Appearance of heavy cavalry.

[Tsavong]

I was wondering shouldn't most European heavy cavalry have some sort of armour like the Cuirassiers (as British Sweden etc heavy cavalry don't seem to have armour on them) And shouldn't they including the Cuirassiers have some sort of helmet instead of a cloth hat? I don't know much about how European heavy cavelry looked in the 1700s only what they look like now on display and the odd image on wiki.

Cuirassier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuirassier)

[Callahan9119]

I just read a book about the 100 days after napoleon left Elba, there was a remark from a brittish soldier about how during Ney's big charge in the Waterloo battle, the cavalrymen wore heavy armor. Thats all I got.

[Mr Frost]

Some did have armour , some did not .

Many of the decisions reguarding the training , equiptment , tatical doctrine and deployment of troops was {much like any period in history} made as much on the ego of those in charge as on "common sense" {which is ironically quite rare in real life} and practical realities .

This was the era when "history" that was taught claimed Medieval knights never used discilplined tactics , could barely move in their armour and used slow and cumbersome weapons that weighted several times the modern equivelent {all complete tosh of course} ... it was an egotistical hubris stemming from their desire to think of themselves as more advanced than their forebares and the "advertising" propoganda of the fencing schools of the very late Medieval period and the Renaissance {whom were competeing with the Medieval style teachers for paying stundents whom were multiplying greatly in number} .
Many men of high military and political authority {most of whom got their rank because of their family connections rather than by merit , even in democracies} were biased against any sort of body armour on their troops . Even when their own cavalry reported on how Cuirassier cavalry had clear advantages in melee engagements .


Military organisations are some of the most hide bound institutions man has ever produced . Only churches and bureaucracies exceed them in this field .

That being said , many heavy cavalry still had pot helmets {basically steel bowls protecting the dome of the skull} under their fancy hats and lengths of very well made chain running down the length of their sleeves and sometimes some form of modest gorget {a nech and throat protector} .


Certainly in the game , there were more nations using Cuirassiers of different sorts .

[Kraxis]

Not the speak of the expense of the armour itself.

Many supposed curassier units never got any armour as the money appeared better spent on other stuff. You can say it this way, the units with frontpieces often lacked it altogether, and units with supposed fullpieces often only had frontpieces.

Practicalities often interefered with realities.

But most had the heavy cavalry boots. Super heavy leather, sometimes reinforced (I never knew that happened until I actually saw a parit, and tried to lift them), these protected the rider up to the knee. Which was obviously valuable against infantry.

Even light cavalry had some sort of protection. For instance the entire idea of the slung jacket over the left shoulder that many Hussars carried/carries (nowadays for style obviously) was intended to soak up blows to the unprotected left side in an engagement. But Hussars being dandies and all couldn't really carry armour could they now? No, it had to be dashing.

Overall heavy cavalry didn't have to include armour of any kind. Heavy is more of a style than gear, and horses of course. Though there can be a certain amount of overlap there.

[lars573]

I was wondering shouldn't most European heavy cavalry have some sort of armour like the Cuirassiers (as British Sweden etc heavy cavalry don't seem to have armour on them) And shouldn't they including the Cuirassiers have some sort of helmet instead of a cloth hat? I don't know much about how European heavy cavelry looked in the 1700s only what they look like now on display and the odd image on wiki.

Cuirassier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuirassier)
That wikipedia article has it backwards. Cuirassiers lost all their armour save breastplates and helmets in the 17th century. And the helmets during the 18th. Which made a comeback in the Napoleonic period. Made out of brass and leather rather than steel.

[Furious Mental]

I think 'heavy' in this era referred more to the size of the men and horses and how they were deployed, rather than their armour. But the cuirassiers should have a big bonus in melee and a little protection against bullets and shrapnel.

Another thing is that if you capture some cuirassiers you should get a price reduction on the next ones you recruit, because in practice captured cuirasses were re-used.

[lars573]

Not just the man and horse. But also the sword and firearms. Heavy cavalry have a heavy straight bladed sabre. Where as light cavalry have a curved sabre.

[jsberry]

Baron Marbot (whose memoirs would be fascinating to anybody interested in the Napoleonic period) wrote that French cuirassiers had a significant advantage over their Austrian counterparts, because the French cuirasse had a back-plate and the Austrians' was front-only. So, the armor may have been importnat. However, he exagerated a lot.

[Didz]

I was wondering shouldn't most European heavy cavalry have some sort of armour like the Cuirassiers (as British Sweden etc heavy cavalry don't seem to have armour on them) And shouldn't they including the Cuirassiers have some sort of helmet instead of a cloth hat? I don't know much about how European heavy cavelry looked in the 1700s only what they look like now on display and the odd image on wiki.

Cuirassier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuirassier)
The only European Heavy Cavalry to wear armour were the Cuirassiers, ETW begins just after the pike and musket (17th Century) era which saw the last of the fully armoured mounted regiments who wore the type of armour shown in the top left of your wiki reference. Britain had no Cuirassier regiments during the 18th Century, the breastplate only being adopted by the Household Cavalry after the Napoleonic Wars.

The cloth hat however, is misleading. Although a lot of cavalry wore cloth or fur hats and bonnets during this period most were worn over a metal skull cap designed to protect the head from sword cuts, or in some cases incorporated a metal/leather lining for the same purpose.

There's a thread here with lots of pictures of uniforms from the period.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=98367


I think 'heavy' in this era referred more to the size of the men and horses and how they were deployed, rather than their armour. But the cuirassiers should have a big bonus in melee and a little protection against bullets and shrapnel.
British soliders at Waterloo commented on the strange noise created by their bullets punching through or glancing off the breastplates of French Cuirassiers. They certainly provided a degree of protection against spent balls, although French Infantry achieved the same level of protection by wearing their thick greatcoats into battle, but in truth most fire was aimed at the horses anyway which were unprotected and so the Cuirass just became an encumbrance to trying to extracate yourself and escape.

[DisruptorX]

Swedish light cavalry seems to be in plate armor, Conquistador style. Otherwise, yeah, it'd bee cool to see some armor on the cavalry, aside from the helmets the Dragoons wear.

[Mr Frost]

... so the Cuirass just became an encumbrance to trying to extracate yourself and escape.

However it was a great advantage {compared to units without Curirasses} when it came to a melee engagement .
Aiming a horse pistol in the swirling chaos of a cavalry battle in most instances was wishful thinking and at best hitting a foe with your single bullet {try drawing a second pistol whilst a big angry hoseman is trying to cut your arms off !} was just a matter of luck so it mostly came down to sword work and in that instance the armour really earned its' price which is why Napoleon , genius in logistics , chose to continue the great expense of maintaining them and even increasing the expense in the case of some "carbiners" {whom no longer carried a carbine and were acually by then Cuirassiers} by adding a fancy worked layer of brass over their steel cuirasses .
It's also the reason the British adopted the armour after Boney was beat .

All things being equal , if I was a strapping big heavy cavalryman {and thus a strapping big target} in the 18th and 19th centuries , I'd want a cuirass and a full propper steel helmet {with lovely brass fancy bits on too please so I could look suitably pimp} given that the lions' share of the dangerous part of my job would have been to charge infantry , artillery and other cavalry and get stuck in with sword and foul language where the armour would really count . You see , if my horse got shot out from under me , I'd not only be in trouble reguardless {given cavalry often opperated ahead of the main infantry body} but the weight of that cuirass won't really slow you down nor reduce your agility by nearly as much as most people think and given any enemy cavalry or infantry would be likely be near by {I'm probably fighting them when Neddy bites it} will likely keep trying to kill me thus the armour comes in useful yet again .
It really was mostly just a money thing and the numbers of corrupt politicians , bureaucrats and military brass making sure money that should have gone to raising and supporting them went instead into their pockets {the reason that today America looks like it will only have 200 F-22s and mabey even less when they really needed 750 !} .

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Baron Marbot (whose memoirs would be fascinating to anybody interested in the Napoleonic period) wrote that French cuirassiers had a significant advantage over their Austrian counterparts, because the French cuirasse had a back-plate and the Austrians' was front-only. So, the armor may have been importnat. However, he exagerated a lot.
That story never sat well with me.
If you can swing a sword at someone's back, your intended victim is in serious trouble, whether he has back armour or not. Someone is going to hack bits off him regardless!

[Didz]

However it was a great advantage {compared to units without Curirasses} when it came to a melee engagement.
It may have been a slight advantage I agree, as it reduced the target area available to an opponent trying to use the point of his weapon.

However, in the context of my statement you quoted it was nothing but a hinderance.


It's also the reason the British adopted the armour after Boney was beat.
I doubt if that was the real reason for the adoption of the Cuirass by the Household Cavalry. If it had been then it would have seemed reasonable to expect that the practice would have been extended to all the British heavy cavalry.

Its actually more likely that these new uniform features were introduced to celebrate the victory over the French at Waterloo, and rub the 'Frenchies' noses in it. Thus, they were one of a number if uniform changes introduced in the period from 1820-1837. Which included the wearing of the Cuirass by the Household Cavalry Regiments that had trounced the French Cuirassiers of Walthier's Division in the area around La Haye Sainte, the adoption of the title Grenadier Guards by the 1st Foot Guards to celebrate their supposed victory over the Grenadiers of the French Imperial Guard (in fact the French Grenadiers of the guard did not take part in the attack) on the ridge behind Hougoumont and the adoption of the Bearskin Hat by all of the men of that regiment plus those of the 2nd and 3rd Guards to mimick the French uniform worn by the Imperial Guard, and the adoption of a new dragoon helmet by all dragoon regiments modelled on the French design.

[sassbarman]

not sure about other factions but in my prussian and now austrian campaign about half of my cuirassiers wear breast plates.

[Tsavong]

Thanks for your input I feel I've learnt something.

[Furious Mental]

A great coat and a cuirass aren't the same. A great coat might stop a bullet that has practically lost all its energy, but it wouldn't have been much good if someone pointed a pistol at one's chest.

[Didz]

A great coat and a cuirass aren't the same. A great coat might stop a bullet that has practically lost all its energy, but it wouldn't have been much good if someone pointed a pistol at one's chest.
Nor! would a cuirass, unless he was a hell of a way away from you, in which case he'd probably miss anyway. The most a Cuirass could be expected to achieve was the deflection of the odd spent shot, and the point of an enemies sword. But as evidenced from eyewitness accounts of the Household Cavalry most cavalrymen up against Cuirassiers simply aimed for the places the Cuirass didn't cover, so it was more a case of reducing the target area than anything else.

Certainly didn't help the French very much at Waterloo anyway. In fact, letters written by officers of the Household Brigade after the battle make no mention of the Cuirass worn by their opponents at all.

For example, Major Waymouth of the 2nd Life Guards complains not about the difficulties his men had due to the enemy being armoured, but that they were disadvantaged due to their swords which were a full six inches shorter than those used by the French, made worse by it being the custom to carry them in a very bad position whilst advancing, 'the French carrying theirs in a much less fatiguing fashion and much better for either attack or defence'.

[Furious Mental]

'... I then immediately struck into him, and touched him before I discharged mine (pistol); and I'm sure I hit him, for he staggered, and presently wheeled off from his party and ran... follow him I did, and in six score yards I came up to him, and I'm sure I hit his head, for I touched it before I gave fire, and it amazed him at that present, but he was too well armed all over for a pistol to do him any hurt, having a coat of mail over his arms and a helmet (I am sure) musket-proof.'

That's an account from a soldier in the English Civil War. One can go right back to the sixteenth century and still find that a cuirassier's armour was to be pistol-proof at least. Eighteenth century cuirasses had reduced in coverage, but were no thinner. Whether or not they were worth it is another matter.

[Didz]

'... I then immediately struck into him, and touched him before I discharged mine (pistol); and I'm sure I hit him, for he staggered, and presently wheeled off from his party and ran... follow him I did, and in six score yards I came up to him, and I'm sure I hit his head, for I touched it before I gave fire, and it amazed him at that present, but he was too well armed all over for a pistol to do him any hurt, having a coat of mail over his arms and a helmet (I am sure) musket-proof.'

That's an account from a soldier in the English Civil War. One can go right back to the sixteenth century and still find that a cuirassier's armour was to be pistol-proof at least. Eighteenth century cuirasses had reduced in coverage, but were no thinner. Whether or not they were worth it is another matter.
Now your talking about a completetly different era. As I stated earlier the 17th Century 'lobster' style body armour was not worn by 18th century cavarly, nor was the mail and leather jerkin which was associated with it. Likewise, both powder and firearms had gone through almost half-century of improvement. So the analogy is irrelevant, its like comparing the effectiveness of cavalry in the first world war with that which took the field at Waterloo.

Incidently, Whilst I can't find any evidence one way as to the relative thickness of a 16th v 17th Century cavalry breastplate the attached study shows if nothing else that the thichness is not particularly consistent. Different peices of armour over different periods as used by different nations could vary in thickness by as much as 300%. There are certainly numerous reports of 16th Lobster style armour being almost bullet proof, but whether that would be true for all men in all regiments is less likely. Most of the wearers cited were officers and gentlemen who had had their armour personally crafted, rather than common soldiers.

http://www.srs.ac.uk/scienceandheritage/presentations/Williams-tate-Poster2.pdf

Likewise, thickness is not really the be all and end all of armour being bullet proof anyway. It had just as much to do with the qualities of the metal and the shape of the item.

[DisruptorX]

Never heard that term used before. Does "lobster" refer to the full interlocking plate armor worn by the heaviest of cavalry?

[Didz]

Never heard that term used before. Does "lobster" refer to the full interlocking plate armor worn by the heaviest of cavalry?
Yes. It was a slang term used for this sort of armour in the 17th Century and also the regimental nickname of a Regiment of Horse in Wallers Army which was commanded by Sir Arthur Haselrig M.P. and was the first and only full regiment of true cuirassiers to see action in the English Civil War. Haselrig's paid for the equipment out of his own pocket.

Cromwell's Ironside's only wearing the helmet and breastplate.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Xnqe6ELe_us/SaW_KRO0-NI/AAAAAAAAAMs/essWem3kNF4/s320/ECW+Haselrig%27s+lobsters.jpg

Even so the fully enclosed helmet and metal gauntlets were probably replaced by a 'lobster pot' helmet and leather gloves which would have been much more practical.

Richard Atkins, was a Captain in the Royalist army. On 13 July, 1643, he took part in the Royalist victory at Roundway Down. In this extract Atkins describes trying to kill General Arthur Haselrig, the leader of the parliamentary army at Roundway Down.

It was my fortune to charge Sir Arthur Heselrige... He discharged his carbine first but at a distance not to hurt us... I then... discharged mine; I'm sure I hit him, for he staggered and wheeled off from his party and ran... I pursued him... and in six score yards I came up to him, and discharged the other pistol at him, and I am sure I hit his head... but he was too well armed all over for a pistol bullet to do him any hurt, having a coat of mail over his arms and a headpiece that was musket proof... I employed myself in killing his horse, and cut him in several places... the horse began to faint with bleeding, and Sir Arthur fell off. Then a group of troopers... charged and rescued him.

However, as I've already stated in my earlier post these events were at least half a century before the events depicted in ETW, and the use of this type of armour was already in decline. Even then it is noticeable in this account that Atkin's didn't take long to work out that killing the horse effectively kills the rider no matter how much steel he is wearing.

[IvarrWolfsong]

Back Armor is important because cavalry fights are very mobile, with horse turning and people moving around much more actively than in a foot melee. Odd blows to the back or side would be common. I agree that an immobilized trooper taking continous blows from behind is in trouble regardless. However, the odd blows from an enemy riding behind you for a second or two would be warded off...IF you had back armor.

What really drives me CRAZY is that curaisiers have WORSE melee defense than unarmored heavy cavalry...

[DisruptorX]

Interesting, Didz. Are the "lobster pot" helmets you are describing similar to the Spanish styled ones associated with conquistadors?



What really drives me CRAZY is that curaisiers have WORSE melee defense than unarmored heavy cavalry...

Lots of "Egyptian Axe Cavalry" in this game. Armor represented on units doesn't really mean anything. Indian/Turkish units with mail often have lower armor than unarmored troops. Swedish armored light cavalry have lower armor than standard unarmored horsemen.

[IvarrWolfsong]

hehe damn axe cav ... I remeber the first time someone used a 20 axe cav army on me online and I just melted.

Anyway, it is sooo damn annoying that they have worse melee defense. The whole point of having them not just be heavy cav or regiment of horse is that they have armor to help them in melee defense!

Its like having 'Long Range Riflemen" who have a range of 30'

[Didz]

Interesting, Didz. Are the "lobster pot" helmets you are describing similar to the Spanish styled ones associated with conquistadors?
This is what they look like.
http://www.hill-interiors.com/images/large/S5567.jpg

[Jack Lusted]

What really drives me CRAZY is that curaisiers have WORSE melee defense than unarmored heavy cavalry...
Currently the melee defense stat does not include the armour and shield values for a unit, this is being changed in the next patch.

[Kraxis]

Heh, that should change a few things.

Another 'shieldbug', but this time we didn't notice it before it was fixed. A nice step up I would think.

[Jack Lusted]

It's just a visual thing on the unit cards and tooltips, in terms of actual combat mechanics everything is working fine.

[Oleander Ardens]

Thanks a lot

[DisruptorX]

This is what they look like.
[IMG]http://www.hill-interiors.com/images/large/S5567.jpg/IMG]

Cool pic. As you can see, 17th century British uniforms are something I know little to nothing of.

[Didz]

Cool pic. As you can see, 17th century British uniforms are something I know little to nothing of.
Oh! well if you need to know anything else give me a shout, the 17th Century was an important century in British history because it was the period of our only civil war, when we killed our King, ended up with a dictator instead of democracy, and then saw sense and invited the King's son to come back on a new deal basis.

So, as you can appreciate there's a lot of information on all sorts of stuff related to the period in Britain, not to mention several thriving re-enactment societies, and the period still causes raised hackles when discussed today.

[lars573]

I saw another representation of Ironsides that has a steel gauntlet on their sword arms.

[Didz]

I saw another representation of Ironsides that has a steel gauntlet on their sword arms.
The thing you have to remember about this period of history, and certainly the English Civil War is that regiments in this period were literally raised and paid for by their Colonel's. So, there was a high level of inconsistency between different regiments in the same army, and even different companies within the same regiment, especially if Captain's had been commissioned on the basis of paying for the equipping of their own companies. Certainly, the quality and equipment worn by officers was significantly different and better than that worn by their men, hence Sir Arthur Haselrig's armour may well have been bullet proof, but the fact that it attracted so much comment suggests that it was unusual and that his mens may not have been such high quality.

Wearing a steel gauntlet over your sword arm sounds like a sensible upgrade that an officer or richer trooper might invest in, but the standard equipment usually shown consists of thick leather ones, certainly for the troopers.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Xnqe6ELe_us/SZ8l2IAjZgI/AAAAAAAAAKc/ELTwVuHmmZ4/s1600/Cromwells%2BIronsides%2Bpt2%2BR%2BScollins.jpg
One of the problems of all this inconsistency was that the two armies had considerable difficulties tell each other apart. Hence before each battle field signs were selected by each army as a means of disstinquishing friend from foe. At the Battle of Marston Moor for example the Parliamentry Army were order to wear white field signs in their hats. Hence you can see these ironsides with handkerchief's and slips of paper stuck in their helmets.