Organisation - British Cavalry Troop 1914-1918 (and a bit after)

[Gallowglass]

Folks, your assistance please.

I'm having considerable difficulty finding a decent reference for the number of men in a British cavalry troop for the period. I can find some information on what squadrons consisted of, but very little on what constituted a troop. Now, I know that the strength varied, in that a troop could be commanded by a Captain or Lieutenant and have a strentgh of 20 to 70 men, but I'm trying to find out

1 - how these men were organised for both mounted and dismounted action (no. of horseholders, if appropriate)

2 - whether the troop contained Squad or Section equivalents

3 - whether they had any organic light machineguns (ie within the troop, as distinct from cavalry brigade machinegun squadrons. I understand that cavalry may have been equipped with a Hotchkiss LMG (they seem to have been in Ireland, post 1919) but I'd like to know if they had these at the end of the Great War.

Any information in the above line very much appreciated......thanks in advance

 

[V]

Maybe able to answer some of that for you when I get home mate...

[carlos marighela]

 The paper strength of the troop was 1 Officer + 36 ORs. There was a small troop HQ of a troop  commander, troop sergeant and 2 ORs ( bugler, batman) and 8 X 4 man sections. IIRC correctly one man in each section would act as a horseholder in dismounted action.

Allocation of MG's varied throughout the war. I'll dig out my refs  if you like, I've got the Field service guides for the post war period somewhere in the spare room. Broadly speaking there were MGs ( Hotchkiss) organic to the regiment. The brigade MG squadrons were Vickers armed.

[Gallowglass]

Ta, Carlos. That's extremely helpful.

One question - is that 8 x 4-man sections, or 4 x 8-man sections?

With one man per section detailed to act as horseholder, I'm presuming that "8 x 4-man sections" is the correct interpretation?

[Arlequín]

I thought it was 4 sections each of 8 men, but you'd still need to detail 2 men as horseholders in any case... so makes no odds really.

[carlos marighela]

Quite right Jim, I transposed the numbers ( sorry was late at night, part of the new found pleasures of parenting a newborn). 1-4  is still the horseholder ratio. I'll  have to dig out the MG stuff, my spare room is in a bit of a muddle at present.