Why Dismount?

[Hurin_Rules]

Are there any real advantages to dismounting cavalry units to form infantry units? Historically, units did this when there was a need to defend, since infantry are better at defence, but it seems from looking at the unit stats and comparing mounted versus dismounted, it never actually helps your defence in this game.

Anyone?

[solypsist]

in the desert regions it helps your men; they won't tire as quickly - and by remaining fresher won't suffer the morale penalties of being tired or exhausted.

[Foreign Devil]

Dismounting is generally desired for castle assaults. The point of cavalry is mobility and speed, and both of these are not really needed when attacking a stationary castle.

[deejayvee]

Quote[/b] (Hurin_Rules @ July 03 2003,00:26)]but it seems from looking at the unit stats and comparing mounted versus dismounted, it never actually helps your defence in this game.

Anyone?
It may not help your defence, but the enemy troops can't use their bonus vs cavalry against you.

[Magraev]

Dismount your druszina's to get 60 feudal footknight ready to rumble http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif I believe they're the only unit better off on foot every time.

Well maybe beduin camel warriors too http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

[Brutal DLX]

Yes, you mostly use it for castle assaults, or dimounting your heavy cavarly if the enemy has a lot of anti-cav units such as halberdiers, billmen etc.
Dismounted Chivalric Knights, for example, are a very powerful unit.

[khurjan]

i use mine for spear heading assualts on castles or in wooded area battlefields it works a charm http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

[Sainika]

Chivalric foot knights andgothic foot knights are ass-kickers. They die very slow and reluctantly. They are extremely good.

[Hurin_Rules]

Great Thanks for all the replies.

If I could summarize, dismounting should be used in the following circumstances:

--Castle defence
--Defence in woods
--When your enemy has a lot of anti-cav units (Billmen, Halbardiers, camels)

Good to know

[hrvojej]

I really like cavalry, so I almost never dismount. Instead, I modded in the foot knights to be buildable, since I like them as well. The benefit of cavalry charge is simply too good to be discarded in the way I play. The only times I would dismount are :
-castle defence (not assault, since it's better to have fast moving units to avoid tower fire, and they'll kill faster due to the benefits of the charge)
- if I happen to have all cavalry army, I dismount some knights if situation might benefit from that; but I usually prefer the all-out charge again (billmen and halberds will rout if you hit them in rear as well, which you can do if you have those extra cavalry units)

[Leet Eriksson]

dismounted bediouns=40 peasants=useless unit.

[bighairyman]

i dismount my knights if the enemy got a lot of high quailty spear, pikemen. or some other anti-cavalry unit.

dismounted kinghts also will not charge on they own and ruin ur startegy(sp).

and faisal? where did u get the funny quotes in ur signature? did u get it on a web-site, can u show me?

thanks http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[amrcg]

In the 11th century and beginning of 12th century, the Norman knights would often dismount to face enemy mounted knights (e.g. battle of Bremule). Dismounted knights used their lances as spears (unlike in MTW, where they are only swordsmen) which gave them an advantage over cavalry when the latter was forced to attack from the front. It seems that the generalisation of well coordinated charges with couched lance have caused the dismounting tactic to become obsolete in the course of the first half of the 12th century. Until then mounted knights still fought with virtually the same tactics as in antiquity (i.e. small groups of knights charging in the hope that the enemy would waver and open a gap, then exchanging a few stabs with lance or throwing the lances as darts, retreating if the enemy stood fast, charging again, etc.), as depicted in the Baieux tapestry.

Cheers,
Antonio

[Leet Eriksson]

sorry bighairyman i don't have the sites bookmarked but do a search on Confucious Says on google and you might find it,there are several Confucious jokes around.Back to topic,i know these units can dismount:

Ghulam Cavalry=Saracen Infantry
BediounCamelWarrior=Peasants
Faris=Dismounted Faris(did'nt try yet)
KnightsHospitaller=Hopitaller FootKnights
ChivalricKnights=Chivalric FootKnights
LithuanianCavalry=Archers
GothicKnights=GothicFootKnights
Druzhina Cavalry=FootKnights

Thats all i know,i would be happy if anyone helped and told me if there are other units that can dismount that i missed.and yes Druzhina are better of dismounted than mounted,unless AP is needed.

[hrvojej]

If you are familiar with reading the unitprod file, for example with Gnome editor, it's all listed there. Column 68 tells you what troop the unit becomes, and column 69 whether it can dismount in the open battle. I guess I or somebody could post all of them, but the list is a bit long... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[bighairyman]

well thanks anyway faisal http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Hurin_Rules]

Amrcg:

Just one point on which I disagree with you. I would say that the reason dismounting fell out of fashion in the latter 12th century was not the increasing effectiveness of cavalry, but the appearance of more effective, professional, non-knightly infantry. The infantry of the communes (cities) became better organized and armed (at Legnano in 1176 they even defeated the Holy Roman Emperor himself) and mercenaries such as the routiers who so afflicted France abounded. Why dismount your knights when you can simply hire cheap, high quality infantry who will serve for as long as you keep paying them?

[amrcg]

Hi Hurin_Rules

Yes, I agree with you that more professional infantry that started to appear with the development of cities made dismounted knights somwhat useless. On the other hand, there were a few battles in the 1130s I think (I can provide the names of the battles on Monday), where dismounted Norman knights were badly defeated by mounted knights (which does not appear to have been very common until then), which may have also contributed to the trend of keeping knights mounted and using more specialised professional infantry to do their job.

Cheers,
Antonio

[Hurin_Rules]

If you could find those references, I would find that very interesting. At the Battle of the Standard (Northallerton), dismounted Norman knights were victorious over the Scots. So it was still an effective tactic to some extent. But I think you might be referring to the Battle of Lincoln (1140 or 41), where King Stephen dismounted part of his force and was handily defeated (and captured). If you can provide more references, though, I would really appreciate it; I think your idea is interesting.

Cheers,

Dave

[CBR]

Hm dont think coordinated charges made dismounted knights obsolete. We see dismounted men-at-arms used a lot in the 14th to mid 15th century.. so what happened with tactics there? We even see Austrian and Italian men-at-arms dismount to attack the Swiss at Sempach(1386) and Arbedo(1422)

If we dont see it used much in the 12th century thats more about terrain, how the battle started or fashion (knights wanting to fight knights the "proper" way) than because it was obsolete.

When it comes to professional infantry we see the same tendency during the 15th century were men-at-arms went back to the good old horseback as it was easy to recruit/hire large amounts of good infantry.

CBR

[Nowake]

one word: landskenets.

[Hoplite]

Quote[/b] (pr Fire @ July 05 2003,22:23)]one word: landskenets.
What about landsknechts?

[Hakonarson]

The Austrian & Italian knights dismounted during the battles vs the Swiss because they had been repulsed in mounted charges. Interestinly they kept their lances, which out-reached the Swiss halberds, and are considered one of the reasons the Swiss went to pikes - to outreach the lances of dismounted knights

For 100 years after Hastings Anglo-Norman knights often fought on foot to stiffen the fyrd - they would sometimes retain their lances as spears, and other times discard them and use swords instead. From about 1150 on they stopped doing so until the advent of the longbow in the late 1200's/early 1300's.

From then on they routinely fought dismounted because their defensive tactics relied upon stationary infantry longbowmen, and cavalry were pretty much useless when stationary.

French knights dismounted in response to having their horses shot to pieces by the English from the mid 1300's - on foot they were much less vulnerable, although they then had other problems as at Agincourt.

German knights had a long history if fighting dismonuted, as some German cavalry had always been considered better on foot Eg Swabians with their 2-handed swords.

Spanish rarely dismounted, but Navarrese and Portuguese often did, especially under English influence.

Burgundian knights often fought dismounted.

So dismounting was a national preference modified by circumstances at the time - not one for a particular type of knight.

[amrcg]

Hi

Here's a compact answer...

Hurin_Rules:
>If you could find those references, I would find that very >interesting. At the Battle of the Standard
>(Northallerton), dismounted Norman knights were victorious >over the Scots. So it was still an effective tactic to >some extent. But I think you might be referring to the >Battle of Lincoln (1140 or 41), where King Stephen >dismounted part of his force and was handily defeated (and >captured).
No, my reference was not for the battle of Lincoln. At Lincoln we must recognise that King Stephen and his dismounted knights were defeated only when they were already sorrounded and attacked from all sides. Here we have to acknowledge the suppremacy of cavalry in terms of maneuverability and ability to attack from flank and rear, not so much its charging power.
I told you that my reference was for a battle with Normans, but I was wrong. My reference was for the battle of Fotevik (1134) where the infantry of the Danes (which included axe-armed infantry) was completely cut to pieces by 300 mercenary knights from Germany.
A question: At the battle of the standard, the dismounted english knights faced mostly infantry, not cavalry right?

CBR:
>Hm dont think coordinated charges made dismounted knights >obsolete. We see dismounted men-at-arms used a lot in the >14th to mid 15th century..
By this time things were different. As some people had referred, the tactics and weapons had changed by this time, which recognised the advantage of close order and disciplined infantry with protected flanks (hence the use of square tactics) armed with pikes, polearms and powerful missile units against armoured horsemen.

Hakonarson:
>For 100 years after Hastings Anglo-Norman knights often >fought on foot to stiffen the fyrd
At Bremule there was no Fyrd to stiffen. Still, anglo-norman knights fought dismounted.

Probably there was more than one factor that led to the abandonment of dismounted knights until the 14th century:
- Development of Chivalric ideals;
- Generalisation of couched lance and coordinated charge;
- Appearance of profissional infantry and better quality militia in greater numbers.
- Greater hability to maneuvre.
- Greater chance to escape capture =). Maybe the latter was more important than one may think.

Concerning MTW, I think it would be more realistic if Feudal Knights could become spearmen in pitched battles, and swordsmen in castle assaults.

Cheers,
Antonio

[Hakonarson]

Antonio I didn't say that stiffeing the fyrd was the ONLY reason for dismounting http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Normans had often fought dismounted before Hastings too - Frankish cavalry had done so since the time of Charlemagne or even earlier.

[Hurin_Rules]

Amrcg:


>No, my reference was not for the battle of Lincoln. At Lincoln we must recognise that King Stephen and his dismounted knights were defeated only when they were already sorrounded and attacked from all sides. Here we have to acknowledge the suppremacy of cavalry in terms of maneuverability and ability to attack from flank and rear, not so much its charging power.

Duly recognised. I agree completely.

>I told you that my reference was for a battle with Normans, but I was wrong. My reference was for the battle of Fotevik (1134) where the infantry of the Danes (which included axe-armed infantry) was completely cut to pieces by 300 mercenary knights from Germany.
A question: At the battle of the standard, the dismounted english knights faced mostly infantry, not cavalry right?

Yep, at the Battle of The Standard the Scots had mostly infantry. Norman knights were only just being introduced into Scotland by the king (my family is actually descended from some of these Norman mercenaries, BTW http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif, and were not in sufficient numbers to challenge the English. If I remember correctly, a lot of the Scots at Standard were highlanders, Galwegians, etc. (I.e. medium infantry).

[Hakonarson]

There were enough mounted Scots at the Battle of the Standard for Prince Henry, King David's son to command them as a wing, and to charge to through the English militia (fyrd?) on one flank, taking losees only to be driven back by mounted English horse guards.

King David himself led unounted knights behind the centre of the men from Galway, but apparently was mounted together with his immediate bodyguard.

[Wilbo]

How do you dismount? I know you can, but have never been able to work out how.

[o_loompah_the_delayer]

BEfore the battle starts, right click on a unit, if it can dismount (eg some knights, beduin camels etc) than the option will be highlighted.

[Portuguese Rebel]

Quote[/b] ]Spanish rarely dismounted, but Navarrese and Portuguese often did, especially under English influence.


The Portuguese and Navarrese often did BECAUSE the spanish didn't. Most of the battles envolving Navarre and Portugal were against the spanish who had more in numbers of knights. So our knights fought on foot next to the militias and recruited peasants. This was done to prevent them from running due to the enemy (spanish) superior numbers.

This kind of tactic was used in Aljusbarrota were it is said to be 5 spanish for each portuguese... Of course this is what it is said (we won so we wrote the story...). Historians now say something like 2:1 ratio, witch is still not bad at all, since they had more knights (probably fancy boys in armour though http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif )