RollingWave

Everything is relative here, horses are unlikely to run into a wall for example, unless in extremely desperate situaion or the horse has gone insane, but they do sometime run through fences and such (of course, they normally would try not to).

And then of course, is the matter of perception, Human obviously isn't a wall, and the Horses are well aware of that. a lot of human tightly standing together would be closer, but obviously running into that is still not the same thing as running strait into a brick wall. horses can run through tight bushes and stuff, though again not something they love to do. there is of course also the matter of if the horses are running with a lot of other horses behind them, then they're going to be more likely to keep running if only to not get trampled by the horses behind them.

At the end of the day the cavalry charge still typically win because the infantry formation break themself from either fear and/or casaulty, but almost never just strait out demolish the infantry block . the problem is that if the cavalry charge don't succeed the cavalry can pull back and the infantry can't do much about that, but if the infantry break they'll definately be massacered . so the Cavalry only need to win onces, but the infantry need to win everytime to win the fight.

Most of the more prominent high medieval example of cavalry versus infantry often see this, at Hasting and Dyrracium for example the Norman Knights (almost certainly the best of their days) actually FAILED pretty badly in their initial charges and this is well recorded, as in Hasting the Normans charged uphill against a solid shield wall while in Dyrracium they charged against the mighty Varagian guards of the Bynzatium Empire, but what happened was that the routing knights were not thoroughly devastated, managed to rally with still sufficient number, while their opponents in both situation broke formation to chase, and then the later charge broke them and unlike the Normans, they have no chance to recover and rally.

Falkirk also saw the intial English charge (over marshes strait into large blocks of scottish spears) fail miserablly, but again the English were not thoroughly destroyed, so they still have time to do another cordinated attack, this time they succeeded and the Scots on foot have no chance to rally and the cavalry destroy them.

In Legano the Imperial Knights charged repeated but couldnt' break the high morale Italian infantry, and eventually the much fewer Italian knights that was badly beaten at the start of the battle managed to rally and hit the Imperial forces from behind winning the day.

All of these point to the same thing, Cavalry charge failing rarely resulted in the Knights being destroyed, but infantry formation failing very often lead to the complete destruction of the infantry.

AlpinLuke

In an other thread I have posted a translation of the Rule of the Temple about the charge [see art. from 164 to 168]. It's evident that it's an action in open field [for example, the Rule describes what to do in case a knight is separated from one of the gonfalons by enemies ...] and that the knights ride first of all to move quickly.

About the "shock theory", I would say something about the dynamic of the impact of a charging knight: the knight will tend to transmit the kinetic energy to the spear hitting the target. The horse will tend to break [and also the spear will break in many cases if the target is enough resistant], this will dissipate a lot of energy "around" the impact.

The most effective charges were against infantry formations not well packed: with the fear of the foot soldiers [who left room for the knights to enter the formation] there was also the dominating attitude of the system horse + knight [a horse can be a very dominating animal, also towards humans].

A squadron of chivalry had the real possibility to "charge through" a wide formation of infantry, killing with the spears at the first impact and than using the sword on the side. And the squadron had the possibility to make more than a passage ...

If the infantry formation packed, not leaving the squadron entering, the knights usually disengaged. In case they were surrounded, they fought from the high position of the horse, using the sword. In case they dismounted they became heavy foot soldiers. Nothing else.

Regarding the charges of squadrons of chivalry against squadrons of chivalry, I would make reference to the training which was evident in tournament: the knights didn't attack head VS head, but a bit laterally [exactly like in the tournament] and often the first attack wasn't decisive and the knights used the sword or other weapon staying on the horses.

arras

Except those humans hold sharpened sticks in their hands. Horses running in to such formation would be impaling themselves. That is even worst than brick wall I guess.

As I said elsewhere, most convincing fact for me is that infantry squares during Napoleonic times were actually pretty effective against horse charges. And musket with bayonet is rather short "polearm" considering weapons in history. Spears and pikes must have been even more effective.

So I really think it was down to who wields longer sharpened stick (shield might have played role as well) and cavalry lances and spears were used more to poke at enemy, than to crash full speed in to him with your horse and weapon. Not that it newer happened but it probably was not how cavalry charges normally should have worked like.

RollingWave

ahhh, but if the horses are wearing armour..... just like I would instinctive not run through a bunch very sharpe sticks, but if I'm wearing full plate armour I most likely would muster the courage for it...

It also need to be noted that horse training began to change towards the end of the Medieval era, by Napoleon era horses were much less trained to charge strait into things.

That being said, I don't disagree with the general premise that quiet often a cavalry "charge" was just the cavalry riding up close and poking at the enemy with longer lances, being on the horse is a significant advantage here due to height, as the opposing infantry may only be able to at best poke at your leg while you can poke at his neck, this is one reason that javelin remained quite populor amongst cavalry in many places (Spain / Eastern Europe etc). but the possibility of running through a disorderly infantry formation remained real, and of course the degree of accepatable formation that the horses can run through varied with the training and equipment and bread of the horse.

arras

Few horses actually got armoured and armour of those which were was nowhere near to full plate. Most of the time they were lucky if they got padded cloth.

That is true for most prolonged conflicts. Great example is crusades. Archeologic excavations found out crussader horses to be something more close to a pony. Long wars always depleted available supply of horses.

I agree.

RollingWave

It may depend, exactly 0% of the horses were armored at all in the Bayeux Tapestry, while the first known depiction of any semblence of horse armour in the western medieval era was in the later 12th C (roughly a century after Hastings) . though by "armour" here we're referring to padded clothes. it should be noted that a very very high percentage of horses in 14th-16th C manuscript are shown to have at least a Caparison (the clothes you see horses wear in jousts) what is under that Caparison is rarely distinquisable though anything from "nothing" to plate is possible .

still modern test show that even caparison itself offers a reasonable degree of protection from arrows, it probably won't help the poor horse if someone hit it hard with a big axe or something though.. but remember that if a spear or pike is not fixed to the ground on the other end it actually isn't the most threatening thing in the world to horses. as the man holding the spear is much weaker than the horse and when the horse run into the spear the likly outcome if often that the man being weaker will either have to let the spear bounce off the horse or lose his grip. of course a direct hit is possible but not the most common outcome. the bigger danger may actually come when the horses gets entangled and more direct hits on the horse or rider is possible (hitting a man on a moving horse hard with a spear is very very difficult)

HaNsWiDjAjA

Hmm, well at the Bouvines example the cavalry greatly outnumbered the defending infantry, obviously repeated charges (even if they were not pressed home) will eventually wore out the infantry. Exhausted, abandoned by all friends and encircled by enemy horsemen, several men among the infantry will eventually panic, try to break and run, the panic will become general and then it's pretty much over.

I do not really agree with your last statement that once the lancers are past the front rank guys the infantry are doomed, if anything the battles you quoted seem to indicate the other way around. Yes well protected cavalry can smash and burst through dense pike formations and come out on the other side, but as shown at Ceresole and Dreux, the infantry neither broke nor necessarily suffer especially heavy casualties from this (Gordon Frye himself agreed to this point in his excellent article). The gendarmes themselves suffered appaling losses in the Ceresole example; a horseman riding through enemy infantry is at high risk of having his mount hamstrung or himself toppled down, not to mention the danger of close range fire from supporting missile troops. At Dreux the Swiss indeed suffered terribly, but I believed the reiters that accompanied the gendarmes did most of the actual damage; mounted pistoliers facing pikemen comes closer to shooting fish in a pond than anything else I can think of.

I think you have pretty much proved that cavalry could and would crash into steady infantry, provided they were mounted on well trained horses. The next question will be if that's such a good thing to do in the first place, and I believe the answer is, well, not necessarily so. Having your extremely expensive, hard to replace gendarmes simply try to steamroller a formation of much cheaper, easy to replace pikemen is hardly getting the most bang for your buck. Much better to have your own pikemen engage the enemy's and then rout them with a flanking charge, as happened in the center battle at Ceresole. Or wear down the heavy infantry with missile fire before riding them into red ruin under the hooves of your chivalry, like what happened at Carrhae.

That said, I agree with you that cavalry was under most circumstance the decisive element in warfare from the invention of proper saddle until the invention of breech loading rifles.

As a side note, I wouldn't simply dismiss reiter cavalry like you did. In fact if you buy into Gordon Frye's theory, reiters eventually almost completely replaced lancers in western europe by the 16th century, and numerous examples during the French Wars of Religion and the Eighty Years War showed that they were more than capable of defeating lancers. Even the lance proponent Sir Roger Williams acknowledged that good pistoliers will beat good lancers.

amazedkat

no no.. sic original question.. medieval knights had war horses called destriers, who were not only bread and trained to run at men but bite, head butt and front kick, the more agressive your mount the more it was worth. the incredible sum of ten marks is recorded i know of. a palfrey is a horse a knight would have for normal use, thus leaving the bad boys (and they were always male horses) fresh for battle.

turkish heavy cavalry and byzantium were not much less armoured than european knights, but were still steamrollered when caught by a frankish charge, and the destrier is why.

so the european heavy cavalry was actually an arm of improved animal husbandry and as such advanced appliance of technology, that kinda gives the lie that europeans advancing onto crusade represented a more backward civilisation than their islamic adversary.

HaNsWiDjAjA

Well, I wouldn't really say 'Easily'. At Kircholm it wasn't like that the hussar simply charged and utterly destroyed the pikemen and musketeer, their charge against the Swedish infantry in the center were more of a holding action. The hussars did overrun the first Swedish division of foot readily enough, but then the foot has been exhausted from marching all night and then storming up a hill, and partially disordered by the musket and cannon fire of the Lithuanian infantry. It seems hardly fair to give all the credit to the hussar's fighting prowess. The Swedish army really collapsed from the wings after their inferior cavalry were beaten there by the hussars and cossacks, this seemed to be Chodkiewicz plan all along. The panicked cavalry crashed into Swedish infantry in the center, which were already under attack from their front, and hence the army routed and were then massacred.

At Klushino the Russian's defeat was again the result of their cavalry counterattack at the end of the battle being routed by the Poles, this led into mass panic amongst the Russians, even then the bulk of the Russian infantry were able to leave the field in good order, the hussars were after all completely exhausted after a night march followed by many hours of charging and counter charging.

So no, neither the Polish hussar nor other heavy cavalry were really able to simply steamroll formations of steady infantry; they could only manage that under ideal situation when the infantry's morale is low, such as when they were taken in the flanks or rear while already engaged at the front. The last notably happened at Ravenna, Rocroi, Marston Moors, and so many other battles too numerous to mention, it's cavalry's bread and butter tactic when fighting against steady infantry.

HaNsWiDjAjA

Until the mid 18th century? Really? Because unless I'm mistaken, the last time the hussar was used to any great extent was during the Great Turkish War at the end of the 17th century (Battle of Vienna), after that they were largely relegated to ceremonial duties. Granted this was not necessarily due to ineffectiveness in the battlefield, mostly because Poland was impoverished and ruined by continuous warfare. But the fact that they were no longer raising hussars seems to indicate that hussars were indeed fast becoming obsoelete, mostly because the expense were no longer justifying their effectiveness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edward Their charge was not head on attack, perpendicular to the line of infantry. It was always (if situation allowed) run under small angle. Why? Just to offset the effect of firearms.

Hmm, I really fail to see how the slower ignition of early firearms will matter at all. Musketeers and arquebusiers shooting in formation were really not supposed to aim at individual targets at all, much less a moving one. Rather, against cavalry a formation of shooters will simply wait until the mass of horse and men get close enough (about 30 yards is ideal) and blaze off into the center of the mass. Even if the hussar attacked the corner of a formation the shooters simply have to make a slight turn to be able to shoot straight on. Hussar like any other heavy cavalry attacked in massed formation, and shooting into the middle of such a clump of men and horse will likely result in quite a lot of damage, if the infantry didn't panic and simply blaze off.

Granted, a lot of things could get really wrong for the infantry. A sudden squall can make their muskets useless, they could panic and fire at too long a range and thus be rendered dead meat. However so long as their guns work and their courage held, even hussars would think twice about attacking them head on. After all the Poles have infantry of their own to do this, while the hussars defeated the opposing cavalry and then went for the flanks.

The elite nature of the husaria and the fact that it took so long and so much resources to outfit them was the primary reason that rendered them obsoelete. BTW, I don't think either the koncerz of the pallasz were particularly heavy swords, they weighted about 3 pounds at most, about average for European swords. And the polish lance was definitely more fragile compared to solid lance used earlier; a Swedish officer during the Deluge gained a very special nickname because of the number of Polish lances that shattered against his armour during one battle!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edward In general, the winged Polish-Lithuanians hussars’ heavy cavalry was unequalled in16th and 17th century but their effectiveness diminished with firearm improvement in second half of 18 century.

I agree that they were definitely the best heavy cavalry outfit in Europe, perhaps even in the world during their time. I just don't agree with the view that many held that they were some kind of super weapon; they're indeed excellent troops for the purpose that they were designated, to conduct charges during major battles. By the early 17th century the Poles were starting to recognize that hussars alone could not win all their battles, hence they began reducing the proportion of hussars among their cavalry, and adding pike and shot infantry and field artillery.