Wooden Horses Help Army Cadets Learn How to Play Polo (Oct, 1924)
Filed under: Just Weird, War — @ 12:21 pm
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Oct, 1924
| Buy on Ebay
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Oct, 1924
| Buy on Ebay
Whew! It’s difficult to imagine how the army could defend us with out using Polo. I assume West Point now has some ten-million dollar, full immersion 3D polo simulator to keep our boys at peak polo readiness.
Wooden Horses Help Army Cadets Learn How to Play Polo
“Saddled” and- “bridled” a wooden horse is used by West Point cadets to practice on when they begin learning how to play polo. Tne “animal” is braced securely to the wooden floor in the center of an inclosure surrounded by wire netting. To keep the balls within striking distance at all times, the sides of the cage slope toward the center.
The US Army was not fully mechanized until 1943 when the 2nd Cavalry Division was deactivated. Britain got rid of its last horse soldiers in 1941. Only the US and Britain fought WWII with mechanized armies. The Germans and Russians used horses right through the war (The Red Army of Workers & Peasants finally decativated its last cav units in the late fifties)as cavalry mounts and as draught animals for both artilery and supply units. BTW, a certain Captain Eisenhower was part of the first US Army “coast to coast” motorized convoy in the early twenties…the roads were so bad and teh vehicles so unrelaible that a horsed unit could probably have beaten them. This experience helped persuade him that the US needed a national network of good highways for defense – hence his support of the “National Interstate & Defence (the roads and bridges can bear the weight of tanks) Highways Act” while president (Which is why it is now “The Eisenhower Interstate Higwhay System). Bottom line, the USMA was as backward as it seems to train officers in equitation in 1921.
Comment by R NABORNEY — April 15, 2009 @ 6:09 pm