Yipeeeee ! Dismountable Units

[Flying Pig]

errr... less pleased. Tactically, if I dismount cavalry and start a firefight, my horses are going to run away and I'll lose a great unit

[rajpoot]

errr... less pleased. Tactically, if I dismount cavalry and start a firefight, my horses are going to run away and I'll lose a great unit

I thought horses of the kind that were taken into battle were trained to bear all this stuff, crowds, yelling, gunshots and stuff?
How else does a group of horsmen charge into a formation firing at them otherwise?

[Sheogorath]

Typically horsemen DIDN'T charge into a large formation of men who were firing at them.
Cavalry in this era was NOT the beat-all-end-all it was in the MTW era. It was, actually, approaching obsolescence. A frontal charge against trained infantry was suicide. And even almost unprotected cannons could inflict serious damage of charging cavalry (Light Brigade, anybody?)
Cavalry's use by this point was generally limited to flanking and running down routers. REALLY heavy cavalry and lancers MIGHT risk a frontal charge against an enemy that was already wavering, but if the infantry stood their ground and fought back, they would almost certainly win. A pointy bit of metal on a stick is very effective against a target as big as a horse and cavalryman.
Although, given, troops would have to be well trained to hold against the sight of a hundred men in funny hats screaming and bearing down on them with swords and suchlike.

[CBR]

Hm cavalry were hardly the "the beat-all-end-all" in the time of MTW nor can it be considered to be anywhere near obsolescence in the time of ETW. Its main strength has always been its mobility that meant quick flank/counter attacks.


CBR

[Sheogorath]

The standard use of the bayonet was the beginning of the end for cavalry. I said 'approaching', though. After the Napoleonic Wars, cavalry just become more and more ineffective, with things like rifles and machine guns.
And, like I said, a frontal charge against men with bayonets would be nearly suicidal for any horseboy crazy enough to try.

[CBR]

Frontal charges versus pikes or dismounted men-at-arms were not the best thing to do either.

Machineguns are not part of the ETW era so not relevant. The Napoleonic era saw extensive use of massed cavalry.


CBR

[Sheogorath]

And the first world war saw massed use of human wave attacks against heavily entrenched machine guns.
Just because the military leaders of the time are using it doesn't mean its still an effective or efficient method of fighting.

I am quite aware that machine guns were not present in Napoleonic times. However, bayonets were. Cavalry were limited to a very specialized role. As was mentioned, flanking and chasing a fleeing enemy, or fighting other cavalry.
Dragoons might be the exception, but they were regarded as rather the low end of cavalry.

[rajpoot]

(Light Brigade, anybody?)

That put me thinking again, the Light Brigade was nigh annihilated, but if I'm right they did manage to destroy the artillery battery they had charged.
While this case was one of it's kind, this is something that happens all the time in Imperial Glory. And it's digusting to see your 12 pounders being killed by suicidal cavalrymen, specially considering how much the 12 pounders cost and how much did the cavalrymen cost.
I hope that that the canons in ETW are a bit more robust. Or else they are cheaper.........one can't have an infantry unit standing by the canons all the time, just to ward off some nutjob horsemen!!

Edit: infact what they should do is, not allow the cavalry to directly charge at an artillery unit at all..........or something of the sort........else we might be having Light Brigades every day in ETW.........

[anders]

regarding the obsolecence of cavalry, I had the impression they were pretty central to (european)warfare until repeating rifles came, after all theres three primary qualities to a unit, mobility, durability and firepower, and while the cav might lack the last two, they certainly had the first in that particular era.

[Belgolas]

Well calvalry were effective in WW1 so I can imagine they were effective in ETW. No you don't charge head on into infantry with bayonets but most of the time the infantry didn't have bayonets on all the time. So a head on charge to infantry with no bayonets is a good idea. Calvalry were even used in WW2.

[Sheogorath]

That is true and if the Napoleonic Wars indeed showed mainly bad results from the way cavalry was used, the comparison to WW1 would be fair. But history tells us otherwise:

http://www.napoleon-series.org/milit...n/c_eylau.html


Cavalry has always been mainly fighting other cavalry. A classic army deployment was to have infantry in center and cavalry on the wings. Hannibal used it and did not face muskets nor bayonets. Same thing can be said of 17th century battles in say the Thirty Years War. Of course cavalry could be used in the center as a reserve and Marlborough had that as his main strategy in his battles: attacks on the wings to make the enemy weaken his center and then send in a large cavalry force supported by infantry to win the day.

Dragons started out as mounted infantry but by the time of the Napoleonic Wars it was considered a part of the heavy cavalry force.


Well that is quite historical actually. Artillery needed either infantry or cavalry support as its main enemy was cavalry. It might try to loosen up its formation and even split up to attack the flanks of artillery.

The Light Brigade attacked the wrong target so no wonder they ended up taking heavy losses.


CBR

Considering the timescale involved (assuming you count chariots), WWI and the Napoleonic Wars are right next to each other. Cavalry had been in use for about three thousand years.
And while there were successes with cavalry, there were also miserable failures. Yes, this is true with pretty much everything in war, but in this case, most of those failures resulted from the use of cavalry outside their niche. Frontal charges against infantry. Or cannons.

And, I believe, cavalries main purpose was to fight infantry. Cavalry was the 'air force', it could win you a battle, but attempting to storm a city/fortification with it was probably a bad idea.

And they were still mounted infantry. While they could function as heavy cavalry, they typically had inferior horses (in most cases), and weren't regarded as being part of the 'true' cavalry force (again, in most cases).

Canister shot would do even worse things to cavalry than it would to infantry. Bigger targets meant more hits. A frontal charge against an artillery battery was a terribly stupid idea for ANY force. Infantry OR cavalry. Cavalry might close the distance more quickly, but artillery crews themselves were hardly harmless.
Either way, even an 'unprotected' artillery battery could inflict serious harm upon pretty much any attacker.

The target doesn't matter. The light brigades attack showed the effects artillery fire could have on cavalry. The French used their cavalry in the correct way and snuck around to take out one of the Russian batteries while it was concentrated on the British.

[CBR]

And the first world war saw massed use of human wave attacks against heavily entrenched machine guns. Just because the military leaders of the time are using it doesn't mean its still an effective or efficient method of fighting.

That is true and if the Napoleonic Wars indeed showed mainly bad results from the way cavalry was used, the comparison to WW1 would be fair. But history tells us otherwise:

http://www.napoleon-series.org/milit...n/c_eylau.html

I am quite aware that machine guns were not present in Napoleonic times. However, bayonets were. Cavalry were limited to a very specialized role. As was mentioned, flanking and chasing a fleeing enemy, or fighting other cavalry.
Dragoons might be the exception, but they were regarded as rather the low end of cavalry.

Cavalry has always been mainly fighting other cavalry. A classic army deployment was to have infantry in center and cavalry on the wings. Hannibal used it and did not face muskets nor bayonets. Same thing can be said of 17th century battles in say the Thirty Years War. Of course cavalry could be used in the center as a reserve and Marlborough had that as his main strategy in his battles: attacks on the wings to make the enemy weaken his center and then send in a large cavalry force supported by infantry to win the day.

Dragons started out as mounted infantry but by the time of the Napoleonic Wars it was considered a part of the heavy cavalry force.

That put me thinking again, the Light Brigade was nigh annihilated, but if I'm right they did manage to destroy the artillery battery they had charged.
While this case was one of it's kind, this is something that happens all the time in Imperial Glory. And it's digusting to see your 12 pounders being killed by suicidal cavalrymen, specially considering how much the 12 pounders cost and how much did the cavalrymen cost.
I hope that that the canons in ETW are a bit more robust. Or else they are cheaper.........one can't have an infantry unit standing by the canons all the time, just to ward off some nutjob horsemen!!

Edit: infact what they should do is, not allow the cavalry to directly charge at an artillery unit at all..........or something of the sort........else we might be having Light Brigades every day in ETW.........

Well that is quite historical actually. Artillery needed either infantry or cavalry support as its main enemy was cavalry. It might try to loosen up its formation and even split up to attack the flanks of artillery.

The Light Brigade attacked the wrong target so no wonder they ended up taking heavy losses.


CBR

[lancelot]

That put me thinking again, the Light Brigade was nigh annihilated,....

Sorry to butt in, given that I dont frequent the forums much anymore but- that is a fallacy perpetuated in part by the poems of Tennyson and the delay in accurate news getting back to the UK.

Men KIA were quite heavy but the unit was far from annihilated. I believe that the leader of the charge actually asked his superior, 'can we go again?' when he returned from the first charge...if my memory is not playing tricks on me.

[CBR]

Total losses seems to be around 40%. Nearly 20% of that were POW. Even more horses were killed but that was quite normal for cavalry units, as the horse represented a larger target.


CBR

[Cheetah]

Actually the Light Brigade is the best example of the efficciency of cavalry charge vs artillery positions. As CBR said due to bad wording of the command and possible deliberate missreading of it (by Nolan) they attacked the wrong target. They had to ride down a valley both sides occupied by russian troops. As a consequence they got fired on from 3 sides all the way! Yet they DID ride home the charge, they captured the artillery, they chased away the cassacks guarding the artillery (units 2 or 3 times the sizes of their own!!!), and returned back losing only 1/5th of their number! The only reason why it turned into a debacle because they got almost no support at all (only the french Chasseurs supported them by attacking the russian troops on one side of the valley) and thus they were forced to retreat. Had they got support from the Heavy Brigade (which already saw action that day and its leader was less eager to fight) it would have been possible to hold on to the captured artillery and the charge would have been counted as one of the finest cavalry charges ever, which I think it was.