Cavalry

[English assassin]

I've gathered from posts elsewhere that people are not too happy with the treatment of cavalry in RTW, (too fast and too powerful) and some of the threads on, say, napoleonic warfare have touched on the effectiveness of cavalry.

I'd be interested if anyone can post any good material on the relative effectiveness of cavalry vs infantry? (I think we would have to say, battlefield tactically. On a wider scale the uses of cavalry in recon, harrassing foragers and baggage trains, etc, are clear).

From my own limited knowledge I can't think of many battles where cavalry was the decisive arm, I seem to remember one of Alexanders, Granicus maybe, and I suppose in a sense Hastings (though equally you could say that illustrated the ineffectiveness of cavalry just as much). Steppe armies were cavalry heavy I gather, and the Corsican himself is supposed to have regarded cavalry as the decisive arm (especially telling from an artilleryman, too).

It seems to me that cavalry is too expensive, and too easily affected by less than ideal terrain, to have been dominant in western Europe. But I don't know much about it and I'm hoping someone else does.

[cegorach]

I believe that, when it comes to Western Europe, cavalry was almost always supporting infantry. Only in a part of Medieval ages and maybe during the fall of Roman Empire it was really more important than infantry.
The problem is that in Western Europe armies didn't have to march for hundreds of miles to achieve their goals, especially in densely populated areas such like the Netherlands or Italy.
It was very different in the Eastern Europe - for example in one cavalry raid ( in the XVIIth century) Polish light cavalry of colonel Lisowski travelled for the distance between, let's say, Budapest and Madrid.

But still cavalry could fight suprisingly well in some battles, especially when armies of the East were fighting armies of Western Europe - Mongol, Polish or Ottoman armies and units have achieved great victories fighting vs. western style, infantry-heavy, armies.

Regards Cegorach/Hetman

[TinCow]

There are plenty of battles that have been decided by cavalry throughout history, but they are certainly a fraction of those decided by infantry. My understanding is that during Roman times cavalry were used on the flanks (usually just one) of the infantry line. The cavalry clashed when battle started and the winner then flanked the opponent's infantry line.

As such, for me cavalry seem correctly balanced in RTW. The main problem we see is that the AI doesn't use good battle tactics. It pretty much just rushes with everything its got... cavalry being just another unit in the line. If the AI were to actually assemble a proper battle line and use its cavalry to intercept the player's cavalry and then to flank, you would see much more accurate battles.

[metatron]

Given the speed a horse is traveling and the weight of it's rider, the horse itself, and armor for both and that likely targets are in fact moving and not bracing for an assault, I'd say simple physics is going to tell you that the sheer momentum of a well placed cavalry assault can rout even the toughest infantryman.

[Theodoret]

Cegorach1 mentions Poland-Lithuania. This site gives a lot of good information on them. Both the Polish/Lithuanian armies and those of their intermittant enemies the Tartars of the Crimea and the Cossacks were very cavalry heavy. Interestingly there is mention of Tartar allies giving the Swedes a bit of trouble in one of the campaigns towards the end of the 17th century. Rather strange to have a modern (for the time) European army being taken apart by something as archaic as a horde of horse-archers.

[cegorach]

Cegorach1 mentions Poland-Lithuania. This site gives a lot of good information on them. Both the Polish/Lithuanian armies and those of their intermittant enemies the Tartars of the Crimea and the Cossacks were very cavalry heavy. Interestingly there is mention of Tartar allies giving the Swedes a bit of trouble in one of the campaigns towards the end of the 17th century. Rather strange to have a modern (for the time) European army being taken apart by something as archaic as a horde of horse-archers.

The Cossacks were not very good cavalrymen at that time, the Tatars were.

And the Tatars shouldn't be underestimated, even when their forces were pretty small - no hordes.
These guys were the best cavalrymen at that time and the most agile.
The Swedes were really scared because of them.