Please reply direct to Lou Coatney.
Andrew Jameson
Chair, Russian Committee, ALL
----- Original Message -----
From: "Elizabeth Clark" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 3:51 PM
Subject: Russian cavalry units' horse replacements: QUERY
From: Lou Coatney [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 1:31 PM
Subject: Russian cavalry units' horse replacements question.
In historical simulation games about the Great Patriotic War -- aka Russian
Front -- of World War II, there are rules for replacements. Human
replacements were rather steady, at least until the early years' death tolls
gutted entire generations. Tank and vehicle replacements were disrupted
by the first year transfer of the factories to the Urals, but accelerated
in a constant fashion thereafter.
However, I don't know that anyone has mentioned anywhere what and when the
replacement rates were for horses, which were so crucial in Russia both
for transportation and combat. (Although a few ignorant commentators in the
West joke about the World War II Russian cavalry units, they were highly
effective for their high cross-country operational mobility -- both in
speed and the ability to negotiate difficult terrain (such as swamps,
forest, hills, rivers, deserts ... all of which abound in European
Russia).
Early in the war, there were the corps- sized armored cavalry "groups" of
a few cavalry divisions and tank brigades ... usually named after their
commanders,like "Boldin" and "Dovator" ... which had *very* "mixed"/bloody
results when directly committed against the Germans' "motorized"-then-Panzer
korps.
However, in the last years of the war ... when the Red Army was liberating
the Mother- land and sweeping into the Balkans and Central Europe ...
there were the VERY effective army-level "cavalry/mechanized groups"
usually composed of one or more cavalry corps and one mechanized corps
... also usually named after their commanders, like "Pliev.") However,
there were grievous losses among animals just as there were among men and
machines. The German-born draft animals of the Wehrmacht didn't last past
the first, 1941/42 winter of the war, for the most part, and the death
toll among the Russian horses and ponies was also high.
SO: Obviously, there were horse replacements, but WHEN -- what time of
the year -- would most of these have been "recruited" (and how old would
they have had to be)?
Do (most) mares foal at a given time of the year?
Could our Russian correspondents shed any light on this?
(This also brings to mind the film about a Red Army occupation unit
during the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 -- "The Journey" (1959),
starring Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr, Jason Robards, Robert Morley, E.G.
Marshall, and even a little Ron Howard -- depicting the Russians' love
for their horses to the strains of Shostakovich's 5th Symphony, no less.)
Thanks for any help.
Lou Coatney, Macomb IL
http://LCoat.tripod.com
(Free/educational military and naval
history boardgames)
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