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  #16  
Old 13-12-18, 01:29 PM
peter monahan peter monahan is offline
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The late raised cavalry regiments in WWI were, I believe, in response to, or in anticipation of, the troubles on the NWF which eventually led, in 1919, to a massive campaign there. Disbanded as soon as that ended as an economy.

The IA, like the BA, was very big on 'perpetuation', so re-using unit numbers made sense. The only WWII unit I've found info. on, in an admittedly brief search, was the 45th, which was made up of Sikhs and Pathans, apparently pulled from other units, and which saw service in Burma. There were certainly more trained tankers than there were tanks and armoured cars, so I suspect that these 'new' units may have tried to use cadres from existing units - a few experienced men leavening drafts of particularly apt recruits to quickly create units which could arguably by used in action at once. The relative rarity of tanks and tank actions in India/Burma may also explain why some were disbanded again before 1945.

All this, perhaps needless to say, is semi-informed musing and should be taken as such.
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  #17  
Old 14-12-18, 09:10 AM
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Wmr-RHB Wmr-RHB is offline
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For those interested in those 40 series Cavalry on the sub-continent.

I used this page of Regiments.org (archieved at the Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/200710110.../iargxrefn.htm) to compile:

================================================== ===

40th

Indian Army: 40th Cavalry 1918-1921
Pakistan?: 40th Cavalry 1988?-present

-----------------------------

41st

IndianArmy: 41st Cavalry 1918-1921
India: 41st Cavalry 1980-present
Pakistan: 41st Horse (Frontier Force) 1988-present

-----------------------------

42nd

Indian Army: 42nd Cavalry 1918-1921 and 1941-1943
India: 42nd Cavalry 1981-present
Pakistan?: 42nd Cavalry 1988?-present

----------------------------

43rd

Indian Army: 43rd Cavalry 1918-1919 and 1941-1946
India: 43rd Cavalry 1981-present
Pakistan?: 43rd Cavalry 1988?-present

----------------------------

44th

Indian Army: 44th Cavalry 1918-1919 and 1941-1943
India: 44th Cavalry 1981-present

----------------------------

45th

Indian Army: 45th Cavalry 1918-1919 and 1941-1946
India: 45th Cavalry 1965-present

----------------------------

46th

Indian Army: 46th Cavalry 1918-1919 and 1941-1942
India: 46th Cavalry 1982-present

----------------------------

47th

Indian Army: 47th Cavalry 1941-1943
India: 47th Cavalry 1982-present

----------------------------

48th

Indian Army: 48th Cavalry 1941-1947
India: 48th Cavalry 1982-present

================================================== ======

Remark that the ? there are from the original and that Regiments.org was updated until about 2006 (the "present" above)
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  #18  
Old 14-12-18, 01:28 PM
peter monahan peter monahan is offline
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Thank you! Very interesting indeed, especially the failure to re-raise the 40th and 41st in WWII which I'd guess had to do with their original antecedent units and/or class composition. Possibly even, though I hesitate to suggest it, the original units of the [Staff?] officers making the decisions in 1941-42.

More usually, armies preserve the numerical order by 'upgrading' the younger units to preserve and unbroken sequence thought of course there are many exceptions. But I'd guess that an examination of the class composition of these two units IN WWI would reveal that their constituent classes/castes were not as popular or numerous among the recruits in the Second War. A small challenge for somebody!

Peter
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  #19  
Old 14-12-18, 02:43 PM
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Hi Peter,

In Wikipedia there are only three of them who have a page of their own:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/41st_A...giment_(India)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42nd_A...nt_(1918-1921)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/45th_Cavalry_(India)

Interesting is that I see no relation between the composition of the WW1 and WW2 regiments. Squadrons coming from a complete different set of existing regiments. I see no reason for perpetuation in all three.

BTW, perpetuation by only having the same number, but no other relations or bonds, is something that can be seen in the French regiments, but is not typically for the Britsh style of doing these things.

Another thing to remark is that in Wikipedia the designation for the modern units (the 40 series) is "Armoured Regiment" for all except the 45th that is "Cavalry".

Also it is not clear to me if the official designations go like "45th Cavalry" or "45 Cavalry" (same for the Indian Gorkha regiments).
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