>Tactically there were only two ways for infantry to beat cavalry in an open field battle: firepower and mass. Firepower could be provided by swarms of missiles. Mass could be provided by a tightly packed phalanx of men.
Wait if both infantry and archers could deck cavalry then the fuck was cavalry for in the first place? I always thought they were supposed to shit all over infantry?
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Mobility is a killer, nigga.
Logistics and technological limitations, most arrows fired didn't hit shit, had a short range and couldn't reliably punch through armor. In battles like Carrhae arrows carried the day because the commander had set up a supply train to supply an unlimited amount of arrows the the fight
Also the Chinese used box formations of crossbowmen protected by pike and spears to fight barbarian nomads
Idk but i have a hard time visualizing cavalry vs infantry warfare
according to some battle descriptions they seem almost rohirrim vs orcs tier but other times they just seem to hit the infantry wall and stop
After the enemy breaks you have to chase them.
They couldnt. In terms of firepower, you need troops protecting your missile troops or else theyll get wrecked. In terms of mass, you need a body of disciplined and organized troops who can hold their ground, who could be pretty rare depending on the time period.
Also, the key point of cavalry is that they can outflank and outmaneuver.
Cavalry is not used against mass infantry / heavy infantry in formation, it's chief use is to destroy enemy archers / light infantry and to ride down heavy infantry when they break and flee. The best weapon against heavy infantry is light cavalry / horse archers, not by riding them down with lances.
Depends on the time period and who was fighting. Disciplined troops will hold their ground better than a peasant levy who arrived to battle with a pitchfork because his lord commanded
Typically if they get to Rohirrim vs. Orcs tier, theyve broken the enemy line and the battle is won. Otherwise, they hit a static formation and stop. The strength of the cavalry is in the shock value, aka their first charge (when theyre not being used to outmaneuver).
Because mobility, and the fact you're riding a fucking beast that can trample and bite and all that. Old warhorses were nothing like modern neutered horses used for leisure.
Heavy cavalry were shock troops and they would crash into formations, preferably formations that were previously softened by ranged weapons. They would usually charge with lances in shallow formation.
However if the infantry formation didn't break they would be in trouble because once horseman is stopped in a melee with infantry formation, he's usually fucked.
Light cavalry would be used for scouting, quickly covering ground, screening, and in battle they would harass infantry formations, and trample down routed formations.
Running down fleeing enemies was one of most important tasks of cavalry.
What's with all the stupid, common sense, military threads lately?
Why Chinese got r3kt by Mongols?
What was heavy cavalry used for?
>why do civilizations rise and fall
You tell me
If you don't have horses the enemy can just decide to retreat/flee at any moment and you can't stop them. Cavalry will make sure you have won the battle if the enemy forces rout.
Also allows you to outmaneuver to for example prevent them from moving to the high ground.
Also, this is just a general talk, in reality you can't sum up all encounters, because weapons were different, training was different, tactics were different, situations were different.
As a rule of thumb, if something was used historically for a long time it was probably useful. You didn't discover hot water.
Peasant levies very rarely arrived to battlefield with pitchforks, unless we're talking about peasant rebellions.
Men who served in battle usually had at least some equipment, at least some cheap polearm, helmet, maybe a shitty sword, some leather armor perhaps.
Here
Hitting a target already softened by missiles or prolonged combat. Charging the heavy cavalry at a relatively fresh force is medieval tier peasant warfare where the commander could reasonably expect the enemy infantry to be untrained peasants who already had low morale.
I have to stop you there, very rarely were people who fought in pitched battles ''untrained peasants''. Untrained peasants are totally useless in warfare, and you're actually killing your economy by sending untrained peasants to just die in battles.
Thing is it still takes a lot of training for an infantry formation to withstand cavalry charge.
It's not so simple really, we're talking about millenniums of warfare and tens of thousands of battles here.
Depends on the time and men who "served", You can't compare classical Roman infantry to medieval levies as things such as equipment supply, battlefield logistics, unit cohesion, officer and nco leadership, motivation for fighting etc would be completely different from each other
Calvary is there for deathblows after you're infantry is stuck in with theirs. Imagine you're in an infantry box, fighting another infantry box and all of a sudden you hear the thundering of hooves. You snap a quick look to your left and see a literal avalanche of brightly colored horses and armor barreling toward the side of your formation.
How quick do you think you're homies on the side of the formation are going to try to get out of that avalanche's way?
Hitting archers and driving off enemy cavalry (although light cavalry is better at the latter).
Of course but no one really rounded up random peasants and sent them to die in the field for no reason.
Those peasants who were levied usually had at least some equipment and training.
It wasn't some random dudes in peasant garbs with pitchforks.
You're talking nonsense. Heavy cavalry was used to charge into and break infantry formation, as well as fighting with other cavalry.
Don't get your historical education from fucking video games.
Peasant levies are somethign of a myth, certainly peasants were recruited into poorly-trained militias to supplement the professional warriors of feudal armies, but you'd be hard pressed to find an incidence of nobles literally forcing their peasants to fight. Such "soldiers" would be next to useless anyway, they might even betray you to the enemy and they'd certainly flee / desert at the first opportunity.
>Heavy cavalry was used to charge into and break infantry formation
No it wasn't. In the flanks of something like a phallanx, after it had been engaged by your infantry? Maybe, sometimes. But into infantry who are expecting it? No, utter stupidity to even consider such a thing.
>leather armor in times when leather was fucking expensive
kill yourself for propagating this dumb meme or go back to your le fus ro dah Skyrim kiddo
Are horses even willing to run ibto a wall of men?
This. "Leather armor" is retarded, people in the past weren't retarded so they didn't use it.
Actually you both are wrong, in cultures that emphasized a warrior nobility such as medieval Europe or Parthian/Sassanid Persia. Foot infantry were considered common rabble, where equipped poorly and where used mostly as fodder to weaken the enemy before the trained nobility would enter the fray. Most of these armies where quickly assembled from a group of part time soldiers of fortune, common criminals and other dregs of society. These armies fall apart when faced by a trained force made up of units who actually have motivation to be there and are led by competent officers and sergeants who can form some level of cohesion among the troops
That's one of the main reasons the other user is so wrong. You /can/ train a horse to ignore it's instincts and charge into a mass of infantry, but you'd be stopped short by the impact and quickly dragged from your horse and shanked.
Yes, heavy cavalry was used to charge into infantry that expected it. Obviously you would failed if you were facing a well-trained fresh formation.
And obviously flanking your enemy or attacking from the rear is far better.
But heavy cavalry could be used and was used to assault frontally.
Yes.
I meant to write ''cheap'' armor, jeez, what's with the negativity here, I apologize.
>Yes, heavy cavalry was used to charge into infantry that expected it.
Give me one single citation of this being done successfully.
Why are you ignoring shitload of historical records that speak of how cavalry charged fucking infantry formations?
Where did this meme come from?
Point is those peasant levies weren't random peasants, they were people who expected to be called to serve when needed.
Yes in some cases they were badly trained, in some cases they were well trained, but they didn't round up random people and drag them to battlefield. That's totally useless. That's my whole point.
>Why are you ignoring shitload of historical records that speak of how cavalry charged fucking infantry formations?
From the front? Care to give me a citation?
we're not talking about well equipped/trained infantry soldiers
if you had just a short lance and a shield and you saw 1.000 armored knights charging at you, usually you would run away or get destroyed by the charge. By XIV century people started to undestand how to deal with it.
Also if i'm not mistaken knights usually wanted to fight each other, there was no honor in fighting against paesants and poor people.
>Deprived of his left wing (still in pursuit of the Norman right), Alexios was exposed in the centre. Guiscard sent his heavy cavalry against the Byzantine centre. They first routed the Byzantine skirmishers before breaking into small detachments and smashing into various points of the Byzantine line. This charge broke the Byzantine lines and caused them to rout. The imperial camp, which had been left unguarded, fell to the Normans.[25]
Battle of Dyrrhachium, 1081
>short lance
spear, lance was a cavalry weapon
Also, Polish hussars regularly charged into infantry formations, even pikemen.
Stop repeating this ''horse won't charge into pikes'' bullshit. Trained warhorse, the ones used by knights, would absolutely charge into a wall of pikes and if pikemen weren't well trained they could be routed.
Do you understand the mechanics here, we're talking about some 600kg (including man in armor) smashing into a formation at quite some speed. Even if you kill a fucking horse it could still smash into you.
An act of desperation that got lucky. Had the lines not panicked, Guiscard would have merely wasted his cavalry.
>an act of desperation
Nope.
>that got lucky
Cavalry often got lucky.
>not panicked
You're close to getting it. It takes a very well trained infantry formation to not panic when charged by fucking heavy cavalry.
Overwhelming majority of battles were won when someone panicked and ran away.
...
Dyrrhachium is one of several examples from the same war where that happened. Alexios was getting his ass handed to him by Guiscard's cavalry left and right.
Relying on your enemy panicking is a terrible tactic.
But that's how most historical battles were won. Someone panicked and fled. Then they were cut down.
Why are totally ignoring reality in favor of some video game derived vision of yours?
>Yes, heavy cavalry was used to charge into infantry that expected it.
Rarely and as a gamble rather than a standard tactic.
Because the mongols were exceptional, and even so the conquest of song china took a good 40 years.
Relatively rarely because in reality not many states or groups had the ability to deploy relevant numbers of heavily armored and trained cavalrymen.
But those who did often used them to crash into formations and rout them.
Go back to start of this discussion. My point was that heavy cavalry COULD be used and WAS sometimes used to crash into infantry formations and rout them.
Of course, they wouldn't always be used like that.
Jesus Christ, life is not a video game, there are so many factors in play here, it's hard to talk in general.
Man, dont use the "lucky" thing. user provided a good example that you could double check.
Heck, we are always asking for some proof on historical records, and once we are provided, we say "meh just luck" ? Shame on you
>Wait if both infantry and archers could deck cavalry then the fuck was cavalry for in the first place?
Exploiting weaknesses in the enemy defence and charging routing enemies.
Not to mention that "massed" infantry formations require a lot of training and discipline in order to be able to operate on the battlefields and if they lacked either, cavalry would come and break them.
Imagine being on the receiving end of a charge: youtube.com
Now imagine them with bigger horses, lances and armour.
>Also if i'm not mistaken knights usually wanted to fight each other, there was no honor in fighting against paesants and poor people.
Yep, that was actually one of the factors that helped the British at Agincourt: despite being outnumbered and outknighted, the French fighting nobility moshpitted into the part of the English line where the English knights were because why bother fighting peasants? Leading to a situation where it was too cramped to even swing a weapon properly while the English laughed and continued employing their pikes n bows turtle game to great effect.
And then the English archers started forming up into shankgangs to jump sideline French soldiers.
Kinda messed up my syntax there:
The English were the ones who were outnumbered/knighted.
As a rule no, to them it looks like a solid object and they won't just run head first into it. It's been said at some times and in some places that the warhorse stock and training methods were sufficient to get them to do it, but even then a horse used in this way would very quickly develop psychological problems that rendered them useless. Unsure if that's accurate, but I have read it somewhere.
As other anons have pointed out however even if you wanted to do a frontal charge it would have to be against a formation that was thin enough that you could hit it, break it up, and be able to quickly get moving again through it to the rear or perhaps to one side. If it's a block of infantry 16 ranks deep, there's no way you're getting through or away quickly and close contact would greatly raise your chances of being dragged from the saddle or having your horse killed beneath you. So some care must always go into a charge. Can't just point it wherever.
It's not accurate and a trained warhorse will charge into a mass of infantry.
Will that charge succeed? Depends on the quality of cavalry and quality of infantry, as well as tactics and other conditions.
It doesn't matter if you have n ranks if your men aren't trained well. Once heavy cavalry smashes into your formation all those ranks might panic and flee. People aren't machines, and battlefield is a scary place.
And if cavalry was well trained and had good logistic support (like Polish hussars), they could charge over and over until formation broke.
Jesus fucking christ just stop posting alteady. You've been shitting up this thread since the very beginning. And now that has provided sources, pu still rebunk with your claimless shit.
Do you know what morale is? No, it's not a stat on fucking EU4. Formations had morale, as they're composed of human beigns. Such human beings, after being in a pitched battle to the death for some hours, tend to waver. And when such wavering human beings see an heavy cavalry troop charging at them, they usually say "alright fuck it this is enough for the day" and rout (if their commander hasn't already caught up the sign that his troop has low morale and that he order an ordinate retreat).
Morale, or as you put it, "panicking" is what wins battles; nothing else. In fact, you might think of it as the "health points" of actual real life formations, because it's not their manpower who determinates their "HP": rarely if never battles were fought to the last man. In fact, if anything, battlefield casualties are very low in the proper fighting phase. It is only when one of the two sides routes that the massacre can begin, at the hands of the cavalry.
Protip:
Don't take wikipedia seriously. That article is shit.
Except infantry medieval Europe was made up of professional and semi professional soldiery more often than not, same as cavalry.
No, they crashed into the men at arms and other infantry,most of whom were not knights or nobility at at all.
>Unsure if that's accurate, but I have read it somewhere.
Meanwhile actual historical record has soldiers ranging from gauls at carrhae to brits fighting napoleon deliberately running their horses onto weapons to pin them and leap at the enemy while they're stuck in the horse.
S
cavalry kills the infantry when the infantry retreats
"The single best way to kill infantry is to cavalry charge them from behind"
-- Every Total War game loading screen ever