>>/42830/
That's not intuitive. It's like using "heavily armed" to mean heavily armoured.
>>/42831/
> I don't know how big a squadron is but considering the Australian army only has 50 Abrams it cannot be that big.
Squadron is the cavalry's fancy name for a company, like the artillery calls them batteries. A Brazilian cavalry squadron or armored infantry company has 3 platoons of 4 of its main AFVs each. For 50 Abrams and 3 Australian tank squadrons that'd be 16 each, that's close.
So you have
> Armoured/light horse: 67% wheeled APC 33% tank
> Mechanized infantry: 100% tracked APC
One military opinion piece noted that our "armored infantry" (M113s) would in another country be just mechanized infantry, with armored infantry left to an IFV. But then what would the 100% wheeled APC units be called? The Portuguese-language literature I've read on the subject, reflecting the doctrine of a still robust cavalry branch, appears to have the following consensus:
> The infantry's only AFVs are for transport;
> Cavalry is defined not by the horse but by certain traits and missions;
> The tank retains its shock value, lighter AFVs retain its flanking, recon, vanguard, etc. value;
> Every infantry and armored brigade has its own mechanized cavalry squadron for recon and the like;
> The armored infantry and armored cavalry brigades are the same, two tank and two armored infantry battalions;
> The mechanized cavalry brigade has 2-3 mechanized cavalry regiments which, once engaged, can be reinforced by its armored cavalry regiment;
> Tracked and wheeled vehicles don't keep up, the former have good tactical mobility, the latter good strategic mobility.
The last point makes me wonder why the armoured/light horse regiments mix tracked and wheeled vehicles. Clearly those APCs aren't just for recon, since they're in a 2:1 ration to tanks, and yet following tanks on roads wastes their superior mobility and they can't follow in some difficult terrains. Why not mix M113s and Abrams?
>>/42836/
> It is interesting that "cavalry" term in western countries survived and now used for armored units (or helicopters, like USA), but completely forgotten in former Soviet bloc. Although cavalry was glorified in culture, especially in context of Russian civil war.
American cavalry is more residual, it was absorbed into the armored branch. There was both a cavalry lobby and a rapid mechanization it couldn't keep the pace with. South American mechanization was very drawn out, the last Brazilian non-cerimonial horse cavalry regiment was considered mechanized in 1986, and this has allowed the branch to survive with the same strength and not face competition from an independent armored branch. And Soviet cavalry presumably had no significant lobby in the first place.