Cavalry

china did, and they designed their armies specifically for dealing with horse archers, with crossbowmen and pikemen, but it doesn't always work

The answer is simple; you don't throw them at Organized Infantry... rather, you don't face them head-on.

You flank them. You use that superior range and speed and get around their battle lines- they can't stretch forever- and nail them in their weak points. Maybe you roll up the infantry from the side and fuck up their battle formation. Maybe you get in behind them and rip apart their defenseless archers who won't have the time to switch to close-range weapons and lack defenses that could potentially save their lives.

And until you magically evolve to building cars and tanks these expensive bastards will still be the swiftest units you can ever put on a battlefield.

ITTOP is completely retarded and has no experience with horses. A wild/spooked horse running straight at you at full speed is terrifying, let along a crowd with armor and armored jockeys who want to kill you as well.

Only cavalry armies are indeed stupid against modern formstions. But they were used for something: their outstanding mobility. If the other army lacked cavalry, or was vastly inferior, they could simply use hit and run tactics to harass the enemy before the battle even began (which was one of the factors that lead to seljuk victory at mazinkert, for example). Their speed was also useful to catch up with a retreating enemy, and their ability to flank the enemy in a matter of minutes meant that the enemy army couldn't manouver in time before a deadly charge. In conjunction with infantry, it was pretty easy to overcharge the formation, forced to defend the front amd the flanks at the same time. If the line was broken, a well-timed cavalry charge would probably be the end of the battle.

*Get mowed down by peasant archers*

>They're completely ineffective against organised infantry
>t. i have never studied any battle ever

>When the nobles got so butthurt about archers and crossbowmen that they tried to ban it in all Christian countries

To be fair, agincourt was a result of french autism. I mean, everyone should see that a direct charge against archers in a swamp is not a great plan

>Every military commander since antiquity was stupid
Do I need to post a brainlet wojak, or can you just imagine it?

>yeah man people in history should just stop using cavalry dude

good bait thread

You don't charge cavalry into organised formations idiot.
They're used for flanking and exploiting beaks in the formation. Also routing the enemy.

CAN YOU RETARDS ALL STOP FOR A SECOND

The battle in OPs pic clearly happened in 1311, so the guy talking about >1136 is in the wrong here.
Just wanted to made that clear

The absolute states of Veeky Forums.

Chew on this OP.

Until about the mid 19th century, most casualties in a battle would be caused in the rout and subsequent chase. When you're chasing a body of men, you need to be faster than they are if you want to catch them, and they're not particularly organized when they're fleeing in terror.

Cavalry advantages turn minor victories into decisive ones where you completely eliminate the enemy. That's valuable even if the cav is completely ineffective in the main phase of the battle itself, which it of course isn't. Consider getting a brain transplant.

Son cavalry is your trump card, you don't just throw it at a wall of pikes. Unless you're French.

>What are horse archers

That seems to be the battle of cephis. The French/Latin empire and the Catalan Company where ducking it out in some part of Greece after the Catalan revenge in the ERE. The Catalan company was composed basically with Almogavers (light infantry than pushed the shit in vs the Turks), Aragonese/Catalan/Valencian nobles as knights and Turkopoles mercs, they cavalry was in disavantage in numbers and quality, so they said fuck it, let's inundante the place of battle.
So the French cavalry couldn't charge effectively, the Almogavers than where a bunch of psychos killed the mercs and conquered Athens and Neopatria next, anexing it to the Crown of Aragon and being converted in petty nobles until a hundred of so years later the Navarrese company expelled them.

And the classic Hammer and Anvil tactic?

while your dumbass levies are organizing the barbs just fucked off somewhere on horseback 3 days away and burned the land

>Yeoman Archers.
>Peasants.
I'm not even anglo and I cringe at that.
They where the equivalent of the free citizens, they owned they own lands and had to be part of the Kings army as one of they duties, like petty knights. They where the middle rural class, a step below the gentry,but clearly above the peasants. The majority of longbowmen where from the Anglo/Welsh frontier too, there where others with some fame as good archers tough.

Those are almovagars, specially known for being 1: fucking madmen in battle and 2: exceptionally skilled at killing mounted knights and Arabs alike.
A normal peasant levy/garrison sergent would likely run at a cavalry charge like this

Christ fuck where do you get your information you dumb cunt?

"Without cavalry battles are without result"

Napoleon

yeah, but being a knight with a horse 99.9% of the time you're not in battle got you all the bitches.

*gets exiled to st helena*

If they're not clergy, gentry or nobility they are by definition peasants.

You charge, then retreat, then charge again if you are attackig from the front. Charge and attack when you are attacking from behind. The only time when you use it like a infantry unit is against other cavalry unit.

Also they arent so bad deal against gun fire infantry. See the Polish Hussars.

t. 1000 hours M2:TW player

This. Cavalry was as important for its shock effect on the battlefield as for its high mobility.

Except chariots. Chariots are a fucking joke

Well, I guess all those victories won with cavalry were all flukes. Clearly this random guy on a Sudanese cheesemaking website has the right of it.
Consider the fact that you don't have to throw yourself right at the enemy's spears. Consider the fact the enemy probably has cavalry that you have to take out somehow. Consider the fact that cannons are a very useful thing against infantry, but not cavalry. Consider the fact that in a flanking attack, heavy cavalry could slaughter units that outnumbered them 40 to 1. Forty to fucking one. The battle of Ceresole. Two hundred years after Crecy and Golden Spurs. Twenty years after Pavia.
>win one battle
>"English archers were the greatest medieval troops ever and were single-handedly responsible for changing warfare!
People like you ought to be branded with the words "Patay, Formigny and Castillon".

Any examples where a relatively strong army routs and loses most of it's men despite losing far fewer during the actual battle? like 100 times less?

>cavalry defeats unorganized archers
What a surprise

>dismounted men-at-arms with archery support defeat unorganized cavalry
Another shocker.

the OP pic is pure reddit, what went wrong?

Why were chariots shit?

>you have to flank infantry with cav
>what are heavy cavalry
Infantry was dominated by cavalry for hundreds of years

*this kills the knight*

I hate Euro centrics so fucking much

No, they're Yeomanry, which was a unique part of English feudal society

That looks immensely satisfying

There's something not quite right about this illustration

>expensive to make/transport
>take up tons of space on front line
>terrible manuerving ability
>even if the horse/rider/what have you doesn't get shot by arrows a well trained infantry line can create a gap in the line that the chariot falls into and at that point dismantling is real easy

There's a reason it doesn't make it out of the Classical era.

In Ancient Greece small amount of cavalry could dominate the battlefield. In fact, Persian horsemen were rightfully feared and the Greeks always attempted to fight in hills, passes and irregular terrain where the Persian's cavalry wouldn't be much of a factor. From notes I was written down for a new thread:

Horsemen were also a great danger to hoplites and they could make the heavy infantry dance to their tune. There's a few rethorical statements that the Greeks believed cavalry to be cowardly (Lys. 16 13) and ineffective in battle (Xen. Anab. 3.2.18-19). However both authors also show that they took the ability of horsemen very seriously. (Lys. 14 10; Xen. Anab. 2.4.6, Xen. Anab. 3.1.2)

This view of threat from horsemen, especially on level ground, meant that hoplites without any cavalry of their own wouldn't be able to do much against them. This was a reality that it became a proverb in Classical Athens:

Calling Socrates to an argument is calling cavalry into an open plain.1 Just ask him a question and you shall hear. Plat. Theaet. 183d

Herodotus mentions that the Persians preferred to fight on level plains to get the best use of their cavalry. (Hdt. 6.102.1, 9.13.3). Xenophon notes that the Spartans fighitng in Asia Minor did not considered themselves incapable of entering into te plains in fear of the enemy's horsemen. (Xen. Hell. 3.1.5, 3.4.15).

The horsemen superiority of the open field shaped Greek warfare in both the strategic and tactical level. In the strategic level their mobility allowed them to harrass marching columns, supply trains and raiders, and crippling the ability of an army to operate.

During the Athenian punitive expedition against Thessaly in the First Peoloponnesian War, enemy horsemen kept them confined to their camp, they could not to anything and were forced home. (Thuc. 1.111.1). In a similar scenario the Athenian cavalry was able to contain the invading Peloponnesians. (Thuc. 3.1.2). Thrasyboulos raised force of 70 horsemen against the oligarchs of Athens made none but the enemy cavalry leave the city gates to face him. (Xen Hell. 2.4.25-26).

In the tactical level they were the most deadly warriors know. While the number of cavalry raised by the city-states never came anywhere near the number of the hoplite levy, their small numbers could change the outcome of battles and campaign.

At Solygia 200 horsemen decided the outcome of battle. (Thuc. 4.42.1). 60 Phliasians horsemen managed to rout the enitre rearguard of the Argives (Xen. Hell. 7.2.4) Just 50 Syracusan horsemen managed to play the enitirity of the Boiotian army "according to their own will" (Xen. Hell. 7.1.21)

When you that a look at all these factors then it becomes clear that the use of combined arms was vital in Greek Warfare. Without the support of light infantry and horsemen the hoplites were very exposed. The Greeks tactical thought relied on the use of combined arms. Indeed, Greek warfare was never a hoplite only affair. Gelon of Syracuse offered significant support of light infantry, heavy infantry, cavalry, archers and slingers in the fight against the Persians. (Hdt. 7.158.4) Xenophon's ideal example of good order involved a force of combined arms (Xen. Ec. 8.6).

You prefer this one?
*nothing personal my liege*

>his nobility and chivalry: gone

Is this a bait thread? Aside from it being stupidly obvious that cavalry was very effective, why would OP think he's smarter than thousands of military strategists across the centuries and continents who have direct experience in the matter.

>the knight and his horse sitting catatonic while being beaten to death
>that guy waving in the background
>that other guy in the distance trying to lance a castle
>the entire army facing the opposite direction while that sorry fuck gets bludgeoned
The longer I look the weirder it gets

Very good info and sources, as an user about to finish Histories and found Herodotus' details on warfare quite lacking. It is notable that the Greeks tended towards small numbers of cavalry but with masterful riders, and relied on supplementary forces from 'non-Greeks', since Persia largely did the same according to Herodotus despite having a much more cavalry-oriented geography. Ultimately, good cavalry is fucking expensive and even cheap shit can turn the tide in a battle when used well (and cavalry elites can sweep the entire known world, as per Alexander)