Super heavy tanks

one of the major differences is that cavalry was rarely used independently or to make breakthroughs, unlike tanks, and i'm talking on a strategical level, not individual battles. another major reason is that the cavalries major weakness was vulnerability and lack of firepower, which is frankly exactly the opposite of a tank. another reason is that cavalry is rather flexible and independent, whereas tanks depend on maintennance, supplies and infrastructure which limits their scope compared to the full possibilites of cavalry.

an elephant serves your argument much more but no one calls tanks as modern war elephants. mobility isn:t a factor here because as i mentioned cavalry was rarely used independently from the main army and thus had to adjust to the speed of the artillery/infantry respectively.

Tanks ARE modern cavalry in a very important sense as an important, independent, penetrating arm of the military capable of break throughs and ground capture on it's own, all possible and desirable with traditional western cavalry.

Part of the problem with this question is the definition of "super heavy
". Depending on your definition, no true super heavy tank could have ever seen production, though prototypes may have seen battle, and then again, if you are loose enough, tanks as light as the King Tiger could be considered super heavy, and so too everything else in their weight class. You need to define clearly where you are drawing the line weight wise.

Originally posted by Temujin Originally posted by Cezar Temujin, that's quite an inconsistent argument from a person who praise horse archers. Cavalry was used for deep strike in the past. And they didn't always rely on support troops since pillage was an usual practice. So there are similarities between armored forces and the cavalry. there is no inconsistency, those were armies that were entirely mounted in nature and tanks can't forage the same way cavalry can. cavalries of urban empires were limited in their scope, mostly only because of the doctrines fo those countries, i mean look at ww1. there was nothing that would have prevented an independent use of cavalry forces in the same way as in the ACW for example. urban empires didn't emphasized on firepower for cavalries and when they did the cavalries mostly fought dismounted as infantry (like again, ACW). compared to modern armies only Air Cavalry qualifies but more similar to motorized infantry. back then such huge cavalry corps had horse artillery but nothing comparable to the firepower of a contemporary infantry corps or even a tank corps. then they also lacked the defensive capability of tanks big time.

Originally posted by Cezar So, cavalry was rarely used independently but there were armies that were entirely mounted in nature.

this was also an issue of cost, as well as socio-political factors (status). of course we can't compare Central Asia with Europe/US. the anaology tanks-cavalry is mostly a US thing, therefore i used "the west" as standard.

On the other hand, tanks depend on maintenance, supplies and infrastucture and cavalry was rarely used independently and thus has to adjust to the speed of other corps.

this also had several less obvious reasons, as i already mentioned doctrine but also incompetence on the side of cavalry commanders. one of the main reasons cavalry rarely excelled in "western" countries was in fact the lack of able cavalry commanders, not of able cavalry. just compare the lackluster perfromance of Cossacks in the Crimean and Russo-Japanese War, aprticularly when compared to the Napoleonci Wars. many people also don't realize that it is a huge and difficult task to co-ordinate and lead cavalry, particularly compared to other branches.

I wonder why, maybe because they too needed supplies and couldn't rely solely on raidings?

yes, one major difference is in horses. Steppe ponies resort to grazing while other "urban" breeds need supplies of fodder. this limited both the scope of expansion of the Central Asians as well as of urban empires which had to rely on depots. look for example at Napoleons Russian campaign which costed Napoleon more horses on the advance than the retreat.

Also, didn't they feared being cut from the main army and become vulnerable to enemy attacks?

cavalry is essentially only vulnerable to other cavalry, it was more of a vulnerability of the "slow" elements (artillery/infantry), the main army, that prevented this.

Well then we have to define the role of cavalry first.  The role of cavalry before the gun powder era is different from that during the gun powder era. 

1. Scouting (UAV, Satellites, and Aircraft)
2. skirmishing with enemy reconnaissance elements to deny them knowledge of own disposition of troops (Mounted Cavalry could be armored or humvee)
3. forward security (mounted calvary)
4. offensive reconnaisance by combat (mounted cavalry or attack helos)
5. defensive screening of friendly forces during retrograde movement (mounted cavalry, attack helos, artillery)
6. retreat (mounted cavalry, attack helos, artillery)
7. Restoration of command and control (network Security, satellites)
8. Deception (mounted calvary, attack helos, aircraft, artillery, armored forces)
9. Battle handover and passage of lines (mounted cavalry, armored forces)
10. Relief in place (mounted cavalry, armored forces)
11. linked up (mounted calvary, armored forces)
12. Break out operations (mounted cavalry, armored forces)
13. Raiding (special forces, light infantry, mounted cavalry)
14. Shock (mounted cavalry, armored forces)

Guys you're getting off topic

Originally posted by Count Belisarius Cool. No I'm not talking about tank destroyers

Originally posted by Count Belisarius Can anyone tell me anything about them?(please go into detail) and did any of them see action?

Originally posted by nuvolari Generally speaking a main battle tank is not intended to attack enemy tanks.

that is not accurate, of course MBT are intended to engage tansk as well. the concept of an MBT is a multi-purpose tank while tank hunters are "just" designed with the aim of combatting tanks only.