Thread: horse mounted cavalry in modern armies

PLA has 2 battalions of cav in service with Xinjing MD.

Also, number of frontier guard companies are issued horse/mule for transportation roles especally in Tibet.

PAP (people's armed police) have cav sqd (see attach photo) but they are not PLA and have a completely different chain of command and funding source.

Some Russian Army Border Guard units stationed int he far east or Siberia use horses for transportation. It's usually not part of their official equipment but it is not uncommon for officers, or even regular soldiers, to own a horse.

However I would imagine this is simply because the roads are too pooor for regular rcars, and using military vehicles for personal transportation is rather illegal.

Before the US pulled out of the Phillipines the US Military used horse mounted patrols to guard against rebel inflitration.

On a side note, in this age of precision guided missiels that can strike from thousands of Km away, we are still less than 70 years removed form the last use of the mounted lancer in combat, and less than 100 years removed from the last large scale use of Lancers in the Western world.

BSF (Border security force) in Rajastan are camel mounted para-military force.

Thanks guys; I looked around some of my books and I found some interesting info:

- the Mexican Army maintained horse mounted cavalry for combat purposes until the early 1990s when the last horse cavalry were converted to armored forces except for 1 squadron for ceremonial duties.

- the Swiss Army had a horse mounted dragoon regiment until 1973.

- The Portuguese Army used horse cavalry in Angola and Mozambique in the 1960s and 70s ... with a very good success ratio compared to the heliborne and mechanized infantry units.

- the US Army's last horse mounted cavalry charge took place in 1942 in the Philippines when the 26th Cavalry charged Japanese forces on horseback and actually routed the Japanese giving us a several hour period to build up our forces on Bataan. The last horse cavalry in the US Army were not converted to armored/mechanized/heliborne infantry until 1955 when the US Constabulary was disbanded. We still maintain a horse mounted squadron attached to the 1st Cavalry Division HQ command for ceremonial/educational purposes as well as a smaller detachment assigned to the 3rd Infantry Regiment.

I also found a neat Osprey magazine issue which deals with this. Ill try and scan the article and I will post it.

Probably as close to horse cavalry for combat purposes as it gets in the US:











I have also seen them patrolling the border in groups of as large as 20 to 30 agents. This is very unusual considering that 90% of the time the agents are operating alone with the nearest backup 45 minutes away in the middle of the desert along the Mexican border or some lonely deserted beach in Puerto Rico or in some barren wasteland along the Canadian border in the Dakotas or Montana.