How were Polish hussars so successful in battle?

>(*the exception being "foreign-style" troops like arquebuisers or dragoons)

>In peacetime the units were either dissolved ( or kept at ~25-50% strength. After all you could always re-recruit them (or maybe family members bearing the same equipment) since they had their own equipment. Still, the PLC was often quite slow to gather up its forces due to this.

>In any case the rotmistrz was the guy responsible for keeping the unit at the required strength, who in theory could come and go as they please. Though obviously deserting in wartime could have dire social and possibly even legal consequences.

>Anyway from this you can see that e.g. a guy from a rich merchant family joining a hussar unit as a towarzysz is in fact, at considerable expense (he has to equip himself and a few followers) and a possible risk to himself, mingling with his local petty nobility. This is a pretty good first step for the ennoblement which he would sometimes get for his service.

>We don't know much about the followers / pocztowi (who were equipped the same as other hussars) but it's quite likely many of them were not nobles. They could be e.g. the younger relatives of a towarzysz or poor nobles, but they could also be some stout peasant boys from the village owned by the towarzysz's family. From many sources it seems poorer nobles preferred to be a proper towarzysz in a less prestigious unit (e.g. pancerni) with lower equipment requirements than serve as a pocztowy in a more prestigious unit. They could always move up to a more prestigious unit later after all.

>Yeah but a guy got a contract, rounded up some guys from his territory, those guys brought few helpers, and they all provided their own equipment.
>They didn't have some special training or organization, in fact it's a pretty simple/primitive way to organize forces, yet they pretty much raped their opposition.

Now for a proper reply.

The majority of those joining would be members of the petty nobility which was (relative to most of Europe) a very large class in the Commonwealth - five or more percent of the population. Farming (or rather estate management) and war (ideally as a cavalryman) were the only proper professions for them. Training as a cavalryman was part of their upbringing, so no formation they signed up for got a blank slate to train up. Still, completely fresh troops would take a while to get enough experience to fight on par with veterans, which brings me to...

War was rather a rather common occurrence in the heyday of the hussars, and as I said before, units were often only 'created' when hostilities broke out and then reduced and disbanded once no longer needed. But those people didn't disappear, most would go home and be available to join up for a different campaign, likely mixing in with some youngsters and providing them with guidance.

Possibly some of those veterans joining as hussars served in other (less expensive to outfit) units and have managed to get some better equipment since then. Many hussar units were in fact "upgraded" from veteran lighter cavalry rather than recruited from scratch, especially during the mid-to-late 17th century when the Commonwealth was constantly fighting on some front (or several).

More generally, as these were free people voluntarily fighting for loot and glory alongside their relatives, friends, and neighbours, the morale and esprit de corps were generally high. Indeed, the fact that they were fighting alongside social equals from the same area was probably a large factor - glory as well as cowardice could well be remembered for generations among their immediate social group.

Again the point I made in the previous thread which I think is pretty important is that it doesn't really make that much sense to think of the Commonwealth recruiting and training cavalry. Over five percent of their population (well, the able-bodied men among that five percent) were cavalry already. In the event of a war the state would raise funds, provide a high-level command structure, and likely some logistical support, but the actual formation of units was essentially subcontracted.

>the state would raise funds, provide a high-level command structure, and likely some logistical support

Oh, and provide a standard "template" for units by saying what sort of equipment was required of a man joining a certain unit.

For the hussars specifically the lances were usually centrally manufactured and supplied so they could be of uniform length and quality, and also because they were single-use (designed to break on impact) and required frequent replacement. On that note they were extremely long (up to six meters - they could even out-range some pikes!) and hollow inside, a pretty nice piece of engineering benefiting from economies of scale.

I just wanted to let you know that this was a fantastic series of posts and you're a good guy. People like you are the reason I still come to Veeky Forums

AND THE WINGED HUSSARS ARRIVED

Thanks for the kind words.

From my side I like threads like these which touch upon topics I've read about a lot since typing out a reply lets me verify how much I've managed to absorb from my reading. There are few better tests of whether you understand a topic than trying to coherently explain it to someone else.

>Arguably their equipment was worse in quality than that of Western European Reiters.
No it wasn't.

Like everyone said, well equipped and "huge dick" tier morale levels. Plus if some dude on a horse with giant fucking wings came charging at you on a horse, wouldnt you be pretty damned unnerved? They probably scared the shit out of anyone they fought.

they were able to fly into battle so their horses were less tired when it came to fight

>and have strong cavalry traditions from Hungarians
Serb's actually.

Why didn't the allies go to war against soviet when they invaded Poland and deported the polacks?

Why don't you stick to the subject of the thread instead of shitting up everything with Nazi larping?

where were hussars during partitions of Poland?
did they fear prussian warrior?

Prussia and Russia signed secret treaty to prevent Poland from building any significant army.
They destroyed Poland from the inside with their agents, not in war.

Deluge was at fault the most. It stripped a large number of polish nobility from their estates, they were broke, but they still had rights in the Polish Sejm. So they were bought by foreign powers to vote however the buyer wants them to.

I think the last war the hussars fought in was the Great Northern War but there were probably some units remaining later in a ceremonial capacity.

The thing is the mid-to-late 17th century pretty much broke the commonwealth and impoverished the gentry the hussars would normally come from. The Commonwealth simply couldn't muster many hussars - at the formation's peak the Commonwealth could field 8000 or even more hussars, but by the time of the battle of Vienna they could barely scrape together 3000.

At the same time with truly massive conscript armies kicking in from the 18th century onwards the Commonwealth could hardly compete without reforms, and those were stopped by foreign influences playing the decentralised PLC political system.

>At the same time with truly massive conscript armies kicking in from the 18th century onwards the Commonwealth could hardly compete without reforms, and those were stopped by foreign influences playing the decentralised PLC political system.
so they did fear prussian warrior
why there was no revolution to abolish this shitty system anyways

>so they did fear prussian warrior
When Poland clashed with Prussia during Napoleonic Wars, Prussians lost.

The individual Prussian warrior not so much, but the Prussian military was certainly fearsome.

>why there was no revolution to abolish this shitty system anyways
There were, they just ended up with foreign interventions which resulted in partitions.

>why there was no revolution to abolish this shitty system anyways
pic rel

>loses and directly encourages third partition
what a loser

kek

that didn't stop them from reclaiming their lost provinces together with russia

bump

>asking questions about the Soviet invasion and occupation of Poland is Nazi larping
really activates the almonds

>After the impact, Hussars could hold their own in melee with their own sabers and pistols.

Usually they retreated after blowing the fuck out whatever they charged into, changed their lance or horse if necessary and charged again.

Because they only fought slavshits and turks

hussars often fought with swedes, german/scottish and other western european mercenaries
Swedes were able to rape HRE so hard only after refining their armies from their experience of fighting polish armies before that

>Swedes
Swedes are cucks so that doesn't seem like an accomplishment

go back to your containment board

They mastered a specific and highly difficult maneuver, which allowed them to charge musketeers in loose, fluid formation to minimize incoming fore, only to group together into close formation in the moments before impact. This made them devastating to the musket-based armies of their enemies.

Nig

Actually fucking retarded, one of the defining characteristics of the hussars was the quality and breadth of their equipment. Each hussar carried a lance, cavalry saber, hammer or axe, and very often a short spear or estoc style sword and then later pistol(s) this gave them a good deal of flexibility. The lances were supplied by the crown and each hussar was issued several with the intention to charge multiple times in a battle which leads to your idea that they would stick around in melee. Utter nonsense wherever possible they broke melee in order to mount another charge and in fact their greatest victories generally involved multiple opportunities to charge, read a book.

Aside from the fact they were volunteers, well equipped, and experience something no user has brought up yet is that the horses the rode were exceptional and far outstriped their contemporaries in stamina.

Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus ran roughshod over the various Catholic armies.

Gustavus Adolphus himself was nearly killed by Hussars in an earlier battle. It caused him to view the Tercio squares as useless and moved to adopt Maurice's battalions with his own improvements.

When we're talking about the Polish Hussars and not WWII, randomly bring up the latter is rather annoying.

Didn't Polish lancers charge German tanks?

No, that's a german propaganda.
Polish cav had anti-tank rifles and majority of German "tanks" besides those they got from Czechs were actually tankettes.

then why did they lose?

Tanks beat men on horseback with lances

Are you fucking retarded?

Being subsequently invaded by another massive country on the other border tends to do that.

No, they don´t.

>September 1 - Battle of Mokra - 19th Volhynian Uhlan Regiment took by surprise the elements of German 4th Panzer Division, which retreated in panic.[5][8]

Poland didn't exist during the Napoleonic wars.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Warsaw

>Duchy of Warsaw
>Poland

pick one

>Prussia
>Germany/German

>Muscovy
>Russian/Russia

>Ottoman Empire
>Turkish

>England
>British

>Frankish Empire
>French

None of those were puppet rump states.

Prussia was first Polish vassal then French one.

Forgive me, I did not realise the Duchy of Warsaw was not culturally polish.
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You're a retard and I am not op

>good posts on Veeky Forums