best cavalry?

[VAE VICTUS]

what were the best EASTERN cavalry ever?
and who were best WESTERN?
who was better?

[AntiochusIII]

All East and West, look for the Mongol horde!

Simple and clear - no challenge.

[Kalle]

Best cavalry from late 17th century to 1709 the cavalry in Charles XI and Charles XII army. (in fact their entire army was the best of the period)

It is impossible to say for a fact what cavalry was the best ever since for instance mongol cav and Charles cav never faced eachother and faced diffrent opponents and had diffrent resoursces and diffrent weapons and so on and on.

I would guess Hetman wanna put polish cav as the best in some era also

Kalle

[Steppe Merc]

Steppe cavalry of any time period is the best out of it's peers, in my opinon. And all of the best Western cavalry were influenced heavily by the steppe nomads of it's time.

[The Wizard]

Mongol cavalry, hands down. Just because of their wings, the Polish winged hussars finish a distant second.

And if I'm forced to choose a Western type of cavalry, I'd choose the Macedonian hetairoi. Best shock cavalry ever. Period.



~Wiz

[VAE VICTUS]

i think that if the mongol horse had not had such a string of good generals they would have never have had such victories(they would never have unified with out temujin,but they did).also geography limited them,as it does any cavalry though.power without control is nothing.(vietnam,part of india)
could be wrong though.lol.probly am. oh well drink up!

[Steppe Merc]

It's not just generals, or unity. All steppe horsemen were excellent, the Mongols fought the same way as countless of others had, their generals had nothing to do with that.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Well nowadays tank and helicopter units are often cavalry units; so I would bet they would be the best. But for traditional cavalry probably the Mongols, though knights were quite effective in their style of warfare.

[Orda Khan]

i think that if the mongol horse had not had such a string of good generals they would have never have had such victories(they would never have unified with out temujin,but they did).also geography limited them,as it does any cavalry though.power without control is nothing.(vietnam,part of india)
could be wrong though.lol.probly am. oh well drink up!

They had fine Generals indeed. The victories were, however, down to exceptional horsemanship. The magnitude of their achievements, in such a short time, is nothing short of astounding and must have required incredible discipline. This alone sets them worlds apart from any other mounted comparison

........Orda

[edyzmedieval]

From the West, Teutonic Knights
From the East, Mongol cavalry and Byzantine Kataphraktoi(leave MTW)

[Steppe Merc]

I consider Byzantines as Western.

[Duke Malcolm]

I have to say, Steppe Horsemen were quite remarkable. I don't know much about Eastern Cavalry...

[IliaDN]

In antic times parthian's horses were considered ( even by romans ) the best!

[VAE VICTUS]

steppe warriors were exceptional,but were really strong,or was everyone they fought very weak?also to be an affective fighting force you must have some kind of unity,i dont recall the name of the battle(it may of never happened but i remember reading about it somewhere)where after attila died,the huns fought an army of germans,and were defeated from their lack of preparation,stratedgy,and unity.

[VAE VICTUS]

also the fact that there bodies,and that of their horses were in incredible shape.each could endure a level of hardness most would find difficult,if not impossible.i have several horses myself,and you would be suprised how easily they can get over weight,you have to work them out.also there is a major difference between a horse eating grain and oats,and a horse living off grass.
fight by day...
drink by night!

[The Wizard]

steppe warriors were exceptional,but were really strong,or was everyone they fought very weak?also to be an affective fighting force you must have some kind of unity,i dont recall the name of the battle(it may of never happened but i remember reading about it somewhere)where after attila died,the huns fought an army of germans,and were defeated from their lack of preparation,stratedgy,and unity.

Give me a single battle of any force in any time period where a leaderless army won a battle. Even a battle where an ill-led, ill-prepared force won -- there are precious, so precious few of those, if any.

And their physical condition only adds to their honor -- it is an amazing achievement to be able to execute the Parthian shot alone. Hard life breeds hard men -- and both the Mongols and the Roman legionaries, for example, were hard men with hard lives.



~Wiz

[Steppe Merc]

The steppe horses were ponies, not actual horses. They were tougher, smaller and hardier than other horses, and they lived of the steppe, like their riders could. The steppe horsemen were all great horesmen, and great archers, other wise they wouldn't have grown to adult hood. They also have incredible discipline, pulling of insanely complex manuevers that knights were never able to accomplish.

[Franconicus]

I vote for the Comanches, maybe best light cav of all times!

[cegorach]

1. Mongol Cavalry,
2. Polish Winged Hussars ( Husaria)
3. Polish Lisowczycy ( incredible light cavalry)

western

1. Probably some sort of American Native cavalry,
2. Swedish cavalry of the second part of the XVIIth century ( still worse than Husaria)
3. Numidian cavalry,

Regards Cegorach

[Spino]

For heavy cavalry I'd almost always side with the West (Byzantines included) but for medium and light cavalry I'd say the East wins hands down.

[Craterus]

I'd have to honour my nick and say the Companions cavalry of Alexander's campaigns. They did some great things.

[caesar44]

east - mongolian c. 1170 to c. 1280
west - normans c. 1000 to c. 1350

[Watchman]

As for West, if we stick to the period before a pair of pistols became the big thing, any cavalry force that somehow managed to put together the lance, plate armor and professionalism wins hands down. By the time they started donning plate European men-at-arms were the nastiest shock cavalry in the world, although for the most part a sadly overconfident and undisciplined lot. But I've been given to understand the Hundred Years' War and such sort of taught even the egomanical nobles the value of only going to the charge when the general tells you to.

As for the East, the Mamluks win. They whupped the Mongols (although by that point there were ethnic Mongols in any numbers only at the high command, there was no real qualitative difference between a Mongol or any other steppe horseman conscripted into the army) in stand-up fights several times over and then proceeded to boot the Crusaders out for good. I've read that Mamluk horse archers have the distinction of being the only archers ever to check a knightly charge with firepower alone.

[Fragony]

East, probably the indian Rajput(sp?). West, dunno.

[Steppe Merc]

Mamluks are just transplanted steppe soldiers (mainly Kipchaqs)...

[The Wizard]

Actually, their dynasties were Georgian, Azeri and Kurdish, IIRC...

And about the Mamluks... Aïn Jalut is more an example of the best propaganda ever to make people think it was a true, straight Mamluk victory over a real Mongol army. Almost the whole of Mamluk manpower versus one toumen and its allies? Come now.

However, their victories over the Il-Khanate were nice, if predictable. That Khanate did not get its act together until pretty long after the rest of the Mongol successor states. Anyone know what their armies were made up of? As in, Blue Horde armies were Qipchaqs, Yuan armies were Chinese, etc...



~Wiz

[Marquis of Roland]

Actually, all of the so-called great steppe cavalries that came into the West (and by the West I mean anything that is on the Rome Total War map, that is to include large tracts of the middle east) were defeated by even stronger and better tribes in the East. So pretty much the extent of "Western" experience with steppe cavalries were from the "losers", the steppe people that fought and LOST to even deadlier steppe armies to the East. I may be wrong, but I believe the first "victorious" steppe people to come into contact with the West were the Mongols.

And considering how badly the westerners lost to these inferior steppe armies, it gives me a new appreciation for the military prowess of Imperial China. They had fought with and successfully defended the littoral against the steppe tribes for well over three thousand years before the time of Ghengis Khan. The Chinese armies was more of an army based on maneuver and formations; in fact the tactics the Mongols used against the West was nothing new in the East; such tactics have been used there for centuries if not millenia. Chinese armies were moving infantry as well as cavalry in complex and intricate formations and tactics at least from the Spring and Autumn Period, the time of Sun Tzu.

And think about this: it took the Mongols DECADES of hard fighting (and this fighting took place right on their doorstep of their homeland, so logistics must have been far better) to take all of China (I believe it was around 40-50 years of war before north and south China was subdued). During this time period Ghangis Khan and his successors destroyed the Middle Eastern empires, humiliated among the best of Western chivalry (they wiped out the Polish, Hungarians, and German armies sent to face them, and with the Hungarian plains as a base, could have taken the whole of Europe with a little over 100,000 men), and the Mongols were outnumbered EVERY TIME against the heavily armored armies of the West.

That just goes to show you that if you were to pick between heavy chivalric armored shock cavalry or swift, unarmored horse archer cavalry, you would always pick light missile cavalry before heavy shock cavalry. One on one, knights have no chance against horse archers (they wouldn't even have been able to engage them, much less defeat them).

True, the Mongol generals were great, but they were not original in their tactics. Their tactics have been set for them centuries before; they are just proficient at using these tactics, which is their job.

I truly would have liked to see the armies of China face off with the best of the armies of the West. The Han Dynasty versus the Roman Empire would have been interesting indeed.

Oh, and Mongols WERE the best cav ever. No cavalry, not even gun-armed cavalry, would have been able to defeat them, all other things being equal. I think their arrows shot even farther than the effective range of muskets. Unless faced with gunpowder artillery, the Mongols would have won any engagment with any cavalry in history, in my opinion.

I could be wrong though

[Kalle]

I could be wrong though

True, you could be

[The Wizard]

Oh, and Mongols WERE the best cav ever. No cavalry, not even gun-armed cavalry, would have been able to defeat them, all other things being equal. I think their arrows shot even farther than the effective range of muskets. Unless faced with gunpowder artillery, the Mongols would have won any engagment with any cavalry in history, in my opinion.

Hand guns did not begin to outrange the composite recurved bow until the 18th century. And as you may know, that is when the Ottoman empire began its true decline, which had been looming for some time then. When the Ottoman bows were finally outranged by muskets and rifles, while their armies still depended on the bow in ranged combat, they stood little chance against the armies of Russia and Austria. Mind you, I am ignoring a general ill-discipline and bad leadership amongst their armies now. So, in essence, your statement is true.

But knights not being able to defeat a horse archer? Sure, if that horse archer's manoeuvrability is not impaired. Because, if the knights had been able to truly make contact with the Mongols at Legnica, it would have been a very short fight, concluded totally in favor of the Polish knights. Knights depended on the power of the shock charge delivered by their couched lance technique, and that was really quite impressive. Drive the horse archers into a swamp and/or forest, and they stand little chance. But, then again, what was European discipline at the time compared to Mongol discipline?



~Wiz

[Marquis of Roland]

Can't kill what you can't catch, after all....the mongols would have to have been lured into bad horse country for something like that to happen and that wasn't likely to happen, considering how well the Mongols knew both their own capabilities as well as their enemies through venetian spies.