RetroWarTHINK 010: Got Firepower, Horse Cavalry? 4-Man FireTeams Yet Another Invention NOT INVENTED BY THE USMC
A war futurist writes:
"Came across this book, which was interesting. Books on this period and others can be found here:
https://mega.nz/#F!ZAoVjbQB!iGfDqfBDpgr0GC-NHg7KFQ
The U.S. Army during the Indian Wars was disinterested in the Indian Wars. It saw its role as protecting the U.S. from invasion by an European or European-trained army. (This situation sounds all too familiar). In 1870, despite the experiences of the Civil War and Indian Wars the U.S. Army brought several thousand single-shot Remington rolling-block pistols (the 1871 Army model). These were ideal for cavalry that used 'proper' tactics and the arme blanche. There was seldom time for more than a couple of shots during a charge.
Book has a nice account of Emory Upton, who having analysed the massacres of the Civil War proposed troops manoeuvre and skirmish in units of four. While most of his ideas are claimed to have become U.S. Army policy one suspects much of this was forgotten by WW1. The use of 'fire teams' is typically accredited to being copied from Chinese forces, but Upton's works clearly predate this.
Sobering is how many lives in the ACW must have been unnecessarily lost due to Napoleonic tactics being applied against weapons that had considerably increased in range and accuracy. Napoleon's columns have often failed against British muskets with 80yds range. The Springfield rifle-muskets were capable of at least 500yds and more accurate."
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Military History Visualized writes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4itcJ8Ur2c
"Without cavalry [EDITOR: a maneuver extraordinary force more mobile than the main body ordinary force], Napoleon concluded battles are without result. It was crucial that the cavalry attack was coordinated with other arms. One way to do this was to provide the cavalry of its own organic artillery. Napoleon stated that it was imperative that Cavalry assaults be supported by artillery since the horsemen and exclusively melee weapons could not generate firepower on their own."
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What I cannot comprehend is why did Napoleonic-era horse cavalry not use 300 meter range-reach, bows/crossbows but instead used no-stand-off lances and swords for melees when unarmored infantry would have been turned into Swiss Cheese by arrows & bolts?
Imagine if Napoleon's Cavalry had attacked Wellington's Infantry Squares with torrents of arrows landing upon their shield-less, unarmored bodies at Waterloo in 1815...
Will these French Heavy Cavalry flimsy ceremonial helmets & chest plates stop arrows/cross-bow bolts? YES, NO, MAYBE? Notice the lower-silhouette, bicyclist in the background, more military utility n'est pa?
Waterloo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F5zEHVl3tE
If firearms cannot be fired from horses...yes, no, maybe?
This account says you CAN fire a firearm mounted on a horse. If so, why were Napoleonic Cavalry armed with idiotic long poles aka lances and swords good only for close-in fighting?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mounted_archery
The BIG PICTURE: Horse Archers vs. Horse Firearmsmen
In the 16th and subsequent centuries, various cavalry forces armed with firearms gradually started appearing. Because the conventional arquebus and musket were too awkward for a cavalryman to use, lighter weapons such as the carbine had to be developed, which could be effectively used from horseback, much in the same manner as the composite recurve bow presumably developed from earlier bows. 16th-century Dragoons and Carabiniers were heavier cavalry equipped only with firearms, but pistols coexisted with the composite bow, often used by the same rider, well into the 17th century in Eastern European cavalry such as Muscovites, Kalmyks, Turks and Cossacks. For many armies, mounted archery remained an effective tactical system in open country until the introduction of repeating firearms.
It has been proposed that firearms began to replace bows in Europe and Russia not because firearms were superior but because they were easier to use and required less practice.[16] However, discussing buffalo hunting in 1846, Francis Parkman noted that "the bows and arrows which the Indians use in running buffalo have many advantages over firearms, and even white men occasionally employ them."[17] The Comanches of North America found their bows more effective than muzzle loading guns. "After... about 1800, most Comanches began to discard muskets and pistols and to rely on their older weapons."[18] Bows were still used in the fighting that ended the freedom of Native Americans in the United States, but almost all warriors who had immediate access to modern repeating firearms used these guns instead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalry
The handheld pistol-and-trigger crossbow was invented in China in the fourth century BC;[23] it was written by the Song dynasty scholars Zeng Gongliang, Ding Du, and Yang Weide in their book Wujing Zongyao (1044 AD) that massed missile fire by crossbowmen was the most effective defense against enemy cavalry charges.[24]
The introduction of missile weapons that required less skill than the longbow, such as the crossbow and hand cannon, also helped remove the focus somewhat from cavalry elites to masses of cheap infantry equipped with easy-to-learn weapons. These missile weapons were very successfully used in the Hussite Wars, in combination with Wagenburg tactics.
With the rise of drilled and trained infantry, the mounted men-at-arms, now sometimes called gendarmes and often part of the standing army themselves, adopted the same role as in the Hellenistic age, that of delivering a decisive blow once the battle was already engaged, either by charging the enemy in the flank or attacking their commander-in-chief.
From the 1550s onwards, the use of gunpowder weapons solidified infantry's dominance of the battlefield and began to allow true mass armies to develop. This is closely related to the increase in the size of armies throughout the early modern period; heavily armored cavalrymen were expensive to raise and maintain and it took years to replace a skilled horseman or a trained horse, while arquebusiers and later musketeers could be trained and kept in the field at much lower cost, and were much easier to replace.
The Spanish tercio and later formations relegated cavalry to a supporting role. The pistol was specifically developed to try to bring cavalry back into the conflict, together with manoeuvres such as the caracole. The caracole was not particularly successful, however, and the charge (whether with sword, pistol, or lance) remained as the primary mode of employment for many types of European cavalry, although by this time it was delivered in much deeper formations and with greater discipline than before. The demi-lancers and the heavily armored sword-and-pistol reiters were among the types of cavalry whose heyday was in the 16th and 17th centuries, as for the Polish winged hussars, a heavy cavalry force that achieved great success against Swedes, Russians, and Turks.
The greatest cavalry charge of modern history was at the 1807 battle of Eylau, when the entire 11,000-strong French cavalry reserve, led by Maréchal Murat, launched a huge charge on and through the Russian infantry lines. However, in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo, repeated charges by up to 9,000 French cavalrymen failed to break the line of the British and German infantry, who had formed squares.[71]
Massed infantry was deadly to [EDITOR: firepower-less] cavalry, but offered an excellent target for artillery. Once the bombardment had disordered the infantry formation, cavalry were able to rout and pursue the scattered foot Soldiers. It was not until individual firearms gained accuracy and improved rates of fire that cavalry was diminished in this role as well. Even then light cavalry remained an indispensable tool for scouting, screening the army's movements, and harassing the enemy's supply lines until military aircraft supplanted them in this role in the early stages of World War I.
Following the experience of the South African War of 1899–1902 (where mounted Boer citizen commandos fighting on foot from cover proved more effective than regular cavalry) the British Army withdrew lances for all but ceremonial purposes and placed a new emphasis on training for dismounted action. An Army Order dated 1909[84] however instructed that the six British lancer regiments then in existence resume use of this impressive but obsolete weapon for active service.[85]
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Then, it behooves the horse Cavalry to have SOME KIND OF FIREPOWER-GENERATING WEAPON in the Age of Firearms aka 2nd Generation Warfare. Bows and crossbows which can reach out to 300 meters and rain down on unshielded, unbody-armored foes beats a fucking long pointy pole aka a lance. What gives?
Mongol Sneak Preview: Parthian Horse-Archers Defeat Roman Legions from Safe Stand-Offs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVaADXhnxuE&vl=en
The Parthians kept up a constant barrage of horse-archers' arrows by camels resupplying them. Asshole Crassus who put down the Spartacus slave revolt got his comeuppance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus
His legions were defeated at Carrhae (modern Harran in Turkey) in 53 BC by a numerically inferior Parthian force. Crassus' legions were mainly infantry men and were not prepared for the type of swift, cavalry-and-arrow attack in which Parthian troops were particularly adept. The Parthians would get within shooting range, rain a barrage of arrows down upon Crassus's troops, turn, fall back, and charge forth with another attack in the same vein. They were even able to shoot as well backwards as they could forwards, increasing the deadliness of their onslaught.[34] Crassus refused his quaestor Gaius Cassius Longinus's plans to reconstitute the Roman battle line, and remained in the testudo formation to protect his flanks, thinking that the Parthians would eventually run out of arrows. The Parthians had stationed camels carrying arrows to allow their archers to continually reload and relentlessly barrage the Romans until dusk. The Romans successfully retreated to Carrahe, leaving many wounded to be later slaughtered by the Parthians.
Subsequently Crassus' men, being near mutiny, demanded he parley with the Parthians, who had offered to meet with him. Crassus, despondent at the death of his son Publius in the battle, finally agreed to meet the Parthian general; however, when Crassus mounted a horse to ride to the Parthian camp for a peace negotiation, his junior officer Octavius suspected a Parthian trap and grabbed Crassus' horse by the bridle, instigating a sudden fight with the Parthians that left the Roman party dead, including Crassus.[35] A story later emerged to the effect that after Crassus' death, the Parthians poured molten gold into his mouth as a symbol of his thirst for wealth.[36]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mounted_archery
Since using a bow requires the rider to let go of the reins with both hands, horse archers need superb equestrian skills if they are to shoot on the move. The natives of large grassland areas used horse archery for hunting, for protecting their herds, and for war. Horse archery was for many groups a basic survival skill, and additionally made each able-bodied man, at need, a highly-mobile warrior. The buffalo hunts of the North American prairies may be the best-recorded examples of bowhunting by horse archers.[2]
In battle, light horse archers were typically skirmishers, lightly-armed missile troops capable of moving swiftly to avoid close combat or to deliver a rapid blow to the flanks or rear of the foe. Captain Robert G. Carter described the experience of facing Quanah Parker's forces: "an irregular line of swirling warriors, all rapidly moving in right and left hand circles.. while advancing, to the right or left, and as rapidly concentrating... in the centre... and their falling back in the same manner...all was most puzzling to our... veterans who had never witnessed such tactical maneuvers, or such a flexible line of skirmishers"[3]
In the tactic of the Parthian shot the rider would retreat from the enemy while turning his upper body and shooting backward. Due to the superior speed of mounted archers, troops under attack from horse archers were unable to respond to the threat if they did not have ranged weapons of their own. Constant harassment would result in casualties, morale drop and disruption of the formation. Any attempts to charge the archers would also slow the entire army down.
An example of these tactics comes from an attack on Comanche horse archers by a group of Texas Rangers, who were saved by their muzzle-loading firearms and by a convenient terrain feature. Fifty Rangers armed with guns met about 20 Comanche hunters who were hunting buffalo and attacked them. The Comanches fled, easily keeping clear of the Rangers, for several miles across the open prairie. They led the Rangers into a stronger force of two hundred. The Rangers immediately retreated, only to discover they had committed a classic error in fighting mounted archers: the Comanches pursued in turn, able to shoot what seemed like clouds of arrows. The Rangers found a ravine where they could shoot at the Comanche from cover. The horse archers did not charge--but kept the Rangers under siege until seven of them were dead or dying, whereupon the Rangers retreated but claimed victory.[4]
Horse archers may be either light, such as Scythian, Hun, Parthian, Cuman, or Pecheneg horsemen, or heavy, such as Byzantine kavallarioi, Turkish timariots, Russian druzhina and Japanese samurai. Heavy horse archers typically fought as formed units. Instead of harassing without ever making contact, they shot in volleys, weakening the enemy before they charged. In addition to bows, they often also carried close combat weapons, such as lances or spears. Some nations, like medieval Mongols, Hungarians and Cumans fielded both light and heavy horse archers. In some armies, such as those of the Parthians, Palmyrans, and the Teutonic Order of Knights, the mounted troops consisted of both super-heavy troops (cataphracts and knights) without bows, and light horse archers.
Our war futurist illuminates:
"One of the other books (the Plains Wars?) makes an interesting point that a bow could be loaded on moving-horseback, something difficult to do with a repeating spencer/winchester or even a single-shot springfield.
One of your founding fathers (Franklin?) was a big advocate of a corps of bowmen, as indeed were a few people on this side of the pond.
As for Napoleon, the French have had a patchy relationship with the bow. They did make attempts to emulate the English, but the idea of longbow-armed peasants worried the French nobles more than English invaders, it is claimed. Often it comes down to money. Firearms were adopted not because they were more effective, but cheaper. Making a musket was a day's work, and bullets and powder easily mass-produced. A good bow was at least a week's work, plus any seasoning, plus another week of skilled work for a winding device, and about a day's work each arrow or quarrel.
Another factor, much discussed at the end of the 16th century, was the lack of good bowmen. To maintain the capability seen in the 100 years war needed regular, weekly archery practice and preferably Soldier's who led a fairly rural lifestyle. The 16th century happened to have been a harsh period for France, with the average man being around 5ft 4". Most of Napoleon's troops could not have handled longbows like English medieveal farmworkers.
The firepower and cavalry concept, to me, has parallels to MGs and Mortars. Cavalry serve to make infantry bunch up, to create targets for artillery. Artillery shatter infantry blocks, to create routers for cavalry.
In many respects, artillery firing case and canister were the equivalent of your archers. Similarly, in earlier centuries cavalry were accompanied by mounted musketeers, although such mounted infantry units often mutated into true cavalry.
By Upton's day the firearm was finally outpacing the bow. He expected that his [EDITOR: foot] skirmishers could easily deal with cavalry by [EDITOR: firearm] firepower, something that was not driven into some heads until 1914+.
If I recall the ridge Wellington occupied limited the ability for horse artillery to fire on his infantry, plus the mud had a useful smothering effect on shells.
Through history there have been numerous attempts with missile cavalry, the usual problem being whatever weapon the cavalry could use existed in a longer ranged/more stable variant the infantry could use. A very nice book on this and other topics:
My main point is Napoleonic tactics had been proven outdated and expensive by the ACW, but essentially they remained in use in WW1, even though people such as Upton had come up with viable alternatives, which supposedly had become official doctrine! Neither side in the ACW seemed to have tried thinking 'is there a better way?' (Upton's famous brigade charge excepted)
The Osprey Buffalo Soldiers book has some good accounts of practical use of cavalry, both mounted and dismounted.
U.S. ARMY Horse Cavalrymen: CRAP Armament, No Armor--Perfect for Burial in a Box
BTW -this is what the U.S. Cavalry of the 1870-1890s was supposed to look like. His single-shot 'new' Remington pistol not shown.
U.S. Army strength at the time was something like 25,000, so I guess a European invasion might have stood a reasonable chance!"
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MY CONCLUSION:
If Napoleon had Archer-Cavalry attacking the British musketry-Infantry squares at Waterloo in 1815, instead of long poles and swords, the latter would have been decimated and the former would have won the battle.
The horse-mobile artillery did not decimate the British infantry squares enough to win the battle. Probably the mud hindering their mobility to get within range. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Better have a PLAN A of your Cavalry able to generate its own firepower than relying on others like artillery which should always be seen as a PLAN B effect that might work or not.
The horse Cavalry mental block that it must CHARGE the enemy and poke him with a long pole and then hack at him in a melee with a sword/saberwhatever is indeed stupidity only surpassed by the British Cavalry getting poked by French Cavalry because they didn't have lances aka long poles. Its easy to see why Horse Cavalry is derisively looked at as charging blindly, dumb-asses when battle-winning weaponry was ignored.
Assault Rifles (ARs), WW1-Style
We must get out of our heads the lie that people of the past were any more stupid than they are today. As soon as the WW1 trench deadlock began (horizontal fortifications) SMART people realized bolt-action rifles offered no suppressive fires when crossing No Man's Land between trenchlines. Clever fixes like the Pedersen Device to make a M1903 Springfield bolt-action into a 40x round magazine, .30 caliber cartridge-shooting, semi-automatic "Assault Rifle" were put into action and were ready for the 1919 Spring Offensive--had not the November 11, 1918 Armistice "timed-out" the war for Round II, 20 years later aka WW2.
Small Arms of WWI Primer 065: Pedersen Device
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M637KpEP1_E
Secret Briefing: The Pedersen Device
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znvzXr3cLD4
Notice, one of the criticisms of the weak short .30 caliber cartridge the Pedersen Device shot was its LACK OF NOISE and fear factor against the enemy to effect suppression.
However, could not these defacto suppressed firearms been fired from horses so the Cavalry could generate some of its own firepower? With over 100, 000 of these systems collecting dust from WW1, did anyone try firing a Pedersen Device from a horse?
Horse Cavalry WAS effective in WW2 in the East. It seems the Pedersen Devices and their modified rifles could have been LEND-LEASE supplied to the Soviet Russian Horse Cavalry to help defeat the only partially-tracked-mechanized Germans also heavily dependant on horses--by giving the former the potentially battle-winning military advantage of being able to fire & maneuver from 30 mph horsebacks not requiring massive amounts of liquid fuel to keep moving.
Lessons For Today?
What about TODAY's suppressed weapons firing from horseback? Subsonic, .300 WINchester Black-Out-firing M4 Carbines? Even subsonic .22LR firing ARs? Could a horse tolerate a Cavalrymen/Dragoon/Special Person firing these quiet weapons from its back?
Our Special People have a Field Manual (FM) on horses--though decent humans want to keep horses out of war.
Can you fire a firearm from a horse, YES or NO?
Our war futurist concludes:
"The question is more one of can you fire accurately. That is one of the points brought up in the Battle Orders book. Repeating arms make some difference, and the Grey's Scouts apparently favored the Energa [rifle] grenade.
You may enjoy this, although admittedly we both fail to make much differentiation between combat and transport."
Two unconventional westerns:
http://phillosoph.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-war-arrow-and-deserter.html
Looks Like YES: Rhodesian Grey Scouts Automatic Weapons Dragoons on Horseback
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey%27s_Scouts
The creation of the unit was probably inspired by the Dragoons of Angola, a Portuguese Army mounted unit, raised in 1966, during the Portuguese Colonial War, to combat the guerrillas in Eastern Angola. A similar unit was being raised by the Portuguese in Rhodesia's neighboring Mozambique when the war ended in 1974.[2]
Like the Dragoons of Angola, Grey's Scouts were used for tracking, reconnaissance, pursuit, and, most prominently, patrol in the Rhodesian Bush War.[3] With measured variations in horse speed for training purposes, they would cover an area of over 65 km (40 mi) on the average day. Their routes often took them through active minefields, which they were to inspect.[4] In addition to this, the small stature and manoeuvrability of the crossbreeds they rode on was of repeated benefit to the Rhodesian forces in the construction of border defences; the Scouts could transport materials and supplies over terrain impassable to [wheeled] vehicles. The horses themselves were mostly given in charity by sympathisers of the Rhodesian effort from South Africa and elsewhere.[1]
Initially, the unit consisted of around 200 men, but this would eventually grow to over 1,000. It conscripted Soldiers from other infantry regiments of the Rhodesian Army, who were then instructed in equestrianism. Craftsmen such as farriers, horsebreeders, smithers and manufacturers were employed internally.[1]
Horses are MOVING and Grey Scouts are FIRING their FN FAL SARs...
Grey's Scouts were trained as mounted infantry rather than cavalry, and were prepared for engagements on foot rather than on horseback. A tactic of rushing and fronting with their horses was implemented to significant success by Grey's Scouts and they were noted for their skill in launching shock attacks. The number of casualties Grey's Scouts suffered during the Rhodesian Bush War is known, and is recorded to be nine.[5]
https://sofrep.com/news/greys-scouts-interview/
There was also a Cordon Sanitaire along a good portion of the border which was inhibiting ad-lib terrorist incursions. This section had to be thoroughly observed for any breaches and follow up on any tracks discovered.
Semi-Automatic Rifle (SAR) & FM Radio on Horseback
This was ideal operating conditions for only one specialist unit, the horse mounted scouts. Mechanized vehicles were rendered utterly useless by the treacherous muddy conditions, and air reconnaissance was expensive, and impractical as their limited services were always in demand elsewhere for the rapidly developing “fireforce” successes. Electronic surveillance on the cordon fence also proved impractical for various, mainly technical, reasons.
Horse moving VERY FAST, Grey Scout firing his FN FAL using his horse's head for stability. WTFO?
My book describes in detail how we managed to develop successfully into a force to be reckoned with on the Cordon Sanitaire modus operandi. Quick “fireforce”, on-the-spot reaction to breaches of the fence line, rapid follow-up on terrorist tracks became our signature performance, our lack of success with kills limited only by the areas being “frozen” by Selous Scouts operations. This as a result of the unfortunate blue on blue killing of one of our first volunteers Bruno Rabie’s brother, the famous Selous Scout Andre Rabie.
Observation and location of terrorist tracks, immediate reporting and reaction to sighting of tracks or spotting the enemy, rapid deployment onto tracks when located, requesting assistance if necessary and where possible by radio communication.
Combat was almost always dismounted, using the speed and height of our horses to rapidly follow enemy tracks. Our aim was only to get to engage with the enemy in the quickest possible time, invariably initiated when ambushed. There were a few exceptions to this rule which are alluded to in my book, but this was outside the official procedure.
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If you can, if you SEE THE ENEMY 1st, you can stop your horse to shoot/kill him from your mount.
If not, get off your horse and firearm shoot him there.
There is tactical RISK involved in MANEUVER; the horse is high silhouette and not enough armor to be like a tracked, armored tank aka siege engine that can advance-in-the-face-of-enemy-fires.
As western militaries degrade into wheeled trucks that cannot go cross-country at will, horses that can traverse over closed terrains (TBATE) make more tactical sense in Sub-National Conflicts (SNCs) where there usually isn't organized military units offering Terrain Firepower Saturation (TFS) to the TBAM fight. However, rebels are learning thanks to our unwise never-ending occupations giving them a learning curve to figure out how to defeat us.
Horse-borne special operations recces and raids using suppressed weapons seems feasible without losing the horrible numbers of animals butchered in the World War 1-2 tragedy. Body armor on the horses should partially protect them like we do with our beloved K-9 dogs.
The point is moot because decentfolk don't want horses slaughtered in war ever again.
Semper Airborne!
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