Can square formation be fixed?

[Didz]

Interestingly, and somewhat strangely, infantry rarely fired when in square and on the rare occassions when cavalry actually managed to break a square, it was usually due to some freak accident rather than courage or determination.

There are some really interesting eyewitness accounts of cavalry v infantry in square amongst the Waterloo letters, and Hofshoerer's books on the Waterloo Campaign also has some first hand accounts from official Prussian Army reports.

The thing that is unrealistic is the point made by Antisocialmunkey e.g. Real horses aren't stupid, and can't be trained to be stupid. Its that more than anything that makes a square a good defence against cavalry.

[Kraxis]

Interestingly, and somewhat strangely, infantry rarely fired when in square and on the rare occassions when cavalry actually managed to break a square, it was usually due to some freak accident rather than courage or determination.

There are some really interesting eyewitness accounts of cavalry v infantry in square amongst the Waterloo letters, and Hofshoerer's books on the Waterloo Campaign also has some first hand accounts from official Prussian Army reports.

The thing that is unrealistic is the point made by Antisocialmunkey e.g. Real horses aren't stupid, and can't be trained to be stupid. Its that more than anything that makes a square a good defence against cavalry.

If you go by Waterloo, then yes. However there was a French square that was basically run down in Spain. They didn't actually do anything wrong, but the cavalry made contact and pushed through. Then unluckily the commanding officer got knocked down and then the infantry lost courage obviously.

Horses aren't stupid, but they are a herd animal, and they can be trained to do absolutely insane things. It is about trust. When you see horses go on those jumping courses, the obstacles are plainly not scary. But to a horse they are. They look like they can rip it's belly open, break it's legs, and it doesn't know what's behind it. There is a reason they don't always jump. But mostly they do.
Horses in the day were training to not be scared of musketry, if they were scared of that they were basically little better than draftanimals.
The fear they had to face was the seemingly impassable wall of men in a formation. That they could be trained to not exactly ignore, but they could be taught to trust their rider. Medieval heavy cavalry rode down solid formations often enough without scattering to the wind. They didn't always win, but they did slam head first into enemy infantry. Like at Bouvines (there we both have winning head first and losing).

Horses can be trained to run at a living wall. Hell, police horses do so all the time. And don't bring up pointy things, horses have an eyesight that is pretty poor, they can only see pointy things like bayonets up close and only if it's to the sides. Dead ahead they can't see them (at the ranges where the things are within the eyesight overlap). That is partly why it is both a challenge and a possiblity to train them.

[CavalryCmdr]

Horses take allot from their rider. That's why it's so easy to "prove" horses can/can't be trained to do many things. They can sense their riders hesitation or nervousness, and will become skittish because of it, that is the real difficulty getting a horse to do anything. However, with a sure, confident and familiar rider a horse will ride headlong into anything, even fire, which, to a horse, is allot scarier then a bunch of guys with pointy sticks that make lots of noise.

[Didz]

If you go by Waterloo, then yes. However there was a French square that was basically run down in Spain.

Whilst I have no example of a square being broken at Waterloo (although the Brunswick Infantry Square came close according to eyewitness accounts). However, a square of the Prussian Fusilier Battalion Nr.28 was destroyed by French cavalry of the guard near Gilly during the Prussian withdrawal to Ligny. The reason it was overrun is fully documented in the regimental records and shows how freak accidents and mistakes can undermine the integrity of the formation and lead to distaster. The battalion had fought its way with great precision and courage across an open field using square, column and occassional volleys to keep the french cavalry at bay and reach the relative safety of the woods on the Gilly Road. It had almost reached the safety of the woods when a fatal misunderstanding occurred. It was marching steady towards the rear in square formation and had almost reached the treeline when the French cavalry approached the square again, at the walk trot, taunting a gesturing at their men. The commander of the 10th Company which formed the face of the square closest to the French decided that they were too close for comfort and ordered his men to half, about face. However, with the woods so close the battalion commander decided to ignore that cavalry and keep marching. Thus a gap opened between the 10th Company and those forming the other three sides of the formation. As soon as the French saw the gap they spurred their horses forward at the gallop and surged into the gaps between and behind the 10th Company. Within minutes 120 men were cut down, including Lt's von Mach and Neumann. The 10th Company rallied in small groups (e.g. 3 or more men standing back to back) Lt Scherbening, with 20 men around him, allowed the French to approach to within a few paces before ordering volley fire, which was most effective. His group survived a long time, but was eventually picked off by pistol fire and passing sword thrusts Sergeant Selbach being the last of them to succumb. In all the battlaion lost 13 Officers and 614 men in the engagement which meant they did not appear in the Prussian order of battle Ligny.

[This is a classic example of how a simple error can lead to the destruction of a square.]

They didn't actually do anything wrong, but the cavalry made contact and pushed through. Then unluckily the commanding officer got knocked down and then the infantry lost courage obviously.

You don't tell me where or which square this was so I can't really comment, the only one that springs to mind was the square which was broken at the battle of Garcia Hernandez. The occurred because a dead horse, killed whilst at the full gallop, fell into the square, opening a gap that could be exploited. It actually fell across the corner of the square scattering over twenty men and allowing other horses to push into the gap and literally tear the square open.

Horses aren't stupid, but they are a herd animal, and they can be trained to do absolutely insane things. It is about trust. When you see horses go on those jumping courses, the obstacles are plainly not scary. But to a horse they are. They look like they can rip it's belly open, break it's legs, and it doesn't know what's behind it. There is a reason they don't always jump. But mostly they do.

Horses in the day were training to not be scared of musketry, if they were scared of that they were basically little better than draftanimals.

The fear they had to face was the seemingly impassable wall of men in a formation. That they could be trained to not exactly ignore, but they could be taught to trust their rider. Medieval heavy cavalry rode down solid formations often enough without scattering to the wind. They didn't always win, but they did slam head first into enemy infantry. Like at Bouvines (there we both have winning head first and losing).

I'm afraid most of this is myth and propaganda. Modern military theory now accepts that horses never rode into solid objects at any point in history, although at times observers claimed that to be the case mainly to avoid admitting that the troops overrun panicked and broke ranks.

The fact is that evidence, this never happened is far more compelling than the dramatic accounts of when it did. If it were it true then many important tactical innovations over the centuries would actually be rendered ineffective (not least the square), as they rely upon the natural tendency of a horse avoiding any object in its path, and have done so since the very earliest dates. For example the Roman army relied on precisely this tendency to defeat enemy chariots.

[Furious Mental]

'
However, 2 missile cav can easily destroy a square. All they gotta do is run 1 unit close to the square so that maybe 2 or 3 horses are meleeing. So that prevents the whole square from shooting, because it can't shoot while even 1 soldier is in melee. So you have the other cav unit standing off at POINT BLANK range just unloading volley after volley into the square, and these dumb infantry is just standing there like they're lined up for a firing squad.'

That makes sense in a kind of demented way. A square had to make sure it didn't waste its fire, so one way to either provoke it into doing so, or else grind it down slowly, was for cavalry to dismount and skirmish, knowing that the infantry probably wouldn't fire back. French cuirassiers did this at Waterloo. However, what you describe is obviously a stupid bug.

[antisocialmunky]

It should have a similar AI to the previous TW games were guard mode missile units would continue firing while in melee.

[Kraxis]

Think about it for a second. Considering that falling horse.

It wouldn't fall on 20 people if it had been just running past. It was gunning for them. And while horses can stop relatively fast, the depth of it's penetration does not allow for that. It was at that point all or nothing. In this case it become all and nothing at the same time. Had it been shot at a distance where it could have halted it wouldn't have hit that many people. It was a flying piece of dead meat more or less, not the stumbling mass we often see in movies (because that indicates it's stopping up, again limiting it's impact). When horses fall they tend to fall for a relatively short distance. Anyone that has seen the horrible racecrashes know they don't roll a long distance. It had to be very close to either directly fall through, or to rear up and stagger the last few steps into the formation (and then hit no less then 20 people).

However you look at it the horse was going at full strength at the square, not the center, but at a mass of men no less. It died or was so fatally wounded that it fell through the formation. Had it been weering off it would once again have been done at a disance where you can actually move away from the unit.

But the specific case of the Bouvines does not fit the "oh no our troops broke" since the French king and his unit of knights charged headlong into a unit of polearm armed city militia (not to be discounted as they were actually the center of the allied line). The charge carried them deep but the militia held on despite heavy losses and eventually cut the horse from underneath the French king. He was then saved by his knights and infantry. Had it been a case of not carrying out the charge the French would have pulled back (for another try or repositioning to a better theater of the battlefield) and not get enveloped by superior numbers with long weapons. Getting stuck has always been a problem for cavalry, even heavy knights. And while their horses were trained to keep infantry at bay (the Spanish Riding School in Vienna use many melee range horse 'tactics' in thier displays), it was not a good position unless the enemy was weak or about to break.

Also, if we go further back the Roman legionaries fought off cataphracts from Parthia on numerous ocations, and we know they didn't exactly have weapons that were particularly good for anticavalry. Yet the catapracts tended to suffer rather unpleasant losses. Losses that could come from two sources, pila volleys or melee. The first is definately possible but we also know the tactic was to not use them in a ranged fashion when confronted by charging cavalry. So that leaves us melee.
The chariots the romans defeated by formation were the British ones, light and unarmed. They were a pure scarefactor, and partially a battlefield taxi with the added benefit of a good position for attacking when and if the enemy break up. If they didn't break up the chariot was not great.
When the Romans faced the eastern heavy chariots those were defeated by ranged means, not any formation.

Just like you say it is myth that cavalry could charge it is equally a myth that it couldn't perpetuated by officers in the 18th and 19th century (the same people that has been so utterly discounted on the matter of the stirrup being essential for charging), which did see the decline of cavalry as an effective force. Unlike you believe the square was effective, not because it presented a solid mass, any unit in a line could do that effectively, but because it presented no ways of getting close without getting disrupted.
If horses couldn't charge a solid unit then the timing of the fire fro mthe square would be rather pointless since it was free to fire at will with no risk of the enemy cavalry getting in. Similarly if the cavalry only had the hope that a square would break through nerves, then spending an awful lot of time trying to get them to fire early would be equally pointless as either the charge would scare them enough, or it wouldn't. And definately after a single rush that failed it would be ever more unlikely that a square would fail through mock charges, so why continue. People weren't any more stupid than we are now.

As Furious Mental says, the timing of the volley was the important part. Not so much for any losses it caused (though over time they would of course mount up), but because cavalry has always been notoriously fickle to disruptions. If a few horses fall in the first line then the next horses and riders try to avoid them to not risk falling themselves, some might even fall over them. Any cohesion is broken and the cavalry break off the charge and swirl around to attack the other sides. In a line the ends couldn't disrupt enough and the rear was often 'unguarded'. I believe there was a rear charge at Waterloo on a unit. Front or back a unit is equally solid.

Besides, there are always two sides to the same coin. We generally disregard the French sources of the battle because, well they were the losers and in a time where historical accuracy wasn't always very important over things such as national pride and morale. The winners write history, especially at that time. And there wasn't much French will to dispute it afterwards due to the new regime set up by the allies. All the sources that claim no broken square are British. We should not forget that any claim we lay on a side in terms of accuracy applies equally to the other. In this case it just not terribly beautiful nor very attractive to most people as it removes the picture of the gallant squares withstanding charge after charge.
History is full of these little omissions. Like apparently it is forgotten that Saxon curassiers broke two Austrian squares at Dresden. How they did it I don't know, though I must admit a certain number of other squares eventually surrendered when surrounded (but that seems destinctly different since that was from an amalgation of units closing in on them).

For instance General Delort of the curassiers at Waterloo claim: "several squares were broken." And a certain private in the curassier arm wrote in his letters that he charged a square three times finally riding it down (E. Tattet - “Lettres du brigadier Pilloy ...” in Carnet de la Sabretache, Vol 15th, if you want to look it up). In specific it says 'through' the square, meaning the square was standing, but was overwhelmed.

The truth is in this case not easy to find out as there is a general lack of French sources, so we have to rely on onesided accounts in general. Even as late as the Vietnam War this has proven to be highly unreliable. Why should it be any less for Waterloo? That the official results for Waterloo state that the French suffered much heavier losses than the allies ssems to underline this when the French lost just above 200 officers (dead and later dead from wounds) to the combined allied 270 officers indicates that the official numbers might not be entirely reliable (being onesided this is not surprising).
The end result doesn't change however, several squares broken or not, the French expended their cavalry and strength at the wrong time (but not so wrong that it was a clearcut deal for the remainder of the battle).

I'm no Napoleon fan, in fact I think he was/is slightly overplayed as a general, but this is getting off topic.
*phiew* that was a lot.

[antisocialmunky]

The truth is probably somewhere in between. There are so many variables involved taht its really rather hard to say.

[Didz]

French cuirassiers did this at Waterloo. However, what you describe is obviously a stupid bug.

Thats true in fact there is a letter from an officer in the square concerned that described how a squadron of French cavalry rode up to within a few paces of his square and went to extra-ordinary lengths to try and provoke his men to fire at them. and how proud he was of the discipline of his regiment that despite being taunted and even having pistols fired at them at close range his men refused to be provoked into firing back.

Just like you say it is myth that cavalry could charge it is equally a myth that it couldn't perpetuated by officers in the 18th and 19th century

I never said they didn't charge, I merely pointed out that they never charged directly and deliberately into an obsticle in their path.

The charge itself was a very controlled affair, deliberately intended to persuade the target that it was indeed about to be crushed under a herd of hooves, but in truth, as was demonstrated on numerous occassions the horses involved cannot be conditioned to actually carry out the threat, and if the target unit stands firm and stolid the horse will stop short of contact and swerve out of the way. (e.g. The Thin Red Line v Russian Cavalry at Balacalva http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thi...e_(1854_battle) and of course The Battle of Minden.)

One also has to be careful about attributing Universal Studio's interpretation to what a cavalryman called a charge. For example 'The Charge of the Scots Grey's' despite being depicted as a mad gallop of men in full-dress uniform by Lady Butler was almost certain conducted at the walk/trot and controlled at squadron and troop level to target specific groups of French troops, initially avoiding any that stood their ground and then finally concentrating on pinning those who had formed rally squares and trying to prevent them escaping until infantry could be summoned from the Ridge to accept their surrender. Indeed the forward movement of the entire Union Brigade was so deliberate and controlled that Posonby was able to send and receive several messages from Kempt's Brigade on the ridge discussing whether it was safe or prudent for the infantry to leave their position in order to take the French into custody. Not something that was likely to have been possible or have time to do given that a horse at the gallop could cross the entire battlefield in less than a couple of minutes.

Likewise the French counter-attack that eventually drove the cavalry off and rescued their infantry was conducted by lancers who advanced not at the gallop but at the walk/trot using their lances to herd the British ahead of them and away from their infantry. The French drill manual specifically warning against trying to use a lance at speed, due to the risk of serious injury.

Incidently Mercer also describes a cavalry charge he witnessed at Waterloo, and how at the last minute the cavalry seemed to open ranks without any word of command and actually pass through each other 'pointing and slashing right and left, but appearing neither to do any harm to the other' before each riding off in opposite directions never to return.