On the other hand cavalry was still used extensively in WWII on the Eastern front, a lack of useable roads for mechanical untis is one reason. One could argue that these were mounted infantry, but with the scouting role still relevant.
The cost of horse fodder was another reason they were phased out in the west.
On the other hand cavalry was still used extensively in WWII on the Eastern front, a lack of useable roads for mechanical untis is one reason. One could argue that these were mounted infantry, but with the scouting role still relevant.
The cost of horse fodder was another reason they were phased out in the west.
Horses were still needfull in wwII. But not relevant for battles.
The link you posted is irrelevant. Maybe a big Battle for polish historians, but for me it looks like 5 guys on horses tricked 2 kids with an antitankgun in the last days of the war…
Why would cavalry boost artillery? Aircraft do this due to their eye-in-the-sky capabilities, but I’m not sure I follow the connection of cavalry to my guns to shooting more accurately.
I do, however, see a connection between a successful overall attack (infantry, planes, arty, etc.) and a bonus to cavalry subsequent to that. If they served any unique use it was to take advantage of a breakthrough (much as what tanks would later do–or better, help create one).
Reading Norman Stone’s The Eastern Front (p.134-135), the mobility of cavalry divisions was a bit of a myth. Horses require a lot more food than men, and it caused massive logistical problems, especially train transport, for the Russian army. Given Russia’s already stressed rail infrastructure, all those cavalry divisions posed a strategic problem in addition to their tactical advantages.
On the other hand, cav divisions had their own organic artillery and machine guns.
The Middle East and German Southwest Africa (camelry, too, here) were also important places for cavalry or mounted infantry. In German East Africa, horses didn’t last too long due to disease.
Where could you find a game piece to represent cavalry? I’ve not seen anything that fits the 23mm size very well.
I use older risk peices for cav. They dont fit the best but its the closest i got.
@Quintus:
I use older risk peices for cav. They dont fit the best but its the closest i got.
Looks to be a good size. I looked around for anything that came close, and found zilch. Maybe HGB will cook up something. I know they have a French cavalry piece in the works. Maybe an uhlan and a cossack can be slipped in…
Last succesfully cavalry charge was actually during ww2. Amedeo Guillet successfully charged british armored divisions and put their tanks on fire with incendiary bombs. The objective was to slow down the british units to let the big bulk of the african Italian division to evaquate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amedeo_Guillet#World_War_II
Guillet’s most important battle happened towards the end of January 1941 at Cherù when he decided to attack enemy armoured units. At the end of 1940, the allied forces faced Guillet on the road to Amba Alagi, and specifically, in the proximity of Cherù. He was entrusted by Duca Amedeo Of Aosta with the task of delaying the allied advance from the North-West. The battles and skirmishes in which this young lieutenant was a protagonist (Amedeo did not have the appropriates rank, but he commanded an entire brigade) are boldly written in the British bulletins of war. The “devilries” that he created from day to day, almost seen as a game, explains why the British called him not only “Knight from other times” but also the Italian “Lawrence of Arabia”. Horse charges with unsheathed sword, guns, incendiary and hand bombs against the armoured troops had a daily cadence. A look at official documents show that in January 1941 at Cherù "… with the task of protecting the withdrawal of the battalions… with skillful maneuver and intuition of a commander… In an entire day of furious combats on foot and horseback, he charged many times while leading his units, assaulting the preponderant adversary (in number and means) soldiers of an enemy regiment, setting tanks on fire, reaching the flank of the enemy’s artilleries… although huge losses of men,… Capt. Guillet,… in a particularly difficult moment of this hard fight, guided with disregard of danger, an attack against enemy tanks with hand bombs and benzine bottles setting two on fire while a third managed to escape while in flames."In those months many proud Italians died, including many brave Eritreans who fought without fear for a king and a people who they never saw or knew. Even today, the “Devil Commander” uses words of deep respect and admiration for that proud population to whom he feels himself in debt as a soldier, Italian and man.
Looks to be a good size. I looked around for anything that came close, and found zilch. Maybe HGB will cook up something. I know they have a French cavalry piece in the works. Maybe an uhlan and a cossack can be slipped in…
The 2002 edition of Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Boardgame includes these Gunpowder Era Dragoons. The first picture below isn’t taken from a good angle, but the second one is a bit better. I like to think of these units as representing French WWI mounted cuirassiers (if there was such a thing).
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/873915/sid-meiers-civilization-the-boardgame
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/89426/sid-meiers-civilization-the-boardgame
@CWO:
Looks to be a good size. I looked around for anything that came close, and found zilch. Maybe HGB will cook up something. I know they have a French cavalry piece in the works. Maybe an uhlan and a cossack can be slipped in…
The 2002 edition of Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Boardgame includes these Gunpowder Era Dragoons. The first picture below isn’t taken from a good angle, but the second one is a bit better. I like to think of these units as representing French WWI mounted cuirassiers (if there was such a thing).Â
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/873915/sid-meiers-civilization-the-boardgame
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/89426/sid-meiers-civilization-the-boardgame
Great find! French cuirassiers did ride into battle, complete with breastplates in the early part of the war. Usually, they had covers for their helmets and plates to decrease their visibility.
Austro-Hungarian hussars (I think) also wore their crested helmets even after becoming dismounted units, for a while. They probably ditched these once the steel helmets became available, but in some photos, you can see that old style helmet covered over with canvas, etc.
The modern cavalry from Civ remind me of mounted Schutztruppe units (in East Africa), or perhaps better, the mounted elements of the Seebattalion in China!
Has anyone seen cavalry sculpts on Shapeways that might fit this time period and/or scale?
Also available are these two-part units from War! Age of Imperialism. They’re rather large for A&A purposes, but they don’t look quite so bad next to the WWI A&A sculpts than next to the generally smaller WWII A&A sculpts.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/859746/war-age-of-imperialism
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/859747/war-age-of-imperialism
If you’re going to use 1/72 scale figs you might as well get the real deal from HaT:
http://www.hat.com/Othr8/Buck64P.html
http://www.hat.com/Othr8/Buck58P.html
http://www.hat.com/Othr8/Buck57P.html
or Strelets:
I’m inclining towards:
cost 6
attack @ 2
defend @ 1
promote artillery on a one-to-one basis
can be replaced by an infantry unit during any place new units phase
The cost here may seem excessive, but by and large you’re only likely to see the cavalry units that start on the board anyway. Cavalry were expensive to maintain and feed, and they ran out of horses in the end.
This is assuming my suggested new fighter rules are used (fighters level 1 start/1914, level 2 1915 etc AND only one round of air combat).
Have to compile a list of cavalry units to replace infantry in starting setup, also likely to appear in neutral armies when activated;
1 IPC = 1 inf, 1 cav
2 IPC = 2 inf, 1 art, 1 cav
3 IPC = 3 inf, 2 art, 1 cav
4 IPC = 4 inf, 2 art, 2 cav
Here are four comparative cavalry pictures I took last night, with an A&A 1914 French infantry sculpt included to show scale. The first two pictures are of units from from War! Age of Imperialism.
The other two pictures are of units from the 2002 edition of Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Boardgame and from a game called Viktory II.
You have far too many games Marc!
@wittmann:
You have far too many games Marc!
“Having too many games” is a theoretical concept whose validity could provoke much debate amongst the members of the A&A.org community.
On opening setup, if we take each tt with 6 or more infantry and exchange one of these for a cavalry we end up with 16 cavalry each side, which seems about right and is balanced.
With PTR add 2 extra cavalry for Russia.
Have to compile a list of cavalry units to replace infantry in starting setup, also likely to appear in neutral armies when activated;
1 IPC = 1 inf, 1 cav
2 IPC = 2 inf, 1 art, 1 cav
3 IPC = 3 inf, 2 art, 1 cav
4 IPC = 4 inf, 2 art, 2 cav
…and Switzerland is getting weaker and weaker.
OK I’ll revise that:
1 IPC = 1 inf, 1 cav (Bedouins)
2 IPC = 2 inf, 1 art, 1 cav
3 IPC = 4 inf, 1 art, 1 cav
4 IPC = 5 inf, 2 art, 1 cav
Swiss Zenophobia: all Swiss units fight +1 defending Switzerland.
I’m inclining towards:
cost 6
attack @ 2
defend @ 1
promote artillery on a one-to-one basis
can be replaced by an infantry unit during any place new units phaseThe cost here may seem excessive, but by and large you’re only likely to see the cavalry units that start on the board anyway. Cavalry were expensive to maintain and feed, and they ran out of horses in the end.
Yea, I think 6 IPCs would be too much, 4 IPCs seems right IMO. Horses were also used to drag around Art with a high mortality rate, so cost of feed and uses wouldn’t put a calv unit higher then an art unit IMO (images from the the movie “War Horse” keeps popping into my head). I see the logic of your “can be replaced by an infantry unit during any place new units phase”, because the horses or camels go down and the men join the ranks. I don’t agree with that for two reasons though.
A calv unit would be much smaller then an inf unit in comparison generally speaking. Plus by rule you can’t change an art unit to inf saying they ran out of mortars (I know your house rules allow this to a certain extent Flash defying the last man rule etc…I just don’t agree, plan ahead so your stack of art don’t get stranded in Russia lol).
Inf in this game attack/def much better then the proposed calv unit, so you would probably just make this change in your first turn so why bother with the unit altogether (especially if you were in a defensive position).
Moving on:
Do you think there is room for a cavalry charge in this rule. I know that there isn’t a lot of data showing that cavalry had much success, but it would be a fun thing to do.
Lets say you are given two options for cavalry. You would have to choose one option or the other per calv unit, but could split your calv units in any battle to perform as you feel fit. Would give a little bit of an unknown factor to the enemy. Will he lead a preempt strike exposing his calv, or promote art keeping his calv from harms way. This would also allow you to have a second option for calv if you are insured of air superiority.
They can promote art 1:1 as proposed.
You can call for a cavalry charge and your cavalry lead (fire first) and get a kill shot at 2 or less (its normal attack value). Defenders are removed and can’t return fire. If used in this manner, attacking cavalry are taken as the first causalities.
This would give us a slightly different look to the same unit in the Western trenches vs the East/Mid East that was more open terrain. In the west if you lead a charge into the trenches, they might kill off a few def units, but would be claimed to trench warfare (die first). Pretty much a one trick pony (pun intended). In the east it would be possible to successfully take out 1 unit def inf pickets w/o taking a loss (if kill shot hits). I would say that cavalry used in an amphib (ether attacking or def) wouldn’t get either of these capabilities. By time they off load in attacks etc… and def art already get an advantage on the coast. So in an amphib they just perform as normal (attack at 2, def at 1).
Maybe you allow def calv the same charge/kill shot (probably not). They would of coarse be def at 1 though.
