The thing you’re talking about never happened. That’s propaganda Mannheim made up based on this:
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Through ww2, Brit marines still carried cutlasses for boarding enemy vessels, everyone had bayonets, and melee sidearms were just still a fucking thing. See: pfp
If you’re on a horse anyways, it’s pretty hard to aim a rifle while the horse is moving. If an infantry position has cover, it’s better to run out wide and flank around the cover. Even better than that is if you can do it quickly. Horses are pretty quick.
So if you’re on a horse and moving quickly, and you’re going to have a melee sidearm, why the fuck wouldn’t you just make it a long pointy stick so you don’t have to dismount to fucking hit anyone?
This was even in the first battlefield game
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So exhausting. “Poles r dum cuz dey charge tanks lul”
I heard “poles r dum” jokes my entire childhood because a Nazi lied
Btw, uhlan translates to lancer, but they didn’t just have lances
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