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Old 01-09-2011, 03:03 PM
James Langham James Langham is offline
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Default Cavalry

Quote:
Originally Posted by Raellus View Post
In this thread and in other related threads here on this forum, several people have brought up the issue of Europe's low horse population in the 1990s making T2K cavalry figures unfeasible. Of course, just 50-odd years earlier, there were enough horses for most continental European militaries AND civilians to harness (literally) for use carrying cavalry and hauling wagons and even artillery pieces. In the intervening years, the population decreased dramatically as motor vehicle transport became more commonplace. So, how can we justify a mid-'90s horse population that could support the numbers of cavalry units (especially Soviet and WP) given in canon? Here are a couple of possible explanations.

Perhaps Cold War militaries in the T2K timeline somehow anticipated that horses would again become useful beasts of burden and began programs to breed horses for wartime military and/or civilian use. To me this seems fairly unlikely.

Another possible explanation is that the Soviet Union, shortly after (or even before) invading China, realized that they simply did not have adequate motor transport to support large scale operations. So, they began a crash horse requisition/breeding program to make up the difference. Originally, most of these horses were used as draught animals but, over time, proper cavalry units were formed and, as combat vehicles were destroyed or could no longer be repaired, horse cavalry became more common. In the use of horse cavalry, the USSR/WP took the lead, w/ NATO coming later to the party. Many horses were subsequently captured by NATO and used against their former owners. By 2000, horse cavalry was a fairly common sight.

What are your thoughts? Can you think of other ways to reconcile the RW horse population in Europe in the mid-'90s with the higher numbers implied in T2K canon?
It's a really difficult thing to reconcile but I can't see cavalry programmes in place that early by armies.

I'm reluctant to abandon cavalry though as they are such an evocative part of the background.

A few random thoughts:

* the Soviets move to cavalry first, they probably have better access to horses. Maybe NATO initially starts by using captured horses.

* we are assuming that cavalry units are all cavalry. Maybe the proportion of mounted troops is lower than 100%. Not really keen on this as an option personally.

* Non-canon but a large economic crisis with rising fuel costs about 1990-1991 might result in increased horse use in certain areas at about the right time.

* One thing that dawned on me after writing is the appearance of an occasional horse towed artillery piece for atmosphere.
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