3rd. In order to get freedom of manœuvre for our squadrons to a flank,
cavalry are bound to meet an enemy’s cavalry force, possibly belonging
to an enemy whose cavalry does not leave its horse artillery behind
with the corps artillery in a great general engagement.
On which side wins will depend the subsequent course of events on that
flank.
4th. A cavalry force of three regiments and one battery of horse
artillery is quite equal, or more than equal, to one of four regiments
without horse artillery.
Having in view the above consideration, cavalry should not be prepared
to forgo their horse artillery in a great general engagement, since
it foredooms them to the inaction of the French and German cavalry
divisions of the war of 1870, or perhaps to their comparative failure
and losses, when, unsupported by horse artillery fire, they attacked
infantry columns to cover the retreat of their own infantry.
Special arrangements of this kind are not made, and we know also, too
well, that “No man can serve two masters.”
The latest German regulations appear, therefore, to have been
formulated on sound reasoning.
CHAPTER XII
HORSE ARTILLERY FIRE EFFECT COMPARED WITH RIFLE FIRE
Henderson in _Science of War_, written in 1893-1902, asked the
question, whether the necessary fire power should be found by the
cavalry itself or by a body of mounted riflemen attached to the brigade
or the division? and answered it by proposing trained mounted infantry.
To the view that this fire power had better be supplied by the horse
artillery he gives little or no consideration. Machine guns are also
more or less ignored, and yet these in common with horse artillery are
what the _cavalry attack_ requires most in support.
Those who have frequently had to rely on fire to cover a mounted
advance will agree that the fire of two hundred riflemen at eight
rounds a minute for five minutes is not to be compared in efficacy with
the shells of a Q.F. horse artillery battery. Their comparative value
would work out in projectiles as follows:
Guns. Rounds. Bullets. Minutes. Bullets.
6 × 10 × 236 × 5 = 70,800.
Rifles. Rounds. Minutes. Bullets.
200 × 8 ... × 5 = 8000.
That is, the riflemen fire less than 1/8 of the number of projectiles
fired by a battery, or 1770 riflemen shoot as many projectiles as a
battery in five minutes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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