Also the question is would the cavalry be actual cavalry that fought on horseback or instead would they be more infantry that used horses to get to the fighting and then dismounted and fought on foot

In other words are the cavalry units that are the game actual trained cavalry that are trained to fight on horses that have been hardened to combat conditions - which would most likely be quite rare given that just about every unit in the game started out as mechanized infantry that converted to horses - or would they instead be dragoons like the unit in Kenya is - i.e. they use the horses to get to where they are going, then dismount and fight on foot while several members are detailed to keep the horses from bolting during the fighting?

"modern cavalry" would most likely operate as "Dragoons."
 

Even one man with a semi automatic rifle would destroy a lot of cavalry if they tried to make mounted assaults.

To survive units would have to fight dismounted. The horses would provide mobility advantages but would most likely be a disadvantage during the actual fight. During the American Civil War the SOP was for one out of every 4 men to be detailed to handle the horses, while the unit fought on foot.

Comes down to how they make the assault - the Italians successfully conducted a cavalry charge against Soviet troops during WWII that had machine guns and mortars - but they were highly trained cavalry

Unless you are looking at trained cavalry, with horses that have been trained for battlefields, I completely agree with you - Dragoons is definitely the way to go for fighting

The Americans conducted a cavalry charge against tanks at Morong and drove them off with minor casualties (11 percent wounded, no dead). The unit served through the war as dismounted guerillas after eating their horses.

The Italian charge was highly outnumbered, too - it was six hundred cavalry against two thousand infantry. Cavalry casualties totaled 32. Two Soviet armored vehicles were destroyed.

A couple of really interesting bits in here - more bits to add to my article...

FYI did you see the Kenyan Cav unit that was in the East Africa Sourcebook? They are fighting as dragoons and really arent made to fight from horseback.

Already there in part but I need to update it to match the canon article slightly.

James, have you started using your original profile again or has it been hacked?

Oddly I used a new machine and somehow it has pulled the original password through Google - confused.com!

Some good information here on horse populations in the world in 2000 - very relevant to what might be available for horsed cavalry in the world

http://www.fao.org/tempref/AG/Reserv...dka_Thesis.pdf