[Panther Al]

Heh. Well...

About sneaking about in vehicles, speaking from personal experience in the 3d, says something quite the opposite: the M1A2 is a great recce vehicle compared to the Brad, quieter by a long shot, lower profile, and much better optics. When we rolled north from Kuwait it was the Abrams sniffing and the Brads in overwatch with the TOWs. No problems there and when we pulled the trick on sister units before Iraq it always worked out quite well against other 1st line units. And that was using us as we was intended to: force on force recce at a divisional/corp level which is a lot different than an infantry brigade's scout platoon doing double duty as a in house ersatz "special op" detachment. That's not cavalry.

As to light/medium/heavy, in my mind light is a mix of light trucks supported by armoured cars in the vein of the LAV/Stryker. Medium in the vein I mentioned with common family of 30 tonnes or so to maintain a balance of armour and portability. Heavy is what the 3d is now. You know, the regiment GSP was the regimental Colonel of.

And since when was tracks confined to roads?!? The role of Cavalry is yes, sneak about, but the primary reason for its existence is to find the other guy's main force or forward screen, and when screens find each other little things like cannon fire tend to spoil any chance of being unheard. But once bumped up the Cav has to fix them in place: make the other guy slow his roll and shake out to engage the hasty defence that the Cav is forming, if our guys are on the ball, the real heavy units will arrive and do a battle handoff with us to take over the fight while we get back to finding other units.