This was the backbone of the military, cutting through foot troops like a knife through butter. Any cavalry regiment was able to attack ten times the enemy's foot forces, because it had maneuverability, mobility and the ability to strike quickly and powerfully. The cavalry not only could fight in isolation from the rest of the troops, it could cover long distances in the shortest possible time, appearing in the rear and on the flanks of the enemy. The cavalry regiment could instantly turn around and regroup depending on the situation, change one type of action to another, that is, the fighters knew how to fight both on foot and on horseback. Tasks were solved in all the variety of combat situations - tactical, operational, and strategic.
Cavalry classification
Just like in the Russian infantry, there were three groups here. The light cavalry (hussars and lancers, and since 1867 the Cossacks joined them) was intended for reconnaissance and guard service. Linear was represented by dragoons - initially theywere called dragons when the infantry had just been put on horseback. Subsequently, it became exactly that cavalry regiment, which can operate on foot. Dragoons gained special fame under Peter the Great. The third group of cavalry - irregular (in translation - incorrect) and heavy - consisted of Cossacks and Kalmyks, as well as heavily armed cuirassiers who were masters of close attacks.
In other countries, the cavalry was divided more simply: light, medium and heavy, which depended primarily on the mass of the horse. Light - horse rangers, lancers, hussars (a horse weighed up to five hundred kilograms), medium - dragoons (up to six hundred), heavy - knights, reiters, grenadiers, carabinieri, cuirassiers (a horse in the early Middle Ages weighed more than eight hundred kilograms). The Cossacks of the Russian army have long been considered irregular cavalry, but gradually fit into the structure of the army of the Russian Empire, taking a place next to the dragoons. It was the Cossack cavalry regiment that became the main threat to the enemy in the wars of the nineteenth century. The cavalry troops were divided into units according to the requirements of the administration and the tasks assigned. These are strategic, tactical, frontline and army cavalry.
Kievan Rus
Kievan Rus knew two types of troops - infantry and cavalry, but it was with the help of the latter that battles were won, engineering and transport work was carried out, rears were covered, although the main place was occupied, of course, by infantry. Horses were used to bring warriors to the area. This happened untileleventh century. Further, for some time, the infantry won victory on an equal footing with the horsemen, then the cavalry began to dominate. Perhaps it was then that the first cavalry regiment appeared. The constant setbacks in the war with the steppes taught the princes of Kyiv a lot, and soon the Russians became no worse riders: disciplined, organized, united, brave.
Then the main victories of the Russian army began. So, in 1242, the cavalry played a huge role in the defeat of the Teutonic Order (Battle on the Ice). Then there was the Battle of Kulikovo, where Dmitry Donskoy's ambush reserve cavalry regiment predetermined the outcome of the battle with the horde army. The Tatar-Mongols had a shock, light cavalry, excellently organized (tumens, thousands, hundreds and tens), perfectly wielding a bow, and in addition, a spear, saber, ax and club. The tactics were partly Persian or Parthian - the entry of light cavalry into the flanks and rear, then accurate and prolonged shelling from Mongolian long-range bows, and finally an attack of crushing force, which was already carried out by heavy cavalry. Tactics proven and almost invincible. And yet, in the fifteenth century, the Russian cavalry had already developed enough to withstand it.
Gunshot
The sixteenth century brought to the fore the light cavalry armed with firearms, due to this, both the methods of warfare and the ways of using it in battle have changed. Previously, a separate cavalry regiment attacked the enemy with melee weapons, now shooting was organizedranks straight from the horse. The formation of the regiment was quite deep, up to fifteen or more ranks, which were advanced one by one from the battle formation to the first row.
It was then, in the sixteenth century, that dragoons and cuirassiers appeared. The cavalry of the seventeenth century Swedes consisted entirely of them. On the battlefield, King Gustav Adolf lined up the cavalry in two lines of four ranks, which gave the army a huge powerful force, capable of not only attacking decisively, but also maneuvering flexibly. It was from there that the composition of the army from squadrons and cavalry regiments appeared. In the seventeenth century, the cavalry made up more than fifty percent of the army in many countries, and in France the infantry was one and a half times less.
We have
In Russia in these centuries, the cavalry was already subdivided into heavy, medium and light, but much earlier, in the fifteenth century, local mobilization of people and horses was created, and its development was very different from the training of Russian horsemen and Western European. This recruiting system replenished the Russian troops with a very numerous noble cavalry. Already under Ivan the Terrible, she became the leader in the armed forces, numbering eighty thousand people, and more than one Cossack cavalry regiment participated in the Livonian War.
The composition of the Russian cavalry was gradually changing. Under Peter Pev, a regular army was created, where the cavalry was more than forty thousand dragoons - forty regiments. It was then that the cannons were handed over to the riders. The Northern War taught the cavalry to act independently, and in the Battle of Poltava Menshikov's cavalry was veryacted inventively and on foot. At the same time, the irregular cavalry, which consisted of Kalmyks and Cossacks, became decisive for the outcome of the battle.
Charter
Peter's traditions were revived in 1755 by Queen Elizabeth: the Cavalry Charter was developed and implemented, which greatly improved the combat use of cavalry in battle. Already in 1756, the Russian army owned a guards cavalry regiment, six cuirassiers and six grenadiers, eighteen full-time dragoon and two supernumerary regiments. In the irregular cavalry there were again Kalmyks and Cossacks.
Russian cavalry was trained no worse, and in many cases better than any European, which was confirmed by the Seven Years' War. In the eighteenth century, the number of light cavalry increased, and in the nineteenth, when mass armies appeared, the cavalry was divided into military and strategic. The latter was intended to conduct combat both independently and together with other branches of the military, and the military was included from a platoon to a whole regiment in infantry formations and was needed for security, communications and reconnaissance.
Nineteenth century
Napoleon had four cavalry corps - forty thousand horsemen. The Russian army had sixty-five cavalry regiments, including five guards, eight cuirassiers, thirty-six dragoons, eleven hussars and five lancers, that is, eleven divisions, five corps plus separate cavalry corps. The Russian cavalry fought purely on horseback, and in the defeat of the Napoleonic army they played the mostsignificant role. In the second half of the century, the power of artillery fire training increased many times, and therefore the cavalry suffered huge losses. Then the necessity of its existence was called into question.
The US Civil War, however, showed the success of this type of troops. Naturally, if the combat training is appropriate and the commanders are competent. Raids on the rear and communications were deep and very successful, despite the fact that revolvers and carbines were no longer just firearms, but also rifled ones. At that time, the Americans practically did not use cold steel. In the United States, the history of the army is still highly respected. So, the 2nd Cavalry Regiment (Dragoon, 2nd Cavalry Regiment) was created in 1836 and gradually, without changing its name, became first rifle, then motorized infantry. Now he is located in Europe, part of the contingent of US troops.
World War I
In the twentieth century, even at its beginning, the cavalry accounted for about ten percent of the armies, with its help tactical and operational tasks were solved. However, the further the army was saturated with artillery, machine guns and aircraft, its cavalry units suffered more and more huge losses, and therefore became practically ineffective in battle. For example, the unsurpassed skill of warfare was demonstrated by the German command, carrying out the Sventsyansky breakthrough, when six cavalry divisions were used. But this is perhaps the only positive example of such a plan.
Russian cavalry of the First World War wasnumerous - thirty-six divisions, two hundred thousand well-trained horsemen - but the successes even at the beginning of the war were very insignificant, and when the positional period came and the maneuvers ended, the fighting for this type of troops practically ceased. All the cavalry dismounted and went into the trenches. The changed conditions of the war in this case did not teach the Russian command anything: ignoring the most important directions, it dispersed the cavalry along the entire length of the front and used highly qualified fighters as supplies. The exercises were devoted to attacks in close formation in the saddle, and offensives on foot were practically not worked out. After the end of the war, the armies of the Western countries were motorized and mechanized, the cavalry was gradually eliminated or reduced to a minimum, as in France, Italy, Great Britain and others. There are eleven full cavalry brigades left in Poland alone.
We are the red cavalry…
The formation of the Soviet cavalry began with the creation of the Red Army, which in 1918 was quite difficult to do. Firstly, all the areas that supplied the Russian army and horses and riders were occupied by foreign interventionists and White Guards. There were not enough experienced leaders. After the end of the First World War, only three cavalry regiments of the old army completely became part of the Soviet one. Weapons and equipment were also very bad. Therefore, as such, the first cavalry regiment from the new formations did not appear immediately. At first there were just hundreds of horsemen, detachments,squadrons.
For example, B. Dumenko created in 1918 a small partisan detachment in the spring, and in the fall it was already the First Don Cavalry Brigade, then - on the Tsaritsyno Front - a combined cavalry division. In 1919, the newly created two cavalry corps were used against Denikin's army. The Red Cavalry was a powerful striking force, not without independence in operational tasks, but also showed itself perfectly in interaction with other formations. In November 1919, the First Cavalry Army was created, in July 1920 - the Second. The formations and formations of the Red cavalry beat everyone: Denikin, and Kolchak, and Wrangel, and the Polish army.
Cavalry forever
After the end of the Civil War, cavalry remained numerous in the Red Army for a long time. The division was into strategic (corps and divisions) and military (units as part of rifle units). Also, since the 1920s, national units were present in the Red Army - traditionally Cossacks (despite the restrictions lifted in 1936), horsemen of the North Caucasus. By the way, after the decision of the People's Commissar of Defense in 1936, the cavalry units became exclusively Cossack. Despite the opposite information, which has been ubiquitous since perestroika, that before the Great Patriotic War the country had no more numerous cavalry troops, it is necessary to restore the objective truth: the documents say that there was no “Budyonny lobby”, and the cavalry by 1937 already reduced by more than twotimes, then - by 1940, she disappeared even faster.
However, we have off-road everywhere, and it has no edge. Zhukov repeatedly noted in the first weeks of the war that the cavalry was underestimated. And this was later corrected. In the summer and especially in the winter of 1941, the cavalry regiment of the Second World War was simply needed almost everywhere. Five cavalry divisions carried out raids near Smolensk in the summer, and the assistance to the rest of our troops was not only substantial, it simply could not be overestimated. And then near Yelnya, already in the counteroffensive, it was the cavalry that delayed the approach of the fascist reserves, and that is why success was ensured. In December 1941, already a quarter of the divisions near Moscow were cavalry. And in 1943, almost two hundred and fifty thousand horsemen fought in twenty-six divisions (in 1940 there were only 13, and all with fewer). The Don Cossack Corps liberated Vienna. Kuban - Prague.
11 separate cavalry regiment
Without him, our favorite films would not have appeared. This unit, just like all the others, belonged to the Armed Forces of the country, but was used for filming movies. 11 separate cavalry regiment - 55605 number of the military unit, formed in 1962. The initiator was the director Sergei Bondarchuk. The first masterpiece, without the help of this regiment, would not have taken place, the most famous and beautiful epic film "War and Peace". It was in this regiment that the actors Andrei Rostotsky and Sergei Zhigunov served. The content of the "cine" military until the 90s was paid by Mosfilm, then hethis, of course, could not continue.
The number of riders has decreased tenfold, there are just over four hundred of them, and less than one and a half hundred horses. The Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation agreed to keep the regiment in this composition. But still, the question of complete disbandment was very acute. Only Nikita Mikhalkov's appeal to the president helped save the 11th cavalry regiment. This helped him to shoot the film "The Barber of Siberia". In 2002, it was no longer the Presidential Cavalry Regiment, but an honorary escort as part of the Presidential Regiment. It must be remembered that film masterpieces were born with his help! "Prince Igor", "White Sun of the Desert", "Waterloo", "About the poor hussar …", "Running", "Battle for Moscow", "First Cavalry", "Bagration", "Black Arrow", "Peter the Great".
