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by peoplefromibiza
1503 days ago
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The 10th Mountain Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop of the 10th Mountain Division, while not designated as U.S. Cavalry, conducted the last horse-mounted charge of any Army organization while engaged in Austria in 1945. An impromptu pistol charge by the Third Platoon was carried out when the Troop encountered a machine gun nest in an Italian village/town sometime between 14–23 April 1945. anyway the point is not to go back to soldiers riding horses, but to not reduce the authentication options, because it also reduces security. After all we still use keys to unlock doors and not our phones (because it would be stupid) |
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"In 1945 Herr wrote that conversion of cavalry to armor was a mistake, an act of "robbing Peter to pay Paul": expansion of armor was necessary, but not at the expense of horse units."
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"even in 1942 he still struggled for the horse, requesting Marshall for "an immediate increase in horse cavalry."
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"He enforced a formal policy that any increase in mechanized forces must be preceded by a proportional increase in horse cavalry; as a result the 7th Cavalry Brigade remained the only mechanized unit until 1940. Later, he had to admit the rising power of armor, but was just as unwilling to dismount his troops.
After the outbreak of World War II Herr followed the European campaigns through attaché reports that reinforced his belief in superiority of cavalry tactics. His chief of staff Willis D. Crittenberger pre-screened these reports and jotted "cavalry mission" in the margins to attract Herr's attention.[16] Herr's own interpretation of the intelligence was biased in favor of the horse. He believed that the Wehrmacht relied on horses because of German operational doctrine when, in fact, it was a purely economic decision.[6] He wrote that other Western European armies dismissed the horse because of shrinking horse and forage stocks; the American situation, according to Herr was more akin to Poland or the Soviet Union, which still kept sizable horse formations.[15] He assessed blitzkrieg as a "typical cavalry mission" and suggested expanding the 7th Cavalry Brigade along German panzer division standards, under full Cavalry control.[17] The proposal, delivered at the War College in September 1939, was bundled with the demand that new armored units should be formed from scratch rather than converted from horse troops.
In the first half of 1940 Herr embraced the concept of "horse-mechanized formations" and called for expansion of cavalry brigades into divisions. He alienated George Marshall by insisting that mechanization should be an expansion of existing cavalry troops, rather than their replacement.[19] He publicly rallied for more horse units through Cavalry Journal publications,[15] and brought further tension inside his troops by asking each cavalry officer to choose his side: either for horse cavalry, or for mechanization. According to Bruce Palmer Jr., the request forced officers of all grades to "cut their throats professionally": they had to bet their careers on obsolete war technology, or risk immediate repercussions from their Chief."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Knowles_Herr#Chief_of_Cav...