How do you use cavalry?

[Kulgan]

@ Didz :

Historically there are tons of accounts where units of infantry become totally destroyed when being charged by heavy cavalry when they were not ready.

Prepared infantry in a square would repell any cavalry charge but when caught surprised, or rear/flank charged they would often insta rout and get slaughtered.

At least this is what I have read in books handling warfare throughout the musket era.

[Didz]

Historically there are tons of accounts where units of infantry become totally destroyed when being charged by heavy cavalry when they were not ready.

Yep! Thats what I said, and not just heavy cavalry. Just about any cavalry that catches an infantry unit unaware will destroy it. The basic problem was that infantry when operating normally need room to maneouvre, so that they can change formation and facing etc. Even in ancient warfare, formations of foot soldiers needed space to allow them to change facing to meet a new threat etc. However, these intervals between companies, ranks, battalions, maniples, pelatons etc. make them terribly vulnerable to cavalry. Thus when faced with cavalry they normally adopted a much denser formation specifically to prevent the horsemen getting in amongst them. Formations such as 'Square', 'Stand of Pike', and 'Schiltorns' were all designed to deny cavalry the invervals that they need to expliot in order to prise the infantry formations apart and rout them.

What didn't happen, except by accident, was a scenario where cavalry charged headlong into a formed unit of infantry. If the infantry didn't break formation and run before they reached them then the horses merely baulked or swerved away leaving the cavalry very vulnerable.

Prepared infantry in a square would repell any cavalry charge but when caught surprised, or rear/flank charged they would often insta rout and get slaughtered.

I've read several accounts of cavalry breaking a square, however, so far in every case there has been some accident or misunderstanding that rendered it possible for the horse to get past the bayonets and into the squares centre, effectively prising it open from the inside.