M2TW Cavalry and EB II

**Moros** · 01-31-2009, 00:11

Originally Posted by Moros

Of course we'll be using a new system as complex, balanced and as historically accurate as EBI's.

**gamegeek2** · 01-31-2009, 04:59

Gamegeek, the lance is blind. When you have a compact formation of heavily armoured horsemen on bulky horses and their big lances lowered the momentum of the impact will shatter anything. Whether the charge is succesful or not depends if the infantry breaks, but if the horsemen present a compact and strong charge it is only natural that even the heaviest infantry will suffer unless they have means to stop the charge, and that usually is a long pole, halberd, voulge and the likes, as well as the good old pike. No wonder why so many formations in the middle ages employed them, after all.

But the EB team will seek to accurately depict horsemen of the Ancient Age within the limitations of the engine while presenting more or less realistic situations. You can be sure that Equites Romani will not have the same impact as the current Feudal Knights et all have against infantry formations, but then no wonder that heavily armoured cataphracts will produce more or less similar results. They were armed and equipped to do it, and break enemy formations, afterall.

I know this, it's rather obvious when you apply the laws of physics. When the lance from a couched charge hits someone, the hit person gets killed or something else awful happens to them. But the guy in the next row? He may be pushed back, but he probably doesn't get hit by the lance. And something good: In M2TW, cavalry charging that run into their own men during the charge actually lose their momentum. So a swarm of Scythian Riders that are running into each other constantly have a much weaker charge.

I also think that the cavalry charge distance for cataphracts (30) is awfully close up for heavy horsemen to get some serious momentum going to charge effectively. I raised the distance to 60 in my slightly modded version of EB.

**antisocialmunky** · 01-31-2009, 05:37

The guy behind might get killed by the guy infront of him being flung/skewed backwards at him with all the momentum of that horse. I mean, this is close one a ton/tonne hitting someone with a pointy stick going at 20-30 miles per hour. Its kinda like this(graphic):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b5QIux9AG8

**gamegeek2** · 01-31-2009, 15:29

That car has much more force that the knight. The guy behind probably wouldn't be killed, he has armour and a shield to dissipate the impact.

I'm just wondering how you guys are going to get the M2TW cavalry engine to make EB-level cavalry.

**The General** · 01-31-2009, 19:23

Originally Posted by gamegeek2

That car has much more force that the knight.

A horseman and horse will weight probably a minimum of 400kg (light horse and unarmoured man), and an heavily armoured man and a large (modern-day) horse could weigh over a thousand kilograms - as much as a car, and a horse can reach a speed of 89km/h (55mp/h, the world record atm). Of course, a horse of ancient times would've been smaller than a large 700kg modern-day riding horse, but nonetheless, we can assume the armoured rider and horse would've weighed well over half a ton and could've reached a speed over 50km/h for a charge... There's quite a bit of force there. :P

**antisocialmunky** · 01-31-2009, 19:59

:-\ 55 mph? Are you sure about that?

**lobf** · 01-31-2009, 20:10

Originally Posted by The General

A horseman and horse will weight probably a minimum of 400kg (light horse and unarmoured man), and an heavily armoured man and a large (modern-day) horse could weigh over a thousand kilograms - as much as a car, and a horse can reach a speed of 89km/h (55mp/h, the world record atm). Of course, a horse of ancient times would've been smaller than a large 700kg modern-day riding horse, but nonetheless, we can assume the armoured rider and horse would've weighed well over half a ton and could've reached a speed over 50km/h for a charge... There's quite a bit of force there. :P

The lightest of average cars weighs twice that much and goes much faster. There's no way a knight hits with the force of an automobile.

**gamegeek2** · 01-31-2009, 20:32

The horse is significantly slowed down by the weight of the man and armour, however the impetus offered by the additional weight serves to contrast this. I would be surprised if charging cataphracts went faster than the fastest runner (28 mph). However, contrary to your belief, there were definitely large breeds of horses in ancient times, particularly the Nisean breed which the Parthian cataphracts rode. It takes a horse stronger than a modern day riding horse AFAIK to carry Grivpanvar and all their armour AND make an effective charge.

And, as seen at the Battle of Carrhae, even the Parthian Cataphracts could not beat the well-trained Roman Legionarii when they were formed up and using pila as spears. A strong, well-made shield will be able to take the majority of a lance's impact, though it might be broken or shattered.

**antisocialmunky** · 01-31-2009, 21:48

I was just making a claim that one man cannot stop a heavy horse easily, and a heavy horse hitting a group of men would be much like a car plowing through a crowd of people. So if you're using the numbers in this thread, it would be more like a Smart Car(730kg) plowing into a group of people at about 20 miles per hour.

I used round numbers because that's what I thought a heavy cataphract would weigh close to a ton.

So, lets do some math just for fun.

Horse: 400 - 500 kg
Person: ~55 - 70 kg(Normal and Overwight for a ~5 foot 3 man from a modern BMI graph)
Armor and Equipment: ? - I honestly have no clue. I'm thinking about a heavier type of horse. Would be nice to get a number.
So the total would be around 512.5 kg for just a guy on a horse.

The horse would be galloping anywhere from 40-48 kph(25 -30 mph) on impact. The average of that is 44 kph. This gives a total momentum of 22550 kg km/h. Now assuming an inelastic impact because people kinda squish:

m1 * v1 + m2 * v2 = (m1+m2)*vf

And using the mass for a human of 62.5 kg, that gives us a final velocity of about 40 kph. So the first person only slows it down by 4 kph. Assuming that he couldn't do a barrel-roll, he took the lance in the chest. The lance then broke. The primary weapon is gone now but its going to continue trampling guys assuming they stand their ground. I guess this is assuming no bracing.

Here are more numbers for a horse hitting people:

Code:

Initial: 44 kph
Person 1: 40 kph
Person 2: 35 kph
Person 3: 31 kph
Person 4: 27 kph
Person 5: 24 kph
etc

So lets look at guy #2. He gets accelerated to 35 KPH in a split second. Assuming that it is accelerated to that speed in about x seconds, that's:

35kph / (3600 m/h * s/m) * 1000 * m/km = 9.72 m/s
9.72 m/s / 1/100 s = 9.72x m/s^2
9.72x m/s^2 * 62.5 kg = 607.5x N

Depending on how long the impact takes, he could either live or die. If anyone has a good idea of how long it takes to transfer all that momentum, please tell me.