I have been reading with interest the debates on this forum about the various aspects of medieval combat. (e.g. Spears v Swords and Knights v Spears etc) and whilst I cannot claim to have any expert knowledge on the subject I think there are some important points which I have discovered about Napoleonic warfare that are equally relevant to the Medieval period.
The first point to make right at the start is that real warfare, certainly on the Napoleonic battlefield was absolutely nothing like the way it is depicted in films, paintings and even to a large extent in actual eyewitness accounts and reports. As Wellington said after a particularly stirring account of the battle by one of his generals at a commemoration dinner in honour of his victory at Waterloo. "If that was what happened, then surely I could not have been there."
Diarists, report writers, painters, film makers and even historians all tend to create with the interest of their target audience in mind and so we the consumers are presented not with what actually happened but what the creator thinks ought to have happened or thinks his target audience want to believe happened.
The truth normally hides between the lines and must be uncovered by careful cross-referencing of accounts from many different sources to look for ambiguities. In effect it requires detective work and a large application of logic and common sense. I won't bore you with the details but suffice it to say that for example most of the commonly understood history of the Battle of Waterloo is total rubbish as are the vast majority of the paintings produced to glorify the event.
The first and most important illusion is the myth of the cavalry charge. We are all familiar with the concept. The Charge of the Light Brigade, the Charge of the Scots Greys etc. A great host of big men on big horses hurling themselves with great impact on the enemy.
Well sorry folks, it didn't happen. At least not the way we imagine it or the way it was painted by all those artists eager to glorify the event.
The reality is that cavalry if they broke into a gallop at all did so at the very last minute and only then if they sensed that victory was in the bag. There are two very important reasons for this.
a) Unit cohesion
b) Command and Control
It is simply impossible for a group of mounted men to maintain formation at anything above a canter. Therefore, the gallop was reserved for the final dash upon their opponent. All the cavalry manuals of the Napoleonic period advocate this method and Wellington's main criticism of the British cavalry was they failed to abide by this rule and tended to dash at everything with great vigour only to dash back again with equal enthusiasm. It is also a fact that once moving at such a pace the opportunity to pass any command verbally or by signal is lost. I know in all the cowboy films the buglers are sounding the charge at full gallop but if you try it in real life you'll take your teeth out and even if you managed a few notes the sheer noise of all the galloping horses would prevent anyone hearing it.
In practice cavalry approached their objective at the walk/trot carefully maintaining alignment and with their leaders dictating and curbing the pace of the advance. The objective being that they arrive on target together and in a solid line. In some instances such as the charge of the Scots Greys at Waterloo the cavalry would close with the enemy at this pace. In this instance a gallop was impossible because the enemy were already too close and unnecessary as the French infantry had already panicked and so the Greys merely trotted up to them and began hacking them down as they tried to escape back through the hedge.
The reason the solid line was so important was NOT to maximise the impact of the collision with the enemy but to maximise the visual impact of their approach on the enemy and to impress them with the determination of their advance.
The second myth of the cavalry charge is that that they hurled themselves bodily into the enemy formation. The fact of the matter is that you cannot train a horse, or for that matter a man to impale themselves of opponent's weapon. Inevitably one or both of them are going to balk at the prospect of doing so. You can train a horse to tolerate loud and unexpected noise, you can train it to kick out and bite at an obstacle in front of it but you can't train it to walk onto a pike, bayonet or spear and if you did it would be dead anyway. The second augment against such a tactic is that it would be essentially pointless in that unless armed with a lance forcing ones mount directly onto an opponent leaves the rider with little opportunity to use his weapon and even if armed with a lance then forcing it at high velocity into an opponents body is a sure fire way of permanently disarming yourself and possibly catapulting yourself out of the saddle or breaking your arm.
Incidentally another interesting myth is that the cavalry charge is more effective if launched downhill. In fact evidence suggests just the opposite because of the anatomy of a horse travelling down a slope is much harder for a horse than travelling up it. A horse moving down a slope tends to want to sit on its haunches or zigzag back and forth to lessen the incline which means it cannot make full use of its more powerful hind legs. Whereas a horse travelling up a slope is able to support itself on its stronger back legs in order to power its forward movement.
More importantly if attacking from horseback an opponent lower down a slope has the advantage of being presented with a clearer strike at the breast his opponents horse whilst the rider higher up the slope must extend his own reach farther due the angle of his horses back.
What actually happened at the end of a so-called charge depended largely on the psychological impact the approach has had on the enemy. If as was hoped some of the enemy has panicked during the approach then the leaders will almost certainly order a final gallop. At this point it is assumed and expected that some if not all of the opposing troops will panic and try to escape the impact. This will almost certainly mean that those directly in the path of the charging horsemen will try to avoid them either by forcing their way back into the rear of their formation or to one side. This may involve dropping your weapon or turning your back on the advancing horsemen. Either way, it will create a gap in the enemy defensive formation and at that point the first line of cavalry would push home to spread the panic and widen the gap. In effect prizing the enemy formation apart.
If the enemy formation still stood its ground at this point the leaders of the second line might decide to commit there own force to further the effect again relying upon the enemy to panic and try to avoid them. But more likely they would hold their own line back and use it to cover the withdrawal of their colleagues from the first. Without this close tactical reserve withdrawal of the first line becomes impossible without heavy casualties as the enemy can follow up as we see demonstrated in MTW?
However, if the enemy formation shows no sign whatsoever of panic then quite simply the cavalry stop and don't charge home. At Waterloo there were numerous accounts of cavalry on both sides trotting up their opponents and halting within spitting distance of them only to go three's about and withdraw. These were in effect failed charges where the leader had assessed that the enemy were not going to panic and so their was no point charging home. In some cases the cavalry even resorted to taunting their opponents in the hope that they could goad them into breaking formation to attack them and thus leave some gaps to exploit.
According to Keegan the French Knights at Agincourt attempting to weather the hail of arrows were so driven together that when they arrived at the English position they were in such a solid mass they were unable to form a proper tactical reserve allowing the English to leave their position and close with them without the threat of being ridden down.
As a final resort if the cavalry could not intimidate their opponents into breaking formation then their only option was to rely on third party support. Hence the need for horse artillery, horse archers or some other form of mobile missile troops. At Waterloo the French cavalry attacking Mercers battery were so desperate to persuade his gunners to quit their guns that they tried to use their carbines to rattle them. Unfortunately a carbine fired from the saddle is not very accurate and Mercer was able to re-assure his men by riding up and down in front of his own guns inviting the enemy to take pot shots at him and in the end the French gave up on the idea.
So, what does all this rambling have to do with MTW?
Well it suggests that things are about right as they stand.
Knights and other cavalry that charge home but fail to break an enemy formation ought to get bogged down and take heavy casualties. The only real issue is whether the enemy ought to panic more often than they do at present. Clearly, the issue here is one of morale and discipline rather than weapon technology.
From a players view we ought to make sure that we keep a fresh unit of cavalry always on hand to act as a tactical reserve to exploit the initial charge or support its withdrawal and ideally a unit of missile troops as well.
There is also an argument for changing the slope advantage for cavalry but I suspect that would be just too radical.
Didz
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I've argued that unexperienced troops should receive a moral penalty when charged by (heavy/shock) cavalry units. Alas, this was not implemented nor in STW neither in MTW. Check out the following thread:
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