Cavalry in WW2 was more useful than we think
Recently I received an email from someone that stated that in WW2 cavalry was far more useful than often stated and particularly that scholars heavily neglected the research about it. So, I looked at what Glantz and Zaloga wrote and added my 2 cents as well. Furthermore, I also talk about subjects, which I consider far more relevant in WW2 research that are extremely neglected.
Cover(s):
Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-090-3947-16 / Etzhold / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons, Rußland.- Panzer VI "Tiger I" (Nummer 312, mit aufgemaltem Ritter mit Lanze auf Pferd auf Turm) neben Soldat auf Pferd
US Alien Property Custodian, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, Soviet light infantry tank T-26 captured by German Wehrmacht, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
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Glantz, David M.: Colossus Reborn. The Red Army at War, 1941-1943. University Kansas Press: Kansas, US, 2005.
Zaloga, Steven: Armored Trains. Osprey Publishing: Oxford, UK, 2008.
Zaloga, Steve; Ness, Leland S.: Companion to the Red Army, 1939-45, History: Stroud, 2009.
Coox, Alvin D.; Naisawald, L. Van Loan: Technical Memorandum ORO-T-117 - Survey of Allied Tank Casualties in World War II, March 1951.
Schabel, Ralf: Die Illusion der Wunderwaffen: die Rolle der Düsenflugzeuge und Flugabwehrraketen in der Rüstungspolitik des Dritten Reiches, R. Oldenbourg: München, Germany, 1994 (Beiträge zur Militärgeschichte, Bd. 35).
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00:00 Intro
01:59 Eastern vs Western Front
03:13 Cavalry suffers heavy losses
04:27 Limits & Armored Trains
08:43 Tanks vs. Cavalry
09:38 Academics focus ...
12:28 Conclusion: Cavalry neglected in Research?
#cavalry #ww2 #tanks
12:17 Correction, during the Cold War the peak of the Bundeswehr was actually only 12 not 14 divisions. The 14 divisions were reached after reunification of Germany. Thanks to stephanl1983 for the correction.
We're the cavalry decisions mostly used as that or were they mostly used as mounted troops? This is an important difference as the Americans during their civil war quickly reduced mounted attacks and went for dismounting first. That would mean cavalry in name only. Most British and American cavalry were switched to armoured cars or tanks.
Semantic difference. Soldiers on horseback. Nobody taking gorse to the frontline at the stage.@@seriousmaran9414
@@seriousmaran9414Calvary’s Refined to more General Calvary Dragoon’s Specifically get on and off Calvary Mechanized Is Very General and Refer’s to Practically All Modern US Military and only Especially Used to refer to less Offensive Tank Armored Units like Stryker Brigades Which lack MBTS and IFVS, mostly Using General APCs and some MGSs The US Uses The Superior Concept of Calvary because It Get’s The more General Concept of Doctrine across Calvary Is Especially Mobile and can Fight Mobile Scouts and Flankers Modern US Calvary Is mostly Armored Calvary Battalions Armored Battalions but more Scout Infantry and IFV Dedicated than normal Armored Battalions Pretty Simple but The Mil like’s to Complicate Things with Stupid Semantics like Troops and Chalks and Squadrons Cool History but Impractical past Ceremonial Purposes
It helps with garrison duty until you have enough IC for cheap light tanks.
Bro told us he enjoys Hoi4 without saying he enjoys Hoi4.
I prefer Hearts of iron darkest hour with mods over hoi4
what does IC mean again?
Industrial Capacity@@spac3fr0g
@@spac3fr0g industrial capacity
Weapons in existence in 1945: Horse-mounted cavalry. Atomic bombs.
Cruise missiles, antitank guided missiles, jet fighters, homing torpedoes, night vision sights , bow and spear militia (Japan).
Effective weapons used in 2024: ground-hugging double warhead cruise missiles, radar-invisible bombers, shoot & scoot artillery mounted on trucks, also anti-personnel mines, Maxim machine guns and $100 hobby drones that can fly a grenade through a window in the next city. Pretty sure guns & swords were carried in parallel for several centuries. War is using what is effective & plentiful more than what is rare and new.
Wooden Club, invented in Stone age is still used by some Police forces.
Have a look at the wikipedia page of "Joe Medicine Crow" someday! :-) He was the last war chief of the Crow Tribe and the last Plaines Indian war chief. He achieved all the requirements for becoming a war chief in WWII between '43 and '45, including stealing 50 horses from the german WaffenSS. History is overflowing with stories like that!
@@peterheinrichs7634 The Oneida declared war on Germany in 1918.
Also, it's a lot harder to eat a motorcycle or armored car.
A guy did once eat a plane
I bet monsieur Mangetout has eaten at least one motorcycle.
I mean, if you replace „Academics“ with „popular discourse“ then the person writing the email arguably has a point. Not about tanks being exotic, of course, but sure, the successful use of cavalry for some roles by various belligerents is that much reflected in the popular debate. Actually, if you add the use of draft horses well, that‘s a whole other story given that the Germans used them in huge (possibly unprecedented?) numbers. And I have no idea how much has or could be written on that topic (maybe it‘s not all that interesting, I have no idea). But they probably dwarf even the solid handful of Mounted Cavalry Corps operated by the Soviets in relevance given that, without horses, most German armies would have been basically immobile.
The logistics of feeding animals is pretty sizable. The Great War which had even more horses and animals in logistics and combat roles had huge transport systems for animal feed.
I believe a common misconception is that cavalry in WW2 fought panzer divisions horseback with drawn swords and all that, but it was really just mounted infantry and reconnaisance that only used horses for transport. Of course, there was also the Italian Colonel Amedeo Guillet. He did attack British tanks with mounted charges in Africa but he was seriously hardcore 😁
It was Italian journalists writing about Germany’s attack on Poland in Corriere della Sera and then picked up by Time & NYT with an “eye-witness” account of Polish cavalry attacking tanks. The only documented attack was a successful cavalry charge at Krojanty against a Germany Infantry battalion, that was itself driven back by machine gun fire from armored cars from another unit. The Italian eye-witnesses were brought in the next day to see the dead bodies of cavalrymen & horses. It was never worth mentioning that the Poles were short of tanks because some army had occupied the Skoda works they were being made in the year before and then used them to invade the country that paid for them 😾 Its all about as believable as a transport aircraft shot-down leaving Belgorod last week was full of POWs (with only 3 guards) who were all vaporised by the explosion of the missiles it wasn’t carrying.
I agree, in certain terrain such as heavily wooded areas or marshes Cavalry could be used effectively & were even advantageous over armor. In a combat situation where you needed to move infantry quickly through rough terrain you would think that cavalry could be used effectively either offensively or defensively. Besides recon they were also useful in garrison & policing duties.
Against armour not much, but they carried the sword and used it, just against infantry. At several points the Soviets would break up and scatter German infantry with tanks, then send in a cavalry charge with swords to cut them down before they could reorganize or redeploy. Cavalry were a fair pain, they could act as mobile reserves, a screening force, a complication in retreating, quite often a complication in attacking if they counterattacked with your troops in open ground in the advance. They could infiltrate behind the lines, cross difficult terrain at speed or just straight up charge you and put how prepared your positions actually were to the test. Not a fun unit but they did face the attrition of any vanguard unit if deployed, if you were screamish about casualties however they made excellent policing and anti-partisan units.
The Soviets did issue sabers to some of their cavalry units and Polish cavalry had lancer units in 1939, so clearly there was an intention to use cold steel as WWII cavalry. Obviously hitting a tank with a sword isn't going to do anything, but cavalry units could carry crew served weapons for fire support, and this that is a concept that predates internal combustion engines, see "horse artillery".
Naturally there is no need to have heavy guard presence on a plane of POWs being brought to a prisoner exchange, and even so there were more than three guards present. It should also not be kept hidden that the Route was already announced to uk-Ruin side in advance and that it was also acknowlegded by them that their uk-ruinian combatants were on Board this plane. But I guess one can always celebrate such Acts of Bad faith where a certain puppet side kills its own puppet Soldiers in order to shoot down one enemy transport plane
During WW2 the Allied advance into Vichy held Syria included an Australian infantry division. During the operation, it's mechanised reconnaissance regiment started to suffer from breakdowns with their light tanks. This resulted in a number of troopers (all former cavalrymen) to repurpose some captured French horses, and form a mounted recce platoon. This was naturally named "The Kelly Gang"
I'll watch it in a moment, but I have to mention that my Grandfather was in "Horse Artillery" in Polish Army - he was deployed on border with Germany in 1939. His life (he was born in 1909 and died in 2004) would make for a very interesting tale/movie. I do remember that one of the first words that I learned as a child was "Coriolis Effect" though. My Grandfather was always saying that artillery isn't so easy as just "point and shoot". From memory he deleted at least 5 tanks (though likely 3-4 of them were only badly damaged) with indirect fire. Was told to hold the line at all cost, only him and his sergeant survived. They managed to kill soldiers who took them as POW's (first days of the war, Germans observed still decent amount of LOAC) and ran off to his town of Lviv (Lwów), to get married on 20th September to my Grandmother, couple of hours before the bomb destroyed the church they had marriage. He spent rest of the war on the run. And several years after that also partially on the run. Because being lieutenant of Horse Artillery wasn't his only job - just his official post. His real one was Counter-Intelligence on Soviet border, so NKVD was hunting him.
"What's one of your favorite memories?" "My Grandpa teaching me about dynamics in a rotating frame of reference."
@@douglasstrother6584 A bit weird if you put it like that, but thankfully it inoculated me from Flet Earthers theories.
My cousin was infantry in the Polish Army. The problem for the Poles was not being able to afford to armaments. My Grand Uncle had been a Cavlery Officer in WW1 for the Austrian Army. He was too old to be subject to call up in 1939. He was killed defending his farm against the Germans. His son had a trucking company and used his best truck to take part of the family into the Russian zone. The lack of motorized transport in Poland and lack of road infrastructure was extream in Poland. It not only hampered the Poles it slowed down the Germans.
@@saltyroe3179 There were many reasons for quick Polish defeat (I always remind people that France didn't take much more time to fall). Another big one was not being allowed full mobilization. Good chunk of soldiers were not in their war time units or in the wrong place. Against allied advise, we did manage partial mobilization, but for example my Grandfather was the only officer in his unit and had to effectively lead group that should be 5 times as large as he should have led, but had only around 40% of strength. And not only lack of road infrastructure - they were lucky they had radio and someone who knew how to operate it. Just like many countries Poland was preparing for War in the mid 40's. Production of motorized infantry was in full swing, but only started 3-4 years earlier - and that amount of time is only for certain types of trucks etc. Production of Mechanized Infantry was very much behind. Tanks were ramping up, but only 1-2 units were at some semi-decent strength. Yeah, we were not prepared for Blitzkrieg.
@@jannegrey593 "There were many reasons for quick Polish defeat (I always remind people that France didn't take much more time to fall)." The French had more warning, a significant amount of help, and weren't simultaneously attacked by the Soviets.
Very interesting… Apparently The Wehrmacht employed over 2 million horses during WW2. The average German infantry division had 2,500 horses & only 250 trucks. I’m not sure but I imagine the horses used to haul supplies & artillery where a different breed of horse than what was used in a cavalry role. They also used mules which were very effective in mountainous terrain.
Germans were extremely reliant on horses for their logistics, they never fully mechanised even by the end of the war.
The last US Army cavalry Saber for use on horseback was designed by Patton. He studied in Europe to find the design he favored and it was accepted but not produced in large numbers. He also wrote a field manual on saber fighting. This was all before he was a general in charge of armored forces of course.
The 1911 pistol was also very much created with the horse cavalry in mind- the lanyard loop, the one handed controls, and the redundant safeties made it a good choice for mounted soldiers. Really, approaching WWI and WWII, the US had the best cavalry pistol, arguably the best saber, and the third best saddle of the major powers. It turned out to be some what irrelevant, though
The Chieftain has produced a couple fascinating videos about how the U.S. Army was reliant on horse-mounted cavalry up to the entry of the U.S. into WWII. The U.S. Army's decision to leave its horses Stateside had many reasons, ranging from the shortage of feed and water for horses in North Africa, to the fact that many young Americans could drive a car by 1942. In the USSR, the factors were the opposite. Also, the U.S. would have had to move horses and fodder across the sea by ship, while the USSR fought a land battle from its own territory. It's an interesting topic.
To this day the US Marines keep a mule capability , the Marines and mules being a natural fit
@@sparkyfromel The mule got a higher ASVAB
That said, US forces did end up with a large number of horses being used during and after the war. Some 5K were in Africa, at least 25 by Italy, up to 40 to 60 in Italy and ETO by wars end, and then after in much smaller numbers. Sparky, Mules and horses are at the school, and you'll learn to ride and use both.
According to Janusz Piekaliewicz, The Cavalry of World War III, the last Polish horse cavalry charge was in 1945. The Poles captured the town of Schoenfeld where the Russian tanks had failed earlier. The tanks were slowed down by trenches and canals, where the horses could jump the obstacles.
Err, the cavalry of WW lll? Well, could make sense somehow....
I love learning snippets about the 26th CAV in the Philippines. I have always wondered if there is a separate work on the 26th CAV from 1941 -42? Also the Field Artillery of the Philippine Campaign 41-42 is also lacking. Mines were not used much in the Philippines except by the Japanese when they often placed them on roads and trails where the 1st Tank Group US would operate. Thankfully in the Army Green Books there is a separate book on Engineers in the Philippines 41-42. Thank you for covering this interesting topic.
I was excited by the teaser pic showing US Cavalry in the Philippines and disappointed they were hardly discussed
Try - Twilight Riders by Peter Stevens for story of 26th US cav Philippine Scouts. Also Bataan Our Last Ditch by John Whitman for that time frame.
@@ferriscarabao5487 well thank you. I just ordered a copy off of Amazon after reading your post.
Post War in Germany the U.S. Army Constabulary force used mounted troopers during the occupation.. I also have a German WWII Cavalry saddle, which had Model 1928 McClellan side panels added to it.
I didn't know about the US unit. Your saddle sounds really interesting. I have a run of the mill armeesattel25 which had a lot of post war use and needs a couple of fittings replaced. It's a size 3 with a dde43 stamp. I love that thing!
@andrewbarron7690 please explain more about it. Me, I have two McClellans and an Aussie Endurance saddle.. I have several books that are military horse related. What got me hooked on to military riding was being a Holnist Cavalry extra in Kevin Costner's THE POSTMAN back in 97.
@@covertops19Z Sadly I don't ride. If you are interested in the WW2 german saddles their official name is Armeesattel 25. 1925 was the date of adoption. There are some websites with a good overview if you Google and KZhead videos also. The MP44 website has a breakdown of a complete German cavalry setup. If you have one of these saddles, the size,the manufacturer code and year of production should be stamped into the back end of the detachable seat. Sounds like you get some use from your saddles. Great pieces of equipment for fine friends.
There are two great video briefs on this platform on the U S. Army of Occupation and their mounted Troopers. Search "United States Constabulary" and Mark Felton's "Circle C Cowboys." If you look close in the Circle C Cowboys one, you can recognize at least one German Cavalry saddle and several McClellan saddles. Both videos are worth watching.
@andrewbarron7690 There are two great video briefs on this platform on the Army of Occupation and their mounted Troopers. Search "United States Constabulary" and Mark Felton's "Circle C Cowboys." In the Circle C video, you can see at least one German Cavalry saddle and several U.S. Army McClellan cavalry saddles.
The Bundeswehr had only 12 Divisions during the Cold War. The 13th and 14th Armoured Infantry Divisions were formed in October 1990, just after the two German states were reunited.
Stimmt, hab mich verlesen. Die Ironie ist, ich wußte es waren 12 und hab extra nachgelesen, um es zu kontrollieren und dann den Kontext übersehen, dass die Zahl erst später erreicht wurde.
Thanks added pinned comment with reference to you.
The Romanian Cavalry Corps was very active in the Kuban in 1942. Also the SS Cavalry Brigade/Florian Geyer Division spent a lot of time conducting 'anti-partisan' operations in the rear of Army Group Centre during 41-43.
3:13 German cavalry actually did see action on the western front. Namely in the northern part of The Netherlands between 10 and 14 may 1940. Here the German 1st kavalleriedivision fought against the Dutch. The Radfahrerabteilung (bicycle batallion) even fought against a reinforced Dutch Batallion on the 12th of may. They had already seen combat in Poland the year before.
Horse on bike violence must be stopped Too many bikes lose their lives to horses each year
I'm not partial to horse but I'll acknowledge that Stug probably tastes a lot worse.
Don't knock it until you try it
Only for the French....Russians and brits should be fine just add mince sauce or vodka and you'll be fine
This is a great video! I love the fact that you cited all your sources. This makes your videos much more reliable and accurate.
i find your comments on artillery and mines being battlefield defining weapons, yet quite under researched fascinating in the context of what you said earlier in the video about cavalry possibly being under researched due to their limited context in western settings. i feel like they all fall into that same pitfall of your average person not having the background knowledge to care about them. it would be quite interesting to see what percentage of random people off the street in somewhere like nyc know that artillery was the main cause of casualties in wwi. thanks for the insight as always man, cheers
In Soviet media artillery's role was always elevated, with propaganda even calling it "the god of war".
The German’s supply lines were horse drawn in France 1944, while the US/British Empire forces had truck supply lines.
This video is not about supply lines but about front line units. Also, UK had horse and even camel transport, tho not in Europe.
@@Paciat no and it wasn’t a criticism of the video, but it was mentioned in the video about the Western front not having many horses in comparison to the East. I thought it was worth mentioning in addition this contrast between the armies in 1944 as it was an element of the Allies rapid advance between Falaise and Belgium in 1944. The German rapid advance in 1940 gives the impression of being fully mechanised, but the collapse of Northern was so much faster.
“Look at you! You have horses! What were you thinking?” Webster.
Love the reference 🤙
Horses don't need gasoline to run. It makes sense. :)
@@Kumimono They need to eat though. And they are way worse than trucks
That was a great presentation. Great choice of topic
We show the disposition of divisions along the front. They heavily concentrated on the principal axes. Many areas were thinly manned. Highly mobile units were important in these areas
I'd say as a rule, all highly specialised units (or tools) can be very useful, if you can find or create the very specific situation. As well-known example, take assault gliders. Glorious actions, but so few, we may remember every single one without checking. But cavalry can't just be stored in a hangar between rare actions, and their actions are likely less critical. You will have to tote it along with your army (and feed it), hoping for that one situation in marshes or mountains where it may (or may not) be useful.
WW2 cavalry divisions are basically just infantry divisions that can get around more quickly. Pretty useful both as a mobile reserve and for exploitation of breakthroughs. That's it. They didn't fight on horseback.
Especially useful when your army lacks trucks to haul troops around. Riding on a horse from A to B gives you much greater speed then walking on foot and it allows your mounted infantry to keep a pace with the tanks.
In other words, pretty much the same as in the Great War, at least after the first clashes of 1914. In fact, similar also to the Boer commandos of the Boer War.
Except Cavalry not fighting on Horse back was already the norm before the American Civil War. Their primary role back then did not change as much
Except lots of them did.
Really excellent analysis of a topic not well known in the West.
Artillery: Queen of the battle. My boss who had been a US armored maintenance officer told me about the effectiveness of mines and Artillery. His favorite were Artillery deployed mines. My friends dad who was US Army Scout from Normandy to Germany, talked about calling in Artillery and destroying whole German formations. Soviet Artillery tactics were amazing. Since there invention Artillery has been a winning element.
Joseph Stalin called Artillery the god of war. a saying that caught on amongst the soviets and Russians.
And while I agree with everything you said, there is one incredibly important role that cavarly played in WW2 that people should know about: their role in obsctructing development in several countries. French cavalry split armored vehicle procurement. US cavarly mired US motorized development for a couple of years. Even german cavarly had its moments of obstruction I have heard. They are decent object lessons in how interservice protectionism can harm militaries. Although the French example may prove the opposite as their DLMs were comparable to mechanized divisions, I have heard, and they gave France something to work with, if they had wanted to.
It was more like a different viewpoints on armoured warfare of different influantional generals rather than some general cavalry conspiracy, if you mean pre-war France.
Indeed the DLM's were actually pretty decently lead and particularly mobile, they were more akin to German Panzer Divisions of the time, but they weren't used effectively enough by Upper echelons of command, and sadly proved of little use in stopping the German thrust into France, ontop of that they were hampered by the rather awful design of French Tanks and the fact they mixed and matched their tanks in such a way, that you had fast Somua S35's fighting alongside the slower Renault R35s fighting in the DLM's and you had slow Char B1's fighting alongside Faster Hotchkiss H35's in the DCR's which hampered each formation's ability to properly make use of their tanks, ontop of lack of radios and again rather poor Leadership.
French and German cavalry though weren’t entirely limiting doctrinal development, their industry was still insufficient to field out entirely
Nice video! Regarding mine warfare, I note that Osprey books do two small volumes with titles "Booby Traps and Sabotage Devices/Tactics" (one book on Axis devices and tactics, one on Allied), and these come with reading recommendations (including Ian Jones, "Malice Aforethought: A History of Booby Traps from World War One to Vietnam"). Both Osprey books are by Gordon L. Rottman and are in the "Elite" series. For artillery warfare I got nothing after WW1...
German army used a lot of horses for logistics and hauling light crew weapons
Really interesting video and well researched. Subscribed
Awesome, thank you!
NIce Video and intersting Discussion. As well as first class Glantz pun :)
Nice video. Just a random thought: while i can’t say for sure if any ww2 real time strategy game officially features cavalry units, if you have Blitzkrieg 2, download the mod Total conversion mod and you’ll see loads of cool cavalry units in the editor.
Basically Soviets used cavalry as a cheap substitute of motorised infantry. Riflemen were riding during movements and dismount for battle.
It depended, a lot of units were like that at the beginning due to the heavy losses but later in the war, dedicated cavalry units were supposed to infiltrate deep after successful breakthroughs, they even had cavalry mechanized corps later in the war which functioned like that. Still, they fought as dismounted infantries, charges were for desperate situations or weakened encircled enemies.
There is a work on employment of artillery by Soviet Army in WW2. It is 'Artillery fighting for Motherland' written by General Ignacy Prochko. Also I can't exactly come up with a book on mines, but there is a work on demining. It is 'Demining by Air Defence Troops in 1941-1945' by Alexander Gusev.
Millions and millions of horses were used during WW2 - not only for cavalry, but also hauling artillery, supplies etc. They were essential to supply lines especially on the Eastern Front but also other theatres. And we all know logistics is what wins wars.
Horses also became a major food source on the Eastern Front, especially f0r the surviving civil population.
10th Mountain Division USA during Po River Campaign in Northeast Italy trained and used mules 1945. This was the original idea behind the very effective Pack-Howitzer the USA used in World War 2 as no one really understood just how effective the Jeep would wind up being for the Anglo-American Armies. Still the most effective form of warfare for all Armies of this time was walking.
It would be interesting to see a study on the requirements, upsides, and downsides of the use of cavalry/animal transport. The US had fought extensive campaigns at the end of the 19th century against the native tribes of the western plains. The unit types they had were artillery, cavalry, and infantry. I think they found that on a march lasting 6 days or less, cavalry was faster, but after 6 days, infantry could sustain the marching tempo, but horses needed extended rest, which made cavalry slower. In Asia in WWII, there was some use of mules for transport, even by the British and the Americans, but there were also many porters used. A mule can carry more load than a man, but I think a man can carry more as a percentage of his bodyweight compared to a mule.
Brandon F did a video on cavalry on ww1. This looks like a good complement to that.
Lol I commented the Same. A man of taste I see
Good to see a piece on an often overlooked aspect of WW2. You did not discuss the Hungarian Huszar. Heinz Guderian heaped praise onto them for their operations and tactics against the Red Army during the war. I consider that pretty high praise from the Achtung-Panzer! author. There Is some history about Magyar királyi Honvédhuszárok. Worth having a look.
I focus a lot on the German 111th division and its role in the southern front. The amount of times I read about them fighting Soviet cavalry and Cossacks is crazy to me. In tandem with Soviet armored attacks as well.
Makes me wonder if horse cavalry still has a place on the modern battlefield, at least when dealing with challenging terrain given the proliferation of Man Portable anti tank and anti aircraft launchers
I have seen a image of cavalry being used in the Ukraine It makes sense as The border with Belarus is long and I’m sure there’s many people with horse experience in the Ukraine
Niche areas
There are probably some very niche cases, but a person on a horse is a large and obvious target that would not do well with the proliferation of automatic weapons. The use cases would likely be more commando type operations, in any large scale battle between two reasonably modern forces, there is pretty much no chance.
@@avus-kw2f213 I would guess that is basically some hastily raised militia forces not expected to actually fight, but just patrol the border. And, especially early on, they probably had a shortage of everything for non-front line forces like that.
@@88porpoise i’m pretty sure it was a recent image The border with Belarus has a lot of forest and a horse gives good visibility compare to a car and better mobility compare to on foot It would be hard to detect where saboteurs may have gone through looking out of the window of a car and walking limits The amount of places you can look
i think an element pretty relevant here for cavalry as well: they don't take fuel to move at a good pace. fuel logistics were one of the major reasons germany lost the war and why the eastern front was such a hard fight, and horses being able to be fed very cheap horse feed instead of fuel, compared to an, albeit faster car requiring pricy gasoline or diesel, made them a niche of exploitation and supply depot raiding force. It's understandable this didn't happen on the western front, since there the fuel logistics were much better in place. Also, a notable not mentioned thing is the germans using deserting cossack divisions as cavalry.
That's true also can't eat a jeep when your starving.
I'm sorry, but that is a misconception. The fuel that horses do require (Water, fodder, and grain) present an even bigger logistical problem then motor fuel. Each horse requires a minimum of 2% of their body weight in fodder and 30-40 litres of potable water per day plus supplemental grain and that's when they're not working. When they are working they require even more and you still have to feed them even when they are doing nothing. Your average horse weighs 500-600 kilograms so that's 10-12 kilograms of fodder each day every day and that's just when they're standing around doing nothing. Add in the fact that one typical 2-3 ton military truck can easily do as much work as 20 horses and the amount of "fuel" required by those horses greatly exceeds the amount required by the truck in both mass and volume. And all of that fodder and grain has to be grown, harvested, processed, and transported, which adds up to millions of labor hours and vast areas of agricultural land that could be used to feed your population. And no, European cavalry horses cannot live off the land. Wild horses can because grazing is the only thing they do all day every day. Domestic horse can't. Not if you expect to get any work out of them. As for cheap to feed? you wouldn't say that if you were paying my hay and grain bills. Another misconception: Horses can't go any farther in a day than infantry on foot if you want them to be able to do it again tomorrow, or the day after Horses can go faster than infantry but they're also pretty much useless if they get to the battlefield too tired to charge. Cavalry raids last at most two or three days, after that the horses are too tired to go on and need at least a few days rest.
@@danielstickney2400 Depends on breed, the Don & Budyonny Horses used by the Red Army was generally much harder than what was used in Germany. For example, draft horses which seem to make the majority of the German army, require much more fodder than what you listed. It should also be noted that both the Red Army & the Polish Army would condition their horses to survive off shrubbery & grass before the war, the Germans had no such program. Alot of the Horses the German Army acquired were sourced from the German civilian population, rather than having dedicated farms like in Russia. Regarding the speed, I don't know what infantry you are refering to because alot of infantry divisions were semi motorized, semi mount born, & in many cases they walked on nothing but their two own feet. But obviously a horse can walk 7 km an hour, a human walking is 5 kms an hour, very important difference.
well, no, it was more about the shortage of the actual APCs (and personnel to handle APCs) than fuel
@@karimmoop9560 "to survive off shrubbery & grass" to survive =/= to operate as a warhorse or a workhorse. It was an extreme measure. Just pointing out. War horses still need a heafty amount of fodder (grain specifically, not hay)
The Soviets arguably had one of the most successful cavalry units, namely the 1st guard cavalry corps. The unit fought from the beginning of the war, successfully defending Moscow and defeated Guderian in the subsequent counteroffensives, they were among the units that were encircled in Rzhev but managed to survive, though weakened and had to operate as essentially Partisans, still they conducted raids in the enemy’s rear. Around September of 1942, they later regrouped but it took them until January of 1943 to recover. They later took part in taking Kiev and later Soviet offensives all the way through Berlin, though they didn’t enter Berlin as they were ordered to moved to Dresden and finished the war in Prague.
It would be great if you could do a video about World War 1 logistics on the eastern front. I think this is a very obscure topic and I'd love to know how the germans dealt with the problem of european to russian rail gauge in their advance east in the First World war.
As a player of the Avalon Hill classic, ‘Panzerblitz’, I can attest to the usefulness of cavalry units. During summer, horses need little maintenance. In winter they are better equipped to handle horrible conditions than vehicles.
You have to feed horses. They need water. In bad winter conditions, they need shelter if you're going to keep them immobile. Horses also need REST. You can drive a truck all day and all night... just keep it decently maintained and gassed up. One soldier can haul a lot more and a lat farther with a truck. You can also heat the sealed cabin of a truck with heat from its engine. Trucks don't get sick. It takes years to make a ridable horse plus training of the horse. You can assembly-line a truck and it'll be behave like any other truck from that line.
A buddy since Middle School (in the mid '70s) played Avalon Hill games. Our favorites were "Squad Leader" and "Jutland". I still have "Ceasar's Legions".
I recall reading about Soviet cavalry devastating Kleist’s advancing formations south of Stalingrad in late 1942.
always a pleasure
It was specifics of Eastern Europe that created Polish traditions of cavalry that lasted until 1939. They did tremendously well in Polish -Soviet war and were expected to defend Polish eastern border. Many traditions of cavalry units are being maintained today in various countries in border guard outfits.
My gradfather was a German cavalry saddler. He mainly fought partisans on the Eastern front in hard to access places like bogs.
Guderian's left flank was assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division, still with horses, during Operation Barbarossa.
Horses were actually much more mobile in the east than motorized transport. Not just the marshes. The reason is that the local horses were adapted to the snow and rasputista and could get around even when ground was nearly impassable even for infantry. (The mud was bad enough that there are numerous accounts of German infantry walking barefoot and carrying boots because the mud pulled them off) The Germans even made a point to equip their panzer divisions with thousands of horses to pull equipment, including their early tanks through snow and mud they couldn't handle.
I have a question that might be a good short video for you, what was World War II called at the time? I believe the name was coined by the Americans after 1941, and I know the Soviets and their successor states called it the Great Patriotic War, but what did everyone else, in particular the Germans, Italians and Japanese call it?
Bernard. Horses vs halftracks? Or other IFV, battle taxi?
If I remember correctly, the US Army in Italy was about to request for horse cavalry to be trained to participate in Alpine Offensives and maneuvers right before the front ended.
Yeah, there was some allied buy-in to the late German ruse of a "National Redoubt".
Although Imperial Japanese Army cavalry units were more or less effective for the anti-guellira operations in several conflicts in China & Manturia during 1930th, Tojo abolished the cavalry as a branch of IJA in 1940. Most of divisional cavarly regiments were reorganaized to recon regiments that were composed of a mounted squadron, a morterized infantry company, and a small tankette unit, if the sufficient equipments were available. They said it was painful to change their saddles to handles. Worst of all, Tojo abolished the IJA troopers' home, Army Cavalry School in Narashino, then established Army Chemical School on the spot instead. That's why the old trooper I knew disliked Tojo and hated the chemical warfare. Anyway, only a cavarly brigade and a few nominal cavarly units remained thoroughout WW2 mainly in China as IJA formations. It is known that Japanese puppet states in Manturia and Inner Mongolia also deployed some cavarly units. In the end, a few ambiguous records of mounted charges by IJA cavalry during WW2 can be found, though they could not but fight as mounted infantry mostly.
Spannend, wie quasi ALLES auf diesem Kanal!
He has a German accent; I don't care.
ohh, how relevant to a recently started rabbit hole. aside from the text mentioned in the video, does anyone have any other good resources on WW2 and post use of mounted troops/cavalry? particularly tactics and gear!
Europe at the time is partly motorized. It's a world where trucks, buses and personal cars are around but owning one is far from guaranteed. The home front could see an increase of non-motorized transport as fuel and motor vehicles were diverted to the front. The logic of armoured trains at their height stems from the importance of rails in logistics, and the lack of mobility away from the rail. They saw that most battles happened around the rail and rail junctions, and control of these was essential. Another fun variant is bike infantry. A bike could be churned out relatively cheap and large numbers maintained with the equivalent of a small workshop and the individual soldier. They take a role of mounted infantry, except without animals. A soldier with their personal kit can move on a bike. A lot of units could be half-motorized. The main body moves on bikes, horses, foot while logistics, the HQ section and support moves on a few trucks. Some units trained in how to pull a "string" of bike infantry behind a truck well into the early Cold War. Or the infantry moves on foot or on bikes, with animals being used for logistics. The biggest role I can think of for horses is rear logistics.
Have you tried association in your search terms for mines. Maybe start with Sea Mines or Air Dropped Mines. That might lead to documents associated with mines. Just a thought. 🤷♂️
There is a book called 'himmler's cavalry but iirc it adressess how the units were raised than their combat record.
I recommend reading on the roads of war, its the memoirs of a soviet cavalry officers from the siege of Leningrad up to bagration
How about an episode about western front mechanized Calvary?
I have learned to be skeptical of both Glatz and Zaloga's works. Neither does a very good job looking into the accuracy of Soviet claims or other information they received from the Russian archives (Zaloga also doesn't seem to question American wartime reports which are almost certainly not accurate, perhaps because he likes what they say.). Both are less than neutral in their analysis or their narratives and I've noted what I think are selective omissions. Even Wiki notes: "Fellow historian Jonathan Haslam, in a review about Glatz's book on Operation Mars, criticized him for some of his stylistic choices, such as hypothetical thoughts and feelings of historical figures apart from references to documented sources. In other." In other words, it seems Haslam is saying that Glantz makes things up. I would recommend comparing their works to other sources and if you are writing anything don't quote them unless you've reviewed the source records and vetted them against records from the other side whenever possible.
Glantz is merely the first Historian to really break into the russian archives that's why he gets such a legacy. I know people who contact the Russian Archives aswell they are making their own historical reports
The question is the meaning of cavalry, i.e. mounted troops against mounted troops, or does it mean the fighting style of the dragoons - which are very helpful on a small scale in difficult terrain for surveillance, security and reconnaissance
I’d like to see a video on WW2 mine war fare if you can find enough info
In WW2,outside some specific and rather rare situations,cavalry was used by armies that could not afford a suficient numberss of armoured vehicles.Even the soviets used them bc the demand of armoured vehicles vastly outnumbered what they could produce and cavalry units were more mobile then infantry units and useful for creating havoc in the enemy rear after the front was penetrated or for following enemy units that were retreating. Also,horses were used a lot in logistics,expecially on the eastern front by both the soviers and the germans.
Even if they'd chosen to use them it would have been a serious issue for Western Front allied forces to acquire and transport cavalry mounts to the continent. There'd been a serious drop in the population of horses during the 20's and 30's as England and the US switched to tractors. Add in the fact the horses would have to be fed and exercised, even when not in use, while waiting to be deployed while a truck or armored vehicle could be parked for several months with no negative affects on performance.
Of course, the general point that massed horses can't stand in battle against tanks, artillery and machine-guns is correct. However as the US Special Forces proved in Afghanistan and the Polish border guard prove today, horses are useful transport in difficult terrain (mountains are relavent here, but little mentioned in the video). For recce, horses are quieter and potentially longer-ranged (if feed can be found) than a motorobike. Also unlike a motorbike, they have a mind of their own which is a positive advantage when travelling off-road, especially when the rider is tired or stressed.Essentially you've got a "vehicle" with a driver and commander instead of one overloaded crewman. Off-road motorcycling has a very high injury and accident rate, and while those rates for horse-riding are not insignificant, they are lower. A horse that has a mild fall is quite likely to be able to pick itself up and carry on, whilst a motorbike that has a mild crashe can be effectively imobilised by a broken control lever. As say this as a lifelong motorcyclist and non-horse rider by the way, so if anything my biases should be the other way.
What colour is the PZIV in the background of the opening shot? Turret number 413. It looks very odd.
It should be a regular Color, but due to the light it is washed out. Forgot to Color grade
There are cavalry troops - trained to fight on horseback if required - and mounted Infantry - quite different, trained to TRAVEL on horse but dismount and fight on foot.
Excellent topic!! Over the decades incorrect historcal narratives are repeated by lazy scholars, thus becoming the accepted consensus. Glantz's scholarship is unquestionable and he has shown as a form of mobility, and the horse did play a significant role in the largest theater of operation in WW2. Keep up the great work.
So.... where can I get a book on 20th century mine warfare? Very good point there. I would actually buy that book. From the mines and how they worked. To doctrinal VS field use. Thats a book and a big one.
wait did he appeal to the size of the force that was under military restrictions post ww2 and that had suffered heavy losses during the war as an example of size and composition?
It would take similar shipping capacity to transfer horse or Jeep from.USA to Europe, and Jeep could carry patrol with heavy machine gun and Bazooka to recoinnesance action.
I think I've seen a picture of recoilless riffle strapped to a horse, post war, at that.
@@Kumimono However you turn it, you needed 3-5 horses to do same thing like one Jeep, providing there is some kind of road. And bringing them from overseas would be bigger logistical problem. Keep in mind, by 1943 number of horses in Europe was badly depleted and things went worse as war progressed. German infantry divisions used mostly horse wagons for supply from railway station.
@@mladenmatosevic4591 How did US Forces then start with 5K and end up with 60 K (or so) in ETO and Italy? Well, a bunch of them were shipped over, others captured, but at least 25K were US Cavalry bred horses that got on various ships and ended up in Africa, Italy, France, and Germany.
While I agree with your conclusion on WW2 cavalry, I would argue that horses in WW2 are underrepresented. With ~6 million horses employed on the Eastern Front, mainly in a logistics role, there's a whole field of study on their impact and maintenance that remains underexplored. Thanks for the video!
Horses and cavalry are not the same, I talked quite a lot about logistics and horses in other videos.
MHV: "Cavalry was manpower heavy" Me: looking onto 1000 men strong US infantry battalions vs 1100 men strong Soviet cavalry regiments. Basically a Soviet cavalry corps was equal to a US infantry division in manpower. It was not 'manpower heavy'. It was in fact quite an agile combined arms formation, basically a motorized infantry substitute. A manpower heavy formation can't be agile
The US infantry was motorized, so in most cases quite more agile and mobile. And training all your cavalry guys to ride, infantry nope.
In the Dutch army ranks were put in Valery regiments, probably because they had the same function, breaking through lines and creating havoc in the rear.
The British North Somerset Yeomanry had cavalry and served in North Africa and Palestine before converting to armoured cars in 1942 and the 7th Hussars had some mounted recon even after converting to light tanks in 1937. The last British cavalry charge was at Toungoo Burma in March 1942 when the Central India Horse of the British Indian Army on secondment to the Burma Frontier Force were ambushed by an infiltrating Japanese machine gun position that they mistook for being Nationalist Chinese, caught in the open most of the 60 were killed in the first few seconds, they decided their only chance of survival was to attack the position with sabres but all 18 were cut down before they reached it.
Next you should cover mules - the British had the The Royal Indian Army Service Corps at Dunkirk using mules to help move things around. They played an important part in the rescue/retreat of Imperial troops and the Indian mule drivers were quite distressed at leaving them upon the shores of France.
I dont know about similar Units but the German mountain Units still use Mules since they cant use many Vehiceles that high.
I bet that there is somewhere some good work on mines, but it is probably buried in some archive. On one of your next visits to an archive you might accidentaly stumble upon it and it will blow your mind
every hoi4 player knows, they are the scout you need for infantry divisions, especially when you don't have enough trucks or mechanize equipment
The Italian army used cavalry regiments in Russia, Jugoslavia and East Africa. Given the lack of mechanization, especially in those theatres, they had to adpat somehow
Love how a lot of people hear cavalry and think horses. I get why and modern cavalry is an evolution of the idea.
In areas on the Western Front with good infrastructure did bicycles replace horses for recon?
One of last cavlary charges of ww2 was made by polisch cavaleryman on 1st of march 1945 :3
Which other channel did the exact same video lately? I forget.
Great Wall did one about horses in the WW1
Calvary seems like a good fit for four legged infantry support for tanks because they are faster and better at recon, but can handle more difficult terrain than trucks much like tanks can.
It was an informative and wonderful historical coverage video about horses cavalry divisions within the Red Army during WW2... remaining horses 🐎 Cavalier divisions reflected red army military doctrines practiced mixture of WW1 and WW2 military doctrines confronted Nazism regime military efforts..
Plus horses were absolutely essential for partisan warfare as well. I know its about cavalry but the wehrmacht had some 90,000 horses in service. And the wehrmacht was i believe only 40% vehicle mobile (tanks,apc,and exc). I could be mistaken on the exact percentage. But this is a really fascinating video. Plus,cavalry would be great for mop up operations. It would be quick and fast. And in the Manchurian battle tanks slaughtered the Japanese on horses. Great video.
Over 1, 000, 000 horses and mules in service. Invasion of Poland - 514, 000 German horses. [Poland Military - 150, 000 horses] Germans used 2, 750, 000 horses during WW ii 20% transport was mechanized. Much less in Soviets
@@metanoian965 i appreciate the clarity. I enjoy learning about the war. Cheers!
It always comes back to time, place, conditions.
I think that the argument over cavalry was a post ww1, pre ww2 US domestic political battle over too little money. The US Army understood the reality of WW1, yet they had active cavalry infantry and artillery regiments that they knew actually worked and could function usefully in combat, maintained as an active cadre for the National Guard forces to form around if an invasion by Mexico or the British Empire, the most likely opponents, came to pass. The tank devotees and junior officers saw the future and wanted it now but the senior officers remained adamant that the current force funding could not be risked lest a capricious posturing Congress decide to pay for largely useless WW1style infantry tanks of the time and then suddenly slash the budget, heedlessly disbanding the actual fighting strength of the army and leaving it to manage a rusting junk pile that would be incapable of getting to any battlefield in under a year or taking any meaningful defensive action. Everyone with something besides bone between their ears knows two things. Horse cavalry is great at many tasks of war, even today. And horses cost a lot of logistics. Motors are much cheaper. They really weren't in the 1920-1930 era.
The apocryphal story of the Polish cavalry charge on German tanks was a bit of a warped story. A Polish cavalry unit caught a German supply column in the flank while on the move. It charged and put the column under real pressure. By pure chance an armoured unit was nearby and moved to the sound of the gunfire. They caught the Poles in the flank and drove them off. A propaganda journalist was brought in and he pitched it as a confrontation between the cavalry and the tanks to show German technical superiority. Of course he didn't mention the attack on the supply column but it sort of backfired because people were impressed with the Polish commitment.
Very good and balanced! Horses anyway had an even greater role in logistics on the Eastern Front. Not just in the German Army but as much in the Red Army. The German army is often called obsolete due to its many horses, but even if the Germans would have the trucks and gas needed there wouldn't be enough roads to drive on. The closer to the front the more indispensable was the horse. In this context the Germans were lucky that motorisation in farming hadn't progressed further than it had by WWII - the millions of horses wouldn't have been available. This was a main reason behind the total motorisation of the (tiny) British Army at WWII start - the farm horses had been replaced by motor vehicles.
True but the German motor vehicles had too many different models which made maintenance a nightmare. Diversity is bad for logistics. Maintenance in itself was neglected. E.g. in Stalingrad spare parts weren't supplied so many trucks and tanks stood around near Stalingrad doing nothing and later were lost in the soviet offensive. Also many motor vehicles were designed too much for efficiency which made them ineffective in Russian terrain. Tank tracks were too narrow, suspensions too light, clutches not sturdy enough, tires too narrow etc.
@@Dilley_G45 Actually they were not intended to be maintained that much. A German unit did not have a long supply line of spare parts and personell but was equipped with what was available - could be French guns and Czech trucks - and then sent to the front. When combat and operational attrition had worn the unit down to not being combat worthy it would be withdrawn and rebuilt. With personell it worked far better than the US system and concerning materiel it gave access to huge amounts of materiel, which it had not been possible to utilise if trying to do the logistics American style. The Germans and Americans had systems tailored for their respective situations and the system of one wouldn't have worked for the other. The winter problems encountered in 41/42 were not so much because of faulty design but because the campaign was planned(hoped for) to be over before winter. Winterequipment was packed in railway cars and stood on Polish and East German sidetracks because priority of the lines was given to supplies for the battles going on in autumn 41. They gambled and lost.
13:42 Gunfire 54% percent of tank loses, where mines made 20%. Does gunfire mean only form enemy tanks or from tanks, artilery and anti tank weapons?
> Does gunfire mean only form enemy tanks or from tanks, artilery and anti tank weapons? tanks and anti-tank guns, artillery not sure
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized Direct or indirect fire then?
Why did mortar dragoons never become a thing? Seems like a natural development. Highly mobile, versatile close range artillery carrying light mortars for infantry support.
Interesting!
Also, much more often you can use cavalry together with tanks than infantry mounted in trucks, as horses qnd tanks can go better through mud and snow, also you save fuel for tanks. As exploitation units, cavalry with attached tank destroyer regiment make a lot of sense
This video only strengthens my point that cavalry charges are still viable