In Autumn, the Committee decided to experiment in expanding their military's capacities with the creation of a force of Cavalry. It was made clear from experience the edge that cavalry generally had over infantry from what was observed in the battles, as well as the usefulness of their mobility. They had aquired a few war horses during the summer expansion and a couple of foals in the stables at Dalatyr during its capture had reached maturity. Their was complications, horsemanship was not common knowledge and was largely limited to warriors and a few herdsmen. Their was also the fact that reloading a rifle on horseback was awkward enough to warrent a change in armament. Using long range recon, evaluation of the gear of the warriors they had slain and after considerable discussion, they settled on a model of equipment. Still, some investigation was warrented to see how good a force they could raise.When the request for volunteers for Cavalry evaluation came up, Sven was among the first to raise his hand. Afterwards, he was met by Yanov on this."Are you sure you can do this?""Yeah,' Sven retorted "can't be too hard, the beast does all the work and all.""Well its your call. Still, I don't trust those things.""I'll be fine. In any case if worse comes to worse its not binding to just give it a shot.""Alright. Still, you're a good lieutenant and a friend. I would rather not see you hurt or gone."Cavalry training began the next day, in total their were twenty one volunteers. In addition a few new people had signed up with the prospect of getting to fight on horseback. Drive examined them and briefed them on the gear. Telling them to detach the lower part of their cuirasses for comfort and showing and breifing them on saddles, bridles, champrons, gloves and the new weapons for fighting on horseback. Their were the lances for charging, the short barreled pistols, pottery jars filled with a mixture of alcohol and egg yoke with an oily rag called Spirit Bombs and most impressively the double barreled shotguns. Though save for the Spirit Bombs, only a few. In addition, they would carry single handed meelee weapons. However, their use would have to wait until ridership was confirmed.If a scout from any of the warrior hosts ever managed to see the attempts at ridership over the next couple of weeks, he would get a good laugh and would prorably would gain a fatal underestimation of the Survivor's forces. Their were plenty of instances in which people fell off, lost control of their mount or both. He had considered showing Stefia him in the saddle, but actual experience with that told him that this would not be a good idea. A few did get the hang of it in at least a basic way, Sven being among them even though he came to despise the up and down motions of riding and the discomfort they caused him. Once that happened, they moved onto fighting on horseback. Shooting on horseback was tricky, but it was at close range and Sven got the hang of that. What really was a problem was the lances. Every time he managed to skewer Heisenoff Junior the training dummy, he was nocked out. Usually with his horse comming over to give him a good sniff, which always got a laugh out of the men watching him. After doing this, he eventually got tired and opted out, going back to footslogging.Drive took note of the results of this experiment and came to this conclusion. While their were about seven adequate horsemen, they were still not yet ready for battle in the saddle. Especially true was the fact that they were not ready for the cavalry charges that broke ranks and sent armies scattering. That would take a lot more drilling and practice. That said, with a bit more work they could probably be useful fighting at a distance. Moving around enemy ranks firing pistols and shotguns into them to cut down their number to disrupt their ranks while avoiding close quarter combat and even so it would be best to steer them cleer of actual cavalry for the first bit. That would have to wait until spring, however.Previous- [link] Next- [link]