Purpelia wrote:I am going to outline some stuff about my military history during the 20th century here. Or rather my ideas for it. And I need you guys to tell me what you think.
So, what are your thoughts? Plausible? Good? Stupid?
Slight quibble in need of clarification on your part, you mention it this way numerous times throughout your history outline, but when you mention army I’m under the assumption that you actually mean infantry because once your land forces were unified, cavalry would be {should have been} integrated into and fall under army command as a independent service branch in addition to any other independent service branches that existed prior to unification like the infantry branch, artillery branch, etc… or branches that will be created in the future with more on those later.
Depending on what exact path you decide to take when you start developing your mechanized forces, but from what you’ve written it sounds like your cavalry branch of your army is so dominate that instead of creating a new armour branch that could possibly act as another rival branch for influence and funds, one path I envision is your cavalry simply renaming themselves as the armoured cavalry branch. As air power takes greater prominence, calling it air cavalry would be another way for this branch to further cement their influence within the hierarchy of the army command structure. Eventually, this could allow the cavalry branch and its offshoots to claim credit for creating airborne, air assault, etc… type divisions through the 1930s-1960s, if your nation does indeed decide to create these types of divisions.
As part of this renamed armoured cavalry branch, which would allow you to as stated assume control over infantry forces to create combined arms groups which leads you to create cavalry-mechanized groups. Furthermore, though you never stated it, I assume these mixed divisions would be organized along as a square division structure.
Side note, Glantz has a good TOE breakdown of these cavalry-mechanized groups should you so desire I can post them.
And finally, besides adapting armoured cars and trucks considering the budget constraints you’ve imposed on your mechanized forces, I expect your cavalry branch if not your infantry branch then would be an early and enthusiastic supporter of tankettes.