FRIDAY FOTO (November 25, 2022)

HORSELESS HORSEMEN.

              (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sergeant Gavin K. Ching)

Soldiers from the British Army’s Royal Horse Artillery and the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division call for fire support during a live fire exercise with NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence Battlegroup Poland. Despite their storied histories dating back to the days of horse-drawn cannon and boots and saddles bugle calls, there was nary a horse in sight at Toruń, Poland when this photo was taken on November 3, 2022.

The Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) was formed in 1793 as a distinct arm of the Royal Regiment of Artillery (commonly termed Royal Artillery) to provide mobile artillery support to the fast moving cavalry units. It served in the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars of the 18th and early 19th centuries, as well as in the Crimean War, the Indian Rebellion of 1857,  Anglo-Zulu War, Boer War and the First and Second World Wars. Horses are still in service for ceremonial purposes, but were phased out from operational deployment in the 1930s.

The 1st Cavalry Division is a combined arms division based at Fort Hood, Texas. It was formed in 1921 largely from horse cavalry regiments and other units dating back to the Indian Wars of the America West. The division served in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, the Stabilization Force in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan and in Operation Freedom’s Sentinel.  A horseback cavalry division until 1943, the 1st Cav has since been an infantry division, an air assault division and an armored division. A black horse head above a diagonal black stripe continues to adorn the division’s uniform shoulder patch. While its troops operate battle tanks and armored vehicles now, the 1st Cavalry Division also has a mounted ceremonial unit.

Pictured in this photo are soldiers assigned to the 1st Platoon, 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division; United Kingdom soldiers assigned to N Battery, Eagle Troop, Royal Horse Artillery.

The United States and allies in NATO have made reinforcing Poland and the nearby Baltic states a focal point since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since then, U.S. tanks from units rotating overseas have been a consistent forward presence in Poland, home to the Army’s V Corps at Camp Kościuszko.