Soviet Cavalry in WWII

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Wikipedia lists a number of Soviet cavalry divisions that fought in WWII. Does anybody have information on when and where they were deployed, how they fought and what casualties they sustained? Did they fight from Kursk onwards? Is there anything in English for them?

[Irbis]

Um, despite name, these were pretty much light motorised divisions, formed because army lacked enough cars but had horses to spare (or as specialized formations like mountain cavalry divisions). IIRC, multiple divisions supported by tanks were deployed in similar roles as motorised corps, most were disbanded anyway to form proper motorised/mechanized divisions as production grew.

[Simon_Jester]

Although it's interesting to look at these cavalry units as a sort of 'progressive' approach to World War era cavalry, one which allowed them to remain relevant longer in Russia than in other European countries. As far as I know, the Poles did some of the same things- they dropped the 19th century pistols and sabres, took advantage of the horse's ability to tow lots of machine guns and light artillery, and so on.

[Sea Skimmer]

Polish cavalry still had sabres, and lances as well as a rifle for every man, something not always true of world war one cavalry. They also did have more serious weapons, but the simple reality is Poland was very short of weapons and funding. They couldn't afford large motorized forces as all the fuel would have to be imported with foreign exchange, and as the Russo-Polish War had seen massive use of cavalry, the Soviets fielding an actual cavalry army, they had no reason to think a horse mobile force was completely useless compared to fielding more foot mobile infantry. They would have needed to abolish the cavalry units long before the war to have gained a serious fiscal advantage out of doing so, compounding the yearly upkeep savings into buying more motorized units, and doing this would have been a tough call. After all, the US still had horse cavalry until 1940. Many nations that abolished horse cavalry between the wars actually did so simply because they could not afford the horsemen at all, the money wasn't saved so much as not spent on anything.

As for the communists, they did have cavalry units that were largely mechanized, but in the far east pure horse units were kept around until the very end of the war, and even long after though at less then divisional strength. Useful for patrolling trackless wastelands.

[Zinegata]

Didn't the Soviets have some actual horse units still active around the time of Barbarossa though (who had about as much value as light infantry and were mostly destroyed)? And these operated alongside the units that were recently converted to mech?

[Sea Skimmer]

Well, the point was never that they did not have horse units, sorry if that was indicated, all the riflemen always rode horses as did a fair bit of artillery, but the degree to which everything else was in motor vehicles varied a great deal depending on time and place. Polish cavalry in 1939 meanwhile, was literally just about completely horse mobile. This was also typical of German cavalry in the war, about the only motor vehicles would actually be in the veterinary company... for moving sick and wounded horses to the horse ambulance trains and horse hospitals. I think the anti tank batteries may also have been motorized, it was German policy to always motorize AT units.

On paper all the Russian Cavalry Divisions in June 1941 were supposed to have four regiments of pure horsemen, and one armored regiment which generally only had one light tank battalion and one armored car company (commies had an actual shortage of tanks, while having the largest fleet on earth by like 400%), plus motorized service troops. However everything in the Red Army was in flux at the time so few units would have met the paper TO&E. Not that armies ever are all that close to paper tables anyway.

Note however that in the Red Army, and historically with cavalry in Europe, horse units tended to be much smaller then equivalent infantry units. As such as Soviet cavalry regiment actually only had about 1,400 men which is hardly two battalions of infantry in numbers. That means the motorized assets are relatively more important, they are supporting much less front line manpower. It was typical for European cavalry divisions to be only about 5,000 men strong in both world wars (this is why you could have stuff like IIRC France had 21 cavalry divisions in 1914). Also cavalry divisions tended not to be designed to be particularly independent, not to the same self sustaining degree as infantry divisions anyway, and all Soviet divisions were supposed to be integral parts of cavalry corps, which had a lot more motorized artillery and other specialist units in support while adding little in the way of horse mobile units.

By the end of 1941 the divisions scaled down a lot and had under 3,000 men, effectively a regimental force, and lost the light tanks (ineffective in combat) while keeping the armored cars. By 1944 they had regained a medium tank regiment as well as various motorized support units and gone back to more like 5,000 men. It was also typical to directly augment them with various higher echeloned reserve formations, the Soviets pooled as many motorized assets as they could at high levels. The cavalry corps remained, but had far fewer organic assets. Support came from attaching entire additional units, or more likely, attaching the cavalry corps to a tank corps as mobile infantry support.

You can see this trend the reorganization of all the Red Army units. They were big with lavish organic support (on paper) in 1941, in 42-43 they were all shrunken and stripped both because of lack of resources, and more importantly problems of command and control, then 1944-45 stuff grew again, but largely though a detailed policy of augmentation rather then returning to lavish hoards of every weapon possible being organic.

As for the original question of use in action, I dunno on a good comprehensive source for that. Best starting point for that line of research might be searching the Soviet forum on the axis history fact book, they have a lot of threads of random information like that.

[Irbis]

Polish cavalry still had sabres, and lances as well as a rifle for every man, something not always true of world war one cavalry. They also did have more serious weapons, but the simple reality is Poland was very short of weapons and funding.

Technically, while Polish cavalry did have both sabers and lances, it was mostly the result of obsession of 'sabrists' and 'lanceists' factions of old officers convinced "cavalry must be able to charge" (even if they never actually did so). They didn't agree what weapon would be best for charge, but agreed cavalry must have some melee weapons. However, as you can see here, the bulk of weaponry actually used in combat was very modern.

Also, maybe someone will be interested, have Cavalryman Charging Manual

As for the communists, they did have cavalry units that were largely mechanized, but in the far east pure horse units were kept around until the very end of the war, and even long after though at less then divisional strength. Useful for patrolling trackless wastelands.

So, exactly as I said, light horse/motorized formations put together into quasi mechanized divisions/corps, or specialized wilderness units

[Sea Skimmer]

You made a vague post to that extent, yes. Not very informative or certain of itself. Also you mentioned mountain cavalry divisions, but those actually had tanks and motor vehicles too! The pure horse units were mainly in the NKVD. But the NKVD tended to almost always field hodgepodges of troops in combat anyway such as during its intervention in western China.

As for sabers and lances, they might not have been that serious, but the fact is weight is critical for cavalry and accepting such weapons materially reduced the effectiveness of the troops.

[PainRack]

This was also typical of German cavalry in the war, about the only motor vehicles would actually be in the veterinary company... for moving sick and wounded horses to the horse ambulance trains and horse hospitals. I think the anti tank batteries may also have been motorized, it was German policy to always motorize AT units.

I'm sorry, but the last line appears to be in conflict with Guderian memoirs about how the AT and towed guns assigned to the infantry were horse mounted, resulting in a confrontation between him and Hitler at the end years of the war.

Do you mind elaborating?

[CaptHawkeye]

I know you asked Skimmer but the Germans probably never had the capability to motorize every AT gun they had. I'm sure they would have if they could have though.

I read Guderian's memoirs recently and while they're fascinating, his perspective was a bit narrow at times. Guderian favored the Panzers and mobile infantry over the rest of the Wehrmacht and that had a tendency to piss his superiors off. Even though he was totally right that motorized infantry and Panzers centralized into their own divisions were better than anything else at the time. Many of his contemporaries were old World War 1 types still immersed in the "infantry are the queen of the battlefield" thinking. Guderian seemed to feel that any opposition to his views was exclusively the result of traditionalist thinking and much of it was. Plenty of reason Germany had plain old infantry divisions though wasn't just doctrine, it was also because Germany didn't have the industrial capacity I think he believed it had.

He was a smart guy, but I don't think he was fully informed about Germany's economic limitations.

Near the end of the war German production started to collapse too so i'm not surprised that units that were supposed to motorized on paper ended up being only horse mobile in practice.

[Sea Skimmer]

Yeah only did he favor them over the rest of the army, he says claims he argued the army should be limited in size to what could be fully motorized. Even in a defensive war that's a more then a little questionable for Germany, and as it is if not for such massive battlefield capture in France, and the major reduction in authorized strengths, the German Panzertruppen would have been a lot less numerous in 1941. Guderian BTW was the man behind the 1939 Panzer division having its epic tank hoard, which proved to be a major mistake as the formations were unwieldy, insufficiently supported, and stuffed with near worthless light vehicles. I can't recall him ever admitting it was a actual mistake.

I'm sorry, but the last line appears to be in conflict with Guderian memoirs about how the AT and towed guns assigned to the infantry were horse mounted, resulting in a confrontation between him and Hitler at the end years of the war.

Do you mind elaborating?

Well for starters, Guderian memoirs are not a hyper accurate document. People have written whole books about his distortions and omissions. Still worth reading since in the end he was right about so much, but, I mean what do you really expect anyway from a guy with an ego that big and a background that based on successfully playing Nazi power politics? He just lies more then once.

I just checked up on several sources, and the paper TO&E for the Nazis called for all anti tank guns in infantry and Panzer divisions to be motor drawn until the final 1945 emergency tables, which went to horse drawn for the infantry. However anti tank companies in the infantry regiments were only partly motor drawn, the gun tractors, and still had horse vehicles for support. As well the panzerschreck teams added over the years were horse drawn. I forget those ever even assigned the anti tank company, I thought them organic to the infantry battalion. Guderian might specifically have been complaining about the Volks Grenadiers, which had no dedicated anti tank guns at all, but they did have all the artillery as 75mm weapons, often Pak guns for lack of any other weapon, and all horse drawn.

In reality of course, given the growing German shortage of motor transport from late 1941 onward, during which losses were outpacing production 2:1 or worse for protracted periods, many weapons that should have been motorized ended up horse drawn in the field, but since horse supplies also ran low more then a few were simply abandon. Luckily the Germans also had hoards of captured artillery pieces to throw into action as replacements until 1943 or so by which time all the endless piles of captured French and Russian guns had been expended, or left with too little ammunition to be useful anywhere but the Atlantic Wall.

[CaptHawkeye]

He's definitely a bit of a blowhard but since he had a tendency to be right about things people had tried to stop him for, i'm not surprised. He felt like he was God's Gift to Modern War and that he was lucky enough to be right about the Panzer Divisions enforced his ego. He wasn't perfect though and excessively tended to focus on the failures of his superiors and contemporaries. As if he was sooooo infallible.

[Sea Skimmer]

He certain deserves lots of credit. Especially since he proved generally successful as both field commander and as staff officer at high levels. Not many people could actually do that to any degree of success. But when it comes to these backroom staff dealings, we have the more then slight problem that so many people Guderian interacted with died during or in the war (like von Kluge who’s conflict had so much to do with Guderians first dismissal) committed suicide at the end of the war, were executed as war criminals or never wrote memoirs. Of those who did, more then a few had even really overwhelming reasons to lie since they were in the midst of successful evasion of war criminal charges. Still even for all that we have enough sources of information to known Guderian wrote to be self serving.