# Tanks from Horses



## army (24 Sep 2002)

Posted by *"Ian Edwards" <iedwards@home.com>* on *Mon, 26 Mar 2001 23:38:29 -0700*
To set out the record, Canada formed three 3 tank battalions in WW1. Two
of them saw fighting in Europe and third was still in formation/training at
war‘s end. They had no previous owners.
In 1936 that‘s not a misprint, 1936 Canada converted four infantry or
machine gun regiments in the Non-Permanent Active Militia equivalent today
to our PRes to tank units. These included  The Argyl Light Infantry Tank,
The Three Rivers Regiment Tank, The New Brunswick Regiment Tank, The
Essex Regiment Tank. You can also add  the 2nd Armoured Car Regiment
coming from the 2nd Motor Machine Gun Brigade in Winnipeg.
That sounds very enlightened of the Army to "think armoured" three years in
advance of the start of WW2, and to convert units to armoured before its two
Permanent Force units LDSH  RCD. In actual fact, the conversions were
paper changes only, at the time 1936 of a massive realignment of the NPAM,
many amalgamations and disbandment of old units, etc. Other than the TRR,
none of the units saw service overseas and I don‘t think any of them
except TRRactually had any tanks, spending the war moblized for training
"zombies" conscripts, or as described euphemistically, "for local
protective duties".
Of course a number of infy units converted to armd during the war, such as
British Columbia Regiment, South Alberta Regiment, Gov Gen Foot Gds, Cdn
Gren. Gds., Halifax Rifles, Elgin Regt. and perhaps  there were others.
Yes, the two Guards units converted back to infy at the end of the war.
But most of the Canadian Armoured Corps came from cavarly regiments.
So, they weren‘t all "tanks from horses"
----- Original Message -----
From: John Gow 
To: 
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 10:12 PM
Subject: Re: It‘s Official
> I don‘t have immediate grasp of the books, but the Germans waged war
> through WWII using horses as a very common moving force...and of course,
all
> used them before that...
>
> The Brits had them on active service into Palestine and surrounding
> territory "until" 1940 at least, but can‘t give an exact date til the
> library re-opens, and I get time and energyand my kids quit tying up the
> machine.
>
> For the Cdn Army, Bruce, that‘s a great question...irreverantly, when the
> Auditor General discovered them on the payroll, I guess...or when they
> started making "un-warranted" no comment! divots and hazards on the golf
> course!
>
> Will look into this, if you like, but likely soon after, or during the
First
> World War, when we were being asked to pay in men‘s blood and expense of
> horses was, well, "unwarranted"...
>
> John
>
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