cavalry with lances

[Oaty]

Something that popped into my head recently and realized that cavalry making a second charge should possibly not get a big charge bonus for the second time charging. The reason is from a program I watched a month or 2 ago. They showed the nice lance the knight had and how it outreached most weapons but had said that typically after the charge the knight usually had to ditch his lance because it was either embedded in someones body or had snapped from impact or the fact that the horse charged him into the middle of a formation and needed a short range weapon to deal with the infantry at close range. What I am really wondering is how true this is because in the game you can charge charge and charge again. I guess it was more due to the fact that this could not be implemented into the game unless I am wrong, all I need is an expert to shine the light on what weapon thecavalry had at there disposal after their initial charge

[PseRamesses]

Maybee we saw the same program? The lance is mainly a one-hit-weapon because it´s darn impossible to hold on to it, less take it with you, when piercing a body at speeds up to 50 km/h.

[Zone]

It would make sense, after all, how long are those things? 10m? I really have no idea...

[Doug-Thompson]

It varied.

Some medieval lances have small wooden plugs or poles sticking out of the sides, about a foot or so down from the tip. They were there specifically to prevent a lance from being too deeply embedded in an armored victim. Then you could extract it.

At the other end of the scale were lances that were designed to break, although they were of a time period later than 1453, I think. They were very long but half of their length was hollow. The idea was to make a very long lance that was lighter to carry. It was better to knock an opponent to the ground from a farther distance, before his shorter, "solid" lance could reach you. Your lance would almost certainly break, but your enemy would be dead or at least knocked to the ground and stunned. You could finish him off with a sword.

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As for the length of a lance, three or four meters would be a long one, really. The "hollowed out," breakable lances of the Polish hussars of the gunpowder era were exceptionally long, and they were only 5.5 meters.

[Voigtkampf]

If I remember correctly, the 12th century lances were some 6 feet 10 long, century later they were some 9 feet long… Or some 2-3 meters… I don't know the exact sizes of lances from later periods, but all the lances above that were, in my humble opinion, single use giant toothpicks.

[Ironside]

Citera[/b] ]but all the lances above that were, in my humble opinion, single use giant toothpicks.

Yes and the way to use them was to have a friend riding with them towards you. I guess that accidents happened quite often. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[Brutal DLX]

Normally knights could rearm if they could ride back their squires or knaves who were waiting in the vicinity of the battle, of course that was not often possible and it is also hard to implement into any game.
The multiple charges we see in MTW are a bit unrealistic, however, with a little imagination you can picture your knights putting the ones in front who still have intact lances or simply using the speed and mass of their horses along with their melee weapons to knock opponents down in subsequent charges.

[Ja'chyra]

As I understand it what Doug-Thompson said is true and the idea is that the initial charge broke the enemy formation, the lance was then then dropped as it was either broken or useless in close quarters. The knights would then resort to their personnal weapons be they swords, axes or mace(s?).

The problem with the game, an observation not a criticism, is that each unit can only have one weapon. So the knight can't then draw a sword if he is equipped with a lance thereby changing from a spear troop to a sword troop. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Vlad Tzepes]

Talking about charges: IMHO it was mostly about the huge impact of the added mass of the horse and rider, launched together at full speed, had on some guys not smart enough to clear the way in time. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif Think about a 500 kg horse, add the armour, the rider, think about a speed of about 40-50 km per hour, and figure out: there were no airbags back then Try to stop a small car and you'll find out it might have been your last bad ideea.

Has anybody seen LOTR: The Return of the King? There is one exceptional scene in the movie, when the Eorling cavalry charges the orc army. I assume those images shot at the impact, though computer enhanced, were near to what happened in real life... real battle.

In the game, the problem with charge and re-charge is not about lances... Man and horse could charge with or without lance. The problem is about the short space it needs to be done. A full cavalry charge usually needs several hundreds of meters to develop properly. Not in the game.

[Zone]

True, they do have very impressive acceleration, 0 - 50 in 0.163242secs http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[CBR]

If we look at pure MTW technical details:

Lance or sword armed, a cavalry unit would have same attack/defense stats if troop quality and armour is the same. Only difference would be the charge value as western lances would give 8 in charge value compared to 4 for a sword armed cavalry unit (that also is considered to be melee cav)


As it has been mentioned before a cavalry unit could get replacement lances if needed and not all would break or thrown away by just one charge.

There are historical examples of units making several charges: one renaissance battle a unit charged and pierced a pike unit 3 times and its mentioned that the third charge was harder and they took more losses because they didnt have any lances left.

Of course we would all love more details in the game but I would say that lances and charges works ok. Its very rare that my knights get that many charges http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

The charge in ROTK was spectacular and I think it could easily have looked like that if an enemy infantry unit panicked and started running before impact. There would be no reason for the cavalry to slow down against such a disordered and loose formation of infantry and it would have been over within minutes.


CBR

[Zone]

It was a stunning scene and I liked the looks of terror that spread over the orc faces.

[Brutal DLX]

Yes, it looked cool, but imagine the orcs to be veteran Swiss pikemen. The charge in ROTK and Two towers would go awfully bad, seeing as the orcs had good equipment and assumed a good defensive position, but couldn't hold it in the face of the approaching cavalry. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wall.gif

[Zone]

In the whichever film it was I was very scathing about the defense of Helms Deep (End of the first?) because I was sure the knights of Rohan would pierce themselves like a row of kebabs on the pikes of the Orcs who WERE holding position. After seeing it a second time I decided that the flash of light from Gandlaf's staff blinded them and made them lower/raise their pikes ;)

As for that last one, they scattered, not a problem but if the orcs had held position it could have been SO different

[BDC]

In The Two Towers the rising sun blinds the Orcs so they lift up their pikes. I still think an alternative ending where Gandalf becomes a kebab would be funny...

[Zone]

Rising sun is it? I could have sworn it was a big flash of light from Gandalf's 'wand' :D