Modern Cavalry?

[2ndChoiceName]

Firstly, let me just state that I'm not trying to get this idea put in the same category as Peter Dow's CATAMARAN, I am as skeptical about this as most of you but I still find this discussion interesting.

How well would these animals handle carrying troops that can weigh 200+ pounds in high temperatures, etc

How well do horses and camels handle being around guns firing,  explosions, etc?  How much space would they take up in a FOB, COP, etc keeping in mind some of these places already have limited space.

How much more logistical/medical requirements would be put on the system for this?

What would be the time required and associated costs for training troops to handle/ride them?

Does that 200+ pounds include the ruck? Because I was thinking of using them on the shorter, day or night patrols, not multi-day excursions (I'm not so sure that's the right word).

Horses did fine around guns in those westerns, and everyone knows that you can't go wrong taking westerns as gospel.  ;D But seriously, I'm sure they could be trained to deal with the gunfire, perhaps similar to the military working dogs.

The logistical and medical burden would likely be the most difficult obstacle to overcome, but I thought that perhaps locals could be hired to care for/provide food to the animals in order to stimulate the local economies. As for the medical, that's probably the biggest problem, I honestly don't have any logical answer.

The time/training needed to get the soldiers riding the horses would likely not be much, I went to a ranch when I was 6 and had no problem riding a horse in a line with very little instruction, however we were mostly just riding in a single file straight line, but with what I'm talking about, that's about all you would need to learn how to do because if you had to do any real maneuvering due to enemy fire you would just dismount. Granted, you would still need a few people who know how to handle a horse, but there are likely people already in the military who know how to handle them who could pass their knowledge on.

 

[MikeL]

Does that 200+ pounds include the ruck? Because I was thinking of using them on the shorter, day or night patrols, not multi-day excursions (I'm not so sure that's the right word).

200+ is mostly the body weight of the soldier.  I weigh 180lbs,  some weigh 200lbs and over.  Now that is just  body weight,  for a patrol you would be adding the weight of the helmet,  FPV with plates,  LBE with ammo, grenades, water, etc  Others will be carrying more gear on top of that such as medics, signallers, etc

but I thought that perhaps locals could be hired to care for/provide food to the animals in order to stimulate the local economies.

What if there isn't a large civilian population nearby, or they are unwilling or unable, or if they aren't friendly?

 

[FJAG]

How well would these animals handle carrying troops that can weigh 200+ pounds in high temperatures, etc

How well do horses and camels handle being around guns firing,  explosions, etc?  How much space would they take up in a FOB, COP, etc keeping in mind some of these places already have limited space.

How much more logistical/medical requirements would be put on the system for this?

What would be the time required and associated costs for training troops to handle/ride them?  I don't see troops being able to easialy go to ground/dismount a animal in a TIC,  especially if the animal panics.

I think one would not use animals to carry the troops but to carry much of the burden troops have now. Think back on the organization of the Roman legions.

At the lowest level was the contubernium or tent group which consisted of eight legionaries and two auxiliaries and a mule.

The legionaries were the fighters.

The role of the auxiliaries was to care for the group's mule on which the group's tent, spare food, spare pila, water etc was carried thus lightening the legionaries load (which nonetheless was still quite heavy).

During the march and even while manoeuvring for battle the auxiliaries would provide their legionaries with water and anything else required. In addition many auxiliaries had additional skills such as carpentry or blacksmithing to care for the gear and help build defences.

I must admit when I read Flavelle's book one of my first comments was that these guys need some mules and auxiliaries.

Incidentally I read in another book that the American's looked into mules and determined that they were not suitable for Afghanistan, as they took to long to breed and train, they required too much water and just didn't do well there. The common donkey is much more suitable for the environment.

 

[MikeL]

I think one would not use animals to carry the troops but to carry much of the burden troops have now. Think back on the organization of the Roman legions.

I think 2ndChoiceName is proposing the Soldiers ride on the horses - that is my understanding anyways.

 

[FJAG]

I think 2ndChoiceName is proposing the Soldiers ride on the horses - that is my understanding anyways.

Yeah he does. I just don't buy in to that idea.

 

[Tank Troll]

Oddly enough the Strathconas run a Horse riding course and it involves a bit more than hop on and ride. Even if you only go out for a day or 2 you still need to be able to look after your horse. Where do you thing the Armour Corps priority of work came from? The Horse, the Saddle, the Guns, the Man. Then you have to think about all the tree huggers that hate the army to start with would jump on your back if you had to BIP a horse in place. Plus animal rights groups when they found out that we take them in to battle. Nope I don't want any part of that. It is a bye gone era that is best left in the past.

 

[Old Sweat]

I saw the figure of 280 pounds as the load of a cavalryman in South Africa 1899-1902. Besides the rider with his clothing, webbing, sabre and lance, rifle, bayonet and ammunition, the horse was burdened with its own saddle, blanket, bridle etc and a spare parts kit of horseshoes and nails along with various brushes, a sack of oats, a bag of hay, a water bottle and whatever else. The exertion of carrying troops across the velt combined with the wastage of battle carried a heavy price. The British Army remount service supplied roughly a third of a million horses as replacements during the Boer War which ran from early October 1899 to 31 May 1902. That works out to roughly 10,000 horses a month or more than 300 a day on average.

Now, that is vastly different from renting a couple of dozen animals from local farmers, but think of the practicalities of the latter course.

 

[2ndChoiceName]

What if there isn't a large civilian population nearby, or they are unwilling or unable, or if they aren't friendly?

Aren't most bases situated near civilian populations?

Now, that is vastly different from renting a couple of dozen animals from local farmers, but think of the practicalities of the latter course.

Old Sweat, what is your latter course? I'm confused as to what you're saying with this, are you saying that patrolling would be too much for most horses and that it's better to rent horses from local farmers or what?

Also, I think we've all come to the conclusion that this is not an idea that can be implemented right now, or at all, but I am willing to keep this discussion going if you are, I am quite enjoying myself.

 

[daftandbarmy]

This guy kicked *** on a bicycle... but we haven't got any bicycle troops anymore either.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=1JnlNei_ONkC&pg=PA241&lpg=PA241&dq=rommel%2Binfantry%2Battacks%2Bbicycle%2Bitalian%2Bprisoners&source=bl&ots=vYmz43pmNa&sig=2ZTYN8I1OoCyJtFW-CxxLGWyJrU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0i0AUaq1EK7viQL8qYGwBg&ved=0CEsQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=rommel%2Binfantry%2Battacks%2Bbicycle%2Bitalian%2Bprisoners&f=false

IMHO, horses are best left to feed the foraging armoured infantry :camo: :APC: :APC: :APC:

Or for flogging, at NDHQ  :deadhorse:

 

[Loachman]

Well. Apparently now I have ingenuity comparable to that of a military think tank! I don't know whether that should make me happy or sad.....

Yes, and you're only several years behind.

But do not despair. In just a few more years, you can point this out to somebody else here with a brilliant new idea and have a good chuckle.

Aren't most bases situated near civilian populations?

It's hard to get away from them completely, yes, but please define "near" and "population" in the context of providing sufficient support for large numbers of suitable animals.

I think that he was referring to operations in somebody else's country, though, and the host nation's ability to provide.

If a mule can carry 300lbs, it would take about 166 of them, plus a significant human crew, to lift what a single Chinook can with a crew of four - and much, much longer.

Aaaaahhhhh, technology....

 

[cupper]

One thing that gets overlooked in this discussion is the fact that it would take a prohibitively long amount of time to retrain the maintenance assets to be able to work on said pack animals. An entire new set of tools and equipment would be required as well to work on the animals. You would have to buy new fleet of vehicles to recover the animals when broken down in the field.


BAZINGA!!!  ;D

 

[Old Sweat]

Old Sweat, what is your latter course? I'm confused as to what you're saying with this, are you saying that patrolling would be too much for most horses and that it's better to rent horses from local farmers or what?

Any country in which we might deploy probably won't have a lot of surplus animals to rent or purchase. Animals are expensive to keep around and should be expected to pay for themselves through working or being sold on the local market. Now, in some cultures wealth can be accumulated through animals, say camels, but that is not universal. However it might be quite possible to rent a couple of mules, say, to carry some kit under certain conditions. The 1st Airborne Battery RCA rented a team of mules while on exercise in Jamaica in 1969 and later experimented with pack horses in the Rockies circa 1974. Both were local expedients and the latter case revealed more challenges than successes.


I believe the Chindits brought mules with them in one of their expeditions behind Japanese lines in Burma in the Second World War. These beasts of burden, however, had their vocal cords cut so they could not disclose their presence by braying, if my memory serves me correctly. (I think I read all this in The Road Past Mandalay by John Masters.) Try getting away with that these days.

Edit to add: Here is a link re the surgical silencing of the Chindit mules. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1550202/

I am not sure we can take this a lot farther, although Cupper has raised an interesting point re maintenance. In the bad old days each unit had a veterinary officer along with a number of farriers, blacksmiths, collar makers, wheelrights and the like.

 

[2ndChoiceName]

This guy kicked *** on a bicycle... but we haven't got any bicycle troops anymore either.

About halfway through all this, I thought about bicycles but decided not to post it.

 

[MikeL]

2ndChoiceName,  did you consider the use of ATVs/Gators,  or only animals?

 

[Loachman]

About halfway through all this, I thought about bicycles but decided not to post it.

1 PPCLI Recce Pl bought bikes in Germany in the late eighties.

They let their hair grow long, and wore civ clothing on Fallex one year.

Nobody on the en side questionned their presence.

 

[daftandbarmy]

1 PPCLI Recce Pl bought bikes in Germany in the late eighties.

They let their hair grow long, and wore civ clothing on Fallex one year.

Nobody on the en side questionned their presence.

A guy in 3 PARA got nailed by a bicycle bomb in XMG and had a sangar named after him. He used to ride it down the street on his way out of town on patrol, and the bad guys figured it out. Not a recommended approach to achieving immortality. Naturally, bicycle use was discouraged on operations:

"On 8 August 1976, a member of the Parachute Regiment, Private Robert (Bob) Borucki, was killed by the explosion of a bomb planted inside a basket of a bicycle at Crossmaglen. Borucki is buried in the cemetery in the village of Wales, near Rotherham. A year later, a sangar named after the soldier was built on the spot.[4] The facility was removed in the early 2000s as part of the Belfast Agreement."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_bomb

 

[cavalryman]

Modern cavalry is better defined by its function rather than its means of locomotion if you take it as something that creates specific effects within military ops.  The means of locomotion could be four-legged (or even two if someone could figure out how to ride a 'roo), or diesel-powered, or even electricity-powered if the good-ideas fairy turns a Prius into an SMP, but the job, recce, light-troops ("mounted rifles") flanking enemy lines in a Huey, and whatnot remains the same type of job Wellington's hussars, the CMR of Boer War fame, etc used to do.  The horse was a tool to do a job.  If there's a better way to do the job, the horses become cheval tartare

 

[2ndChoiceName]

2ndChoiceName,  did you consider the use of ATVs/Gators,  or only animals?

I didn't, mainly because I was focused on the animal aspect of the idea, not the individual vehicle/method of locomotion. That is an excellent idea and probably one with more merit than horsies.

 

[a_majoor]

For more interesting historical information on this topic, the USMC Small Wars Manual (1940) has an entire chapter devoted to the best way to pack a mule. Astute readers may note Marines don't do this anymore....

One other tidbit to consider. Soldiers would not be very happy if their mode of transport was shot, and the general public would probably be rather offended by this as well, so in addition to whatever equipment the mounted man might need to carry, the horse would probably also need its own IPE (known in the middle ages as "Barding"). While a full set of metal or chain mail barding would be prohibitively expensive and bulky, even using modern materials like Kevlar and ceramic strike plates would still make a huge dent in the load the animal could carry.

Historically, mounted knights (who had similar amounts of weight due to armour and weapons as a modern soldier) generally had a train of animals, including horses for riding, pack animals to carry the armour and barding when "out of contact", an actual war horse to ride into battle, and of course several extra horses to carry the squires who took care of the animals and equipment. From Wikipedia:

"The destrier was specifically for use in battle or tournament; for everyday riding, a knight would use a palfrey, and his baggage would be carried on a sumpter horse (or packhorse), or possibly in wagons".

The reference to a destrier also suggests another problem, breeding and training specialty horses for warfare. If you thought it was a huge struggle to get military trucks for logistical support, imagine the issues with adopting (or re adopting) horses....

 

[FJAG]

Not that I'd ever recommend sending them to Afghanistan or into any other conflict,  :deadhorse: but heavy lift horses are still in existence in large numbers in Canada. In Manitoba there is (or at least until very recently there was) an industry for the production of natural estrogen which uses as its raw material pregnant mare urine.  :facepalm: I kid you not.

The by product of this industry, as you may guess, is a lot of horses which are frequently of the Belgian, Percheron or even Clydesdale breeds. The Percherons especially are of French origin and were bred as war horses.

They hold several agricultural fairs every year and one of the big events are the heavy hitch wagon competitions. Its quite a thing to have a wagon with an eight or even ten horse hitch of percherons go pounding around the arena. Gives you great respect for the old horse drawn artillery teams and what they had to deal with.