I was an artilleryman in the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (many years ago) so I can provide firsthand experience about such a unit. Even in the army few soldiers know much about the Armored Cav. There are not many of these units around. When I was assigned to the Armored Cav I thought, "Huh? I am artillery, not cavalry. There must be some kind of mistake. What am I going to do, charge about on horses or something?" To my surprise there was indeed artillery (a single battery of 8 self-propelled howitzers) and yes, the unit charged about constantly on field manouvers.
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qobalt said:
Tanks? Or AFV's? The M3's more of a combat vehicle than a scouting vehicle, isn't it?
Brasidas said:
The M3 was designed primarily as a scouting and recon vehicle. In theory, it was not supposed to engage tanks, only soft targets or lightly armored/armed enemy vehicles. Its mission is to spot the enemy then let the tanks, infantry, and artillery take care of the rest. However, it was found that the M3 25mm gun and, if equipped, Anti-tank missile launcher, was capable of taking out enemy tanks quite well so the role was adjusted.
The US Army underestimated the superiority of its technology and overestimated enemy capabilities using Soviet technology.
off-topic:john heidle said:
If I remember right, the badass Colonel in the movie "Apocalypse Now" (in the the famous ride of the Valkyries scene) said something like: "We swapped our horses for helicopters in 19XX." And their unit was still being called cavalry something.
I might be wrong, does someone remember this better?
Waffenbruder said:
Yeah, but I'm sure Kilgore knew he was leaving something out. They couldn't have done directly from horses to helicopters. As far as I know, the last "true" cavalry division was disbanded around '42, shortly before Torch, and sent forth with trucks.
That's true.Thistletooth said:
For those who are interested about 1st. cavalry division, here's their homepage, which also has a history section. I was surprised by how long history and tradition the division has. Interesting read.
Thistletooth said:
The Air Cav, as it exists today, is quite different from the Vietnam era. The Vietnam Era air cav was developed and designed by the Kennedy administration. The modern day representative of these units is the 101st Air Assault Division. The modren day Air Cav units are extremely high tech Attack Helicopters, Capable of engaging enemy positions and tanks from a distance that the enemy cannot even see them over the horizon.
They were extremey effective against the Iraqi tanks and defense positions three years ago.
All that stated, I'm really not aware of any form of air cav units existing prior to the 1960's. The role of the helicopter in Korea was pretty much scouting and transporting wounded soldiers from the battle fields. There just weren't any large enough helicopters to carry more than 4 soldiers at a time until the late 50's / early 60's.