[PDF] Modern Cavalry eBook

Author : David R Dorondo
Publisher : Naval Institute Press
Page : 407 pages
File Size : 28,77 MB
Release : 2012-05-15
Category : History
ISBN : 1612510876

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Despite the enduring popular image of the blitzkrieg of World War II, the German Army always depended on horses. It could not have waged war without them. While the Army’s reliance on draft horses to pull artillery, supply wagons, and field kitchens is now generally acknowledged, D. R. Dorondo’s Riders of the Apocalypse examines the history of the German cavalry, a combat arm that not only survived World War I but also rode to war again in 1939. Though concentrating on the period between 1939 and 1945, the book places that history firmly within the larger context of the mounted arm’s development from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to the Third Reich’s surrender. Driven by both internal and external constraints to retain mounted forces after 1918, the German Army effectively did nothing to reduce, much less eliminate, the preponderance of non-mechanized formations during its breakneck expansion under the Nazis after 1933. Instead, politicized command decisions, technical insufficiency, industrial bottlenecks, and, finally, wartime attrition meant that Army leaders were compelled to rely on a steadily growing number of combat horsemen throughout World War II. These horsemen were best represented by the 1st Cavalry Brigade (later Division) which saw combat in Poland, the Netherlands, France, Russia, and Hungary. Their service, however, came to be cruelly dishonored by the horsemen of the 8th Waffen-SS Cavalry Division, a unit whose troopers spent more time killing civilians than fighting enemy soldiers. Throughout the story of these formations, and drawing extensively on both primary and secondary sources, Dorondo shows how the cavalry’s tradition carried on in a German and European world undergoing rapid military industrialization after the mid-nineteenth century. And though Riders of the Apocalypse focuses on the German element of this tradition, it also notes other countries’ continuing (and, in the case of Russia, much more extensive) use of combat horsemen after 1900. However, precisely because the Nazi regime devoted so much effort to portray Germany’s armed forces as fully modern and mechanized, the combat effectiveness of so many German horsemen on the battlefields of Europe until 1945 remains a story that deserves to be more widely known. Dorondo’s work does much to tell that story.

Author : Jeremy Black
Publisher : Pen and Sword Military
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 40,63 MB
Release : 2023-08-30
Category : History
ISBN : 1399060910

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An original and unique work that will fill a huge gap in the field of military history, and be of interest to both scholars and general readers. It is a picture of the universal role of cavalry in warfare from earliest times to the present - and future. This book covers the role of horses and essential mobility in 'shock action', in warfare in the classical world, in the major civilizations of China and India, Steppe cavalry, in the middle ages with Islamic and European conflict, the 'social politics' in Christendom with knightly valor, and war with non-Christian forces including the Muslim invasion of Europe, Islamic Spain, and conflict with the Mongols. The early modern period covers the Asia and North Africa and the Ottomans - a major field of warfare continuing up to the modern period - and the time is notable for the introduction of horses in the Americas - a new phase in cavalry history. The modern period from Napoleon to the First World War is the history of the mobility of cavalry in European warfare and in imperial expansion and empire-building, but the concept of cavalry 'redundancy' arises in the maelstrom of 1914-1918 with artillery bombardment, trench warfare, and the role of infantry. The long 'transition' period leading up the present and future is fascinating for both cavalry and infantry, with the development of tanks and armor. And here is a fascinating and original concept of cavalry 'transformation' and not cavalry 'survivalism', with modern and post-modern development of drone warfare - from horses to drones - as a 'new cavalry' for reconnaissance and combat.

Author : Matthew Darlington Morton
Publisher :
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 13,23 MB
Release : 2009
Category : History
ISBN :

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Describes the collapse of the traditional cavalry unit and the beginning of the armored truck as "iron-ponies". Also, goes into detail about the possible complications that the cavalry must face for future wars.

Author : Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson
Publisher : Forgotten Books
Page : 231 pages
File Size : 11,98 MB
Release : 2015-06-25
Category : History
ISBN : 9781330167342

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Excerpt from Modern Cavalry: Studies on Its Role in the Warfare, of to-Day With Notes on Training for War Service The tumult and shouting of the world war has had a little time to die down. Throughout its course and for some time afterward it was impossible to clarify ideas and to deduce lessons. These require a certain amount of perspective for their better rendering. This perspective has been a little furnished by the passage of time. Time is a cold analyst who makes tangible the real causes and effects and relegates the merely subsidiary to a nebulous background. Out of the haze and smoke of conflict we can begin to see dimly the simple primitive forces that were at war and to see the underlying causes that make for victory or defeat. In freeing the mind from the thralldom of the present, in deliberately comparing this war with all wars, the mind of the military student becomes amazed at the simplicity of the predominating factors in warfare. This last war has complicated the issue by the use in battle of a larger variety of innovations in the way of auxiliaries and mechanical aids, than any war in history. The aeroplane and the tank and a host of like aids have a tendency to obsess the mind of the unthinking to the exclusion of the important factors in victory or defeat, to the real forces that battle for ascendency. Battle is decided by men. Mechanical aids and auxiliaries end by neutralizing each other. They do not decide a war. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Author : Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson
Publisher : Wentworth Press
Page : 228 pages
File Size : 34,27 MB
Release : 2019-02-23
Category : History
ISBN : 9780469549586

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Author : George Hofmann
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Page : 596 pages
File Size : 15,96 MB
Release : 2006-07-03
Category : History
ISBN : 0813171423

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The U.S. Cavalry, which began in the nineteenth century as little more than a mounted reconnaissance and harrying force, underwent intense growing pains with the rapid technological developments of the twentieth century. From its tentative beginnings during World War I, the eventual conversion of the traditional horse cavalry to a mechanized branch is arguably one of the greatest military transformations in history. Through Mobility We Conquer recounts the evolution and development of the U.S. Army’s modern mechanized cavalry and the doctrine necessary to use it effectively. The book also explores the debates over how best to use cavalry and how these discussions evolved during the first half of the century. During World War I, the first cavalry theorist proposed combining arms coordination with a mechanized force as an answer to the stalemate on the Western Front. Hofmann brings the story through the next fifty years, when a new breed of cavalrymen became cold war warriors as the U.S. Constabulary was established as an occupation security-police force. Having reviewed thousands of official records and manuals, military journals, personal papers, memoirs, and oral histories—many of which were only recently declassified—George F. Hofmann now presents a detailed study of the doctrine, equipment, structure, organization, tactics, and strategy of U.S. mechanized cavalry during the changing international dynamics of the first half of the twentieth century. Illustrated with dozens of photographs, maps, and charts, Through Mobility We Conquer examines how technology revolutionized U.S. forces in the twentieth century and demonstrates how perhaps no other branch of the military underwent greater changes during this time than the cavalry.