Was Cavalry still useful in WWII ?

I´m no expert, but I believe the Cavalry could still play a useful role even as late as in WWII. The Germans, who had disbanded all their Cavalry units by 1941, revived their Cavalry in 1943. I believed they were quite useful on the Eastern Front. Germany did in any case keep their Cavalry until the end of the war.

 

The Russians used Cossaks in WW2, certainly.
But well-disciplined rifle-fire, let alone a machine-gun, makes mincemeat out of them.
A man on a horse is a big big target, and horses do not 'duck & cover'.

I should point out here the distiction between Cavalry & Mounted Infantry.

Cavalry fight from horseback
Mounted Infantry use horse as transport, and dismount to fight.

Mounted Infantry ae very useful - pre-runner of lorry-borne infantry, and can go where trucks cannot.
Cavalry are superior to Mounted Infantry in only 2 areas:

1) persuing enmy soldiers who are running away.
2) all those dead horses make great additions to your soldier's rations

 

What I think of horses in modern combat agrees with that last sentence in Ricky's post. They can't do much against entrenched troops anyway, because these are simply too low to reach, shooting back with all they have; furthermore, by the end of WW2 more and more troops carried automatic weapons (Stenguns, StG44s, PPsH41s) so any single squad of infantry could devastate a cavalry unit.

Maybe in the early war years when some armies were still pedestrian in mindset, and their soldiers carried rifles, cavalry could still matter in hot pursuit or flanking operations. Never could they make frontal assaults, however; they'd be decimated in minutes. Remember, cavalry is a close-quarter weapon; they fight by making contact, then withdrawing and making contact again. This is exactly the kind of fighting that machine guns prevent.

 

But did they still make that distinction as late as in WWII ? And I believe Cavalry units dismounted and fought as regular infantry units allready during the Napoleonic Wars.

The good old fashioned cavalry charge would probably be futile in most circumstanses, but the cavalry could still be useful in certain types of terrain, or for anti-partisan duties.

 

Yes, Cavalry can dismount & fight, and have done so ever since cavalry has existed, but their prime purpose is to fight from horseback.

Similarly (just to confuse the issue) Mounted Infantry can (at a pinch) fight from horseback, but usually with fairly disasterous results!

The two functions you name do seem to be more related to the horse as transport than as a fighting machine - hence Mounted Infantry.

 

Cavalry was widely used by the German army. The Waffen-SS had three cavalry divisions,
- 8. SS-Kavallerie-Division Florian Geyer,
- 22. SS-Freiwilligen-Kavallerie-Division Maria Theresa and
- 37. SS-Freiwilligen-Kavallerie-Division Lützow.
The two first were anihalated at Budapest in 1945 while defending the city, the latter was formed from the about 170 who survived Budapest. The Heer had three cavalry divisions as well,
- 1. Kavallerie-Division,
- 3. Kavallerie-Division and
- 4. Kavallerie-Division.
The first was redesignated 24. Panzer-Division, the two latter fought until may 1945 in Austria.

 

What about mountainous terrain where armour cannot go?

 

That's about the only place where I'd say cavalry could still be useful in the WW era. Still, in mountaineous regions ambush is easy, and a single well-placed MG could totally wipe out those large targets that mounted men make. I'd rather be on foot when fighting there.

The simple fact that you're riding on horseback would ensure that you have no weapons whatsoever against enemy armour. So even a single recce vehicle could stand its ground against a cavalry division. I just don't know why the Germans re-founded their mounted units...

Christian, could you provide us with some more service details of those units?

 

Roel, you should be able to find ample imformation if searching the Axis History Factbook or Feldgrau.

I think that there's a very good reason to why the German army used cavalry - simply because they didn't have a choice. Even around the time when the German army had the widest amount of motorization (1939-1940), they still widely depended on horses, thus it would be quite natural to make cavalry divisions as well.

Christian

 

In a well placed ambush <b><u>nobody and nothing </b></u>will survive. Tank or otherwise.

 

Cavalry, or Mounted Infantry?

*Bangs head on wall*

 

I did come across a reference to an Italian officer leading the last cavalry charge using mounted tribesmen against a British encampment in the western desert. They did do that much damage but since they achieved surprise didn't get chopped into mincemeat on the way in.

 

Yes, fair enough, but I was talking of a single well-placed MG. This won't exactly butcher an armoured column, or even a recce unit, and infantry can usually hide by using the terrain after the first shock has died down a bit. However, cavalry has no such option because they are large and high in shape; they can find themselves victim to the mercy of two or three soldiers, no matter what their numbers are.

Christian, of course I know that the German army was forced to rely on horsed transport for a lot of its units and throughout the war. But the German army's mindset was mobile and modernized; they were the first to use mechanized infantry, for example. So refounding mounted units would mean a considerable set of steps back, for them. Not very logical to me.

 

If you look at the terrain in south-eastern Europe, you will find that it would be extremely difficult to get armoured infantry through some of the areas.

Furthermore, both a truck and an open-toppen halftrack (which more or less all WWII halftracks were) could be easily disabled by a handgrenade in an ambush. Cavalry would have a much better chance to survive an initial ambush, by dropping to the ground and use their horses for cover (a bit like General Custer at Little Big Horn ).

 

You would be suprised at how hard it is to hit a moving target even with a machine gun. If you have several cavalrymen and one machinegun depends on distance, I am not saying they the a good idea on the whole, but there could have been times when they would be useful.

Cavalry against armour means minced meat (gehakte vlees)

Cavalry against infantry, depends on the situation.

 

Of course I wouldn't know anything about that, but it would seem to me that you wouldn't set up an ambush where there is much space to mve for the enemy. That doesn't make sense. So my drawing of the situation ruled out the possibility that cavalry would be manoeuvering about.

The Dutch word is "gehakt vlees" or, simply and more commonly, "gehakt".

 

My reply was to your point of a single machine gun. Any way as I said I can see possible uses but not always.

Anyway this is getting like the japanese sword, Can we both agree cavalry were not the best tools to have but could have had some applications.

P.S. sorry for my poor Dutch

 

Well, personally I'm convinced that horses in WW2 should have been used only as beasts of burden. The days of cavalry were over! But I'd agree to such a moderate statement if only to close an endless discussion of details...

How could I complain? I'm so glad you try! If I correct you it's only for you to use in the future.

 

Agreed on both accouts.

 

Yup - I'll agree to the slightly more qualified view that dedicated cavalry could have uses, but opportunities for these were not exactly common or easy to find, so overall it is not worth having them...