General Herr should be happy now, as the Last Horse Soldier is now playable. I took quite a few liberties with this one in the name of realism and expansion. The full division is supported in its 1941 organization. Cavalry machine-gun units must now dismount to use their firepower. Regular cavalry have a shorter range while mounted, I also thought about giving them a DF of 5 while dismounted. Hopefully I have not messed up the scenario balances too much.
United States 1st Cavalry Division Notes
The Last Horse Soldier, from October 2015, had a limit of 24 counters. That constrained possibilities and sacrificed some elemental realism of cavalry in the World War Two era. Vassal has no such limits. Thus I have expanded the possibilities and the counter selection.
Mounting and Dismounting
Cavalry and Cavalry machine-guns may dismount and remount. Dismounting and remounting are accomplished by pressing Shift+R. Indeed Cavalry machine-guns and heavy machine-guns must dismount in order to use the combat power of the machine-guns, (machine-guns do not work well from the saddle).
Artillery
A U.S. cavalry division of the time was allotted 3 artillery battalions, 2 horsed with 75mm howitzers (probably the 75mm M1916) and 1 motorized with 105mm howitzers. Each battalion would have 3 firing batteries, an anti-battery and an anti-aircraft battery.
M1 Combat Cars and M3 Light Tanks
A U.S. cavalry division had a tank company in its reconnaissance squadron. The M1 Combat Car was originally developed for the cavalry. It is a light tank in everything but name, because branch rivalry the infantry has tanks, thus it is a "combat car". By 1941, the M1 was to be replaced with the M3 light tank. In function this might not have happened as M3 tanks were being used to fill out armored formations and being sent to the United Kingdom and Soviet Union.
M1A1
This is the M3 Scout Car used in a transport role. They were used for towing anti-tank guns in the divisional anti-tank troop and in the regimental weapons troop.
Engineers
The engineer battalion of a U.S. cavalry division is a motorized formation. The battalion consists of 2 companies of 3 platoons, carried in trucks.
