Is there a future for horses in a military capacity?
Also post pics of cavalry. Napoleonic, winged Hussars, WW1, whatever.
Cavalry thread
Noah Mitchell
Hunter Cooper
Poles, Poos, Krauts and Aussies
Carson Fisher
Mongolia still uses them for border patrol. In general though, the machine gun has killed the cavalry/dragoon.
Caleb Peterson
That was the answer I feared. Still, they had a pretty good run.
Brandon Williams
Apart from parades, no.
Cavalry is still pretty cool.
Parker Cooper
Cavalry is my favourite aesthetic. My Granddad was Kings troop and taught me all about horses.
Nathaniel Nguyen
Scouting in forests
Zachary Harris
Is this an area where horses could simply never be surpassed?
Aaron Ross
Potentially there's a use for mounted men in low(ish) risk, long distance, low intensity work. Things like border patrols or non-theatre airbase defence. Basically any area where a soldier has to cover a lot of ground, at relatively low speed, with limited risk of being shot at. If you love the visual of regiments of horse charging across the battlefield then good on you, that's completely understandable. However that died with WW1, and it had been on the way out for a while by then.
Hunter Roberts
Guess I'll have to give up on my dream of cyborg cataphracts.
Kevin Torres
I'd add the additional caveat of "heavily wooded"/uneven terrain to that, because the same thing you described could also be accomplished by ATVs or something similar.
Jacob Cook
motorcycles have replaced them.
Henry Sanders
True, woodland and ground too rough for motorised vehicles is their niche. It's a pretty specialised role though.
Sebastian Turner
Just breed/genetically engineer bullet proof horses.
Brody Sullivan
Thread theme.
Eli Thomas
The horse is a mans most noble friend
the mostly likely places for future mounted rifles would be any future large wars in Central and Northern Asia, or in Africa.
Gabriel Stewart
Horses are for bitches. Infantry4lyfe
Carter Evans
Noah Brooks
Horses also have the advantage of being able to live off the land. If you're anticipating a situation that makes resupply difficult for a long-term operation, the lower speed of a horse might be a worthwhile tradeoff for its fuel literally growing out of the ground.
Mason Rivera
There will probably be a mechanical stryder scout vehicle whose legs are based of horse hooves and are built for rough terrain and require quicker direction changes than wheeled vehicles. Think of the ad mechanis mongoose vehicles in 40k. The horse will probably only fill this role on tight budgets but at least the spirit of their presence is there.
Hunter Robinson
I know that it's unlikely, but could we issue them with wheel lock carabines, steel breastplates, and sabres; at least for ceremonial duties?
Spoken like a true pleb, sir.
Hudson Bennett
Horses are for bitches and the Poles.
Charles Green
...
Owen Peterson
...
Julian Diaz
Are you Irish or something?
Julian Johnson
yes.
Bentley Nelson
We tried that in Crimea. It doesn't work all that well.
Brayden King
You can't ride down when we're hiding in the forests, guy.
Juan Evans
What fucking retard put his guns in forested terrain?
Jason Walker
That's why you shell the shit out of them. See crazy Italians.
Brody Baker
Good luck. Cav and arty may make breakthroughs, but the last 100 yards will always belong to the footsoldier.
Robert Cruz
(checked)
However the SADF (old SA) armed forces had both a cavalry and a motorcycle division and that was relatively recent in historial terms.
Jack Jenkins
You've gotta keep an eye on what they eat, Horses are dumb enough to eat stuff that'll kill em.
Connor Martinez
Oh while I'm at it, Cossacks.
Christian Robinson
I feel like motorcycles are the modern horse.
Sending hundreds of armed men on motorbikes into combat sounds pretty fucking cool.
James Sanchez
You enjoy looking up to your betters I see
Isaac Morgan
Good point.
Isaac Brooks
John Perry
Nathaniel Jenkins
Only as transportation measures. Horses largely became obsolete at the start of the 20th century for a reason. Trenches completely negate the advantage of a horseback fighter in the field, and machine guns have a much easier time hitting the bigger target that the horseman presents.
The only reason to employ horses in modern war is if your force lacks gasoline or off-road vehicles which are in every way superior to horses.
The age of the horseback warrior ended the moment melee combat became obsolete due to the overwhelming power of ranged weapons.
Charles Baker
The Germans still use some mounted riflemen(lost my images of them) and in that role it could still be feasible, they can better traverse certain terrain than vehicles can.
Cooper Hernandez
Speaking of modernizing outdated shit. How about a tankette armed with a breech loading gun similar to a carronade? Basically a giant shotgun strapped to an armored vehicle for urban combat.
Easton Hernandez
Why use such an outdated firing mechanism when modern heavy weaponry is much more efficient? In the ""current year"" we have ordnance that explodes on contact, which has much more devastating effect that what you propose. Such weapons were employed to fire at infantry and cavalry moving in formation in the open. Such scenarios do not exist in modern war.
Xavier Watson
The reason they still have cav in China is mainly cause of the terrain in Yunnan and Tibet I believe.
Not like it matters cause most people are fucked at 4.5K m alt, a soldier there has a tour duty of two months and he takes a month to fucking adjust lol
Christopher Bennett
Granted there are a few historical inaccuracies in the vid mostly from trying to use Cossacks to play heavy cavalry but it's still a film that every Zig Forumsommando should watch at least once.
Juan Davis
We sill use canister shot with Abrams tanks today. Also a HE FRAGS used in close proximity to friendlies often results in collateral damage. Also a canister/grapeshot round would do more damage to what you're shooting than a frag round, but the damage wouldn't be in a 360° radius.
Didn't mention anything about that. It would be fired the same way you'd fire a normal tank gun.
tl;dr: What I'm proposing is a tankette armed with a large smooth bore gun that can shred nearly anything in front of it.
Andrew Flores
We have machineguns
Lucas Taylor
There're quadrupled robots being built that can serve the same role as a horse without its cons. I think that it has been tested as a human transportation vehicle already.
Luis Cruz
What about a tankette with a smooth bore cannon that shoots a bundle of machine guns that start shooting once they leave the barrel?
Xavier Flores
The machine gun is the secondary. The machine gun can't take out swath of people in a millisecond, or destroy a small building, machine nest
Julian Walker
’’’A’’’ machinegun can’t see for solution.
Wyatt Gomez
You mean the last 1.5 seconds
Easton Roberts
Scouts. They were used in Afghanistan somewhat recently, because legs > wheels.
Dominic Torres
Well if we ever get armor or some kind of tech that could bring the viability of the horsemen or infantry charge back onto the battlefield we may start to see them make a return. And militaries might begin seriously training troops in melee combat.
Wild horses perhaps, but horses that were used for military service were fed fodder. Often a particular type of fodder. If horses were to start eating fresh grass the sudden change in their diet would make them sick. Itprobably wouldnt kill them or cause lasting damage but they certainly wouldn't be able to perform their duties or participate in combat.
Jose Murphy
Didn’t the Rhodies have a cavalry regiment during the bush war? They were very small though, so that’s why their exploits were rarely heard
Jacob Gomez
blocks your path
wat nou?
Alexander Sanchez
Grey's Scouts.
Haven't read a lot about them yet, but they had a decent rep.
Jacob Richardson
Amateurs. Get on my level.
Zachary Green
Dylan Anderson
Mules are chill as fuck.
Charles Barnes
The glory tends to go to the RLI and Selous Scouts but Grey's Scouts were capable for patrolling and scouting. Though their doctrine had them acting as dragoons when it came to fighting.
Charles Carter
A painting by Wojciech Kossak, "A cuirassier and a girl".