Oh god… Imagine the horse bolting after hearing the gunshot and you’re falling from your own height plus the height of the horse. I bet a lot of necks were broken from this experiment before they cancelled it.
Horses can be acclimatized to gunfire. All of the calvary horses used after the invention of firearms had to be trained not to bolt at the first shot.
What makes you say it was an ‘experiment’? Guns were shot from horseback for centuries. Germany used cavalry throughout the entire WW2, as did most countries.
Im not sure these guys are positioned to handle the kickback.
There some reason they were getting ready to instantly fall off if the horse spooked instead of just shooting while sat in the saddle like every other mounted firearms unit has done since firearms cavalry became a thing?
I’m theory: Height advantage. Stand up to engage over high cover. In reality, horseback gun fights were extremely uncommon, especially in the European theatre. Japan and China had some. Cavalry was more commonly used as mounted infantry or in support rules such as couriers, military police or escorts for motorized/mechanized combat assets. WW2 was an intense transitional period for equestrian warfare, maybe even more so then WW1 was shortly before.
Still, traditional exercises such as shown in the picture serve a purpose. Getting both horse and rider familiar and disciplined with a variety of unfamiliar situations, so they can hopefully react well to unexpected intense encounters.
