Not so. Horses have more endurance than oxen anyway and can work for longer without breaks.
Here, I’ll quote Wikipedia since we haven’t got the horse history books at the new house yet. This have all been sourced, no ciations needed.
The creation of the horse collar removed the previous physical restrictions the old harness had on the animal, and allowed the horse to be able to exert its full strength in plowing. Originally, the structure of the old harness forced the horse to literally pull its workload, the horse collar’s development instead allowed the horse to push its workload, increasing the efficiency of its labor output.
Following the introduction of the horse collar to Europe and its use being clearly evident by 1000 AD, the use of horses for ploughing became more widespread. Horses work roughly 50 percent faster than oxen.
With the collar, combined with the horseshoe, the heavy plow, and other developments in the agricultural system, the efficiency of the European peasant farmer in producing food increased, allowing further societal development in Europe.
The surplus in food allowed labor specialization as farmers could change their occupation and focus on other skills, such as the purchase and selling of goods, resulting in the emergence of a merchant class within European society.
The horse collar was one of the factors in the ending of the feudal system and transition from the Middle Ages.
Ha! the Hegemony seems to prefer using the helots themselves for that kind of drudge work, at least in our backwater part of it. If it’s different in other parts of Shayard and the Hegemony then the Yeomen from those parts had better explain it to my mc. In any case that only confirms the use of breeds optimized for farm work, not the kind the nobles favour for prancing about on, or warfare. Those breeds will be a fair bit harder to justify to my mc.
As long as I have abused you of the notion that cavalry is exclusively in the realm of aristocrats and therefore have no place in your army, then it is fine by me if you don’t recruit cavalry for any other reason.
Most of the Roman cavalry were auxiliaries actually, which made up for the lack of Romans on horseback. Considering the Hegemony’s preferred way of fighting (phalanxes and heavy use of theurgy) and everyone mentioning that we’ll be fighting phalangites and theurges, not the cavalry in game, cavalry is actually likely to be perceived as second fiddle. The fact that other armies may have cavalry as their primary arm, this does not affect your army. If you want to make your cavalry second fiddle to your infantry, there is nothing stopping you and you probably will not get many objections if any.
Just having a cavalry component in your army does not need all that infrastructure, unless you plan to have good quality non-auxiliary cavalry. I’m pretty sure you can decentralize horse breeding, just don’t give it to aristocrats if you hate them that much. Unless you don’t trust anyone except the state for that.
Though this does make me curious just how much devastation you plan to cause that even an unarmoured scout on an unarmoured horse not bred for war is unaffordable, but masses of air rifles are within the budget.
Your pc has in my opinion a weird misconception about horses. Almost a irrational fear of them. My idea is because he always have seen horses used by the people who opressed them. So he seem translate that fear and hatred to the poor animal. Horses didnt treat bad your character. They are slaves to the nobles same as your character. Want destroy an entire specie because some lordling used them as a social status. Is like say I will destroy all cars and trucks because my neightbor use his car like a social viagra always talking about his Mercedes. Your character and Mara would be certain being uncompatibles.
Then any new cavalry had better get used to making do with farmer’s horses.
Isn’t this also because we’re currently “fighting” in heavily forested terrain that’s not really amenable to cavalry?
Or this may be a bit of a (still unresolved) culture clash between Hegemony and Shayardene culture, but to me it seems Shayard’s nobles at least are obsessed with the damn horses (Simon on horseback, Hector and his Veneurs, it apparently being another mark of social shame for the “noble” mc that they were to poor to have their own stables, etc.) and want to be cavalry, if they aren’t theurges themselves.
My mc would of course rather not use them at all, but that’s apparently not going to be feasible just jet, so “second fiddle” with some of the least expensive uniforms we can possibly design (maybe we can even get away with just homespun?) it will likely be.
Admittedly it may be less of an issue of budget in the absolute sense (if all goes relatively well) and more of an issue of priorities. However air rifles in mass production are vital to my mc’s overall goal of transitioning from a large, standing army, like the Hegemony has to a conscription based one that can be called up, trained and armed at short notice. Guns being good, relatively simple and reliable weapons are ideal equipment for such a force, in contrast with, say bowmen who need a lifetime of training. Stockpiles of guns will need to be made and maintained in any case.
Of course my mc’s theatrics will pretend otherwise, even in the situation that there would actually be a tax-windfall or even a budget surplus, but that would mostly be his intense dislike of aristocratic, Hegemony, or Shayardene culture speaking.
Fun fact: Friesans, the most well-known knightly horses, started off as farmer’s horses. To this day they still have the flat, broad square chest bred into them to be used in the plough.
Such a thing would likely still be one hell of a transition from the priorities and aesthetics Shayard’s current nobles (and cavalry(wo)men ) are likely to favour.
Note to self, that will definitely not be an approved item in any state horse-breeding program. They should focus on breeding Frisian equivalents strong and true.
Besides, if we really need to have military parades, the cavalry soldiers will take part in them dismounted, leading their mounts by hand, in the spirit of equality or something.
Oh, if there’s going to be any this is likely what the “new cavalry” will amount to in practice. You forgot without a fancy uniform there too.
Oh, subconsciously this certainly plays a big part in it, why do you think my mc has absolutely zero interest in learning how to ride or handle the damned beasts himself? Which is why I already said that any advisers who want to pitch cavalry to my mc had better show him some solid evidence/figures that there are:
a) Enough knowledgeable former helots and yeoman available to fill all the key support and all officer positions in any new cavalry arm.
b) Base it around a breed that is also clearly useful for farming (it would also help if it’s a breed the nobles did not favour)
c) Make sure that the uniforms aren’t fancy or expensive.
If these thresholds are successfully met then my mc will likely, grudgingly, sign off on it.
Well none of the new uniforms will be “fancy”, exactly, (certainly not in comparison to current, Hegemony standards) but, yes, in comparison this will almost certainly be the case, since making the cavalry kit less fancy than the uniforms of the other military branches, the Navy, the infantry and (if it’s possible) the artillery will be necessary to help my mc over certain psychological hurdles.
In fact, post-rebellion, the navy is likely to get (stuck with) the fanciest uniforms, followed by artillery, infantry and then any cavalry dead last.
For infantry (officers), maybe, for cavalry, I’d say lose the fancy boots and make the colour less vibrant.
Actually I think the WWI and II US (enlisted) uniforms are about as fancy as my mc likes (or tolerates) them to be.
Raz darling, You should join my peacific route, just twist their mind enough to make their tropes believe you has been choosen by something.and then make them your tropes.
If it’s different in other parts of Shayard and the Hegemony then the Yeomen from those parts had better explain it to my mc. In any case that only confirms the use of breeds optimized for farm work, not the kind the nobles favour for prancing about on, or warfare. Those breeds will be a fair bit harder to justify to my mc.
