We need those horses...!

[Feldgendarm]

First, I would like to introduce myself and say hello to the others posting here in the CM Forum.

And now, to my topic: As far as I understood, horses will not appear in CMBB or other future versions of CM. Concerning cavalry, this makes sense as long as no one desperately wants to build a scenario with Polish uhlans, or lancers, attacking German Panzers in 1939.

But I think, horses are a must at least for the German army. Even in its best days, a surprisingly large part of the German artillery depended completely on horses to be mobile. And according to my grandfather, who was in a PaK crew on the Eastern Front in '45, virtually all pieces from the 37mm-PaK to the 8.8 were drawn by horses in the last months of the war since tractors were either destroyed, broken beyond repair or simply without fuel. The Wehrmacht was, except some elite formations and the "iron spearhead", never fully motorized. In my opinion, coming CM versions should reflect this.

Greetings,

Feldgendarm

[Kwazydog]

Feldgendarm, horses wont be seen in CMBB but as far as I am aware they arent ruled out in future versions at this point.

Dan

[BeauCoupDinkyDau]

For the most part, you don't need them anyway. CM battles normally take place after all units have been unhitched and taken up positions on the map. And since BB starts with the German invasion of the USSR, you can rule out battles with Polish Cav vs Germans.

Horse drawn units will still be able to be simulated to a certain extent by mentioning in your scenario breifings that the reason you only have two Pak guns insted of four is because your division's horses are all overworked, tired, dead, ect. . .

[ February 06, 2002, 06:21 PM: Message edited by: Vader's Jester ]

[Battlefront.com]

Hello Feldgendarm,

Welcome to our Forum. As KwazyDog stated, horses are not going to be in CMBB. Horses were used in support roles and limited use as transportation. As you say, millions of horses were used by all nations fighting on the Eastern Front. As the war went on the Germans in particular became more and more dependent upon horses while the Soviets less.

However, horses are not within CM's scope for the most part. Motorized transport, unless armored, is also largely not within CM's scope either for the same exact reason. In theory we could exclude all trucks and I don't think it would harm the reality of the simulation, but since they are easy to add and people like the flexibility of using them... some limited inclusion of trucks is allowed. Horses are not easy to simulate at all and are even less valuable to have in a CM setting, so they are totally rulled out from CMBB.

Thanks,

Steve

[Iron Chef Sakai]

Welcome to the forum. I posted about that awhile ago. Since most of the Artillary is off map it's realy not a big deal. To be honest, i'd rather a tractor pulling my Pak43 in the game rather then a chuck wagon.

[Feldgendarm]

Originally posted by Iron Chef Sakai:

Welcome to the forum. I posted about that awhile ago. Since most of the Artillary is off map it's realy not a big deal. To be honest, i'd rather a tractor pulling my Pak43 in the game rather then a chuck wagon.

Thank you for the welcome

I'm sorry I did not read the forum more carefully - I'll remember to do so in the future. And of course you are right, horses are not that important. But since CM is so realistic with all the different vehicles and their specific abilities, I'd just think some horses would be nice

Greetings,

Feldgendarm

[MikeyD]

Hey, if you really REALLY need horses in the game I've got an idea! Remember a long time ago someone came up with a tree art mod that had a cow under the tree?

For CMBB you could replace all of the tree art with horse art! Imagine the possibilities -- Forests of horses, Fields of horses, Horses supporting bridges! Horse legs powering Panther tanks! The possibilities are endless.

Hey, I said I had an idea, I didn't say I had a GOOD idea.

[Wesreidau]

nooo nooo NOOooOOOooOO NOT THE HORSES noo NOT AGAIN NOOO mooomy SAVEEE MEEEE *shudder* *dies*

peterNZ

[Feldgendarm]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

Imagine the possibilities -- Forests of horses, Fields of horses, Horses supporting bridges! Horse legs powering Panther tanks! The possibilities are endless.

What an amazing concept! Whe should boldly go a step farther: Why not making a mod that replaces ALL vehicles with animals? We could call it "Combat Mission - Operation Jungle Book". No doubt, that would do fantastic on the mass market

[Gen-x87H]

Just think of it.

Panther, Tigers, Pumas all spitting at the Allied tanks like Churchills,Cromwells, Shermans.

Gen

[gunnergoz]

I'll not beat this "dead horse" too much other than to say that, when the early-war version of the game (CMI or CMII, whichever engine it will be in) comes out, I hope it will then support horses in the role of cavalry or mounted infantry. This would be useful to represent the mounted units that fought that way, or those troops that at least used horses to approach the enemy within CM game scale prior to dismounting for combat.

The Poles' 1939 horse charges are well known and were tragically ineffective since they basically kamidazie'd armored units. On the other hand, both Russians and Germans used mounted troops to good effect for recon and exploitation, scenarios that could well be represented in future CM games.

[Battlefront.com]

gunnergoz,

The difference between the Polish cavalry charges against tanks (which I am inclined to believe the critics that this was SERIOUSLY overblown by Nazi propagandists at the time) and Cavalry use by both Axis and Allied troops on the Eastern Front is this...

A cavalry charge, mounted, against any dismounted infantry, vehicle w/gun, or fixed emplacement was sure to fail. The Germans (and others) recognized this long before the war started. But there were still plenty of horse mounted units by 1941.

The difference is that the horse was used like a truck, bicycle, or motorcycle. The purpose was to get the troops from point A to point B quicker than if they were on foot. However, prior to engaging in battle the riders dismounted, formed up into fairly standardized formations, left some men behind to take care of the transport, then went off to do battle.

So as I said before, there is really little difference (in CM) between a horse, truck, etc. since they were all used in the same maner. If CM were one level higher all of these would take on huge importance because the speed and agility of getting one's forces from A to B would matter. In CM your forces are either there at the start or come in as reinforcements all ready for combat.

Steve

[Blackhorse]

You rang?

[Iron Chef Sakai]

Originally posted by Feldgendarm:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Iron Chef Sakai:

Welcome to the forum. I posted about that awhile ago. Since most of the Artillary is off map it's realy not a big deal. To be honest, i'd rather a tractor pulling my Pak43 in the game rather then a chuck wagon.

Thank you for the welcome

I'm sorry I did not read the forum more carefully - I'll remember to do so in the future. And of course you are right, horses are not that important. But since CM is so realistic with all the different vehicles and their specific abilities, I'd just think some horses would be nice

Greetings,

Feldgendarm</font>

[tools4fools]

Originally posted by Big Time Software:

A cavalry charge, mounted, against any dismounted infantry, vehicle w/gun, or fixed emplacement was sure to fail. The Germans (and others) recognized this long before the war started. But there were still plenty of horse mounted units by 1941.

The difference is that the horse was used like a truck, bicycle, or motorcycle. The purpose was to get the troops from point A to point B quicker than if they were on foot. However, prior to engaging in battle the riders dismounted, formed up into fairly standardized formations, left some men behind to take care of the transport, then went off to do battle.

My grandfather was in one of those cavalry units (belonged to the "Reiteregiment Ludwigsburg", before the war their battalion was stationed in Donaueschingen, Southern Germany). However shortly after the beginning of Barbarossa they encountered a small counter attack by a few Russian tanks. As they headed for cover the Russian tanks mowed down their horses; afterwards they were regular infantry...

[Thin Red Line]

Originally posted by Big Time Software:

As the war went on the Germans in particular became more and more dependent upon horses

... especially for dining purposes

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

Some history.

1939 were all 13 German Cavalry Regiments disbanded and assigned to the Recon units til 1941, but already from 1942 more an more in normal Infantry role. Later the earlier Cavalry units were splitted from the recon units to build the Fusilier Battalions.

The transport role of horses is out the CM scope, and the Recon role in princip, too.

But I would like to see Krad units.

[Scott B]

Originally posted by Big Time Software:

The difference is that the horse was used like a truck, bicycle, or motorcycle. The purpose was to get the troops from point A to point B quicker than if they were on foot. However, prior to engaging in battle the riders dismounted, formed up into fairly standardized formations, left some men behind to take care of the transport, then went off to do battle.

So here's a related question... are dismounted cavalry units in the infantry force list?

Scott

[Scott B]

Originally posted by Puff the Magic Dragon:

Some history.

1939 were all 13 German Cavalry Regiments disbanded and assigned to the Recon units til 1941, but already from 1942 more an more in normal Infantry role. Later the earlier Cavalry units were splitted from the recon units to build the Fusilier Battalions.

The German 1st Cavalry Division participated in Barbarossa. Stayed for a while before being pulled out to be converted into a panzer division, IIRC. Was this unit rebuilt from the cavalry regiments disbanded in 1939?

Scott

[MikeyD]

I recall reading in Churchill's autobiography that he had participated in what he considered the last great classic cavalry charge in the Sudan (or Boar war? ...I read the book almost 30 years ago!) and even at that time the cavalry charge was considered an anachronism.

--

I think the main utility of the horse in CM would be historically accurate window dressing. To show how mechanization still hadn't reached 100% by the 40s. Not to downgrade window dressing -- I've spend hours & hours dressing up vehicle bmp art!

But if horses come in you'd have to construct a horse polygon that was at least not laughably bad, do live horse and dead horse animation, create single individual soldiers to ride the horses (you can't fit a whole platoon onto one horse!) These are pretty big hurdles and I'd hate to see CMBB delayed for 6-8 months wrassling with them.

Now if BTS ever got it in their heads to look at Napoleonic battles (or American revolution or Indian wars or Civil War) a proper horse animation might be worth the effort.

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

create single individual soldiers to ride the horses (you can't fit a whole platoon onto one horse!)

Finnish horses routinely carried a platoon per horse, while towing a 150mm field piece, in blizzard conditions, and with four broken legs. On the return trip they would drag captured Russian tanks back to their lines.

[Compassion]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

But if horses come in you'd have to construct a horse polygon that was at least not laughably bad, do live horse and dead horse animation, create single individual soldiers to ride the horses (you can't fit a whole platoon onto one horse!) These are pretty big hurdles and I'd hate to see CMBB delayed for 6-8 months wrassling with them.

Even worse, it seems to me, is that a new type of transport would have to be defined by their nature. You could have the horse platoon with a tranport value of, say, 7, right? But if there is light enemy activity nearby and one or two horse go down, you might suddenly have a transport class 6 or 5 unit and what? The sqad has to split at that point? Seems like a big pain to me for limited gain.

THough I must say that I like the idea of having dismounted cavalry as an infantry type if they carried different (probably light?) weapons in the early war.

[MikeyD]

Makes me wonder how the TOE in the early war game will look. All those Poles and Belgians, monster fortifications, ACs units, German paratroopewrs that actually parachute places, etc.

[Scott B]

Originally posted by Compassion:

Though I must say that I like the idea of having dismounted cavalry as an infantry type if they carried different (probably light?) weapons in the early war.

They definitely had a different organization. It may be possible to approximate them in the scenario editor to some extent, but it's preferable to have them in there, at least in the case of the Soviets, who used cavalry throughout the war in not insignificant numbers. They were especially important in the early period because as a branch the cavalry had suffered the least from Stalin's purges and still retained a solid cadre of veteran officers and NCOs (see Glantz, Stumbling Colossus).

Scott B.

[gunnergoz]

Originally posted by Big Time Software:

gunnergoz,

The difference between the Polish cavalry charges against tanks (which I am inclined to believe the critics that this was SERIOUSLY overblown by Nazi propagandists at the time) and Cavalry use by both Axis and Allied troops on the Eastern Front is this...

(snip)

Steve

Steve, thanks for taking time to reply. I can see how including horses will be a programming nightmare (no pun intended) and of course I'm not clamoring to have them in CMBB at any rate.

Their use, especially by the Russians, was fairly widespread, especially in the harassment, raiding and recon roles. And you are correct, horseflesh does not hold up well to automatic weapons.

The following is taken from "Barbarossa" by David Glanz and describes Russian counter-attacks in November, 1941 in front of Moscow:

"Rokossovsky committed Major-General L.M.Dovator's 20th and 44th Cavalry Divisions into combat to exploit. The consequences were disastrous. The inexperienced 44th Mongolian Cavalry Division conducted a mounted charge across an open, snow-covered field during which it lost 2,000 cavalrymen and their horses to artillery and machine-gun fire of the German 106th Infantry Division, which suffered no casualties."

It is later noted that the 44th had arrived by rail from Tashkent and was unused to the broken and swampy ground in which it was forced to operate.

So, clearly, cavalry is not best used against front-line troops, but it would still be interesting to see what it could do in the recon role as well as in raids against rear-area troops, logistics trains and supply heads.

So, I still stand interested in eventually seeing this aspect of history depicted in some CM variant game, though I realize that it may indeed by a cold day in hell by the time I do!