Slitherine

Why there is no German Kavallerie '43? Soviets have theyr Late war Cavalry units, im sad there is no for Germany, i like to use them.

Between late-November 1941 (when the 1. Kavallerie Division was turned into 24. Panzer Division) and March 1945, there were no Heer Kavallerie Divisionen.

The Red Army used cavalry divisions/corps throughout the war.

There were still Kavallariebrigaden units, and they had even Kavallerie Divisions in 1945. I know Russians used them more, but still would be good to have German counterpart tbh.

Matyna wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 1:51 pm There were still Kavallariebrigaden units, and they had even Kavallerie Divisions in 1945. I know Russians used them more, but still would be good to have German counterpart tbh.

Which divisions ?

The only German cavalry division I know near the end of the war is the 8th SS Cavalry Division "Florian Geyer". It was a German Waffen-SS cavalry division. The division was trapped in the Siege of Budapest with the IX SS Mountain Corps when the Soviet and Romanian forces surrounded the city in December 1944. The division was destroyed in the fighting for Budapest.

terminator wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 2:28 pm

Matyna wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 1:51 pm There were still Kavallariebrigaden units, and they had even Kavallerie Divisions in 1945. I know Russians used them more, but still would be good to have German counterpart tbh.

Which divisions ?

The only German cavalry division I know near the end of the war is the 8th SS Cavalry Division "Florian Geyer". It was a German Waffen-SS cavalry division. The division was trapped in the Siege of Budapest with the IX SS Mountain Corps when the Soviet and Romanian forces surrounded the city in December 1944. The division was destroyed in the fighting for Budapest.

4. Kavallerie-Brigade have been upgraded to division in January 1945 https://www.axishistory.com/books/152-g ... ie-brigade for example.

Edit. And there have been some Kosaken-Division's in Heer too.

In terms of relative size and capability, a 1945 German "division" would pretty much be little more than a brigade team in 1941 terms.

gunnergoz wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 2:56 pm In terms of relative size and capability, a 1945 German "division" would pretty much be little more than a brigade team in 1941 terms.

I know, but there still could be Kavallerie '43 in PC2.

It would be a neat little DLC item or alt-history / counter-historical item: what if the Germans started re-forming more Cavalry brigades and divisions far earlier to help compensate for their fuel issues?

Nalikill wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 4:04 pm It would be a neat little DLC item or alt-history / counter-historical item: what if the Germans started re-forming more Cavalry brigades and divisions far earlier to help compensate for their fuel issues?

An estimated 2.75 million horses are used by the German army over the entire conflict, more than in the First World War!
From memory, I read that no German division was fully mechanized, only some brigades were fully mechanized. It was part of the German propaganda.

terminator wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 4:15 pm

Nalikill wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 4:04 pm It would be a neat little DLC item or alt-history / counter-historical item: what if the Germans started re-forming more Cavalry brigades and divisions far earlier to help compensate for their fuel issues?

An estimated 2.75 million horses are used by the German army over the entire conflict, more than in the First World War!

True, but that's still far less than the 1st world war I would imagine on a per-capita basis; and second, they were largely used for transportation and scouting than actual combat whereas the Polish Lancers for example were an elite combat unit. The Italians still had excellent cavalry; the Eastern Front actually contained I think the last example in all of warfare of a massed cavalry charge, and it was by the Italians and it wrecked a soviet formation (from what I remember from Armchair Historian's "The Times Italians were Effective in WWII")

Nalikill wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 4:04 pm It would be a neat little DLC item or alt-history / counter-historical item: what if the Germans started re-forming more Cavalry brigades and divisions far earlier to help compensate for their fuel issues?

We dont really need an DLC, as there is a lot of 'prototype' mass used stuff. For example Su-6.

But there is a downside to horses as well, they require care and feeding, and it was practice during the war to send the horses to the rear to rehabilitate. When the pocket formed around the 6th army, it had no horses, they were sent west to rehabilitate. They could not move the artillery, ammunition, food, and water and it made a breakout more difficult. And yes there were other factors, but horses weren't a great answer to the fuel question.

It's a pretty easy task to go in units.csv and add a Kavallerie '43 to the Germans if you want.

Hemi wrote: Mon Mar 30, 2020 1:53 am But there is a downside to horses as well, they require care and feeding, and it was practice during the war to send the horses to the rear to rehabilitate. When the pocket formed around the 6th army, it had no horses, they were sent west to rehabilitate. They could not move the artillery, ammunition, food, and water and it made a breakout more difficult. And yes there were other factors, but horses weren't a great answer to the fuel question.

Good example, but I think that instance was more a case of saving supplies. There wasn't really much of a need to keep all your horses at the front when you are in a relatively static fight inside a city. Moving them elsewhere meant you didn't need to move the supplies for them all the way to Stalingrad. Meaning you could either use less transports to the city, or use the transports to deliver something that was more important than food for horses that weren't used. It definately hurt the capabilities of the army when it got cut off.


In general any talk about the German army using so many horses instead of motorized equipment tends to forget the sheer scale Germany and the Soviet Union had to deal with. Yes, Britain and the US motorized much if not about everything, but they had much less units than Germany and the Soviet Union, and they were fighting on a narrower front. If either of those two had to fight on something that was as vast as the eastern front, they would have neeed far more divisions, and would never have been able to motorize them all. In terms of supplies, much of the distance was usually covered by trains anyway. Then you had the supply-units move the supplies to bases closer to the front, and those units were largely motorized even in the German army. It's the less important areas, or the transportation inside a division itself, where less trucks were used.