Re: Cavalry in SG2

On Sat, 19 Apr 1997, Barry Cadwgan wrote:

> Jeremy Sadler wrote:
> > Excuse my irreverance, but I'm having a vision...
> > "The Lighttaun-taunmen"
> > 500 taun-taun mounted soldiers, swords drawn, charging the enemy
line...
> > Hoo har! ;)

Getting cut to itsy-bitsy pieces by machine gun fire...

> Bayonets anyway.. mounted infantry rather than cavalry if you want to
> stretch the analogy.. but a nice image ^_^
> I'm using a squad of the old old GW Imperial Guard Cavalry.. (not the
> current hi tech mongols) some of whom have slouch hats ^_-  They
_will_
> be in Khaki.. (With Kalashnikovs..)
> 
> 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.
	But, truth to tell, some of the old Imperial Guard cavalry looks
extremely cool, so what the heck, give them forcefields and ride 'em
cowboy!

Niko "GNiko" Mikkanen	creator@cute.cute.fi	(www.cute.fi/~creator/)
"War is a profanity because, let's face it, you've got two opposing
sides
trying to settle their differences by killing as many of each other as
they can."	-General Norman Schwarzkopf