Cavalry

[Watchman]

A Swedish-Prussian allied army under the overall command of Carolus X did indeed run into a force of Tatars allied with the Polish in the late 17th century. Alas, the Tatars didn't last too long in a straight fight against the cuirass-wearing, pistol-toting, hyper-disciplined regular cavalry neverming their infantry support (who not too long afterwards tore the valiant but futile charge of the Polish Hussars to pieces with murderous volumes of fire) and were quickly chased off the field.

Such "irregular" light cavalry forces had considerable military value in Early Modern and later warfare, but usually not in pitched field battles. They made far better scouts, harassers and ravagers than line troops, the exception perhaps being Napoleonic-era Russian Imperial Guard Cossacks who could take on and rout armored cavalry with their long lances. (Though Napolonic heavy cavalry had just a helmet and a breastplate...)

Now, one thing all sources I've seen agree on is that when cavalry attacks infantry in close combat the single most important thing for the infantry is to stand fast or even counter-charge should they be (over)confident enough to do so (most weren't, and for a good reason). This has more to do with the nature of horses than anything else - the beasts are very careful about their footing and will pretty much flat out refuse to run full tilt into what to them appears like a solid, immobile obstacle in their path. I've been told horses can "brake" awfully fast in a pinch, and by most accounts it seems that if the infantry held ranks and didn't begin to scatter the most of the horses would pull short before impact and the horsemen would have to "duke it out" the old-fashioned way.

Of course, having a long spear or lance means the cavalryman can hit the infantry when the horse/rider pair still has momentum left and can better attack them without risking himself or his mount - for example the Swiss halberdiers with their three-meter shafts turned out to have a major problem with the four-meter chivalric lances in an open-field battle and as a result were integrated into the pike squares.

If the infantry loses its nerve and begins to waver, nevermind run away, then the cavalry can charge home for full effect. Once this happens the infantry are in serious trouble, as then the horsemen can ride over and amongst them with relative impunity and make full use of their weight, speed and height advantage. Around Napoleonic times it was observed that even relatively small cavalry forces could utterly obliterate even large ifantry concentrations in a matter of minutes should they catch them unformed, and the same seems to have been the case since humans learned to use horses in war (chariots obey the same basic principles).

If the infantry stands and fights (if only because the pressure of the back ranks keeps them from going anywhere), however, it becomes less important what they're armed with. Pikes, spears, polearms and anything else which grants great reach and/or killing power are obviously advantageous, but for example Roman legionaires could and did beat Persian cataphracts with just their short swords so it's not really required.

Be that as it may, where cavalry was used it usually made up the specialist attack arm of any army well into the 19th century and the appereance of
rapid-fire rifles and machineguns. There were exceptions naturally, usually bought about by geographical constraints - many parts of the world are quite simply ill suited for raising horses or have large amounts of terrain where cavalry loses much of its power (Scandinavia has both, which gave the Swedes a bit of a problem to overcome when they started building their Great Power status in the 17th century).

Outside the battlefield, on campaign, the role of the cavalry concentrates on its mobility. Mounted men are simply far better at longe-range reconnaissance, foraging and devastation than the poor footsloggers can ever be, and naturally the best way to keep enemy cavalry from tearing up your hapless foragers is to screen them with your own cavalry. Ditto for skirmishers, though foot archers backed up by spearmen or similar anti-cavalry troops also work (the "Franks" mostly used this technique down in the Middle East). The superior mobility of mounted men also enables them to carry out surprise attacks or secure strategic bottlenecks away from the main force, which is naturally highly useful.

On the downside horses are a pain on logistics. This is particularly the case with the grain-fed, stable-bred warhorses "civilized" nations used, as fodder had to be brought along or scrounged up and the beasts could not subsist for long on just grass, but also afflicted the steppe nomads and their vast herds of grass-munching ponies. Grasslands to graze on are anything but a certainity outside the steppe, and even there they're a bit season-dependent and quickly exhausted by a passing army.

It's probably not exactly a coincidence the Mongols never proceeded too far outside the Great Eurasian Steppe, and certainly the nomadic conquerors who did (Hungarian-Magyars, Avars, Toba, Huns, you name it) soon had to give up the pastoral life and start feeding their horses from the peasants' larders...

[cegorach]

"A Swedish-Prussian allied army under the overall command of Carolus X did indeed run into a force of Tatars allied with the Polish in the late 17th century. Alas, the Tatars didn't last too long in a straight fight against the cuirass-wearing, pistol-toting, hyper-disciplined regular cavalry neverming their infantry support (who not too long afterwards tore the valiant but futile charge of the Polish Hussars to pieces with murderous volumes of fire) and were quickly chased off the field."

I guess you mean the battle at Warsaw in 1656 ? Rather bad example. Tatars ( 2000-3000 of them) attacked Swedish supply wagons, but cause it was to difficult ( Swedish firepower) retreated as usual which Swedes counted as complete victory over them.

Tatars were really dangerous e.g. at Prostki during the same campaign they caused mayhem which was the major factor to the Polish victory.
Their major weakness was the fact that they were vulnerable to massive gunfire, although even this shouldn't be over estimated.

'pistol-toting'

Against Tatars it didn't matter much - pistols and muskets were very inaccurate, although western commanders were often obsessed with firepower, they believed it is able to stop everything and everybody - one of reasons why HRE and Swedish armies were rather not very successfull in battles against Turkish and Polish armies.

'tore the valiant but futile charge of the Polish Hussars to pieces with murderous volumes of fire'

The charge was badly prepared ( 1500 Winged Hussars vs. 18 000 Swedes and Brandenburgians) and not supported ( Jan Kazimierz was a weak commander).
This battle was rather close to a draw ( Poles lost 2000 men, Swedes and Brandenburgians almost 1000)and really lossess caused by gunfire were not so serious as many believe.

BTW - I hope you didn't use 'The Age of Wars' ( or similar) written by a swedish author ( I don't remember his name) who wrote 'Poltava' as well. In Poland we consider this one of the funniest historical books written about Poland ( prologue) by a foreign writer.
Especially the description of elite Winged Hussars is incredibly stupid.




About the rest I agree, generally. But again I repeat gunfire was rather ineffective - in Napoleonic time it is counted that about 300 - 3000 muskets were required to kill one man in one salvo.

Regards Hetman/Cegorach

[econ21]

Hetman - I am not sure you are right about musketfire in Napoleonic times. At close range, I suspect a volley could be decimate an approaching close ordered formation. My reading of encounters between French and British infantry in that period is that firepower was sufficiently effective to make melee with the bayonet very rare. Typically, British musketry would halt a French infantry advance - the French would try to respond in kind rather than charge home - and often could be sufficiently effective to make the French break in the face of a subsequent British charge.

Even today Americans estimate many hundreds of rounds are fired off for every enemy killed - but that does not mean modern firepower is ineffective.

[Watchman]

By early 1600s a pair of wheellock pistols backed up with a sword was the cavalry weapon in most of Europe. And why not ? In the average soldiers' hands it may not have been accurate beyond much beyond five meters, and could only penetrate decent armor at about five meters or closer, but unlike the earlier lance (which had at best the same reach) it didn't occupy hands or get in the way when not in use. And of course firearms are kind of scary even for veterans.

'Course, the things were pretty darn expensive too, what with being mechanically fairly complex and all - for example the Swedish had to import most of theirs, and official records suggest a pair was about as expensive as a cavalryman's armor...

[Watchman]

A close-range salvo discharge from a massed infantry unit was a nasty thing. Very nasty. The musketeers would of course be kind of screwed if the foe didn't falter and break off and they lacked close-in defenses (like pikemen or cavalry of their own - later on bayonets simplified matters), but that wasn't actually too common of an occurrence.

Or, well, depends on definitions. When infantry attacked infantry there tended to happen a queer version of the game "chicken" - as the discharge was only really effective from fairly close in each commander had to hold his fire as long as possible, to maximise the effect and avoid the nasty case of the foe marching right next to you to fire his own salvo while your guys are helplessly reloading, but if they held it for too long...

Well, at close distances those volleys tended to cut people down like so much grass. It took a pretty determined unit to continue advance in the face of the heavy casualties in the front ranks and the psychological impact, and most had to pull back to reform.

The same more or less applies to cavalry, who had the added problem of the horses being big and squishy targets, and duly tried to avoid head-on clashes with well-ordered infantry. If they had to attack, it usually happened (assuming the infantry officers knew their stuff and the men followed orders) they'd get a point-blank volley in the face which usually made the first wave of horsemen break off the charge. The second and later waves had a better change of charging home, but that was not something to count on either.

Around Napoleonic times cavalry avoided head-on collisions with steady infantry if at all possible, and let artillery and skirmishers to "soften up" the line before attacking. The same more or less worked with infantry - the deep assault colums the French used early on, mostly because they didn't have the time to drill their troops in the volley-countermach routines, were frightfully vulnerable to volleys but almost unstoppable if they could get into close combat (due to local numerical superiority and the advantage of momentum and determination attacker has - though usually the defender broke and fled before the actual contact). Hence the voltigeurs, loose-order light infantry who screened the line troops, sniped at the enemy and if possible drew their fire (whose effect was much reduced against such dispersed targets).

As such loosely ordered units could not rely on the "giant shotgun" principle of the mass salvo to have an effect they naturally had to be better shots on the individual level.

And then there were the light regimental guns. The nasty little buggers had a far longer accurate killing range than musketry, could especially in a pinch fire several times faster than muskets, and normally switched over to grapeshot once the enemy was within about hundred meters. I assume imagination can supply the idea of what those could do to massed formations.

Proper artillery batteries tended to need only a handful of infantry as close guard - their firepower was so staggering they could usually fend for themselves right well for entire battles.

[Mount Suribachi]

2 excellent posts Watchman. I see you're new round here, with posts like that I hope we see a lot more of you

[Watchman]

Gee, thanks. Though be warned - I have a tendency to ramble off topic...

Oh yeah, I've also gotten the impression that toward the end of the 17th century the pistol fell from its exalted position as the primary shock weapon of mounted men, and until about mid-1800s or so "cold arms" (ie. swords) were the main weapon of close-combat cavalry. The pistols (now flintlocks, both cheaper and more reliable than wheellocks) were still carried, and dragoons (who were really just glorified musketeers on nags as far as real cavalrymen were concerned) had their carbines, and some little more specialized forces (around Napoleonic times known as uhlans) had lances, but on the whole a spirited charge with cold steel was the thing.

It actually took the First World War to persuade military thinkers to accept the fact that thing was seriously obsolete, but a lot of men and horses died pointlessly before the idea took ground.

[cegorach]

1.

Hetman - I am not sure you are right about musketfire in Napoleonic times. At close range, I suspect a volley could be decimate an approaching close ordered formation.

2.Even today Americans estimate many hundreds of rounds are fired off for every enemy killed - but that does not mean modern firepower is ineffective.

1. This is the average - sometimes more sometimes less bullets were necessary.

2. Yes, but presently 10 men have the firepower of an entire regiment and nobody is using close formation as Napoleonic line or column.

[Watchman]

AFAIK modern military studies suggest it's actually quite unlikely to be hit by shrapnel if you're so much as, of five meters or so away from most handgrenades at the time of the detonation, or something along those lines.

Which isn't exactly something anyone counts on, now is it ?

Anyway, the massive expenditure of ammunition per kill in modern-day armies most likely has a whole lot to do with the way burst fire is used to suppress the enemy ("the first two or three bullets might hit, the rest are just to scare and threaten the enemy" is about how the innish army teaches it) nevermind what dedicated support machineguns get used for. Ergo, you end up with a lot of spent casings for every casualty.

Things were probably a little more accurate back when people fought with magazine-fed bolt-action rifles and the like - you actually need to aim more with those things to get anything done, the range is better and recoil is less of a problem. And having a pansy five to ten rounds at your disposal probably does wonders to fire discipline anyway.

Earlier on, back in the musket-and-bayonet period, the sad fact was that aside from light-infantry sharpshooters and the like most line troops barely knew to shoot. Armies tended to consider the gunpowder that went for marksmanship practice to be an unnecessary expense, and the soldiers were in any case more automatons than warriors - they were drilled to obey orders posthaste, change formations, ready weapons (ie. point them at the indicated direction; calling that "aiming" would be overly generous), fire, and reaload. This in the face of a more or less steady stream of messy casualties in the ranks from artillery fire and enemy shooting.

Nevermind that the accuracy of the smoothbore muskets was a bit so-so in any case. Skilled shots could hit man-sized targets more often than not from as far as about fifty meters, but past that it was pure luck and most soldiers weren't that good shots anyway.

Ergo, the infantry blocks often ended up marching almost next to each other and firing volleys in each others' general direction. It was anything but uncommon for the poor dragooned bastards in the ranks to close their eyes when they fire (partly also as protection against the flash of the priming powder), which naturally resulted in a fair number of shots sailing off to the great blue sky, Momma Earth's bosom or the back of the unlucky fellow in the front rank...

Aside from assorted carbine-toting support cavalry (whose main job was to "shoot in" assault cavalry), dragoons and irregular tribesmen (Cossacks, Indians, Turco-Mongol nomads etc. - these folks tended to be pretty crack shots even from horseback and undoubtly considered the casualty-heavy tactics of the "regular" troops rather stupid) cavalry didn't really do firefights at all and the shooting tended to be of the point-blank pistol kind. On the other hand the sort of cavalry who were supposed to shoot at folks were likely rather better trained to do it than line infantry...

[sharrukin]

Watchman, you sound like you really know what your talking about, so I would like to ask a question thats been bothering me for a long time. Given what you've said wouldn't disciplined bowmen be capable of defeating the same quality musket (not rifle) armed hostile infantry. A composite bow can fire at least 8-12 arrows/minute and it should be as close to accurate if not more than a musket and this at longer range. I believe Benjamin Franklin made a similar point. What is your opinion?

[Bob the Insane]

IMO the archers could well be victorious... But the whole point of firearms is the extension of the use of the crossbow... Archers require way more weapon training to be proficient and effective than a firearm carrying man...

Being a good archer require skill, practice and some pyhsical strength... Using a musket require you to be able to stand, walk, run and see...

Is the musket any more or less effective than the crossbow?? Easier and faster to reload I imagine...