Jimmicus
Chieftain
Off the topic big time now I know, but I have to inject one more point about the Gulf war rout.
When studies were done on Iraqi tanks destroyed during the ground offensive and their crews were questioned, it was found that many of the tanks had no batteries in them. Apparently, these batteries were in short supply at the time and in order to prevent them from being destroyed when a tank was hit by allied aircraft, the crews were instructed to remove them until needed. Allied airstrikes crippled the Iraqi communications and prevented HQ's from warning front-line units that they were about to be attacked, thus the first the tank crews knew about the attack would be when coalition tanks came over the horizon. The crews had no time to install the batteries and thus were totally incapable of operating the tanks no matter how good or bad they normally were. Much of the myth of the M1's and Challenger tanks (latter is the UK's MBT) invincibilty can be put back to this.
To go back to the original point about tanks being slower than horses. About the only terrains where a tank is manouverable and fast is in deserts or rolling grassy plains, elsewhere (mountains, cities) they can actually be a liability that needs plenty of infantry support. When the Yugoslav army attempted to crush the rebels in Sarajevo at the beginning of the Bosnian war, they were stopped by a few hundred individuals with light anti-tank wepons that were able to move around the tanks and hit them from behind.
Horses on the other hand can cover almost any terrain a man can, so over the long run they may well be faster. To quote Colin Powell when he saw the terrain in Kosovo 'We do deserts, not mountains'.
When studies were done on Iraqi tanks destroyed during the ground offensive and their crews were questioned, it was found that many of the tanks had no batteries in them. Apparently, these batteries were in short supply at the time and in order to prevent them from being destroyed when a tank was hit by allied aircraft, the crews were instructed to remove them until needed. Allied airstrikes crippled the Iraqi communications and prevented HQ's from warning front-line units that they were about to be attacked, thus the first the tank crews knew about the attack would be when coalition tanks came over the horizon. The crews had no time to install the batteries and thus were totally incapable of operating the tanks no matter how good or bad they normally were. Much of the myth of the M1's and Challenger tanks (latter is the UK's MBT) invincibilty can be put back to this.
To go back to the original point about tanks being slower than horses. About the only terrains where a tank is manouverable and fast is in deserts or rolling grassy plains, elsewhere (mountains, cities) they can actually be a liability that needs plenty of infantry support. When the Yugoslav army attempted to crush the rebels in Sarajevo at the beginning of the Bosnian war, they were stopped by a few hundred individuals with light anti-tank wepons that were able to move around the tanks and hit them from behind.
Horses on the other hand can cover almost any terrain a man can, so over the long run they may well be faster. To quote Colin Powell when he saw the terrain in Kosovo 'We do deserts, not mountains'.
