Why was cavalry considered to be so effective ? Surely...

Well for example the finnish Hakkapeliitta cavalry were known to charge directly into the enemy unit, first weakening it by shooting first pistol at 20 paces then second pistol form 5 paces and finally drawing swords and charging in using the horses as trampling machines.

Uh, is there any proof that horse could NOT be able to charge into infantry?

Faster
More intimidating
Potentially more raw force
Higher vantage point

>is there proof of something that we know has happened literally countless times over the last 2000 years
yes?

How did horses not freak out and say fuck this shit I'm out in a charge with screaming men and blaring noise and general total chaos

>this thread

Have you heard of blinders?

Not him, but that's simply not the case. Frontal charges against infantry that hold almost always result in disaster for the attacking cavalry. There's a reason that from Alexander to Napoleon, you try to slip your cavalry into a gap in the enemy's line, not just push it over, and why cavalry is lamost always deployed behind or to the sides of your own infantry, to let them disorganize the enemy before you go plowing in.

Maybe I'm giving beasts too much credit

According to these texts, cavalry almost always avoided contact with cavalry :
romanarmy.info/cavalry5_charging_infantry/notes_from_18-19-cen.html
If riders and their mount were afraid of the shock against another rider and his horse, one can assume they were equally afraid of going against a formation of men ?

romanarmy.info/cavalry5_charging_infantry/cavalry_charging_infantry.html
>A cavalry formation cannot charge directly into a mass of infantrymen for there is no place for the horses to go. Standard battle diagrams like the one at the right in which the cavalry (blue) attacks the flank of an infantry formation (red) break down when one considers the action at the level of the individual soldier who simply cannot attack straight ahead.

Is this the new "Medieval people didn't know how to sail to Sicily"?
>There's a reason that from Alexander to Napoleon, you try to slip your cavalry into a gap in the enemy's line, not just push it over, and why cavalry is lamost always deployed behind or to the sides of your own infantry, to let them disorganize the enemy before you go plowing in.
That reason is numbers. If you have enough cavalry, you don't give a shit
> 16/17thC Poland.

>This is assuming a horse would be willing to crash into a line of men. Is there any proof of this ?
Just basically every battle pre modern era

And here you have the reason, why in that time they had problems with that. Shitty training.

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Horse charge going 25mph vs 0 mph men = 25 mph of force.

Horse charge going 25 mph vs 25 mph of horse charge = 50 mph of force

Horses would be unlikely to charge at sharp sticks and well braced men yes, but equally the riders aren't stupid enough to that either, this is why most cavalry charges occur in the flank or rear or against disorganised infantry. Only very well trained heavy cavalry like knights or cataphracts would do frontal charges, and not all the time either.

CHARGE INTO THE PIKES YOU FUCKING HORSE

2000 lb * 25 mph = 2279 lbfs
150 lb * 1 mph = 6.8 lbfs

Its roughly 335x more force.

Try to imagine this. You have a nail (the pikes) and you have a wood (the infantry) and a hammer, the horses.

The nail will go in the wood, regardless of whether its upside down or not.

I have a better analogy :
You have a nail (the pikes).
And you have wood (the infantry and the horses as well).

What would happen ?

>That reason is numbers. If you have enough cavalry, you don't give a shit

Except again, when it didn't work. Go ask the Marathas how easy it is to just charge into a bayonet and musket square, or if we're talking Renaissance era Poland, why not look at Wallhof, where the Poles outnumbered the Swedes 2:1 in cavalry alone and got bloodily repulsed.

Did it work? Sometimes, sure. But it was a lot less reliable than hitting at a weak point, supported by your own infantry, which is why every army moved away from purely cavalry forces by the 18th century and relegated them to a supporting role, and even before that it was rare as hell to make cavalry more than 20% of your army by numbers, or to have them go charging off on their own and figuring that'll be enough.

You have two types of wood. A regular wood that can withstand 6.8 lbfs and a metal-wood that can withstand 2279 lbfs.

The nail is useless against the might of the metal-wood.

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ok lindy

Sure you kill the first guy, then your horse gets into the other 400 pikes, WHAT DO? All it takes is for a few horsies to die before the bodies will make another charge(or continuing to throw yourself into pikes) impossible

>Lindy "Swords were useless" Beige

Take a pike, then stand against speeding car. Tell me then how pike will allow you to survive.

>WHAT DO

Have infantry supporting you or horse archers.

So, full pikemen square? Get to them close, take pistol, BAM, take second one, BAM, retreat to reload, use cannons meantime, repeat.
Also, they were few rows of charging cavalrymen.

Cars don't have flesh and they don't fall leading to the death of the driver if you poke out a tire, horses do. If you pierced a horse's leg while he's galloping he'l fall, the rider will fall and most likely break some bones, the other horses will trip over them and fall without pikes doing shit.
We were talking about a horse charge mate

>We were talking about a horse charge mate

>Cavalry was there for charging!

You would make a very, very bad commander.

>pikemen won't have pistols themselves or musketeers behind
dis niga

I didn't imply it was there for charging, others were saying that, and I was saying how stupid it is to charge into fucking pikes

The point is, horse will not magically stop, and will crash into you. The same way when you pierce car's wheel, it won't stop and will kill you either way.

You are digging your own grave, as when you mix musketeers with pikemen,
This is no more valid ^
And this happens.

>You are digging your own grave, as when you mix musketeers with pikemen,

Pretty much every single renaissance army ever did that, you know. That's why you get the era of "Pike and Shot".

That would get a horse and a rider killed in the process, and like I mentioned before fucking piles of horse bodies would get in the way between the horsemen and the infantry they're charging at, making it next to impossible to sustain an assault. How much of a jihadist do you have to be to charge into pikes and die knowing that your horsie might have fallen on some enemy?

And that's why armies using pike and shot were so BTFO by Poles.

Poles used shot and pike too, just how everyone else was using horses as well.

Gustavus Adolphus says "hi", and thanks you for the generous gift of Livonia.

Gustavus Adolphus says "fuck pike and shot, we need more muskeetmen and cavalry, combine them and also use fortifications"

Cavalry charges on large groups of enemies in the era of Muskets only ever worked with artillery and infantry support

He used pikemen. Less than his contemporaries, but roughly 1/4 of his infantry forces would be pikes, and most of the musketmen were at least supposed to have shorter polearms to use at need.

Yes, that's why i wrote
>we need more muskeetmen
not "only musketmen"
Pikemen were less and less used, the strong musketmen fire combined with field foritifactions did indeed counter cavalry.
Yes, but
>Jan Wimmer Historia Piechoty Polskiej Do Roku 1864
>„Uzbrojenie ich [piechoty typu zachodnioniemieckiego] nie różniło się od uzbrojenia współczesnej piechoty zachodnioeuropejskiej i składało się z arkebuzerów lontowych lub kołowych oraz pik, przy czym zgodnie z życzeniem Batorego pikinierów było znacznie mniej niż muszkieterów” str 145
>Bathory(Polish king in 1575-1586) wanted far less pikemen than musketmen in Polish infantry , the one armed like the Western one.
>Za czasów Zygmunta III znaczenie piechoty zmalało, służyła ona do obsadzenia warownych obozów, budowy szańców czy jako wsparcie ogniowe dla jazdy polskiej. Zapewne z tego powodu nie wielu było pikinierów w ich składzie.
>During rule of Sigismund III Vasa (1587-1632) infantry was less important, used only to defend camps, build ramparts or used like fire support for cavalry. That's why there were almost none pikemen amongst them

Training

>Poles outnumbered the Swedes 2:1 in cavalry alone
>around 2000 Lithuanians
>against 2100 Swedish cavalry and 1000 infantry
>Poles outnumbered the Swedes 2:1 in cavalry alone
Your mental health is on par with the Lithuanians commander after battle i see.

Thing is they smash their lances(kopies) into infantry, the lances were specially made so they shatter on hit and then cavalry go back and take another lance and repeat charge.

The lance industry must've been booming

How about they dont shatter and then they dont need to go back to get a new one?

Winged hussar's lances were ~6m long and hollow, it could be quite hard to not shatter that thing.
>The lance industry must've been booming
Lances were bought by the king, as it was important to have the same lance for everyone.

The cavalryman has a good vantage point, but it is not the only factor. When men are organized, disciplined and experienced they can negate the advantage of cavalry.

Infantry are not burdened with managing a horse, they can easily use both hands and adjust their footing however they wish so they can handle a longer pike. They can anchor the pike in the ground allowing them to use almost the full length, compare this with the couched lance supported by a leather contraption pictured here , the cavalryman might be of great skill but he is not more solid than earth. The lance will yield if it does not penetrate while the pike will at worst sink into the mud while still pushing back anything it does not penetrate.

The pikeman has to increase their angle of attack, but if they kneel so does the cavalryman.

h=pike length
a=reach
cos30=a/h=0.866
So it loses about ~15% of its reach which is significant, but does it negate all the advantages infantry have?

also So what was the advantage of cavalry? When these theoretically perfect conditions break down, cavalry has the advantage again. Human beings are not machines. We all think we are tough guys, but when a cannon shot finally hits your tercio or you witness the "push of pike" and you hear dozens of men screaming in agony you will get an adrenaline rush, your heart won't stop pounding, you will hesitate or freeze, you will only be able to mindlessly do whatever you have been drilled to do. You are a malnourished commoner, fatigued after marching for days with few rations who has been fighting for hours and up against a cavalryman drawn from the nobility who rode to the battle on his Palfrey trained to amble for a smoother ride, who has sat comfortably behind the lines for most of the battle and has only just mounted his fresh Destrier. Mistakes happen, there will be openings and this guy will take advantage of them.

It's so that if your lance gets stuck in a body, you don't get pulled off the horse.

True, but in both cases the horse only receives 25mph of force.

Are you mentally deficient?

Miles per hour is not a unit of force

horses weigh 300-1000 pounds and get run at 30-40 mph. they will fuck you up. and that guy sitting on the will fuck you up too. along with the other 200 mounted soldiers riding alongside him.

Not really, if two charging cavalrymen would hit each other, that would mean 2 horses and 2 riders dead. That's why they would never charge the Holywood way (or like in battle of bastards in GoT),
This still can happen in modern times. For example, accidents in horse races, they don't end well.

>And trained and disciplined cavalry absolutely destroys trained and disciplined infantry in front charge
No it doesn't.

Ungelded horses are assholes and like to fight. He's going to be more interested in crushing heads with his hooves than running away.

Also, warhorses were nto fuckign 2000lbs you wannabe matmatician faggots.

Modern draft horses have nothing in fucking common with warhorses, being of recent breeding and existing for an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT PURPOSE.

A horse that lives solely to pull heavy at a walk shit does not have the build of a horse mean to carry a man at a run for long periods, much as a power lifter is not built like a marathon runner.

Nor do they behave the same. One is bred to be docile, the other will fucking bite other riders and try to pull them off of their saddle-or beat the shit out of their horse.

Horses are big, giant assholes that can and will kill you, and a bunch of galloping herd animals running at something is hard to stop. They WILL continue to run even with fatal wounds.

They needed to be hollow to use lances as long as they did.

Head on charges absolutely happened, though. Charges just weren't done at the gallop, because cohesion is more important than speed, both during and after the charge.

That, and horses get tired. Gallop at your own risk.

if you stab a horse once with a bayonet, it doesn't immediately die you know. You still have to stab the rider, who fights on foot now.

Also, horses can fucking wreck you ON THEIR OWN if they get the mind to. Cavalrymen themselves are often of a superior quality, given the investments justification.

MOBILITY YOU LITERAL PATZER

>what are war horses
>what is breeding

horses weigh more than people

consider a horse running headlong into a running man, versus a running horse.

HMM I WONDER WHICH IS GONNA BE WORSE FOR THE HORSE

>DURRRRRRRRRRRR BETTER KMS

armor is not a car

there is a living thing inside it, and if you charge a horse and rider into a set pike formation they will probably die.

Wood can be extremely resilient.

the idea there is to run in a line with your lancers, out maneuver and pick dudes off with reach

of course you don't smash into a pike formation THROUGH the pikes

> Surely, a spear or a bayonet would negate any advantage that a mounted fighter would have. No
It would, for most of history cavalry was mainly used scouting, skirmishing, and running down disorganized enemies.

Shut your mouth you blithering retard

Not unless a spear or a bayonet can make you run 30 miles an hour and weigh 2500 pounds when you slam into the flank of the enemy, no.

What the fuck is this retarded pseudoscience? Why are you trying to argue and simplify military engagements into some retarded numbers?

Cavalry charging cavalry wouldn't even have the same simplistic "smack" impact as cavalry hitting infantry, as you're not hitting a very dense and tightly packed wall of men and the animals will run inbetween each other.

Simple. Charge the flank, or the rear of the enemy. A cavalry charge head on facing pikes will not end well for both sides. Use the horses' advantage, which is speed and maneuverability.

>numbers have nothing to do with war
>cavalry/infantry interactions are simple

you are the retard here

do you think cavalry don't keep formation in the charge?

Retarded little mph calculations have nothing to do with war. And yes, by comparison, cavalry vs infantry engagements are far more simple than cavalry vs cavalry. In the Napoleonic wars small numbers of light cavalry could sometimes defeat equal numbers of heavy cavalry, and it certainly had nothing to do with "X WEIGHT HITS X WEIGHT AT X SPEED".

Cavalry charging cavalry is a prelude to an engagement. Unlike cavalry charging infantry, where the charge itself is essential.

>mph calculations have nothing to do with war

see, that's what the French thought just before WW2.

Turns out speed is actually even more important in modern warfare.

MPH had absolutely nothing to do with the french defeat, you fucking mongoloid.

>MPH had absolutely nothing to do with the french defeat

yes you are retarded

Are you just trolling?

MPH doesn't mean shit when your armor is doled out in penny packets as infantry support and WILL NOT move faster than them, or ever be concentrated enough to deal with a major armored push without being brushed aside.

Nor does it solve a horrendous lack of radios proliferation of one and two man turrets, or fix the idiocy of french high command. On top of all this, tanks don't move at full speed when in transit. Ideally, they don't use their own engines at all and you put them on trains. Replace the fleet with contemporary British cruiser tanks and they'd still fucking lose.

horses could be countered with pikes... but that required well drilled men, which was very expensive. horsemen could be expected to be from a warrior/aristocratic class and thus supply their own equipment and handle their own training, but an infantry pikeman had to often rely on training and equipment from a state.

For most of history? You mean 3000 bc till 500 bc right? because after that I can name specific heavy cavalry units for every century

>MOBILITY YOU LITERAL PATZER
I was talking specifically about the mêlée (hence why I talked about mêlée weapons). From the combat point of view (beyond operational aspects like scouting), mobility is only relevant to the charge. When not charging, cavalry must stand outside of shooting range.

>You still have to stab the rider, who fights on foot now.
If the rider can recover from the fall and stand up before getting bayoneted. Many people have been injured or killed from falling off their horse, and they were not in a combat situation. And bayonet has more reach than a sword.

>patzer
I reck u on any tactic game, m8

Yes, but Heavy cavalry got less and less important as infantry improved.

I don't fucking understand how OP can be be this retarded

If cavalry was surely as shit has he suggests, then wouldn't that show in history?

*hits your flank*

Never heard of Waterloo ? The historical record shows a decrease of heavy cavalry's efficiency as infantry got better trained and equipped with longer weapons (first with the pike, then the bayonet).

Also, notice how cavalry is vulnerable on its left side. Infantry could take advantage of this weakness.

t. Ney. Marshall of France.

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