Instead of the light and heavy differentiation, the American cavalry was emphasizing the dragoon concept from the beginning.
The development of the American cavalry was much more efficiency-oriented.
The situation in the United States was different. All other noble historical cavalry types vanished in the past forever. In the second half of the 19th century all armies simplified their cavalry arm, leaving only a light cavalry type armed with a sabre and carbine, sometime with revolver or pistol. The cavalry charge was not effective any more against the accurate fire of the rifle musket, and could not cope up with the increasing rate of fire of the breech loaders.Įxperiences of the war of Crimea 1853-56, the Franco-Austrian-Sardinian war of 1859 and the Austrian-Prussian war of 1866 showed that the traditional balance between combat arms shifted towards artillery and infantry. With the adoptation of the muzzle loading rifles and later the breech loading rifles, the traditional battlefield roles of the cavalry were questioned. And in between them, there were the dragoons, the mounted infantry, who could fight on horseback, but could also fight as an infantryman dismounted.Īs firearms improved this balance was lost forever. Light cavalry, like the hussars, chevau-légers, uhlans were supposed to envelope the flanks, and chase the retreating enemy. Heavy cavalry, like the cuirassiers where supposed to fight in closed combat formations, and their primary role was to penetrate the battle formations of the enemy with a frontal charge. They had different roles on the battlefield. The first horse soldiers to carry a carbine were the bandeliers of the late 16th-17th century, but dragoons also carried long arms.Īs the firearms started to dominate warfare, the cavalry arm lost a large portion of its importance on the battlefield, while kept its traditional roles outside the battlefields, like fighting the small war, reconnaissance, keeping contact between bodies of the army.īy the beginning of the 19th century the cavalry was divided into light and heavy cavalry. All type of cavalry men carried at least pistols from the first third of the 16th century. Arming the cavalry with firearms is just as old as the invention of the wheel lock mechanism. Burnside in the 1850s.Ĭarbines were not new items in warfare in the middle of the 19th century. This breech loading percussion or capping carbin was designed by Ambrose E.
The Burnside carbine played an important part in firearms history as this was the first arm of the US Army to shoot metallic case cartridges.
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