NS Military Realism Consultation Thread Vol. 11.0

[Gallia-]

g l u e
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[Eisarnathiuda]

based and inevitable conclusion of military horse use pilled

[Laritaia]

Listen jack, how do i feed France after the armistice?

[Immoren]

Armoured artillery regiment of the armoured brigade.

Each armoured brigade is equipped with an armoured artillery regiment. Regiment consist of a headquarters battalion, two armoured artillery battalions and rocket launcher battery.
Headquarters battalion consist of headquarters&service battery, forward observation&Signals battery and recovery&movement support battery.
Headquarters&service battery contains headquarters, supply, maintenance and medical assets for both headquarters battalion and whole regiment.
forward observation&Signals battery consists of HQ platoon, 2xsignals platoons, forward observation platoon and recce platoon. Signals platoons handle intraregiment comms and communications with other formations. Forward observer platoon has forward observers as its name suggests, but they normally are in behind, because they act as brigades forward observation reserve, but when situation calls it they can be send out even though there have been no casualties in forward observers in brigade's other subunits. Recce platoon acts as forward element on march and helps with mapping firing positions location options for guns.
recovery&movement support battery Consists of headquarters platoon, recovery platoon and assault bridge platoon, so that regiment don't have to completely rely on brigades engineering assets, but can help themselves initially.
Two armoured artillery battalions consists of Headquarters&service battery and three armoured howitzer batteries.
Headquarters&service battery contains headquarters, supply, maintenance and medical assets for armoured artillery battalion.
Armoured howitzer battery consists of headquarters platoon and two firing platoons with three 155 guns.
Both battalions make firing unit of their own and aren't usually split into batteries. Although they can be both used to support their parent brigade, usually code of conduct is to have one battalion support immediate manouvre brigades of the parent brigade, while another battalion is in readiness. 2-4 armoured artillery regiments' spare battaion then can be used to combine into ad hoc artillery groups for operative fire missions, counter-artillery and supporting armoured brigade in center of gravity.
Last but not least is rocket launcher battery consisting of headquarters platoon and two firing platoons with three multiple rocket launchers. Rocket launchers alone can put out massive fire power, but they can also be combined into artillery groups.

[Eisarnathiuda]

Listen jack, how do i feed France after the armistice?

Horse stew of course.

[Manokan Republic]

The Germans didn't use horses in WWII because they wanted to, they used them because they had to. There are very few places where horses can go, that motor vehicles can't go, that are worth fighting over. Yes a horse can go down a specific path a truck might not be able to take, but a truck can take a different path. If there are no paths a truck can take to the area, why are you fighting over it?

Meanwhile horses have a much larger logistical need than trucks, with issues like food and water, veterinary care, proper exercise and sleep. Nor can you simply make horses, breeding and raising horses is a specialist skill.

Like anything in life, the path you have to take is as important as the destination. A plane or helicopter can theoretically go anywhere, but planes tend to be more fragile and have no cover or concealment, and thus easier to shoot down, be it through anti-aircraft guns or missiles. They also can only maintain being in the air for short periods of time and have limited ranges, making it difficult to stay in flight or occupy certain territories. They announce they are coming with tremendous noise and by being visible form many miles away, standing out from a background that usually has nothing in it, I.E. the sky. That's before things like price and complexity. Armored vehicles tend to be better suited for withstanding heavy fire, but can't go over rough terrain and are forced to go through specific paths which make them vulnerable. These paths are easily ambushed, mined, or obstructed, making travel in a convenient and safe way difficult. It costs lives to go in to rough terrain, and not just time, which are both issues with strategic capabilities. Being able to go through a less expected path, and still be stealthy is a tremendous advantage, as avoidance is the first step to avoid being shit. This is on top of it being far cheaper to just go on foot or use an animal. Infantry are still employed on foot for two main reasons, either to take ground, or because going on foot in that environment is more advantageous. Be it clearing a room (of which a vehicle can't really be expected to fit inside every building), or going up the side of a mountain, there are plenty of environments where the enemy may have reached slowly, that you still need to reach quickly in order to be able to fight them. When you have the advantage to prepare and dig in, it's easy enough to get supplies to an area, but if you have to move quickly and safely, the problem becomes more complicated. You end up taking heavy causalities by rushing the enemy who is already in a good defensive position, taking tremendous risks, going slow enough to let the enemy get away or attack other forces, or otherwise being bogged down, which is why you want to go on the unpredictable path. Roads are broad and open, and thus make the rigid movement patterns predictable. The moment the enemy knows where you are going to be ahead of time is the moment you are vulnerable, as they can mine the area, or prepare to attack it with large weapons. Be it a group of guerrillas or a professional military waiting to simply bomb your position, you don't want your movement patterns to be exposed and open, and thus going through the rougher terrain conceals your actions and makes your actions less predictable. Given that infantry have poor armor, it's avoidance that must take priority to avoid taking casualties.

The reason why you want to go in to rough terrain is to fight the enemy; as for specific modern examples, there is a tendency for guerrillas to hole up in mountains, or jungles, or forested areas, or even urban environments precisely because it's difficult to reach them. The Mujhadeen in Afghanistan and Viet Cong in Vietnam were not necessarily insanely intelligent or well equipped, but simply were inherently difficult to fight given they were already well established in their environment, and so helicopters, vehicles and so on, while providing tons of mobility and defense for the soldiers, proved to still be difficult to get to. Why you fight someone in these regions is because that is where they are, and you obviously have some incentive for getting rid of them. The guerrilla can wage hit and run attacks, retreating back to favorable terrain you refuse to follow, until you choose to go after them, of which then you need the ability to maneuver. So, as to why you want to fight an enemy who is in terrain that is difficult to reach safely... this is kind of an odd question given it's the primary problem with modern combat. Give enough time the enemy can set up there and dig in, but it will be difficult for you to reach the same position, let alone go along the same road that the enemy built, or going along their same path. You may not be able to take the same path as the enemy, or the easy way may be more dangerous, and so, it makes sense to try to find a way around it that isn't in the direct line of sight of the enemy.


To put as simply as possible, "The easy way is always mined". Hence it often pays to go the hard way. It's why elite units focus on insertion methods. Navy Seals and Marines are trained to go through the water, the Airborne are deployed from the air, Mechanized troops go in vehicles, Rangers are trained for the mountains and forests, and so on. Troops are often defined by the environment they're expected to be in (I.E. the Marines, Navy, Air Force), and going in through harsh environments quickly is kind of the way you win in modern warfare, relying on speed and mobility to retain the element of surprise and outflank the enemy. As to why you'd want to go in a different way than is expected or to find a way around the obvious route, well... I thought that would be obvious. But it's largely to avoid enemy fire until you are ready to strike. Taking the predictable path puts you in danger. Something like 50% of our losses in Afghanistan and Iraq were logistics convoys, largely for fuel, and most of the deaths were due to IED's and landmines, or attacks on soldiers when on the road. Predictable road patterns makes you vulnerable, and importantly your logistic supply routes.

The logistics for animals is simpler and smaller, and can be deployed in larger numbers. Animals often can eat from their environment, drinking the stagnant water humans can't or eating things like grass and brush, and many animals can survive much longer than humans without water and food, be them camels or the Mongolian horse. The primary issue is the training, of people to both handle and ride the horses, such as the soldiers, but in terms of logistics it is far easier to supply given the total weight and volume of the goods needed is less and it's less urgent that you get them. A horse that lives off the land may eventually grow weaker, but it can still continue moving, where as a tank or truck without fuel is dead weight. The thing is water and horse feed are effectively easier to obtain than specific forms of fuel which vehicles need, which come from specific places and routes, where as water and food can be found almost everywhere, especially for many animals. That being said it does pose it's own separate logistical problems, which is the greatest deficit, and it lacks any sort of armor protection making the troops particularly vulnerable to enemy fire. It also takes a lot of skill to ride a horse well, especially in combat or in rough terrain.

[Spirit of Hope]

Like anything in life, the path you have to take is as important as the destination. A plane or helicopter can theoretically go anywhere, but planes tend to be more fragile and have no cover or concealment, and thus easier to shoot down, be it through anti-aircraft guns or missiles. They also can only maintain being in the air for short periods of time and have limited ranges, making it difficult to stay in flight or occupy certain territories. They announce they are coming with tremendous noise and by being visible form many miles away, standing out from a background that usually has nothing in it, I.E. the sky. That's before things like price and complexity.

It's rather hard to shoot a maneuvering aircraft taking precautions down, and while they can't hold territory that isn't their mission.

Armored vehicles tend to be better suited for withstanding heavy fire, but can't go over rough terrain and are forced to go through specific paths which make them vulnerable. These paths are easily ambushed, mined, or obstructed, making travel in a convenient and safe way difficult.

Armored vehicles can go through rough terrain, if the terrain is rough enough to stop a tank, it either has incredibly narrow paths or is so rough that pack animals would have a hard time passing through it. If the paths are so narrow a tank can't go through it, you aren't going to be pushing a lot of infantry or horses through it. Also narrow paths easy to mine and set ambushes up for.

It costs lives to go in to rough terrain, and not just time, which are both issues with strategic capabilities. Being able to go through a less expected path, and still be stealthy is a tremendous advantage, as avoidance is the first step to avoid being shit.

Sure, but you often can't take the unexpected bath with pack animals, see Desert Storm, and most of the time would have a hard time achieving the necessary speed if you tried.

This is on top of it being far cheaper to just go on foot or use an animal.

While infantry are cheaper than vehicles, pack animals aren't. This also has the issue of speed again.

Infantry are still employed on foot for two main reasons, either to take ground, or because going on foot in that environment is more advantageous.

Infantry are still employed because moving on foot in combat is one of the best ways to fight when in contact with the enemy. It is a shitty form of strategic or operational movement compared to any other modern means of transport (ship, train, truck, plane).

Be it clearing a room (of which a vehicle can't really be expected to fit inside every building), or going up the side of a mountain, there are plenty of environments where the enemy may have reached slowly, that you still need to reach quickly in order to be able to fight them.

You aren't going to use a pack animal in room clearing, and you can drive a truck up most mountains.

When you have the advantage to prepare and dig in, it's easy enough to get supplies to an area, but if you have to move quickly and safely, the problem becomes more complicated. You end up taking heavy causalities by rushing the enemy who is already in a good defensive position, taking tremendous risks, going slow enough to let the enemy get away or attack other forces, or otherwise being bogged down, which is why you want to go on the unpredictable path.

Again, you can take an unexpected path in armored vehicles, see Desert Storm, WWII.

Roads are broad and open, and thus make the rigid movement patterns predictable.

Why are you taking the road? Trucks can drive off road, so can armored vehicles. If the area isn't secure, don't use the roads if you can help it.

The moment the enemy knows where you are going to be ahead of time is the moment you are vulnerable, as they can mine the area, or prepare to attack it with large weapons.

Right, which is why you want to move fast, by say going 20 or 30 mph for days rather than 6 mph for a couple hours per day.

Be it a group of guerrillas or a professional military waiting to simply bomb your position, you don't want your movement patterns to be exposed and open, and thus going through the rougher terrain conceals your actions and makes your actions less predictable.

Armored vehicle less exposed than horse. Truck means less time exposed than horse.

Given that infantry have poor armor, it's avoidance that must take priority to avoid taking casualties.

infantry avoid casualties by lowering their profile, horses raise their profile again.

The reason why you want to go in to rough terrain is to fight the enemy; as for specific modern examples, there is a tendency for guerrillas to hole up in mountains, or jungles, or forested areas, or even urban environments precisely because it's difficult to reach them.

The point of a war isn't to kill the enemy, it is to defeat them. If my enemy has retreated to terrain where motor vehicles can't easily pass then they are of little threat to me. If they wan;t to threaten me they have to leave there areas.

The Mujhadeen in Afghanistan and Viet Cong in Vietnam were not necessarily insanely intelligent or well equipped, but simply were inherently difficult to fight given they were already well established in their environment, and so helicopters, vehicles and so on, while providing tons of mobility and defense for the soldiers, proved to still be difficult to get to.

The Mujhadeen were prominent all over the low lands, and the Viet Cong operated out of villages and locations that could easily be reached by motor vehicles. The idea that these groups hid in unreachable terrain is largely a myth, US forces could and would reach the areas, using motor vehicles, and clear them out. The persistent issues with both groups of keeping an area cleared and the creation of a stable civilian government in the nations.

Why you fight someone in these regions is because that is where they are, and you obviously have some incentive for getting rid of them.

Again you don't fight someone just because they exist, you fight them because they present a threat.

The guerrilla can wage hit and run attacks, retreating back to favorable terrain you refuse to follow, until you choose to go after them, of which then you need the ability to maneuver.

You are presenting a false choice. As I keep saying, motor vehicles can pass through almost any rough terrain a pack animal can travel through from an operational perspective.

So, as to why you want to fight an enemy who is in terrain that is difficult to reach safely... this is kind of an odd question given it's the primary problem with modern combat.

The US has never really had a problem sending troops and supplies to troops in combat operations using motor vehicles. The only time in recent memory there was any real use of horses, was by a special forces team that was inserted without any support and had to use local supplies, i.e. horses. Notably in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq the US happily used trucks instead of switching to horses.

Give enough time the enemy can set up there and dig in, but it will be difficult for you to reach the same position, let alone go along the same road that the enemy built, or going along their same path. You may not be able to take the same path as the enemy, or the easy way may be more dangerous, and so, it makes sense to try to find a way around it that isn't in the direct line of sight of the enemy.

Yes traveling out of line of sight of the enemy is a good idea, luckily you can almost always drive that path.

To put as simply as possible, "The easy way is always mined".

Nice fortune cookie saying.

Hence it often pays to go the hard way. It's why elite units focus on insertion methods. Navy Seals and Marines are trained to go through the water, the Airborne are deployed from the air, Mechanized troops go in vehicles, Rangers are trained for the mountains and forests, and so on. Troops are often defined by the environment they're expected to be in (I.E. the Marines, Navy, Air Force), and going in through harsh environments quickly is kind of the way you win in modern warfare, relying on speed and mobility to retain the element of surprise and outflank the enemy. As to why you'd want to go in a different way than is expected or to find a way around the obvious route, well... I thought that would be obvious. But it's largely to avoid enemy fire until you are ready to strike.

Yes taking an unexpected path is a good idea, again, you can do that using motor vehicles. Notice that no major US formation uses pack animals, and that they all use trucks for their logistical movements.

Taking the predictable path puts you in danger. Something like 50% of our losses in Afghanistan and Iraq were logistics convoys, largely for fuel, and most of the deaths were due to IED's and landmines, or attacks on soldiers when on the road. Predictable road patterns makes you vulnerable, and importantly your logistic supply routes.

And yet the US didn't move to using horses. Why? Because horses couldn't move the required supplies, and if you had tried to you would have been forced to use the roads. Except now you need more supplies, move slower and aren't armored. Sounds like a stupid idea.

The logistics for animals is simpler and smaller, and can be deployed in larger numbers.

They absolutely aren't as many studies of the logistical requirements of horses vs. motor vehicles have shown.

Animals often can eat from their environment, drinking the stagnant water humans can't or eating things like grass and brush, and many animals can survive much longer than humans without water and food, be them camels or the Mongolian horse.

Any number of pack animals sufficient to support large military operations is going to quickly eat through the available fodder of an area, even if it is a nice field. The areas where horses, and other pack animals, have an advantage over motor vehicles generally aren't going to be teaming with forage for the animals. Also getting pack animals to drink stagnant water is a bad idea, as is just feeding them forage.

The primary issue is the training, of people to both handle and ride the horses, such as the soldiers, but in terms of logistics it is far easier to supply given the total weight and volume of the goods needed is less and it's less urgent that you get them. A horse that lives off the land may eventually grow weaker, but it can still continue moving, where as a tank or truck without fuel is dead weight.

A tank/truck requires far less fuel per amount carried/distance than a horse needs in food and water. Also good luck keeping any animal moving if they go without food for any operationally noticeable amount of time.

The thing is water and horse feed are effectively easier to obtain than specific forms of fuel which vehicles need, which come from specific places and routes, where as water and food can be found almost everywhere, especially for many animals.

Bulk water and forage are actually very hard to come by, and take up quite a bit of space, and are going to have to take the same routs that fuel is going to have to move on.

That being said it does pose it's own separate logistical problems, which is the greatest deficit, and it lacks any sort of armor protection making the troops particularly vulnerable to enemy fire. It also takes a lot of skill to ride a horse well, especially in combat or in rough terrain.

What really gets me is we had an argument a little bit ago where you called bicycles bad, yet here you are arguing horses are good. Yet operationally a horse is worse in just about every way than a bicycle.

[Eisarnathiuda]

horse stuff

And takes exceptionally little skill to slowcook them in a field kitchen stewpot because of how fucking stupid it is to rely on them for logistics or transport after a point in history.

[Gallia-]

Horse = Low development, poor infrastructure, rural.
Car = Low to high development, good infrastructure, rural or urban.

Horses are fine if the local economy can absorb them without needing to grow a new leg. Afghanistan or Mongolia are good examples.

Cars are also fine, provided cars are in sufficient number that local infrastructure can absorb them without being overloaded. Western Europe is a good place for a tank division to live. Mongolia, not so much, because Mongolia lacks the rail and road infrastructure needed. Thankfully the Mongolian Army is a well renowned construction force so they should be able to fix that pretty quickly.

Bicycles are like horses but better, though.

[New Vihenia]

-start making whole new weapon systems for bikes-

[Sibauk]

I don't see any logic or practicality in issuing an artillery ranged weapon to anyone but artillery forces as the only benefit it provides them is the ability to engage targets at ranges well beyond those that they should be concerning them self with. Front line infantry have better things to do (like shoot at stuff close to them) than guide in UAV's and rockets at artillery ranges. Thus, the only way I see this being employed is as an addition to the regular artillery forces. And whilst I can see it being useful in that application I do not see it being more useful than alternatives we already have such as various forms of smart submunitions or even just saturation fire from a MLRS that can hit whole formations at that range.

A command-guided missile has 3 major advantages over smart submunitions from gun artillery:

1. The missile can loiter and observe, so the target does not need to be acquired first. The missile can be fired into an area with suspected enemy presence first and a target acquired later.

2. The missile is in the operator's control throughout flight and any target visually acquired by the operator themself. This allows the missile to be used in closer proximity to neutral or friendly forces than artillery - currently smart submunitions are not capable of differentiating between different types of vehicles.

3. The missile does not require a relatively heavy gun to launch making it easier for light forces to bring along.

Compared to MRLS, command-guided missiles are more precise and lower volume - this also means it weighs less.

My question would largely be how the missile is communicating over those ranges, and in loiter mode how it spots targets/is controlled by the user. There are celerity difficulties with a 60km AT missile, but the idea of a 60km AT missile isn't bad.

Spike NLOS can go 25 km and is radio-controlled. There were a number of longer-ranged missiles using fiber-optic cables under development. Alas all of them died except for the Japanese Type 96 and Serbian ALAS.

[Triplebaconation]

Any animal-based transport on a significant scale will obviously be constrained more by terrain than trucks.

[Spirit of Hope]

Some quick math:

A 7 Ton truck can transport 14,000 lbs 300 miles in 5 hours on a road. It will require 78 gallons of gas, weighing 553 pounds. Note, range and speed are based on using a road, but the weight is based on off road capabilities.

A horse can, long term, pull about 1.5 times its weight using wheels on an a level surface. So a team of 5 draft horses could match the 7 Tons transport capability. Traveling at 3 mph it will take them 100 hours, or 6 days traveling for 16 hours a day, to travel that same 300 miles. Over that time period the horses will need roughly 1,000 to 1,200 pounds of feed and 150 to 300 gallons of water. Total supply weight to care for the horses is 2,200 to 3,600 pounds with a volume of 365 gallons to 557 gallons.

Now to to transport the same amount of equipment is taking you 20 times as long and requires 4 to 7 times as much supplies. While you can reduce the horses supply requirements by letting them graze and drink, that requires stopping for more time in places that have good grazing and a large fresh supply of water. The horses don't even have the advantage of being able to use terrain the trucks can't because any terrain a horse can reasonably pull a large heavy cart an all terrain truck can drive across.

[Manokan Republic]

Some quick math:

A 7 Ton truck can transport 14,000 lbs 300 miles in 5 hours on a road. It will require 78 gallons of gas, weighing 553 pounds. Note, range and speed are based on using a road, but the weight is based on off road capabilities.

A horse can, long term, pull about 1.5 times its weight using wheels on an a level surface. So a team of 5 draft horses could match the 7 Tons transport capability. Traveling at 3 mph it will take them 100 hours, or 6 days traveling for 16 hours a day, to travel that same 300 miles. Over that time period the horses will need roughly 1,000 to 1,200 pounds of feed and 150 to 300 gallons of water. Total supply weight to care for the horses is 2,200 to 3,600 pounds with a volume of 365 gallons to 557 gallons.

Now to to transport the same amount of equipment is taking you 20 times as long and requires 4 to 7 times as much supplies. While you can reduce the horses supply requirements by letting them graze and drink, that requires stopping for more time in places that have good grazing and a large fresh supply of water. The horses don't even have the advantage of being able to use terrain the trucks can't because any terrain a horse can reasonably pull a large heavy cart an all terrain truck can drive across.

First, horses can actually pull more and faster, and second, you don't need to pull as much weight as you aren't carrying all the heavy armor and steel and whatnot that is in a truck. You are traveling light to go around something a vehicle would have trouble doing, like the side of a mountain, a very sandy area in the desert wheels are likely to be stuck in, a really muddy area a vehicle may get stuck in, and so on. The reason why special forces uses horses and camels in Afghanistan is due to the sandy areas and mountains which were hard to travel in vehicles with, but easy to do so with animals, for all the reasons I have described.

Two horses together can on average pull about 24,000 pounds at around 3-6 mph for sustained periods of time [1][2][3], however, you don't need to do that as horses are not 12,000 pounds a pop, each. You only carry that much weight when using armored vehicles, as the vehicles are expected to pull their own weight. That's a strawman if I've ever seen one. Like infantry, the goal is not uh, well pulling heavy things, it's about getting a person to location faster. The figure of 1.5 times their body weight you're using is for deadweight, and not the weight on wheels. Obviously if you pull the weight when it's on wheels, it's much easier to transport. So, two horses can carry a halftrack at slow speeds more or less. The goal is typically to use horses to get somewhere faster like over rough terrain rather than use them for all logistics purposes, though. If you did, they could carry a lot of weight, but would do so much more slowly than most vehicles. Or you could get there faster, but with less weight. The advantage here is a reduction of fuel, which is useful considering it's a specific resource you can't get ahold of easily, and so getting the vehicles near the combat location at all by slowly pulling them would be the goal. The main purpose of horses or infantry is mobility, they can easily go places most modern vehicles can't. A horse can jump over obstacles, where as vehicles have to be going really fast to clear half the distance a horse or even human can.

To put forth an analogy that maybe will drive it home, imagine police never got out of their cars. They could only chase after suspects, in cars. The moment they're in a building, run down an alley way, go in to the woods etc. you would be completely useless and the suspect could always escape. So, now you're in a pickle, how do you chase after people? Well, you get out and pursue on foot, which removes a lot of your advantages and puts you at risk of the enemy shooting you, or, you use say, a horse. Horses can jump and maneuver over obstacles, and balance in awkward situations, where as a car cannot. It's as simple as that, and it's kind of just an intuitive thing. Imagining the same scenario, that soldiers could never get out of vehicles, runs in to the same problem. Vehicles are only good for getting you to a rough area and then infantry are expected to travel the rest of the distance, on foot. If you are in an area where this is not necessary and vehicles can be used to do all the fighting, then they will. The persian gulf war was largely just vehicle battles with U.S. troops in tanks and Bradley's annihilating the iraqi tanks, with infantry only deploying a handful of times from the Bradley's. In that environment with those vehicles it was pretty easy to out maneuver them. As the second Iraq war was largely fought in urban environments, then it switched to having to go on foot a lot more, which bogs things down and makes it far slower. All of the modern wars that have taken decades were those where infantry had to go out on foot, be it in the jungles, urban environments or wherever, and so solving that means solving the primary issue of combat in the 21st century, or actually getting to location and fighting there without losing a lot of your people in the process.

[Manokan Republic]

Horse = Low development, poor infrastructure, rural.
Car = Low to high development, good infrastructure, rural or urban.

Horses are fine if the local economy can absorb them without needing to grow a new leg. Afghanistan or Mongolia are good examples.

Cars are also fine, provided cars are in sufficient number that local infrastructure can absorb them without being overloaded. Western Europe is a good place for a tank division to live. Mongolia, not so much, because Mongolia lacks the rail and road infrastructure needed. Thankfully the Mongolian Army is a well renowned construction force so they should be able to fix that pretty quickly.

Bicycles are like horses but better, though.

Bikes lack stability and can't be fired from while you are on them. It would take a while to respond to an ambush when on a bike, and they typically have to use the same general paths as vehicles, or the same style of path, making them far less useful. You also can't maintain high speeds over rough terrain, and it's often slower when going through certain areas than it would be to go on foot, not to mention there are tons of places infantry can go that bikes can't go. A goat can climb the side of a cliff, a donkey, even a horse, but not really a bike, you'd have to carry an extra 30-50 pounds every time you go off to do something like that.

Bicycles have all the same problems as road vehicles while lacking the power. They are slightly more maneuverable though especially if you are really skilled at using them, so there is a niche advantage if all your guys were equal to BMX bikers at using them.

[Spirit of Hope]

Some quick math:

A 7 Ton truck can transport 14,000 lbs 300 miles in 5 hours on a road. It will require 78 gallons of gas, weighing 553 pounds. Note, range and speed are based on using a road, but the weight is based on off road capabilities.

A horse can, long term, pull about 1.5 times its weight using wheels on an a level surface. So a team of 5 draft horses could match the 7 Tons transport capability. Traveling at 3 mph it will take them 100 hours, or 6 days traveling for 16 hours a day, to travel that same 300 miles. Over that time period the horses will need roughly 1,000 to 1,200 pounds of feed and 150 to 300 gallons of water. Total supply weight to care for the horses is 2,200 to 3,600 pounds with a volume of 365 gallons to 557 gallons.

Now to to transport the same amount of equipment is taking you 20 times as long and requires 4 to 7 times as much supplies. While you can reduce the horses supply requirements by letting them graze and drink, that requires stopping for more time in places that have good grazing and a large fresh supply of water. The horses don't even have the advantage of being able to use terrain the trucks can't because any terrain a horse can reasonably pull a large heavy cart an all terrain truck can drive across.

First, horses can actually pull more and faster, and second, you don't need to pull as much weight as you aren't carrying all the heavy armor and steel and whatnot that is in a truck. You are traveling light to go around something a vehicle would have trouble doing, like the side of a mountain, a very sandy area in the desert wheels are likely to be stuck in, a really muddy area a vehicle may get stuck in, and so on. The reason why special forces uses horses and camels in Afghanistan is due to the sandy areas and mountains which were hard to travel in vehicles with, but easy to do so with animals, for all the reasons I have described.

No they used pack animals because that was all their was for them to use. The pack animals were supplied by local forces the SoF were linking up with. Notably as soon as the US had feet on the ground and were setting up bases and fighting in Afganistan they used trucks.

Two horses together can on average pull about 24,000 pounds at around 3-6 mph for sustained periods of time [1][2][3], however, you don't need to do that as horses are not 12,000 pounds a pop, each. You only carry that much weight when using armored vehicles, as the vehicles are expected to pull their own weight. That's a strawman if I've ever seen one. Like infantry, the goal is not uh, well pulling heavy things, it's about getting a person to location faster. The figure of 1.5 times their body weight you're using is for deadweight, and not the weight on wheels. Obviously if you pull the weight when it's on wheels, it's much easier to transport.

First none of your sources talk about hauling loads over 1.5 the horses weight for days at a time, nor do they mention the speed that it can be done at.

http://www.wagonteamster.com/html/faqs.html
https://horsefaqs.com/how-much-weight-c ... on-wheels/ gives a higher ration (2-3 but requires roads)
https://horserookie.com/how-much-weight ... orse-pull/ (again notes 1.5 for long haul, higher for short hall)
https://www.reference.com/pets-animals/ ... 8f2ebe6217 saying the massive weights pulled was measured in feet

Also the weight given for the vehicle in my example was the cargo weight, not the weight of the vehicle itself.

As to speed, the truck was still 20 times faster not including rest time, even if you double the horses speed the truck is still 10 times faster.

So, two horses can carry a halftrack at slow speeds more or less. The goal is typically to use horses to get somewhere faster like over rough terrain rather than use them for all logistics purposes, though. If you did, they could carry a lot of weight, but would do so much more slowly than most vehicles. Or you could get there faster, but with less weight.

Even with out weight the truck is going to be faster than the horse, even over rough terrain. The amount of terrain a horse can travel that a truck or jeep can't is small. Also you can't move at high speeds on a horse over rough terrain unless you want to have injured/dead horses and riders.

IIRC a horses ground pressure is higher than a car or trucks, 75 psi vs 20-30 psi.

The advantage here is a reduction of fuel, which is useful considering it's a specific resource you can't get ahold of easily, and so getting the vehicles near the combat location at all by slowly pulling them would be the goal. The main purpose of horses or infantry is mobility, they can easily go places most modern vehicles can't. A horse can jump over obstacles, where as vehicles have to be going really fast to clear half the distance a horse or even human can.

Reduced fuel but greatly increased food and water needs, which aren't everywhere.

The number of places pack animals can go that vehicles can't is small. While a horse can jump it can't do so while pulling or carrying a heavy load.

To put forth an analogy that maybe will drive it home, imagine police never got out of their cars. They could only chase after suspects, in cars. The moment they're in a building, run down an alley way, go in to the woods etc. you would be completely useless and the suspect could always escape. So, now you're in a pickle, how do you chase after people? Well, you get out and pursue on foot, which removes a lot of your advantages and puts you at risk of the enemy shooting you, or, you use say, a horse. Horses can jump and maneuver over obstacles, and balance in awkward situations, where as a car cannot. It's as simple as that, and it's kind of just an intuitive thing.

Notably horse mounted police are rare, largely work in cities where they make the officers visible in crowds, and crowds visible to officers, are used in incredibly small numbers, and aren't used often in pursuit situations. I mean the Canadian Mounties don't use horse for regular duties, and haven't since the 1930's.

So yeah if you want to use an incredibly small number of horses to transport special forces while they are outside of logistical support feel free. But that is a rather niche use.

[Triplebaconation]

From block leakage it looks like he's using the primitive equivalent of tractor pulls to vastly overestimate the capabilities of horses. It should be obvious horses aren't pulling this stuff over rough terrain.

The most pertinent information in his sources is probably this: "Many of us who have lived in the 20th and now the 21st centuries, have no direct connection to horses, but there is still much they can teach us."

I've had horses my entire life, and he has no idea what he's talking about. When I want to move a horse any appreciable distance, I put it on a truck!

Cavalry on the march:

[Purpelia]

Than again an ordinary horse did manage to cripple Superman so there is that.

[Husseinarti]

Than again an ordinary horse did manage to cripple Superman so there is that.

what weird equine porn are you watching

[Purpelia]

Than again an ordinary horse did manage to cripple Superman so there is that.

what weird equine porn are you watching

You seriously don't get the reference? Wow... kids these days. Either that or I am old.

The actor who played Superman, Christopher Reeve was crippled in an incident where a horse threw him off mangling his spine leaving him completely paralyzed. Ergo a horse crippled Superman.

[Husseinarti]

i think the same thing happened to mr. hands

[Taihei Tengoku]

Taihei Tengoku has actual horse cav in tyool 2020

it's for a purpose tho

[United Earthlings]

The upside is that Korea shows that large, mechanized tank armies are generally poor performers against large infantry armies, but this has been shown throughout the 20th century I think so it's not particularly unique to that war.

Forces that are thrown into the attack piecemeal and uncoordinated have always been poor performers whether infantry or tank armies. Armies successfully employing even a semblance of combined arms warfare, the better the coordination between the different arms the better said armies performance, this fact has been true not only for 20th and 21st century warfare, but going all the way back to antiquity. The Korean War was no exception. Armor played a decisive role when utilized properly both during the early mobile phase and the later static phase throughout the entirely of the Korean War.

60 km squared? For a rifle squad? It's more likely than you think.

The omissions of context in the above statement is inconceivable. +1 points awarded to Slytherin though just for sheer gall.

A command-guided missile has 3 major advantages over smart submunitions from gun artillery:

1. The missile can loiter and observe, so the target does not need to be acquired first. The missile can be fired into an area with suspected enemy presence first and a target acquired later.

2. The missile is in the operator's control throughout flight and any target visually acquired by the operator themself. This allows the missile to be used in closer proximity to neutral or friendly forces than artillery - currently smart submunitions are not capable of differentiating between different types of vehicles.

3. The missile does not require a relatively heavy gun to launch making it easier for light forces to bring along.

Compared to MRLS, command-guided missiles are more precise and lower volume - this also means it weighs less.

1. By that description, there really isn’t any difference between a long range precision missile like the one NV is considering and a long range artillery shell as far as target acquisition is concerned. Depending on how NV is considering achieving loiter time, whether just having the missile coast around in a circle or slowly descend by some type of parachute, the loiter time difference between said proposed missile and a smart “sensor-fuse” submunition may be negligible.
2. Depending on the rules of engagement, properly identifying the target vehicles in question is probably going to happen either way first through the various ISTAR platforms one forces brings along which then feeds into the kill chain loop that justifies using said proposed missile or artillery or any weapons platform operational {AKA: in working order}, on hand and in range. Not always discussed, but the possibility exists that if the said proposed missile controller control is jammed, then accurate guidance is lost and therefore any advantaged by using a more expensive and therefore more complex weapon system is lost. Murphy doesn’t pick favorites.
   
3. Looking at it from an economics perceptive, I would say it’s less advantaged and more neutral. One expensive single use missile verses one heavier multi-use cheaper artillery tube that can fire hundreds, if not thousands of projectiles for the same cost allowing it to engage more than one target.

In summary, longer range/more complex missiles (of any kind) aren’t an inherently bad idea and neither is NV’s proposal, but in the real world where realism runs at more than a 100% setting, a cost vs capability calculation is always running in the background even if your nation is the largest defense spender among the NS world or even your own region.

On the issue of Fires capability being discussed, came across this while doing some research for a different subject matter.

[Husseinarti]

a whole lot of words

not allot of substance

[Radictistan]

big ass photo

Neat pic. IIRC, those horse carriers were intended for tactical mobility, not just road marches. For a time in the 1930s the U.S. Army had mixed horse/mechanized cavalry regiments. By motorizing the horses they could keep up with the armored cars, see?