Lance charge appreciation thread

Top kek dude, one battle that was decided more by engineers and trenchworks sure makes that point, oh wait;

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Saint-Omer

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bannockburn
>this confuses and terrifies the Englishman's French overlord

>The actual mounted cavalrymen numbered around 350.

>Battle of Vienna (September 11–12, 1683): 20,000 Polish, Austrian and German cavalry led by the Polish king Jan III Sobieski and spearheaded by 3000 heavily armed Polish hussars charged the Ottoman lines. This is the largest cavalry charge in history.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_(warfare)#Notable_charges

What happened if you piereced someone with a long spear (not a lance, as they broke) while charging? Does the momentum of the charge rip them apart or does the spear just gets stuck there? Or did the spears break as easily as lances in these circumstances?

Sorry if it's a retarded question.

I don't think that's how bullets worked back then

jousting lances were designed to break (hollow portion), but not battle lances :) there are accounts of multiple people getting shish-kebabbed by a lance charge, which of course is badass

What do you do with a lance with a fucking dude stuck on the end? That shit is too unwieldy to continue to fight with. Do you drop it?

just to clarify, I'm describing one person being skewered, and the lance continuing through and murdering the person behind them. Which tells me that the spear would just get stuck if it penetrates the armor. If there is armor that doesn't break, the lance might shatter, it might not, but either way the knight's probably going to just drop the lance and switch to a different weapon.

I would imagine the same goes for a spear. Except, becacuse a spear is thinner, it would actually be *more* likely to shatter on impact

I'm Aren't I a retard. Of course you'd drop the lance, it's a pretty shit weapon unless you plan on another charge, right?

Exactly. Sometimes, they'd dismount entirely and fight on as an elite infantry unit :)

> jousting lances were designed to break (hollow portion)

Actually, modern jousting lances are designed to break, historical jousting has full contact lances;

youtube.com/watch?v=hPvtJmuyzn4

youtube.com/watch?v=zQDRKF5x6P4

>After hours of skirmishes and maneuvering your superior gets the order to charge
>Your group of about a dozen form up in a tight line, more groups form up behind and beside yours, you start by trotting so your horses are less overheated
>The enemy have been training for just such an event for months and saw your cavalry moving up, spears and pikes are brought to the front and they have had time to dig pot holes and erect a palisade
>You see you will be among those who have to attack the front, you won't get to hit the weaker flanks, at about 200 meters you move to a gallop
>You can barely see your target, just the palisade, a bunch of slightly dipped down helmets and spear points
>You tip your pennant to signal the others and spur your horse into a full charge
>The horse next to you falls due to an obstacle, arrow or crossbow bolt
>The front flanks are kneeling making themselves difficult targets and doing what they have been drilled to do, the rear ranks also have spears and polearms, they are terrified but don't want to let their buddies down and know if they rout they will all die
>Impact!
>Your horse wasn't skewered or broken going through the palisade so you must have knocked down or trampled a few and your lance might have killed someone, but those that are still conscious will get up and any of them can disable your horse
>Taking advantage of the disrupted formation and shock you do what you have been trained from infancy to do, draw your sword and strike disoriented infantry while your destrier rears and kicks
>However you are still outnumbered and know a proportion of your group must have been unhorsed and a few may be injured or dead, after it looks like the enemy infantry are back together you will pull back to charge again
>You have been spooked from infancy to think you will go straight to heaven if you die for King Chad and this is the greatest moment in your life, huzzah
fix'd

Nobody is saying that pike formations didn't wreck the effectiveness of the cavalry charge, (with certain exceptions - see Hussars, etc) but we have to remember that pikes and high-poundage missile weapons were made integral to infantry units *because* charges had been so effective against them in the past. I had those early days in mind when I made this thread. Obviously getting your horse skewered, being thrown off, and peeled open like a can opener by massed infantry is not especially badass

hey never knew that, thanks for the learnin'

>charging the front lines of enemy infantry formation head-on

Are you suicidal? I love the cavalry charges as much as the next guy, but they aren't some infallible tactic. French lost a lot of battles because they kept treating it like that until they figured they can't just solve all problems by charging with cavalry at it.

youtu.be/KLb2Nmzp-pA?t=53

guys I'm talking about the early days of a cavalry charge before it got hard countered :(

head-on charges against people who aren't explicitly trained and equipped to deal with them are a great way to cause them to rout before you even make contact

terrifying desu

You'd probably drop it and pull out your sidearm like a sword, mace, warhammer, or axe.

>tfw ywn ride with Gen John Le Marchant at Salamanca, smashing dozens of French infantry battalions, trampling the shattered corpses of Napoleon's Peninsular Army underfoot, cutting them down with fire and steel
Why even live

>you will never ride side by side with Alexander in his companion cavalry, bros 4 lyfe, as you smash the persian right, roll up their entire flank and then charge again straight into Darius own bodyguard hacking your way through them and forcing the entire army on the run

>ywn be a macedonian middle class soldier in the phalanx in your personal spot, surrounded by people you know for decades, with whom you have stood in a tight formation as a cliff against all sorts of previously unimagined dangers, from hundreds of scythed chariots on the sun baked fields of Gaugamela to the hundreds of elephants in the damp jungles of India

>For the Crusaders, the Battle of Arsuf had now entered a critical stage. Garnier de Nablus repeatedly pleaded with Richard to be allowed to attack. He was refused, the Master was ordered to maintain position and await the signal for a general assault, six clear trumpet blasts. Richard knew that the charge of his knights needed to be reserved until the Ayyubid army was fully committed, closely engaged, and the Saracens' horses had begun to tire.[30]Goaded beyond endurance, the Master and another knight, Baldwin de Carron, thrust their way through their own infantry and charged into the Saracen ranks with a cry of “St. George!”; they were then followed by the rest of the Hospitaller knights.[31][32]Moved by this example, the French knights of the corps immediately preceding the Hospitallers also charged.[33]
>Leading by example, Richard was in the heart of the fighting, as theItinerariumdescribes:

"There the king, the fierce, the extraordinary king, cut down the Turks in every direction, and none could escape the force of his arm, for wherever he turned, brandishing his sword, he carved a wide path for himself: and as he advanced and gave repeated strokes with his sword, cutting them down like a reaper with his sickle, the rest, warned by the sight of the dying, gave him more ample space, for the corpses of the dead Turks which lay on the face of the earth extended over half a mile."[41]

You should read Al-Athir's description of the crusader charge at Montgisard.

It plowed through so much Muslims that one Frank knight nearly killed Saladin as he cut his way with his sword through the Mamluk bodyguards.

holy shit

Nucking futs homestly