Bridge Battles, Yea or Nea

[lugh]

Ahhh....

Nice! I'll have to remember that.

Though, I learned some time ago, and try hard to adhere to, ALWAYS have a *protector* unit guarding your HA and Fast Cav (til ready to charge).

Putting your HA out to the *far* flank, planning to move them around to pummel the AI's rear? Don't mov them alone, take a unit of spears (peasants will do) with them.

I never heard of that and to be honest I don't see the untility of it. One it takes a unit that would be better placed on the battle line or as another HA. Does it not slow you up a lot? Part of the appeal of HA for me is that they're so fast, even if the enemy sends some light cav after you, if you're paying attention you can get the HA out tof the way, even lead their cav back to your lines and let them get shot up.

As far as I know, medievally speaking at least, the wedge was mainly psychological. The most heavily armoured men were in the front,and the entire idea was to disrupt the formation so that the infantry, following after the cav could more easily get past the spears. (horses may not like running into a wall of spears, but men don't particularly like it either)
If you think about it, the first man probably doesn't actually engage a front row trooper, he pushes through (or more accurately the horse knocks a few men out of the way) and the other men engage the first row. Or the first knight pushes through to the third rank etc etc. If youy haven't been around horses much, I can understand not seeing how a unit could punch into a formation so deeply.
That said, MTW doesn't recreate things perfectly, knights didn't always use a charge, the extra length allowed them to sweep the flanks of a formation, picking off troopers individually, without being engaged by the formation.

edit: if you're still not convinced it was a legit tactic, Alexander's Thessalian cav used a wedge (the Companions used a diamond at times) and Tacitus (I think) used infantry wedges against the Germans to good effect.