[jester]

The US Cavalry has mostly been used as dragoons throughout our history. Although, they would do Cavalry charges, mostly their role was scouting, screening and patroling and such.


As far as Cavalry in the T2K role, in the US the South, West and SouthWest could probably field able mounted forces as a result of their large horse populations and people who know how to ride. Strangly enough, these same people usualy know how to shoot and own firearms too.

Also, an example in my country and the adjacent county they have a working Sheriffs Posse, and they also have some mounted units as well. Hell, even the college police has or had a mounted officer. <Then again that's Norco, horsetown USA, they do not have sidewalks, they have horse trails, and most stores, shops and saloons have corals and hitcing posts> And yes, when the wind blows I can hear the beasties and smell them, and there is a horse trail a long football pass out my backyard.

I would say in the US you could raise a decent sized force of armed riders who would not act as traditonal cavalry but they would not be a mob either. I would also say some units from the US in Europe and Asia could probably put together a Company of Cavalry per Division, these could be used as scouts and reconasanse forces. So, check out the order of battle of the vehicle guide and units from say Texas or Kentucky or New Mexico for example could probably field more riders than you could find mounts.

As for the downside.

Easy targets, and you take out the horse behind enemy lines that rider is essentialy lost. The reality of a raiding force or long range reconasance force is you will end up leaving people behind. Double up riders and the horse will tire and now you'll loose two men.

Tracking, a force of horsemen go by you can tell. And you can follow them quite easily. You can also tell the speed of the rider as well as the load and fatigue level of the animal. You trade them and you can even tell how well fed they are too which if you push them hard enough well the animals can't feed and will become exhausted and give out.

Load, most cavalry riders were not large men. Myself, at 6-2 I would have never made it into the cavalry. So, most of your riders need to be about 150 pounds or less.

WATER; you can control the water for an area and cavalry is in trouble. Horses need water and lots of it.

Maintenance: Horse need maintenance and they need it daily, they need water, they need to be cleaned, brushed, their hooves cleaned and checked and given large amounts of water as well as salt and grain.

Support: horses need large animal vets to take care of them. And blacksmiths to make and shoe them. Those I beleive would be in short supply.

They need maintenance 24 hours a day 7 days a week. A vehicle, turn it off and don't worry about it for a few days and no problem. Do that with a horse, ignore it for a week. Bad idea.

Guarded: in the T2K world you would need to guard your horses from hungry people and from enemy raids.

Machineguns: what killed the cavalry in WWI, now machineguns are smaller and more portable and much more common.

Conditioning 1: Horses are pretty skitish and spook easily. Thus they will need some training. But still a rock crashing can scare them, gunfire, explosions and vehicle engines or a tank could send them into a stampede.

Conditioning 2: The type of work they do. Most horses today are riden for recreational purposes and well tended living in stalls and barns. They would need to be conditioned to ride and live in the outdoors for weeks at a time carrying a rider daily and living on grass rather than grain.

Conditioning 3: What physical condition would the animals be in the T2K world? They would need in my view to be rehabilitated since they would most likely have been neglected for sometime.

Sound: Horses walking make a distinctive sound, and they also ney or whinney and snort.

Those are some of the things I can see happening with returning to horses. Although I do use them in my campaigns, there is usualy some Polish Cavalry in my European games and in games in the US they are not uncommon.