C-C-C-Civil+W-W-W-War+E-E-E-E-E-ESSAYre09

__//**Cavarly, Black ops on horses?**//__

Ryan C. Thesis

Ryan C. Thesis

It may seem that a guy on the horse to be the last likely thing to be a forerunner of special forces, I believe otherwise.I believe cavarly was a forerunner to modern special forces. To back this up, I have 4 reasons that compare Special Forces to Civil War Cavalry. These include: varied use, superior weapons, more training, and superior speed and logistics. In my essay, however, I am talking about light cavalry that does not charge blindly into battle. By the end, you gonna imagine cavalry as almost like men in black on horses.


 * Note, Special Forces are considered to be military units that conduct operations such as sabotage, counter-terrorism, reconnaissance in unorthodox ways. They may also have superior weapons.

Special Forces units have varied uses. They could range from recon to sabotage to counter-terrorism. They may also train foreign rebels. Civil -War Cavalry also shares this trait by having varied uses, though some are different. Heavy Cavalry could be used on the front lines or Dragoons could fight both mounted and dismounted. However, other uses resemble modern elite units, these can include raiders such as the Mosby's who would ambush supply lines as described by John C. Mosby:

// My purpose was to weaken the armies invading Virginia, by harassing their rear... to destroy supply trains, to break up the means of conveying intelligence, and thus isolating an army from its base, as well as its different corps from each other, to confuse their plans by capturing their dispatches, are the objects of partisan war. It is just as legitimate to fight an enemy in the rear as in the front. The only difference is in the danger ..." // – Col. John S. Mosby, CSA

Other times, the cavalry may sabotage rail-lines or destroy telegraph lines. T Special Forces also go behind enemy lines and ambush convoys act as recon. Special forces are flexible and can switch from reconnaissance to raiding to frontline combat, strikingly similar to how cavarly can switch from front line to being the eyes and ears of the army.

Another striking similarity between Special Forces and Cavalry is that they have superior weapons than the standard conscript. Special Forces have better weapons constisnant with their job. A cavalry trooper also had weapons use mostly for their job. Usually an infantryman would be armed with a musket that shot accurately up to 125 yards away or a rifle that shot up to 500 yards, these reloaded the fastest at 3 rounds a minute for a fast reload. However, since it was harder to reload a muzzle loader on a horse, they were armed with repeating carbines. Weapons such as the Henry repeater that fire 15 rounds a minute up to 200 yards. They are also armed with a six shot revolver to boot, units such as the Mosby’s carried up to 6 revolvers. The armament with repeaters usually occurred up north as down south there were not enough factories to create copies of the repeaters. The superior armament of special forces and cavalry both give the the leg up in battle, they share the similarity as they were the first to use certain weapons.

There is a 3rd reason to drill in the fact that cavalry was the forerunner of special forces. The reason is that Special Forces and Cavalry troopers have more training than Average Joe Infantry. For example, Special Forces Training could add on several extra years to basic training. A northern Cavalryman may have to receive two years of training that could include horsemanship and care of the horse and tactics among other things. An infantry man has only a few months of training in drill, etc. In the south, a trooper's training may take less time than the Yankee. Though some of the southerners who would be in cavalry have prior experience in horse riding as they had fewer choices for transport. Not to mention the fact that the southerners had a military spirit born with them. Cavalry and Special Forces both have longer training periods and more specialized training based on their jobs.

The final nail in the coffin to compare Special Forces and Cavarly is speed and logistics. Units operating on long range recon must live off the land and move quickly to avoid detection. Calvary on recon missions or operating behind enemy lines may forage for food or hunt, this can also include desperate units short on food. As stated by a confederate cavalryman // "Sunday 12th preaching to day in camp's our mess staid in camp's and killed a hog and had a barbacue it was very nice, I have just been in the confederate service 1 year to day"-Thomas J. Barb // In the passage the soldiers killed a wild hog while at camp and ate it. The cavalry also had superior speed they can go at a walking speed of 4 mph to a full gallop at 16, there were intermediate speeds used for long distances. The two soldiers from different time periods both have the ability to move fast and live off the land.

Now that your almost done reading, you should now be thinking that cavarly and special forces were very alike. They both had varied uses and superior weaponry. They have longer training and more specialized training and they both live off the land and move at fast speeds. Those are the reasons that prove my thesis cavarly was a forerunner to modern special forces.

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