Re: Cavalry in SG2

At 01:16 PM 4/19/97 +0300, Niko "GNiko" Mikkanen wrote:
Bayonets anyway.. mounted infantry rather than cavalry if you want to
 
>> Barry Cadwgan ( BCADWGAN@FL.NET.AU )
>
>As much as I hate being a realist, cavalry does not survive on the
modern
>battlefield. It stopped surviving already in WW I. Modern firepower
makes
>salami out of cavalry, as the poor dump animals are not very good at
>dodging from cover to cover, and anything not doing that will be shot.
>Mounted infantry is the modern version of cavalry, the difference being
>that mounted infantry does not ride into actual combat on horses, but
just
>uses them for transport. I think it was in Falkenberg (must-read series
>for anyone seriously into science fiction warfare) where Niven (wasn't
>it?) explained why horses would be very good things to have around on
>terraformed colonies, as they require no fuel (as such), are easy to
>transport originally and trivial to manufacture on site. Of course,
horses
>are good for scouting and recon.

	The Mercenary series featuring Falkenberg is written by Jerry
Pournelle.  The Mote in God's Eye stories (by Niven and Pournelle) take
place in the far future of the Mercenary/CoDominium universe.  It is far
easier to transport zygotic material of mules, horses etc and grow them
on
site than it is to build a john Deer tractor.  Once you build the
factories,
then the tractors become more efficient.
 Phil P.