There were significant changes to the Cavalry of the @USArmy during the Interwar Years, but the full effects of these changes were not felt until the Army got new equipment and began to rapidly expand as we got ready to enter World War II.
“Mounted reconnaissance developments reflected the impact of mechanization through the emergence of principles developed by the 7th Cavalry Brigade (Mechanized).” @MastersManeuver
More emphasis was being placed on the need to “fight for information” and this emphasis marked the greatest difference between the Horse Cavalry Officers and the newer Mechanized Cavalry Officers.
Mechanized Cavalry, however, was quickly showing a preference for equipping Scouts with the “means to survive chance encounters with hostile forces.”
“The creation of the Armored Force decentralized responsibility for reconnaissance development and ensured the expression of both viewpoints within the Army.”
But for a long time, Cavalry was the real “mobile arm” of the @USArmy. The horse offered superior mobility when compared to soldiers on foot.
The Cavalry had a rather broad mission set that included attack, defend, exploitation, pursuit, recon, security, delay, raid, and harassment operations. And Doctrine required that we have the ability to perform all of these missions both mounted on horseback and dismounted.
Cavalry was characterized by rapid action and decisiveness, but the units traditionally lacked the ability to engage in sustained combat.
Lucky for them, that was not their purpose.
The Cavalry units were expected to use their superior mobility to conduct recon and security operations ahead of their friendly forces, and once they found the enemy, they were to remain in contact to provide a steady flow of information regarding hostile forces.
Information drives decision making. The Cavalry could shape the nature and circumstances in which a battle would occur.
In their security duties, Cavalry would provide early warning and help protect units against surprise.
When we got to WWI, things like trenches, mines, and barbed wire, plus the increased lethality associated with machineguns and mortars, and the increased use of artillery and aircraft, all showed that Horse Cavalry were a bit more vulnerable now.
Mounted operations became the exception rather than the rule. When the AEF went to the Western Front, only a small contingent of Cavalry went with them.
Aircraft provided substantially more reconnaissance, and dismounted patrols were put to greater use than horses. This made it more challenging for Cavalry to maintain their traditionally defined role and difficult to redefine their role after the First World War.
With the increased motorization of armies, tanks and trucks and other vehicles were becoming commonplace and this was reflected in Doctrine and training. The likelihood of encountering tanks on a battlefield was much higher and horses were not quite up to that task.
For reconnaissance assets to be effective, they have to be able to move faster than their parent formations and in WWI and during the Interwar Years, parent formations were understood to be on foot.
Leadership among the Horse Cavalry units “launched an aggressive campaign to promote their Branch, drawing unfavorable comparisons between the terrain sensitivity of vehicles and the yet unmatched tactical mobility of horse organizations.”
A scout mounted on horseback was still easier to conceal and it was still much easier for a scout to go from mounted to dismounted more quickly with a much lower noise signature – all of which are important to recon.
Logistics tended to favor horses over vehicles, which was an argument used by the Cavalry. “Horses could live off the land” while “vehicles needed fuel.”
Mechanized and motorized units were portrayed (in these pro-Horse Cav campaign efforts) as “brittle and dependent on highly favorable conditions for their effective employment” which contrasted with the relative agility and versatility of just sticking with horses.
The Cavalry Journal naturally supported these efforts, printing articles that focused on important Cavalry contributions throughout history. Of course WWI coverage focused on theaters OTHER THAN the Western Front so as to depict Cavalry being put to good use.
There was some emphasis on the British Cavalry operating in the Middle East, incorporating principle characteristics of firepower and mobility that we associate with US Cavalry. (I think these are actually from an Australian unit @WarintheFuture )
These stories “demonstrated the Cavalry’s traditional ability to achieve desired results, with or without improved or modernized weaponry.”
The British commander in Palestine, Field Marshall Edmund H. H. Allenby, wrote to the Cavalry Journal acknowledging the attention the journal had been giving his command.
He defended the use of horse cavalry in all theaters including the Western Front, but he also advocated for experimenting with tanks, trucks, and armored cars, and he noted that aircraft had largely replaced Cavalry for long-range reconnaissance.
This was not exactly helping the pro-Horse Cav argument 👀 but we will continue this story on Saturday.
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Operation Chastise was a night bombing raid carried out by the @RoyalAirForce on the evening of 16 May 1943. This raid is also referred to as the Dambusters Raid because the bombers were targeting several dams in the Ruhr industrial area, in western Germany.
The Möhne Dam, the Sorpe Dam, and the Eder Dam. Destruction would affect hydroelectric power plants as well as the industries depending on the water. There was also potential for flooding cities and nearby areas if the dams were broken.
It seems like it’s about time for a #TankTwitter thread, so today we will talk about the first, largely intact, Tiger I captured by the Allies.
The Tiger I was a heavy tank that provided Hitler’s army with the first armored fighting vehicle to feature a mounted 88mm gun. It was big and scary, and it was expensive, both to build and to maintain, which is partly why only a little over 1300 were built.
On Tuesday we talked about the Battle of Sidi Bou Zid, and that thread also served as a primer for the third episode of the accompanying #WhyWeFight1943 podcast.
“In their January attacks Axis units puzzled Allied commanders by limiting their own advances and abandoning key positions. Soon, however, the enemy displayed more determination.”
On Tuesday, we talked about the secret multi-day trip that President Roosevelt took from the White House on 9 JAN to Casablanca, arriving on 14 JAN, in order to attend a highly classified series of meetings with his British counterpart, Winston Churchill.
This conference involved both FDR and Churchill, and their most trusted senior staff and senior military leaders. During the meetings they established the way forward for the Allies in this war, mapping out “the grand strategy for both the European and the Pacific Theaters.”
George Patton was put in command of the Western Task Force, which sailed from the east coast of the US right to Morocco for Operation Torch. The other two task forces sailed from the UK.
Patton was on the USS Augusta, which was under the command of Admiral Hewitt (next to Patton in the picture). That little pouch on the front of Patton's belt is actually a police handcuff pouch but Patton used it for a compass.
Everyone knows that the United States used two atomic bombs in the Pacific in World War II, and that the US was the only nation in the war to use this new type of weapon. This week we will take a look at the efforts to create these bombs.
The Manhattan Project technically ran from 1942 until 1946, but the American effort itself had actually started in 1939, and we had British counterparts already working on nuclear weapons development by the time the United States jumped on that train.⚛️