• TripleA

    Do you cavalry?


  • No, as they had little scope in the actual war, except in the middle east and eastern front. Even in 1914 during the war of movement, they really didn’t do as well as one would have expected given their “elite” status.

    Now Zeppelins to bomb Allied money I have tinkered with.

    http://www.historicalboardgaming.com/Zeppelins-3D-Printed-Set_p_1987.html

    Also I do like the idea of HGB’s Paris gun to also both attack Frances $ and in the assault on Paris.

    http://www.historicalboardgaming.com/WW1-Paris-Gun-3d-Printed_p_1999.html


  • Coincidentally, just this week I’ve been watching some DVDs about WWI-era military technology and they made an interesting argument about why cavalry went out of style on the Western Front during WWI.  They argued that cavalry traditionally has two roles: scouting (using it as a reconnaissance force to locate the enemy and study his dispositions) and routing (using it to hit – usually from the sides – an enemy force that your infantry have brought close to the breaking point, to shock it into surrender or flight), and they argued that both of these roles were incompatible with a continuous front because they could only be carried out if the cavalry could get around the enemy’s flanks and/or behind his lines.  Cavalry’s recon role was essentially taken over by a newfangled contraption, the “aeroplane”, a tradition still echoed today by the US Army’s designation of certain helicopter scouting elements as cavalry units.  As for the loss of cavalry’s routing function, WWI generals tried to compensate for it by simply throwing more infantry at the enemy (with the high-casualty results that we all know) or by calling on other newfangled devices like poison gas and tanks (with very mixed results in both cases).


  • By the time people thought to use their equipment properly the ground was too torn up and covered with barbed wire to use cavalry for break throughs. Early on maybe there was a chance for cavalry to be used in a break through role. Something like using a rolling barrage with infantry closely following. Like everyone had figured out to do by the end of the war. If a breach was made in the enemy line maybe then cavalry could have poured through to attempt a drive into the enemy rear. I’m not sure how sustainable that would be though. Possibly once past the breach the cavalry could have turned and began envelopments of the enemy force. Better yet that could be done with mounted infantry.

  • '16

    All of these considerations are valid, but cavalry remained an important combat arm in places where the front was not contiguous or where the combatants did not have access to aeroplanes in large numbers.

    Cavalry made important contributions to the African and Middle Eastern theaters during the First World War. Cavalry units were also significant during the Russian Revolution, the Russo-Polish War, and the Chinese Civil War.

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    The old TripleA scenario for World War One featured Cavalry units that cost 4 IPCs, had an attack of 1, a defense of 1, and a movement of 2. They were not boosted by artillery – their whole point was just to get some cheap, mobile units to mop up poorly defended territories in Russia and Arabia.


  • I like the cavaly option even in a WW2 senerio.  They would be cannon fodder and of little effective combat use but they are mobile.  It would be great to throw some cavalry as blocking units to prevent blitzing.  I could see the UK in Africa, The Soviets, and even the Italians making use of this unit.  I would give them a +1 when supported by artilley and a defense of two.  Defending cavalry would really be dismounted and thus regular infintry.  I’ll have to try it to see what happens.

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    Dafyd,is there any difference between your cavalry and mechanized infantry? Looks like they both have 1 att, 2 def, 2 move, 4 ipc, boosted by artillery.

  • '16

    Argothir, I think that your point illustrates why cavalry are only likely to be useful in games using a d12 or d20 for combat.

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