Osprey Men-at-Arms 361 : Axis Cavalry in World War II

It is often forgotten that despite the World War II German Wehrmacht's reputation as the motorised army par excellence, which taught the Allies the hard lessons of Blitzkrieg warfare in 1939-40, the German forces still used huge numbers of horses right up to 1944/45, particularly on the Russian Front. These were not only employed as draft animals to pull wagons, but also by mounted cavalry in divisional strength. The vast spaces of the USSR and the primitive road network made horsed cavalry - in effect mounted infantry, who rode to battle but fought on foot - tactically valuable, especially in bad weather. The German Army and Waffen-SS both maintained teams of tens of thousands of cavalry; and Germany's Axis allies on the Eastern Front followed suit - the Italians, Hungarians, Rumanians, and locally-recruited Cossacks and Kalmyks. Dr Jeffrey T. Fowler describes and Mike Chappell illustrates the background, wartime development, organisation, typical operations, uniform and equipment of all these different types of cavalry unit.

Contents

• The Pre-War German Cavalry
• Operations of the 1st Cavalry Division and of Mounted Reconnaissance Units in Poland and France 1939-40
• Operation Barbarossa - German Cavalry in Russia, June-December 1941
• Expanded Roles for Cavalry from Spring 1942 - Typical Operations - Anti-Partisan Warfare, and Reconnaissance
• The Waffen-SS Cavalry
• Axis Cavalry - Cossacks, Kalmyks, Italian, Rumanian and Hungarian Units
• Support Services
• Equipment and Weapons