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Makes one wonder about the definition of mental illness. The European generals pre WW1 who still kept lancer cavalry regiments might be considered 'retarded' by an observer, even without the benefit of hindsight. WTF are lancers gonna do to bolt action riflemen, let alone machineguns? Even if you just imagine the infantry out there on a field, unentrenched and in loose order, in the best conditions for a cavalry charge, the whole thing is still a slaughter.
But this kind of 'retarded', distinct from being an actual dribbler who probably has no concept of what lancers are, isn't an actual mental illness, it's just being really really bad at your job in one specific area. Kind of like an AI hallucination in scope, an isolated lapse in otherwise reasonable performance.
But instead of a random hallucination it's more like a motivated argument where one might despise the grifters on twitter or dislike the cut of Yudkowsky's jib and then form your opinions based on that. Likewise, I imagine the cavalry officers held themselves high, cavalry is noble and aristocratic, a testament to the connection between man and horse. Infantry was ugly muddy and plebeian, so they looked for reasons why the cavalry should win when the idea is idiotic.
Cavalry did pretty well in the ACW, and in the Franco-Prussian war.
I find the tactical insanity of WW1 pretty understandable if you remember that bolt action rifles and light machine guns are incremental changes. It was hard to foresee that just making everything slightly faster and more portable would make most doctrine obsolete.
There was a tendency for cavalry to get lighter and serve more as scouts than shock forces. But the total obsolescence of the concept was hard to fathom .
Moreover, outside of the Western front, cavalry did an outstanding job in WW1 even. Both on the eastern front and the Balkans with fast moving fronts, the advantages of mobility start to outweigh firepower.
It's only in WW2 with the infamous polish failures that cavalry was rendered soundly obsolete. And only really because motorized units took over the role.
It's far more understandable to me than some air forces deciding to stick to scouting and refusing to entertain combat flight despite obvious trends. But then again, the future of aviation was as mysterious as that of AI today at the time.
I just want to note that these failures were partially fiction invented by German propaganda.
(also, Wermach being fully mechanized is also a myth, they used far more horses than people know)
IIRC there were still literally millions of horses used by both the Nazis and the Soviets in WWII, and the Nazi invasion of the USSR used more horses than trucks.
But I was under the impression that these uses were more for logistics than for combat, which would make a lot more sense to me. "We're low on oil; we shouldn't forgo transports whose fuel literally grows right out of the ground", yes. "Into the mouth of Hell, Rode the six hundred, But this time they had, A Good feeling about it", no, right?
Or maybe I'm completely wrong. The Nazis took Poland in 5 weeks, so I don't want to give the defense too much credit, but digging into the details it really looks like "using horse-mounted cavalry, even against mechanized infantry" wasn't a problem, it just wasn't good enough to overcome "being simultaneously invaded by two foes with at least twice their population each".
Genuinely unsure, but combat use was a thing, see for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Cavalry_Division_(Wehrmacht)
definitely, it was overall poor showing in many ways, but admittedly "being simultaneously invaded by two foes with at least twice their population each" was hard to overcome
And it was not at "planning to charge tanks with cavalry" levels, cavalry against tanks was closer to "use anti-tank guns, relocate, repeat" or "cut down infantry with mobile cavalry while hilariously poorly mobile early tanks are uselessly stuck somewhere else". And if it would be Germany vs Poland + maybe France etc there was some chance.
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Sure there was still a role for cavalry as mounted dragoons or scouts in WW1 and WW2 but real European doctrine was theorizing actual cavalry charges with lances and sabers.
I'm pretty sure the real European doctrine for cavalry units in WW2 was to use them as mounted infantry units that dismount and shoot guns during combat.
(The infamous failures of Polish cavalry charging at tanks supposedly didn't actually happen, though they did charge at some infantry formations a couple of times, to mixed results.)
To be more specific, IIRC aftermath of what was used in German propaganda was case of Polish cavalry demolishing German infantry with an actual charge and in turn being demolished by German tanks that arrived later.
BTW, Germany also had frontline cavalry units in WW II.
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WW1 on Eastern front and 1920 war between Poland and Russia had actual cavalry charges with lances and sabers (and guns).
(in the 1920 it worked so well that it contributed both sides to overvaluing cavalry, though neither was planning* to charge tanks with them by the time of WW II)
*or actually charging
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Because that did still work in the previous wars where automatic weapons were bulky crew served emplacements. During the Franco-Prussian war heavy cavalry still did its intended saber charge role at times using smoke cover and violence of action to make movement and concealment nullify firepower.
The thinking was that the trend would continue with minor adjustments.
A potential analog today is the ever prophetized death of the tank and armored offensives. In the face of top easily available countermeasures. People said the prevalence of ATGMs would sunset the tank and it did not, so now we expect that the prevalence of drones won't, but maybe we are all insane and the future will regard armored offensives by Russia and Ukraine as doomed follies.
My point is, it's hard to judge the past decision makers honestly without tainting it with our knowledge of the outcome.
And sometimes what becomes the conventional wisdom also goes too far. Bayonet charges have in fact decided some battles in the Falklands despite expectations for instance. Despite both belligerents having access to vastly more sophisticated weapons than spears.
ATGMs have countermeasures, you can have active defences or redesign armour to resist them better. Drones have countermeasures, you can cover the tank in add-on armour like we see in Ukraine. Or redesign the tank to be more well-rounded in its armour rather than so frontally-focused. You can add ECM, some microwave widget, have defensive drones.
But you can't redesign heavy shock cavalry in the same way. You can add more armour but the horse biology and blade technology hasn't advanced significantly for ages.
During the Franco-Prussian war cavalry charges did occasionally work but at great cost. Since there were no further advances in cavalry but great advancements in rifles, artillery and machine-guns (and accompanying tactics, indirect fire and entrenchment) then traditional shock cavalry was foreseeably obsolete.
Likewise, if drones turn into autonomous AI death swarms with tandem warheads, doubled range and halved price while tanks remain fundamentally in the 1980s, then it would be all over for heavy armour. But that won't necessarily happen since we know the tank has all these opportunities to adapt that cavalry lack.
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