a real advantage is your riders also come cheap and you don't have to worry about moral and ethics and stuff like that.

Generally the usefulness of horses in modern warfare is extremely limited to some niche situations I would say.

 

[yulzari]

Even in Napoleonic times cavalry could not prevail against well trained infantry in a square or similar and relied upon artillery to open up such formations. Their assault role was in engaging enemy cavalry and exploiting victories. Trained infantry firepower even with muskets could see off cavalry. They needed a surprised and disorganised enemy. Even in such situations a small unit that maintained cohesion would force cavalry to by pass them.

I have heard it said that half of the material carried to France in WW1 was horse fodder. Fodder is way more difficult to provide in the field than fuel for vehicles. Horses need food in volume and the time to eat it. The South African War solution was to feed more horses into the system and allow for high losses in the field from weakness and disease. The German army in WW2 would have gladly have eliminated it's dependence upon horse transport had they the vehicle production and fuel to spare.

Essentially you would use horses only if either you had no alternative (and logistically that can mean on foot instead) transport or you need more mobility in difficult terrain for vehicles. You can move faster and further on horse than on foot but only for a limited time. Infantry can maintain themselves in the field with limited resupply but mounted infantry need lots of fodder to stay in the field.

What mounted infantry might allow is control over a greater area of difficult terrain than foot infantry if they operate out of protected bases. Thus you need fewer bases or can control more area with the same number of troops. An historical example is the Norman French castles rapidly built to control the English after they were conquered. Each being about the distance you could ride out and return in one day apart.

However this is still not cavalry that fights on the horse like the irregular cavalries that roamed the India/Pakistan borders at Partition in 1947 who were probably the last sword armed cavalry to engage in classic charges upon disorganised opposition.

Whilst not assault cavalry, cavalry exists in assorted police, border and army squadrons around remoter parts of central Asia where there are few roads and the terrain provides the fodder. They function as reconnaissance units able to deal directly with smugglers etc. The existing ceremonial units around the world have no combat role with their horses but would enter combat as more conventional forces. British ones for example provide armoured reconnaissance.

 

[Bernard Woolley]

1917 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Beersheba_(1917)

1918 Battle of Amiens. Or 1945 if you want to include the Battle of Schoenfeld.

I have heard it said that half of the material carried to France in WW1 was horse fodder.

Only a small proportion of that was for cavalry horses though.

However this is still not cavalry that fights on the horse like the irregular cavalries that roamed the India/Pakistan borders at Partition in 1947 who were probably the last sword armed cavalry to engage in classic charges upon disorganised opposition.

AFAIK the last mounted unit to conduct a charge, other than possibly the Northern Alliance, was a French unit during the Algerian War.

 

[Alex Zetsu]

Cavalry played a bigger role in WW1 that you might have thought. Sabre cavalry and dragoons (mounted infantry) was used for flanking, ambush, pursuit of routing foes, and scouting early on the Western front and during the while war in the Romania and Serbian fronts. On the Western front, there was soon no more "flank"

 

[Insider]

Even in Napoleonic times cavalry could not prevail against well trained infantry in a square or similar and relied upon artillery to open up such formations. Their assault role was in engaging enemy cavalry and exploiting victories. Trained infantry firepower even with muskets could see off cavalry. They needed a surprised and disorganised enemy. Even in such situations a small unit that maintained cohesion would force cavalry to by pass them.

I would argue that the change was much earlier and most likely come with the Spanish Tercios. (or even earlier, during Husite Wars in Bohemia, but arguably Husites cheated by using wagons). True, the cavalry had to avoid infantry in squares. But most of the time, that was exactly the point. When cavalry entered the battlefield, footmen had to assume defensive formation and more or less cease to do whatever they did. A good cavalry commander would just swoop his squadron around, and attack something less looking like porcupine, preferably enemy artillery or supply train, to return in more favourable conditions. True, some veteran units proven that they could both hold defensive square, and advance, but the rate of such advance was generally sluggish and possible over only flat terrain. Crossing a tiny stream, tiny enough to man could step over it without jumping, really could prove undoing for such formation. (I am sure that there was a battle when attacker ended up halted in that way.)

 

[TonyA]

I would say the Eastern Front and mainland China in WW2 is about it. In both places could be used (dragoon style) by either partisans attacking the invaders, or used by the invader to counter the partisan force in their rear. Know the Russkies used just such forces in WW2 in that fashion, assume such usage by others in similar circumstances. Dragoons are not incompatible with infantry armies lacking motorized support elements, like most of the non-Wallie units in WW2. After WW2, large numbers of cheap aircraft and helicopters rule such things out.

 

[MichaelWest]

South Africa used horse in their "bush war" in Southwest Africa, more for traditional tasks of scouting and "raiding", but also as a light infantry with stealthy mobility in the right terrain. That may mean only Counter-insurgency Operations late in the century, but even through to the Second World War horses could move in terrain that vehicles could not, were stealthier and had other advantages to keep them viable, but it is a niche role even before the First World War began in many respects.

 

[SactoMan101]

I personally think the whole idea of a massed, coordinated cavalry charge was rendered essentially obsolete once the Maxim machine gun went into production in the late 1880's.

 

[Orcbuster]

Horse as a primary frontline combat tool went away sometime during WWI but remained as a viable support element in difficult terrain up to modern times. After smokeless powder however its simply becomes a waste to use them in direct combat unless its under a very specific set of circumstances. By WWII you mostly have horses carry supplies and equipment while the infantry march. The horse is too valuable elsewhere so the basic idea of a dragoon is seen as mostly wasteful outside some niche skirmishing units. As a main element on the frontlines in a major war they are gone by WWI.

 

[Richard V]

Life near the front was not very healthy or romantic for horses. Life expectancy for WWI draft horses was measured in months due to disease, over work and poor care, even in modern armies with good veterinary service. Under normal conditions an exhausted horse would require periods of recuperation with extra food and water, warm shelter in winter. In wartime they were often whipped until they collapsed and then shot.

The modern battlefield is no place for dumb scared animals. Replacing them with machines was the humane thing to do.