Logistically Viable Weapons AtE

[DocRailgun]

Yes to both. Either could have won in Afghanistan, but it would require doing things that are morally objectionable to reasonable people above and beyond what the militaries of modern states are willing to do in war.

I suppose doing those things make the concept of 'winning' debatable, though. What would be worth doing things that would make Nazis cringe?

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Was the Soviet Union insufficiently motivated in Afghanistan? Are we? Is the Syrian government insufficiently motivated to win the civil war? For Asad it is probably a matter of personal survival, so I suspect he couldn't be better motivated, yet he can't seem to defeat groups exactly like what I describe.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by DocRailgun

Yes to both. Either could have won in Afghanistan, but it would require doing things that are morally objectionable to reasonable people above and beyond what the militaries of modern states are willing to do in war.

I suppose doing those things make the concept of 'winning' debatable, though.

Nuking Afghanistan wouldn't have achieved the objective in either case, so no.

Table flipping isn't winning.

What would be worth doing things that would make Nazis cringe?

The brutality of the Third Reich didn't give them the industrial production needed to beat the US and USSR, it didn't win them significant operational victories in the long run, and it failed to suppress insurgency in their occupied territories. It did however make it rather easy to be their enemy.

[Minuteman37]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

With a population of 8.8 million and a modern economy, Israel could probably field and indefinitely supply an infantry-heavy TL 7 army of the size you describe, while maintaining a decent quality of life for its civilian population. U.S. military and economic assistance allows it to field a TL 8 military with plenty of modern gear.

Even then, Israel's military mostly stays inside of Israel, or in occupied territories right on its borders. It can't do much in the way of expansion through conquest.

So without the US Israel could only manage a standing army made up of 0.005681818% of their population? The US is bankrolling 176,000 Israeli soldiers?

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I don't claim they were commonplace and effective. I'm saying that they were very effective against WWI and WWII infantry that wasn't either backed up by machine guns or hanging close together. This situation didn't happen terribly often, because either you were in early WWI and troops stayed close together in masses*, or because it was WWII and machine guns were common place. In the situations where neither of these was true, cavalry commanders would get this weird moment where they realized the factor negating cavalry was gone, and ordered a charge. I've never heard of any charges going awry without massed fire or machine guns.

I suppose my question is do you know of any WWI/WWII cases where infantry without machine guns or massed fire held off a cavalry charge? From what I understand it was this weird thing the cavalry could still do, but didn't often, unless their foes made an weird anachronistic mistake.

I hold cavalry charges as being good for AtE because I think machine guns will be hard to come by. Unless you've got a healthy supply of bullets for semi-autos. By which I mean buckets of them.

*usually not exposed masses, but WWI infantry was usually kept in large groups rather than spread out, or stuck in fortifications.



As I understand it, the spread out "cover and move" tactics are precisely the thing that would make cavalry commanders order the charge. A bunch of infantry spread out is a tempting target. Now, usually infantry would be carrying a machine gun with them, but if they didn't, they had to rely on the aim and speed of their comrades. And marksmanship is harder than a lot of people like to assume.

during the zulu wars, the british liked to keep infantry units close together. Not so that they could run at the enemy in a line, but so that the enemy could only attack so many at a time, and so you could get enough fire coming from the infantry to get a machine gun like effect, which would repel charges.

So without machine guns (or perhaps semi-automatic guns in the hands of infantry) WWII tactics are vulnerable to cavalry.


Napoleonic cavalry charges were extremely effective against infantry in rout, but against infantry in good order were often disastrous. Sure maybe they can hit skirmishers with enough shock to rout them, but if they don't they have ridden into a kill zone. That isn't worth the risk, especially since skirmishers are dispersed, so you won't inflict high casualties even if they are routed, not without losing your order yourself. That is a high risk, low payoff tactic.

I will point out the vast majority of military commanders of the time believed that the battle was decided by charges. They differed as to if they thought cavalry or the bayonet was the deciding arm, but you're going against the majority of the military wisdom of the time. And those who thought otherwise generally though artillery was the new deciding arm.

Infantry spread out and in the open are vulnerable to cavalry, infantry spread out and in cover or manoeuvring as per C20th fire and move tactics are not the same thing. Because cavalry has to be able to get into contact with them as a group and maintain it's own unit cohesion (if they lose cohesion they end up losing the charge impetus or getting stung out). You actually reference the same issue when you mention charging C19th skirmishers above only it even worse here because C20th infantry have individual weapons that are way more effective.

Then we get to stuff like grenades, grenades and charging horses not a great combo

Marksmanship, yeah maybe, but remember your cavalry are charging as a group to maintain effectiveness when contacting the enemy, that's a big target.

Basically cavalry need good going and open ground, back when we marched infantry around in close formation so did infantry. But by C20th that changes, basically the infantry end up going where the cavalry can't effectively follow them (in charge order anyway). This removes the cavalry combat advantage getting into close combat quickly, possibly with surprise but definitely with impact. Additionally the increasing fire power of even small infantry units only makes this worse. In 1815 the British musket it being fired 3 times in a minute with effect at large formations of men at 100 yards. But 100 years later and the bolt action SMLE is fired in mad minute drills where riflemen were expected to hit a 1.2m sq at 300 yards 15 times in a minute. Napoleonic Cavalry charges tend to max out at 12mph or 350 yards a min.




All of which (and machine guns too, but also fast firing more mobile artillery and so on) is why as per the earlier links cavalry changed from chargers into mobile infantry who would ride quickly to an advantageous position and then dismount and fight as infantry.


WW1 was a large scale transition time here for this although it had started earlier in more limited conflicts that correspondingly less attention was paid to. Yes your right some started marching infantry round in big groups, but actually by the end we ended up splitting them up more (fire and manoeuvre as a tactic came in in WW1 not WW2).

Now WW1 was a wide ranging war with lots of situations and contexts, some or which worked for cavalry (eastern Europe as mentioned, Africa and the Mid east even more so). However as vehicles came in later, even the mounted infantry part of cavalry was further restricted. It still works in terrain that don't work for vehicles, which is why Patton wanted them in Sicily and the Italian hills, and they were used in Bataan as mentioned earlier.

Of course ultimately in even later conflicts, this is why cavalry units end up in helicopters! They're still a rapid reaction force just not with pockets full of sugar lumps!

Oh and infantry units in the Zulu wars tended to be heavily outnumbered and operating over large areas so had to support one another or risk getting isolated and overrun by an enemy who even on foot moved faster than them. But cavalry tend not to outnumber anyone! But you are right rifle fire can have a machine gun like effect, its just as rifles get more effective the less you need to form up in close formation to get that effect. The rifle in the Zulu War was a single shot breech loader, the rifle in WW1 was an (albeit fast) bolt action with a 10 round magazine. Hence the oft repeated reports of German troops mistaking British rifle fire for machine gun fire. But those British troops weren't standing in early C19th close formation to achieve that, just firing their rifles quickly.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Infantry spread out and in the open are vulnerable to cavalry, infantry spread out and in cover or manoeuvring as per C20th fire and move tactics are not the same thing. Because cavalry has to be able to get into contact with them as a group and maintain it's own unit cohesion (if they lose cohesion they end up losing the charge impetus).

Infantry can't always get away with sticking strictly to terrain cavalry can't effectively move through.

On the other hand getting caught in a place like that by machine gun fire is probably not much less bad than being overrun by cavalry would be.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Infantry can't always get away with sticking strictly to terrain cavalry can't effectively move through.

True but they can do so now far more than they could before when they were also moving in tight formation because their combat role required it to be effective.

The difference being early C19th battles were largely fought in open terrain and largely within visual range because well that's generally where everyone had to be in order to form up and do their job effectively. Honorable exception to skirmishers and snipers like early rifle units.

Only as time went on those early rifle units equipment, advantages and tactics become more the norm and suddenly most infantry are doing their job in dispersed formation and in a wider range of terrain. Only that never changes for cavalry, unless those cavalry dismount and act as infantry. At the same time of course those chaps in those rifle units become individually more dangerous. Something which doesn't happen with cavalry acting as melee chargers. I.e. Lances and swords didn't become more individually effective C19th to C20th in the same way that rifles did.

Also there is I think a distinction to be made between cavalry moving through and charging through terrain. Cavalry charges are dangerous for the chargers, terrain you might be able to pass through might still make a close order charge hard going. Similarly some of the link given made the point about cavalry being good at moving around at night (faster than foot and no engine noise) and yeah while riding around at night can also be dangerous, trying to charge at night is more so!

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

On the other hand getting caught in a place like that by machine gun fire is probably not much less bad than being overrun by cavalry would be.

Exactly, which is why as I said they don't wander about in the open like that if they can help it since to do so is to invite all sorts of awful fates (it's just cavalry charges stopped being near the top of the list of those fates a while ago).

Then of course you have the issue that even if infantry are in the open in their dispersed formation their ability to effect incoming cavalry is not dependent on them forming up into closed ranks and volley firing and/or then forming a bayonet square if it doesn't look like its going to be enough. Instead they just shoot them with their rifles and embedded MGs (or covering firebase of mates).


Sorry I'm more just riffing off your points, not trying to say you don't know all that!

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Minuteman37

So without the US Israel could only manage a standing army made up of 0.005681818% of their population? The US is bankrolling 176,000 Israeli soldiers?

I don't know about that, but I'd say African countries like Chad are a better model of the types of forces and force densities that you'd see in an ATE scenario. The 1965-1979 Chadian Civil War and the following wars against Libya were fought by less than 20,000 troops out of a population of 4-5 million. At times, they had support from the French or the US, but the core force of 4,000 to 8,000 light infantry was always available.

Modern Chad claims to have an army of 30,000 from a population of 12 million and they're spending 2-4% of their GDP (depending on how much fighting is going on) supporting that army.

That puts the army of a AtE nation-state with a population of 20,000 at 60 guys, which seems unreasonably low. I suspect AtE communities devote a much larger proportion of their GDP to the military, which helps explain the perpetual impoverishment. Spending 20% of the GDP on the military would give you that battalion sized expeditionary force, and the Imperial Japanese were semi-sustainably spending 20+% of their GDP on their military in the run-up to WWII so that seems plausible.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Minuteman37

So without the US Israel could only manage a standing army made up of 0.005681818% of their population? The US is bankrolling 176,000 Israeli soldiers?

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

I don't know about that, but I'd say African countries like Chad are a better model of the types of forces and force densities that you'd see in an ATE scenario. The 1965-1979 Chadian Civil War and the following wars against Libya were fought by less than 20,000 troops out of a population of 4-5 million. At times, they had support from the French or the US, but the core force of 4,000 to 8,000 light infantry was always available.

Modern Chad claims to have an army of 30,000 from a population of 12 million and they're spending 2-4% of their GDP (depending on how much fighting is going on) supporting that army.

That puts the army of a AtE nation-state with a population of 20,000 at 60 guys, which seems unreasonably low. I suspect AtE communities devote a much larger proportion of their GDP to the military, which helps explain the perpetual impoverishment. Spending 20% of the GDP on the military would give you that battalion sized expeditionary force, and the Imperial Japanese were semi-sustainably spending 20+% of their GDP on their military in the run-up to WWII so that seems plausible.

Yep I agree. I think it's a bit hard to go off modern 1st world military spends and population to soldier ratio (especially for special forces).

the IDF is not all special forces and benefits from the fact that it not only has national service but military national service that includes women. It also has a recent history that shall we say probably concentrates the minds of it's population more than 1st world average in this area!

I think most ATE sociaties will have a mass militia basis, with maybe a professional core.

Ultimately resources will be scarce, and manpower will be one of the most scarce ones. I thinking looking at a more feudal/dark ages model is not unreasonable here, not only in terms of how many you have but how they train and operate. (Large scale campaign seasons being bookended by planting/harvesting seasons)


Obviously if the campaign setting has found a way around feeding mouths, this will be less true!

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Infantry spread out and in the open are vulnerable to cavalry, infantry spread out and in cover or manoeuvring as per C20th fire and move tactics are not the same thing. Because cavalry has to be able to get into contact with them as a group and maintain it's own unit cohesion (if they lose cohesion they end up losing the charge impetus or getting stung out). You actually reference the same issue when you mention charging C19th skirmishers above only it even worse here because C20th infantry have individual weapons that are way more effective.

Did some research on a few of the late charges. In particular the one in the Philippines (because that's the easiest). World Wars horsemen aren't using sabres, they're generally using pistols, and essentially relying on shock to make sure the enemy routes. So they're not staying in close order... but its also not a sabre charge. But they're not acting like dismounted infantry either.

But 100 years later and the bolt action SMLE is fired in mad minute drills where riflemen were expected to hit a 1.2m sq at 300 yards 15 times in a minute.

Those are in the peace-time professional British army though. Those are crack professionals expected to maintain British prestige against the more numerous conscripts of the continent.

But those British troops weren't standing in early C19th close formation to achieve that, just firing their rifles quickly.

No, but they were pretty close together. Sorry if my term implied that. I meant they would stick in a small group with a high density of firepower. Either way, I'm not charging those folks.

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On the "How many men can we support", here are some thoughts:

15 to 35 year old men form around 1/6th of the population when you have a developing world population pyramid. It drops to 1/8th in modern US. Remember a lot of your population will be too old or too young to be effective, even in an emergency situation. The gender restriction is more flexible and something of a can of worms, but remember that you will have men in that bracket who can't fight for one reason or another. Yes, these numbers are young: more likely to use 18 to 40, but population pyramids generally don't break down numbers like that.

There is a big difference between "Militia" and "Soldier". A militia man can work a normal job most the time, but you can't deliver him to a location far from home, and he can only practice a few times a month. The Militia man is much much cheaper.

In an ATE scenario, you're often functioning on someone else's economy. If you just inherited all of your guns and ammo, you don't need to manufacture it, so you can support greater densities than expected.

Modern war has produced some crazy soldier percentages. in WWI France and Germany put 20% of their population in the field. The British and Russians put about 8% and 7% into the field. In world war 2 the desperate russians put... 20% of the population into the army.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Did some research on a few of the late charges. In particular the one in the Philippines (because that's the easiest). World Wars horsemen aren't using sabres, they're generally using pistols, and essentially relying on shock to make sure the enemy routes. So they're not staying in close order... but its also not a sabre charge. But they're not acting like dismounted infantry either.

A cavalry charge that doesn't stick in (fairly) close order gets strung out and destroyed as they arrive piecemeal unless they outnumber their opponents. You also lose that shock effect. So OK they may not have been charging as tight as some of their illustrious predecessors* by they were still charging as a pretty tight group.

Pistol vs. sabre not sure it makes that much difference, if nothing else earlier cavalry also had the pistols of the day, and well to be frank pistol range in combat situations ain't great at the best of times, it doesn't improve when you are charging on a horse!

However yes OK even in abstract at range C20th Pistols are better against rifles than sabres, however C20th rifles are still better than pistols in pretty much all but the closest of close range contexts. Where ironically a sabre would probably be good as well, (and a rifle with bayonet would also be good).

But OK look to go back to the original point did your further research uncover lots of hitherto unknown instances of successful cavalry charges in WW2 (or even WW1) that would change the overall point that cavalry charging in was not a significant thing or effective tactic in the C20th. Or are we really just nibbling around with very fringe combinations of things that might once in a blue moon give the cavalry charge enough of advantage to be successfully pulled off against C20th rifle units leading to noteworthy anecdotes like the Bataan charge ;-)?

(don't get me wrong I've done more than my share of nibbling around with fringe combinations in my time on this forum, so that ain't a dig!)



*a really close order charge is a tough and dangerous thing to do before you even factor the enemy!

Originally Posted by ericthered

Those are in the peace-time professional British army though. Those are crack professionals expected to maintain British prestige against the more numerous conscripts of the continent.

OK the BEF were good but they weren't that good. Also the comparison was to 3 volleys a minute which itself was also better then average for the period in time, the same organisational context being vaguely in effect. The point being we're talking a huge increase in firepower and effective range of fire for infantry with no similar increase for cavalry charges.

Originally Posted by ericthered

No, but they were pretty close together. Sorry if my term implied that. I meant they would stick in a small group with a high density of firepower. Either way, I'm not charging those folks.

They weren't that close together (you still need to be able to shout orders and maintain some cohesion of course) and more importantly for the point they were firing from prone or rest from the cover they had. The main point here is as fire power got more dense simply as a factor of the weapons a involved, the likelihood of meeting folks you would consequently "not charge" increases. Once you get away from synchronised volley fire infantry no longer gain much from standing shoulder to shoulder. Moverover as your target gets more dispersed you need to disperse yourself to actually fully engage them*, this has a knock on effects of that shock and awe impetus you want when you charge, and how much force you can bring to bare at the point of impact. Of course those rifle men with their far longer engagement range can of course be more dispersed and keep shooting you. Perhaps more of an issue is their mates in units on their flanks can also engage you as well because of their extended range, and you are not even charging them!


*otherwise you end up with all your guys hitting a proportionally insignificant number of them, and now you're a cavalry unit that is either milling around while taking fire (not good) or you have to either retire, re-form and recharge (all while taking fire) or carry though and find another target or turn around re-form and re-charge the original one (all while taking fire).

Originally Posted by ericthered

------------------------------------------------------

On the "How many men can we support", here are some thoughts:

15 to 35 year old men form around 1/6th of the population when you have a developing world population pyramid. It drops to 1/8th in modern US. Remember a lot of your population will be too old or too young to be effective, even in an emergency situation. The gender restriction is more flexible and something of a can of worms, but remember that you will have men in that bracket who can't fight for one reason or another. Yes, these numbers are young: more likely to use 18 to 40, but population pyramids generally don't break down numbers like that.

There is a big difference between "Militia" and "Soldier". A militia man can work a normal job most the time, but you can't deliver him to a location far from home, and he can only practice a few times a month. The Militia man is much much cheaper.

In an ATE scenario, you're often functioning on someone else's economy. If you just inherited all of your guns and ammo, you don't need to manufacture it, so you can support greater densities than expected.

Modern war has produced some crazy soldier percentages. in WWI France and Germany put 20% of their population in the field. The British and Russians put about 8% and 7% into the field. In world war 2 the desperate russians put... 20% of the population into the army.

Yeah I think these are good points, although I would say France and Germany couldn't maintain that level of mobilisation.

and on the function on someone else's economy point I know what you mean, but if you don't start functioning on your economy in this regard you can only fight for as long as your cache lasts.