What purpose would winged cavalry realistically serve?

Dragon knights, gryphon riders, that kind of stuff. How would you put them to work, user? Reconnaissance? Skirmishers? Dragoons? Logistics?

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Terror tactics behind enemy lines, destruction of supply chains. Sadly the most effective way of waging a war is being asshole about it.

I have this image in my head of a modern day special forces unit that breeds owl like Griffons who are strong enough to carry one man and his gear but small enough to sneak around with him when he's operating operations operationally

If the numbers are low, reconnaisance. If higher, deep striking behind enemy lines.

The French experimented with flechettes thrown off a plane as a means of aerial attack during WWI. Flying cavalry could use something similar.

Being able to fly is a massive advantage. Even if you only use it for intelligence gathering and sending messages, it would make a primitive army far more effective. But it would also allow you to move troops much faster and bypass difficult terrain. Mobility and terrain are hugely important in combat. Even if they just carry soldiers to a fight and nothing else, that could win battles.

And even if you don't have bombs, being able to drop things on your enemies would be very useful. You could drop alchemist's fire, nets, poison gas, plague infected body parts, or just bags full of caltrops.

Hugely mobile harassment.

Wars are won and lost on the ability to effectively move force around.

Drop shit on people. Fire, explosives, actual shit, all of the above... you might not even have to drop it. Just fly around above and watch them try to hold formation.

Dive bombs also work in nature. Birds do it all the time. Out of nowhere, a 200 MPH steel lance right up your ass.

Bird that big could probably do a flyby and rip your head off without even slowing down.

It would probably work better with some kind of projectile. I imagine if you were using a hand-to-hand weapon you'd have trouble pulling out of your dive, especially if it gets caught in your enemy/victim.

You'd probably do better with something like a gryphon teaching it to grab someone then trying to attack during a dive yourself. One would assume that in the wild they'd probably swoop down on sheep and such, so training one to grab an enemy officer and ascend shouldn't be that difficult.