Cavalry in Twilight 2000

[Legbreaker]

And that'll be the same even when those "defenders" are the ones starving will it?

[Panther Al]

*sigh*

You two. Chill. Seriously.


Leg: Here in the states, horses are simply not seen as food. So while I don't say that rats will be on the menu before horses, by and large, most anyone would do anything they can to make sure they don't have look at a Horse and think, "Mmm.. Big Mac."

Olefin: Leg is right, when it comes down to Eat Trigger, or starve, Trigger is about to be a Big Mac. Even though it would be piss poor planning as to long term survival, the short term will more often than not be viewed as somewhat more important.

[Legbreaker]

Exactly! Of course they're not JUST food, but when it's eat your horse or die of starvation, the choice is obvious.
And there's plenty of historical examples of just this very thing happening.

My mother bred horses. I have a lot of experience with working with them and know very well the personal bond which can develop - each and every animal had it's own name and certainly their own personality. Some I would absolutely HATE to have to slaughter even if it my life on the line, others, "pass me the knife, that bitch has got to DIE!"

[Olefin]

horses are going to be seen as military assets by MilGov and CivGov - especially one the Mexicans invade using cavalry units and once they are short on gas to get things like guns and ammo up to their forces

and no military will sit idly by and watch their assets get destroyed in the name of feeding civilians - so will there be a reduction because some willl be used for food by desperate people or die from radiation or from starvation themselves - for sure

but reduced so far that their arent enough to be used by the military for both mounts and for hauling guns and supplies - not gonna happen - maybe if you only had a couple million - but not with the sheer number of horses there are in the US - which doesnt mean that maybe by 2001 we are down from 6.5 million to one million or so horses - but the ones that are left are going to be very well guarded and not to be used as food by then

plus in this case we have canon to back up that statement - the availability of horses for the Texas module shows that they do exist and exist in good numbers - I doubt if there was a huge shortage that the characters would have been given horses so easily and told they could keep them when they were done - that alone shows that horses are still relatively plentiful by early 2001, at least in Texas

[Olefin]

James,

One thing you might want to look at is cavalry units for Africa - there are actually quite a lot of horses in Ethiopia for one (its in the top ten countries of horses, in 1997 its population of horses was well over a million) and that country had a tradition of using cavalry in its military, especially in very hard to reach areas.

I am in the process of creating a cavalry unit for use in Kenya where there are about 2000 horses that are used mostly for racing, shows, and safaris on horseback. It would be mostly a white Kenyan unit since horse ownership is concentrated among them as a lasting vestige of colonialism there (there are about 32,000 White Kenyans who stayed after it declared independence and are citizens of the country). I will send it to you if you like once I have it done - its a single battalion, basically more like mounted infantry than pure cavalry.

[Medic]

With horses you must bear in mind, untrained to war, they are very unpredictable if someone starts shooting around them. In fact, they are very unpredictable with someone walking by in a rain poncho or with a flag. Horses shy away from almost anything they have not been exactly trained to tolerate - I've seen an actor take a rather nasty tumble, when he fired a musket pistol while sitting on a horse, who had not been accustomized in loud noises.

So, yes, mounted infantry in the old Dragoon-style would be more likely than actual Cavalry style, fighting from horseback. Of course, you might be able to muster some horses from history re-enactors, who might have theirs trained for jousting and have a platoon of lancers.

[Olefin]

The history re-enactors is probably exactly where you would get a lot of the cavalry units that MilGov and CivGov would be raising. There is an article in Challenge Magazine number 42 that has exactly that as the basis for a cav unit

"1st Cavalry Squadron, NJSM: Seventy-five horsemounted troopers armed with FN-FALs, four M79s, and two M60s. They also carry a miscellaneous collection of sabers looted from a local museum. This unit was initially formed around a cadre of a half-dozen civil war reenactment enthusiasts, and some of the troopers use their reenactment uniforms and equipment. "

Sounds like what you have is a unit that had some horses initially in it that were accustomed to the sounds of gunfire as part of the re-enactment and the re-enactors helped train the other horses afterward.

By the way its not just gunfire that makes horses skittish. Ever seen the Braveheart scene where Gibson is giving his freedom speech before the Battle of Stirling? If you notice every time he yells the horse gets skittish and starts moving. Him moving back and forth as he made the speech wasnt written into the movie, it was the horse reacting to the yelling.

By the way that canon article (A Rock in Troubled Waters) shows that horses are definitely still available in 2001 and that they are being bred for government use - from the article

"Port Elizabeth: The 150 people inhabiting Port Elizabeth make their living raising and selling horses. They live in a cluster of buildings near Route 47." and
"The survivors are relatively prosperous by Twilight: 2000 standards-they farm enough to eat well and even export a bit.
Dietary protein comes from fish and chicken. Goats, sheep,cattle and horses are raised primarily for government consumption.
Salvage and re-manufacturing are thriving cottage industries, and pay the taxes in the Milgov protected areas."