"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