Pershing predicted the end of
horse cavalry in 1917, but it took military smallarms designers a quarter-century to realize it.
Olmstead makes this point clear even in his selection of the novel's timeframe: on the faultline between a mode of fighting, the
horse cavalry, on its way out, and the depersonalized, mass-destruction conflicts inaugurated by the Great War, already rumbling overseas and of which Napoleon's men speak in awe "as if new God."
I think the police should have an economy drive to save money and the first thing they should get rid of is the
horse cavalry, which is rarely needed.
In almost any conceivable theater of operations, situations arise where the presence of
horse cavalry, in a ratio of a division to an army, will be of vital moment.
Herr, Chief of Cavalry from 1938 to 1942, stubbornly insisted on the superiority of
horse cavalry over mechanized forces, preferring at most to create combined horse-mechanized regiments.
One problem such reformers had in overcoming conservatism among infantry and
horse cavalry officers was that they were too farsighted; their dreams tended to outrun the available technology.
The Dragoons were nicknamed 'The Commando Light
Horse Cavalry' by men on the Iraqi frontline and also equalled a regimental record for non-stop fighting - 12 days of continuous contact with the enemy - matching a record set by Dragoons at the Battle of Gazala in North Africa during World War II.
He was the son of a country doctor grew up in a North Dakota frontier farming community and became a cavalry officer in the United States Army (in the days when there was still a
horse cavalry).
He fought on the front lines in Poland's gallant but doomed defense against the Nazi blitzkrieg, which pitted
horse cavalry against panzer tanks.
Dragoons worked so well with their marine comrades that they have now been nicknamed 'The Commando Light
Horse Cavalry' by men on the Iraqi frontline.
"I am advising a man on how to best employ light infantry and
horse cavalry in the attack against Taliban T-55s (ranks), mortars, artillery, personnel carriers and machine guns--a tactic which I think became outdated with the invention of the Gatling gun.
"In Afghanistan, a country we think of in somewhat medieval terms," said Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, "our Special Forces have taken a page from the past, from the history of the
horse cavalry with our soldiers armed with swords and rifles, maneuvering on horseback."
To the architects of the new order, she will seem like a military theorist saying to the developer of the tank, "Wait, I have some smart new strategies to improve the
horse cavalry"
