Why did the French field Cuirassiers - completely unchanged from the Napoleonic Wars - in WWI? I mean what conceivable doctrine could they have? Did they actually see action?

They were very conservative and stuck in there ways

>>63807025 (OP)
1500 german cuirassiers and dragoons charged Belgian lancers in the opening of WW1. Proceeding to be slaughtered by a dismounted bicycle battallions rifle fire. Battle of the silver helmets. So everyone was expecting to use cavalry.

>>63807043
>So everyone was expecting to use cavalry
especially douglas haig, he was fiending for a good calvary charge

>>63807125
At least Haig never sent cavalry charging against massed rifles and machine-guns. Cavalry were the only troops with the mobility to quickly exploit a breakthrough so it was reasonable to keep them around. The British cavalry were actually used very sensibly.

>>63807025 (OP)
It's called being based and /fa/. Normalfags are incapable of understanding the Gallic spirit.

>>63807025 (OP)
In theory they worked to counter artillery since even by WWI artillery crews were poorly-armed up close and slow enough firing that a cavalry unit could be expected to close the distance, especially flanking.

I guess it was the general idea that cavalry would still be a meaningful part of modern armies, plus the relative prestige of the cuirassiers as heavy cavalry. The Germans and Russians also had some cavalry units formally classed as cuirassiers, but I'm unsure if they actually used the breastplates in the field, or just on parade. I know most of the French stopped using them pretty quickly.

I mean the age of horse cavalry was clearly ending by the time WWI rolled around, but I guess it might still have had some purpose when fronts were more mobile. So very early and quite late on the western front, and more often on the eastern and and middle eastern fronts.

If you can't field enough airplanes to do recon, cavalry might still fill the role of scouts, and if you don't have armour to exploit tactical or strategic weak points, there are still things cavalry might accomplish. You see a couple of cavalry charges as late as WWII. However in the most static phases of the western front, the time of mud and blood, machineguns, artillery and trenches, then yeah, there's not really a point to fancy French lads with shiny breastplates.

>>63807514
As the old adage goes, something doesn't go obsolete until a new thing comes out that can do its job, better. Between helicopters and APCs, horsemen were finally outmodded on the battlefield for swift response, and by then were being deployed more often as dragoons than fighting on horseback itself.
I have an old US officer's manual from the early 80s that was still talking about horseback cavalry as though it were a serious formation.

>>63807025 (OP)
same reason people are still coping about tanks

>>63807608
"Tanks are obsolete!" Shouts turd worlder for millionth time this century

>>63807706
cope, time to let go and move on

>>63807295
I think you mean élan.

>>63807772
Anti-tank rifles invented
>Tanks are obsolete!
Anti-tank guns invented
>Tanks are obsolete!
Man portable shaped charges invented
>Tanks are obsolete!
ATGMs invented
>Tanks are obsolete!
Attack helicopters invented
>Tanks are obsolete!
Precision guided munitions invented
>Tanks are obsolete!
Hand grenades are tied to Walmart drones
>Tanks are obsolete!

The wave of morale collapse caused by encirclement and direct hits on headquarters was so attractive that tanks took over the role.

>>63808244
Tanks were capable of performing the shock role cavalry used to do but they couldn't really dismount and immediately reinforce a position like dragoons. It wasn't until mature APCs that armies went full-mechanized.

>>63808240
Tank just means fast direct fire weapon will never not be unwanted in some form

>>63808434
>Tank just means fast direct fire weapon
>Toyota Hilux with a MILAN strapped to it is a tank
Add armor/protection against small arms and contemporary threats to the definition too. That also will never be unwanted in some capacity.

>>63807025 (OP)
>why use cavalry
because motorization wasn't a thing jet and bikes are shit for cross country
>completely unchanged
no they weren't
>conceivable doctrine could they have
French doctrine in general assumed that a determined attack could still close in with and break an infantry line.
As such they trained both for the charge, the pursuit and exploitation.
That is to say, that they can break the enemies infantry if the conditions are right, pursue an enemy that is running or to exploit an opening others have made
They where also meant to screen the main force, secure it's flanks and scout

It al boils down to a horse being faster than a man. That doesn't change because there's bolt actions and machine guns around.

>>63808240
Tanks as in heavy ass expensive MBTs. Tracked armored vehicles will still be around, but in lightly armored AFV form.

>>63808240
arguably tanks were shit in ww2 already. the red army lost 2000 tanks in the battle of berlin. and the battle of budapest which should have favored tanks was very costly for both the german and the soviet tank force there, even though both deployed their most experienced crews in their most modern tanks.

>>63809694
>tanks are shit because soviets died en mass
>rifles are shit because soviets died en mass
>boots are shit because soviets died en mass

>French queer-assers

Pretty sure the Brits first kill in WW1 was during a cavalry charge. The early part of WW1 was very heavily Napolenoic, with lines of infantry and shit. It wasn't until the Germans got massacred by a single Brit machine gun at one point (and would have all died if the Brits didn't run out of ammo) that they went 'Lets build trenches and defences and just use our artillery to rape then advance' and they did that so the Brits and French went 'shit we need to do this too in order to stop being raped by artillery' and then they did it and then both sides went 'Fuck we need supplies to do this, quick, build to the ocean!' and so they did it.

The Germans then got fucked by the Brits naval blockading them and couldn't get a decisive breakthrough before they ran out of supplies, even when they could concentrate on the Western front.

>>63809728
The Germans almost made it to Paris in 1914 but when Russia advanced into the East rather than accept a small loss of territory and finish the war in the West, the Germans stopped and turned to finish Russia before then trying to resume the march on Paris which almost worked till they ran out of men and at that point the war was lost.

>>63808648
And your source of this is what? People were saying the same thing after the Yom Kippur War and yet the 1990s Gulf War was still a thing.

>>63809834
The issues were twofold. By the Marne the German advance was running out of steam and they were overextended, and if the Russians did break through they could very well reach Berlin not long after Paris might have fallen.

>>63809834
Ironically enough, the only power in the entire war to successfully capture an enemy capital was Austria-Hungary, who were able to seize Belgrade from the Serbs

>>63807025 (OP)
Just look at their facial hair, can you really say no to that?

>>63809702
shermans also failed spectacularly. they were called tommy cookers for a reason.

>Since leaving Prilep, Jouinot-Gambetta’s Moroccans had covered 57 miles in six days, over some of the most difficult country in the Balkans. When his patrols entered the city the main Serbian army was still, by road, thirty miles to the south. … the second largest town in Serbia had been liberated. And that evening Franchet d’Espérey was able to pass on his information to Bulgarian delegates who had come to sue for peace.

>>63809972
Shermans were probably the most practical (and as such the best) tank of the war, served its purpose brilliantly and most importantly kept its crews alive and capable of escaping in case of catastrophic situations
Any tank pre blowout panels having its ammo cook off was basicslly doomed, that's a given and was no way exclusive or pre diposed to shermans
I hope you're just a shitposter, for your sake

>>63809972
You have to be over 18 to post on this site.

>>63809972
Also source me on the Tommy cooker name, particularly from contemporary accounts
Because American crews liked the tank, and importantly british and russians also raved about how good it was compared to their domestic vehicles

>>63810060
If I had to take a bet I would guess its German in origin, I dont know of anyone else who called the British "tommies"

>>63810172
You'd be wrong.
The brits called their own soldiers Tommies for longer then Germany has existed.
The Tommy cooker thing was from a shitty book published well after the war..

Many prototype aircraft were labeled killer or widowmaker until early problems were discovered and fixed.
Nicknames for weapons should not be taken seriously.

>>63807574
>an old US officer's manual from the early 80s that was still talking about horseback cavalry as though it were a serious formation
It should be, if only to be good riders if not paraders. There is still plenty of terrain that requires four hooves to get around. Still not cavalry, though, more dragooning.

>>63810045
about 7000 shermans got destroyed in the european theatre. thats a pretty huge number, given these are losses for only 2 years against an enemy who was already mostly beaten and had his focus on an entirely different front.

>>63809875
Germans occupied Bucharest until 1918.

>>63809694
>arguably tanks were shit in ww2 already. the red army lost 2000 tanks in the battle of berlin. and the battle of budapest which should have favored tanks was very costly for both the german and the soviet tank force there, even though both deployed their most experienced crews in their most modern tanks.
losing 300000 men in berlin is huge compared to 2000 tank losses(still 4000 left), or am i missing something here?

>>63810060
>russians also raved about how good it was compared to their domestic vehicles

>David M. Glantz wrote: "[The Sherman’s] narrow treads made it much less mobile on mud than its German and Soviet counterparts, and it consumed great quantities of fuel..." Glantz noted that Soviet tankers preferred the American tanks to the British ones, but preferred Soviet ones most of all.[47][48]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_Sherman

>>63807025 (OP)
>completely unchanged from the Napoleonic Wars
They weren't.
>what conceivable doctrine could they have?
Traditional cavalry roles--- reconnaissance, counter-reconnaissance, screening, flanking, pursuit, exploitation, etc. Roles which the armies of the world would continue to use horse cavalry for until well into the 1930s.
>Did they actually see action?
Yes, both as cavalry in 1914 and from 1915 onwards sometimes as dismounted infantry. The helmets and breastplates were apparently quite well-liked in the trenches as they were effective against shrapnel. Infantry units would have to wait until 1916 to get helmets.

>>63807025 (OP)
Fpbp
>>63807034
Read a book OP

>>63807025 (OP)
Even if they ended up fighting dismounted because of the realities of trench warfare, I'd still rather wear the cuirass than nothing. I'm sure at least one life was saved from a glancing shrapnel blow by it. It's basically proto trench armor.

>>63811432
>Still not cavalry, though, more dragooning.

>>63807025 (OP)
You have to look at the French Plan XVII. They attempted to follow this plan at the start of the war. While the Schlieffen plan was a broad hook through the low countries and into France, XVII was done under the assumption that the Germans would launch their primary offensive from the Alsace-Lorraine area due to the logistics already in place.

It thus called for a counter offensive into there. If they were correct on where the Germans were moving from, and the timing was right, it would have been fairly effective.

Think of the Battle of Waterloo when the huge French infantry column is marching towards Wellington's left. The Scots Greys completely blunted and slaughtered that offensive (even if they over committed).

While not taken to literally imply the cavalry would have charged the Germans as a primary action, XVII was an attempt to let the Germans move first and then hit them mid-action with a counter thrust.

In the early days of the war, there was a considerable French force amassing along the Lorraine ridge. I know General Levillain was in command of the 6th Cavalry Division.

The Cavalry, all forms, was to act as scouts and screening. Heavy cavalry would be akin to how US tank doctrine kept the TDs in reserve until needed and then deployed as a rapid heavy punch.

People forget that the Germans also deployed cavalry as screening and scouting in these days as well.

Well, it turns out that there in Lorraine, the cavalry on both sides kind of sucked at screening movement and scouting for the enemy. However, because the Germans had the operational tempo and resolve, AND that their cavalry was much more integrated with light infantry and attached light artillery/machine gun vs French cavalry operating as its own force, when clashes DID happen, German forces were more quickly able to respond and seize initiative.

>>63813529
(cot'd)
It was not without controversy in France that the cavalry failed so much in Alsace Lorraine either, almost the entire general staff was reassigned or dismissed.

But uniforms aside, all 3 major Western powers planned for some cavalry action before the war. Remember, this is the war that had rifles with 1000+ meter volley sights so regiments could mass fire down on other large formations, and this would be decided in a few great battles man-to-man, hand-to-hand. It clearly did not happen as any side intended in such a catastrophic way we are still feeling the effects.

But tl;dr - French heavy cavalry was still envisioned as an anti Infantry response based on a plan that relied on a counter-offensive writ large for the entire French army. When the earth has not been shelled into oblivion and trenches still need dug and artillery needs to be sighted, 3 rows of heavy cavalry charging out of the woods onto the flanks of your infantry regiment caught on the march will fuck you up and still would probably stand a chance of causing a rout. (A <50% chance, but a chance nonetheless)

>>63813548
** 1 more amendment, the staff dismissal was primarily within the First Army but more broadly among the Cavalry officers due to their failure to properly report German movement or successfully engage in any substantial offensive actions to deny German movement.

>>63807034
Kys dutch tranny

>>63810178
Brits called the Shermans "Ronsons" (a make of cigarette-lighter "lights first time, every time"). Americans called them Zippos in the same way. Germans called them Tommy-cookers.

>>63810172
The nickname comes from an example army paybook from the 18th century IIRC in which the fictional soldier was named Thomas Atkins.

>>63816323
That Ronson slogan is post-war.

>>63813225
Somehow I don't think this is true...

>>63816323

That's just untrue boomer pop history.

American Tankers were a significantly less likely to become casualties during WWII compared to infantrymen.

If you were part of US Armor Force (N=49,516) deployed overseas during WWII, you had a 2.82% chance of being killed in action and a 10% chance of being wounded in action.

If you were an American infantryman during WWII (N=757,712) deployed overseas during WWII, you had a 15.52% chance of being killed in action and a 62.21% chance of being wounded in action.

>>63809875
The Brits took Constantinople in 1918.

>>63807025 (OP)
Kinda a side point but a lot of normies like to say how stupid it was to have cav in ww1 but they were actually quite effective

Most armies used them as dismounted infantry quite often as a rapid reaction force and were reasonable effective. Apparently they worked well as anti artillery but I kinda just heard that from someone and it doesn't sound true. Scouting remained their main role and were useful.

Kwir-ass-e-err

>>63817484
>you had a 15.52% chance of being killed in action and a 62.21% chance of being wounded in action.
No shot
I don't believe the numbers

>>63808240
The fact that you guys are so utterly sensitive and opinionated to it more than anything shows me you're the same as the cavalrymen who couldn't get with the times. It's straight up not a case of logic rationalism for you, it's because you guys have a romantic attachment to tanks and can't let go of that. I know what kind of man you lot are. The kind that made an anime about girls doing tank-sports possible, the kind that like the Germans for their tanks first and anything else second. The kind that likes space marines because they are walking tanks.

>>63811453
You act like that's a lot despite Germany losing more than 9x that amount of tanks over only about 3x the amount of time and russia losingalmost 12x as many in only 2x the amount of time.

>>63821992
>says the guy not making a logical, rational argument and instead is just using emotion to attack the intent behind his opponents argument

>>63821992
>He says, while advocating for a return to aircraft with specs identical to 30s aircraft only with robots piloting them
Consider the fact that the US played with drones like crazy during the Gulf War and GWoT concluded they were at best a supplement to manned scouting craft and CAS.
On top of being vulnerable to all the things tanks are, they can also be disabled by small arms and radio jammers. Every attempt at making drones armored leaves them barely functional track-throwing machines that are worse in performance than putting an MT-LB in a direct fire role.
You might as well say the militarized minivan is the APC of the future because it's being used munificently by both sides due to ease of production.

>>63822005
>Germany losing more than 9x that amount of tanks
>Germany lost 63,000+ tanks
Come again

>>63822226
The viability of military drones is increasing alongside the monumental escalation of AI capabilities. Jamming is of less use the more autonomously they can operate. Even if it's not this year or the next, it's coming