Machine Gun Corps Cavalry

[delta]

Have scanned a variery of sites about the MGc but have found it difficult to identify how avary MGC were organsied and used.

Grateful for any advice.

Stephen

[Ron Clifton]

Hello Stephen

At the outbreak of war, each cavalry regiment had a section of two machine guns, as did every infantry battalion. Early in 1915 the number of guns was doubled, and shortly afterwards the sections were withdrawn from regiments and formed into squadrons of twelve guns each, one squadron being attached to each cavalry brigade. The squadroms were units of the MGC, Cavalry section. They were normally equipped with the Hotchkiss machine gun.

They might occasionally be used away from their brigades to support infantry divisions in major attacks, but otherwise the tactics were generally the same as ordinary MG companies.

Ron

[delta]

Ron - thanks for the help.

Was it the same variant of the Hotchkiss machine gun used in the first tanks?

Stephen

[Staffsyeoman]

Stephen,

I'm away from notes, and won't contradict Ron, but as to Hotchkiss variants the answer is 'yes', and as to overall organisation, the MGC© mirrored the MGC(I) except on the cavalry scale - Cavalry Brigades had a Machine Gun Squadron; the cavalry Divsions had three Squadrons plus 'a.n. other' as Divisional support. Somewhere (of our team I am not the MGC Cav expert) we have a table of organisation. But this fact is true; MGC© was smaller in organisation than the other MGC branches.

[Hoplophile]

The war diary of the Machine Gun Squadron of the Canadian Cavalry Brigade provides lots of details of the organization and training of a Brigade Machine Gun Squadron in 1916. Indeed, because this was a new type of organization, and much of the early work of the unit was ironing out such details, there is lots of information of the sort that rarely finds its way into war diaries.

As a rule (to which there are some exceptions, particularly where Indian cavalry regiments are concerned), the Hotchkiss light machine gun (also known as the 'Hotchkiss automatic rifle') was the cavalry counterpart to the Lewis gun. Thus, when the Vickers (or Maxim or Colt) machine guns were withdrawn from cavalry regiments to form the cavalry brigade machine gun squadrons, the cavalry regiments were "compensated" with Hotchkiss guns.

[delta]

Thanks for the superb link