Horseback period Colonial Brazil The
governors-general of the
State of Brazil used cavalry forces against
amerindians in
Bahia and
Espírito Santo in the mid-16th century, with the first combat recorded in Porto Grande, near Pirajá, Bahia, on 26 May 1555. The first decisive use was in the war against the
Tupiniquins in 1558–1559. However, horses were scarce, expensive and the privilege of a few settlers. In the first two centuries the maintenance of cavalry units was difficult. The existing network of fortifications was much more useful for the defense of the territory than the cavalry. The post-
Restoration Portuguese Empire (1640) had an army divided between Regular Corps, professional and paid, and two categories of territorial and unpaid character, the Auxiliary Corps/
Milícias and the Irregular Corps/
Ordenanças. Both spent most of their time in their civilian occupations and were divided into units of whites,
pardos and freed slaves. Several militia cavalry companies fought the
Dutch invasions of Brazil and a squadron participated in the
first battle of Guararapes in 1648. The
Ordenanças of horsemen (only Regulars and Auxiliaries used the term "cavalry") had a social elite character in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 18th century
Minas Gerais, among the Cavalry Auxiliaries and
Ordenanças on horseback, there were no units of
pardos or freed slaves. Both gave priority to the richest and noblest men. Regular cavalry emerged in the early 18th century, at first as mounted infantry of a police character. In the
gold cycle, several companies of dragoons were formed from 1719 onwards. They were consolidated in 1775 into the Regular Regiment of Cavalry of Minas, funded by the local power — the Captaincy of Minas Gerais itself — and ancestor of the
Minas Gerais Military Police. Throughout the colonial period, cavalry was recruited from different social strata. In colonial Rio Grande do Sul, a militarized, frontier and pastoral society, the cavalry militia was constituted with peons. It was commanded by its ranchers "like the contingents of feudal barons"; they were charismatic leaders who organized the force from their own lands. Mobilized only for war or to fight indigenous peoples, the troops did not follow orthodox military discipline, increasing and decreasing with desertions and admissions. The peons were well adapted to the terrain and riding; they improvised spears and lived in a society where the horse was of great importance. The militias were almost all cavalry, but as in the rest of the country, there was little regular cavalry. In the 18th century, a Dragoon and an Auxiliary regiment appeared in the captaincy. Another southern phenomenon was the recruitment of indigenous people as
lancers; these indigenous people were forming nomad societies based on horses. With the
transfer of the Portuguese court to Brazil a regiment of
Guarani lancers was created in the
Missões region. Then prince regent
John of Portugal deemed cavalry necessary to ensure the country's military capabilities, and several regiments were created in the early 19th century. They were armed with 17mm and 19mm Tower or
Brown Bess flintlock
carbines, 19mm flintlock pistols, spears and
sabres.
Empire of Brazil 's personal guard|left The Empire of Brazil abandoned the denomination of "dragoons", reorganizing the forces into seven numbered cavalry regiments. These were considered light, but sometimes southern units were considered spearmen for using this weapon, such as the German Lancers. The spear, adopted in 1826, was a novelty inspired by European spearmen and
gaucho militiamen. Until then, dragoons only used sabers and carbines and did not take advantage of the shock power of mounted
charges. The doctrine in use was
Beresford's: offensive role and mounted combat, without dismounting. During the reign of
Pedro II, the weapons in use were fulminant carbines,
Minié, of various brands and weights; sabres, Colt and Lefaucheux revolvers; Minié pommel pistols and spears. With their own opinions and experience, cavalrymen were held in low esteem by intellectuals in the
capital. There was the saying: "as in the cavalry, fast and badly done". The current patron of the branch, marshal Manuel Luís Osório, served during this period. He was a gaucho (from Rio Grande do Sul) and a typical rancher-commander. Gauchos predominated in the ranks and location of the regiments; they were excellent cavalrymen. The gaucho lancers, nicknamed "centaurs of the
pampas", are emblematic of the wars in the south of the country. Horses were trained "wildly" and treated insensitively. Along with the poor quality of Portuguese saddles and food, they weakened over time and each soldier had to take two or three horses to campaign. They could be abandoned on the way. Horse theft was practiced both by Brazilian gauchos and by neighboring Argentines and Uruguayans. In the
southern wars from 1825 to 1870, horses were of a low breed standard and climatic, environmental, sanitary, and logistical conditions were appalling. Added to the conditions of the terrain, in many cases cavalrymen fought on foot during the Paraguayan War. Even so, in suitable terrain they still attacked mounted, as in the large cavalry charges performed at the
battle of Avay. It was in the Paraguayan campaign that the gaucho lancers reached their peak, and at the same time, the use of spears went into decline. The regiments, in the French manner, had a squadron of dragoons with carbines and the rest of lancers. Under the command of the
Duke of Caxias the proportion of lancers dropped from 3/4 to 2/3, but failures with new firearms in general led to more primitive tactics: in the battle of Avay general Osório was one of the last to defeat
infantry squares in a "cold iron" charge, with only sabres and spears. After 1869, when command of the
Imperial Brazilian Army was given to the
Count of Eu, firearms were once again valued. Carbine squadrons were separated from lancers and grouped into
ad hoc units. They had great success with the modern
Spencer carbine. After the war the infantry lost the distinction between
caçadores and
fusileiros. The cavalry, following the experience and observing what happened in Europe, could have given equal preparation to shock action and dismounted combat, but this did not consolidate, returning to the mixed configuration.
Republican period The Rio Grande do Sul preference for cavalry remained at the Military School of Realengo, the predecessor of AMAN, where officers were trained after 1913. Cadets with better grades chose their branch at the end of the 2nd year. Cavalry was the third most disputed, behind Artillery and Engineering (in ascending order). The Infantry typically took the lowest grade students. Many
northeastern cadets joined the southerners under
José Pessoa (1930–1934), a cavalryman from
Paraíba. Lancers were still important in the
Federalist Revolution (1893–1895), but in that decade they could be easily hit at long range. The use of the spear was minimal in the following decades. The Army even acquired the Ehrardt spear in 1908, only adopting firearms for the entire troop in 1917. In 1910, a presidential decree provided for a Veterinary School and a Veterinary Staff in the Army Health Corps, thus responding to the unhealthy conditions observed in the campaigns over the previous century. At the time of Pandiá Calogeras' tenure at the Ministry of War (1919–1922), the Army's material shortcomings were also felt in the cavalry. Many soldiers were occupied with the creation, reproduction and treatment of horses to the detriment of instruction, making large exercises in the field extremely rare. With the high rate of loss of horses in a war, the minister speculated that in a fortnight the cavalry would be fighting on foot. One of the iconic moments of the
Revolution of 1930 was when the gaucho revolutionaries tied their horses to the obelisk on
Rio Branco Avenue, in Rio de Janeiro, representing their triumph over the ruling power in the capital. The obelisk, an icon of central power, was reduced to "a mere platform to tie up horses", symbols of Rio Grande do Sul. Animal traction was not exclusive to cavalry, being widely used by other branches. The artillery, for example, moved its guns in yoke of oxen, which was easily observable until the late 1930s. In 1939–1940, at the beginning of
World War II, the Army had a predicted strength of 36,383 horses, with 22,810 actually existing, dispersed throughout the military regions. This required stud farms, remounts, breeding and veterinary supplies warehouses, a hospital, infirmaries, isolation rooms, pharmacies, blacksmiths, forage cultivation and animal purchases. The poor state of the barracks was noted by general José Pessoa when he was appointed inspector of the Cavalry in 1939. In his assessment, the Argentine cavalry would be superior to the Brazilian cavalry during a war. The problem was broader, in the country's equine farming, and thus also under the jurisdiction of the
Ministry of Agriculture. In 1958 the individual armaments of a squadron of horseback cavalry riflemen were swords, carbines, saber-daggers, semi-automatic rifles, pistols, revolvers, submachine guns, and hand and rifle grenades. The collective weapons were the
Madsen 1935-F submachine gun, the 60 mm mortar and rocket launchers.
Mechanization (1938–1986) The two world wars highlighted the obsolescence of the horse on the battlefield and its domination by mechanized vehicles. Two technological advances were in progress, motorization and mechanization, which can be respectively defined as the adoption of transport materials, such as trucks and tractors, and combat materials, such as the tank and
armored vehicles. For the cavalry, mechanization was a radical change that retired its main instrument, the horse. After 1940, the branch faced extinction, but it had an alternative: to embrace mechanization, recognizing the tank as the horse's successor and continuing its former armor, shock and mobility capabilities. The world military powers replaced horse cavalry with mechanized forces, although some cavalry units retained their designations. The "cavalry" of the following decades was based on cutting-edge technology. However, horses continued to be used in peripheral countries. Brazilian mechanization began with the adoption of the
Renault FT-17 by the
Companhia de Carros de Assalto (1921–1932). It was attached to the 1st Infantry Division and served to support the infantry, according to the French doctrine at the time. At the beginning of the
interwar period, the tank's role was open, appearing with infantry and even artillery; some argued that it should form a branch of its own. Years later and until 1970, the same French concept appeared in the Light Tank Battalions, which belonged to the infantry. (1945) The next steps were the Moto-Mechanization Section of the
General Staff of the Army and the creation of the Squadron of Auto-Machine Guns of Reconnaissance in 1938, equipped with the Italian
Fiat Ansaldo L3/35 tankette and belonging to the cavalry. During World War II, from 1941 to 1942 Brazil received a lot of American mechanized material through
Lend-Lease. The flow was resumed in 1952 with the signing of the
Brazil-United States Military Agreement. The cavalry's participation in the
Brazilian Expeditionary Force consisted of a squadron equipped with jeeps and
M8 Greyhound armored vehicles. The entry of hundreds of WWII American tanks —
M3 Stuarts,
M3 Lees,
M4 Shermans, M8 Greyhounds and
M3 Scout Cars, supplemented in the 1960s with the
M41 Walker Bulldog light tank from the 1950s, allowed the creation of a Motomechanized Division (1943), converted into an Armored Division nucleus (1946) and raised to a full division in 1957. Armored vehicles coexisted with horse cavalry: in 1960, out of 27 cavalry regiments, 17 were on horseback. The 1946 Law on the Organization of Cadres and Effectives left only horse and motorized forces in the cavalry branch, classifying mechanized units as "armored troops", while the 1957 decree included them in the cavalry. There was the threat of the creation of an independent armored branch, as occurred in Germany and the United States. Also at stake were the traditions of the branch, the careers of cavalrymen and veterinarians, and the future of the horses. A faction of officers who defended the tradition wanted its permanence, even if they partially admitted motomechanization. The debate had been raging since World War II. The
blitzkrieg demonstrated the value of armor, while horse supporters used the feats of the
Red Army's cavalry to their advantage. Until the 1960s, traditionalists argued on the basis of the inferior mobility and versatility of mechanized forces in difficult terrain and rainy weather, as well as the material infeasibility of sustaining them. The material argument was: There is mention of a military movement on horseback from
Quaraí, in southwestern Rio Grande do Sul, to the Harmonia region during the
1964 coup d'état, but what happened in the 1961
Legality Campaign, the 1964 coup, the 1965 Três Passos Guerrilla and combating contraband was motorized transport, even if in requisitioned civilian vehicles. Motorization and mechanization took place in the armies of neighboring countries and were widespread in the
Korean and
Vietnam wars. Over the years reluctant officers were gradually replaced by new generations open to mechanization. At the same time, the arguments against mechanization were deflated by the "vertiginous progress" of the
Brazilian economy. In the 60s and 70s, local
automobile and war industries and the Army's research projects made it possible to nationalize most of the unarmored vehicles, modernize the American armored vehicles in use and manufacture armored vehicles on wheels: the EE-9 Cascavel and EE-11 Urutu from
Engesa, respectively for reconnaissance and transport. National vehicles finally equipped the cavalry. Likewise, infantry was also motorized and mechanized. By 1973, mechanization had transformed most regiments, reaching the last ones in
Mato Grosso do Sul in 1985–1986. Late mechanization was a Latin American trend; Mexico and Chile also had horse cavalry in the 1980s. In the new cavalry platoons, Cascavel and Urutu served together, complementing each other. Their similarity of parts facilitated logistics and maintenance. The horses were kept in three guard regiments, of historical value, and in some schools. The designation of "cavalry" was merely added with adjectives such as "mechanized" and "armored". Training of cavalry officers continued, as did reconnaissance and vanguard duties. In this way the tradition survived in part, it was reconciled with modernization and the branch continued to exist.
Modernizations (1979–) After mechanization, a new and equally great opportunity arose with helicopters. Carrying soldiers and having great mobility and maneuverability, they were employed by the Americans in Vietnam as "
air cavalry". Some Brazilian cavalrymen saw it as the next evolution after armored cavalry, but the helicopter units that the Army created from 1986 onwards did not belong to the cavalry. That role fell to
Army Aviation and airmobile infantry. The local industry accumulated experience modernizing American vehicles and in 1979 it began the development of a national tank, the
Tamoyo, in response to the
Tanque Argentino Mediano. Thouguh not a cutting-edge technology, it was suited to national limitations. To accompany it came the
Charrua APC as a successor for the M-113. The Tamoyo had a more advanced alternative, aimed at the international market, the
EE-T1 Osório. None of the three vehicles were purchased and the local war industry went into crisis in the 1990s. The "Delta Doctrine" for a conventional war outside the
Amazon, one of the hypotheses adopted by the Army in 1996, prioritized armored and mechanized forces. By then, these forces were outdated both infantry and cavalry. In the same year, the Armored Instruction Center was founded to prepare the human resources (sergeants and officers) of the armored troops. As the M41 was already old, the only option was to import new tanks. In the late 90's Brazil bought the M60 A3 TTS and the Leopard 1A1. Without a proper import of maintenance parts for the Leopard, in 2009–2010 the first batches of a better version arrived, the Leopard 1A5. They are much more advanced tanks than the M41 and have led to the expansion of logistical capabilities. However, maintenance, unlike acquisition, is expensive, there is no technology transfer and the models are outdated. The Tamoyo, M60 and Leopard 1 are 2nd generation, while the Osório and 80's and 90's contemporaries like the
M1 Abrams and
Leopard 2 are 3rd generation. Scouts, lighter elements of mechanized cavalry, rely on jeeps, while more modern armies would use light armour. Its electro-optronic material was assessed as obsolete in 2020. Cascavel and Urutu served more than 25–40 years after production, becoming technologically outdated; thus, in 1998 the Army began its planning for a new family of wheeled tanks. The Urutu was replaced by the new domestically produced VBTP-MR Guarani in 2014–2022, leaving only five units in service. The Guarani also serves the new
mechanized infantry. The Cascavel had its successor chosen in 2022: the
Centauro II tank destroyer with a 120mm cannon, in a gradual replacement over 15 years. The purchase was challenged in court on budgetary grounds. The M-113 remains as the tracked transport of armored cavalry, while other armies would use an
infantry fighting vehicle such as the
Bradley in its place. The maintenance contract for the Leopard 1A5 BR expires in 2027, requiring a replacement in the future. In the conflicts of the 2020s, such as the
Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and the
Russian invasion of Ukraine, more modern tanks than the Brazilian Leopard 1, but used with tactical errors, suffered heavy casualties against anti-tank weapons and drones. == Traditions ==