Weak cavalry?

[Ringeck]

Often people think that those 800kgs of horse are a speeding bullet, heading straight ahead with no thought of its own safety. This is, to put it mildly, not always the case. At very few points in medieval history did heavy cavalry charge an ordered line of infantry unless they had softened it up (or thought they had) with infantry or missile attack first - the more publicized infantry vs cavalry victories always seem to miss some details in the telling: at Courtrai/Kortrijk the cavalry assault failed because the infantry had not disordered the flemish foot enough, and at Bannockburn the english infantry and archers were unable to give support to the heavy cavalry due to the english army not having properly deployed. At Falkirk, 16 years before, the scottish spear formations were subjected to heavy missile fire before the english sent in their heavy cavalry when the Scots were disordered enough to ensure the full effectiveness of the cavalry.

At the Hastings reenactment this year (see http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=65591) we saw some interesting horse psychology. When the norman cavalry faced the shieldwall, with spears protruding from every second man, they had no problems making their horses shie away from the infantry - they did it almost naturally. However, after a staged charge into the center that "broke through" the horses almost became truly dangerous as they followeded one another into the infantry - even those that were not supposed to "break through". Let me tell you, horsemen running around in a weakened and split infantry formation are a scary sight and experience - even if the horsemen are only trying not to step on you!

[Peasant Phill]

[QUOTE=Ringeck] at Courtrai/Kortrijk the cavalry assault failed because the infantry had not disordered the flemish foot enough[QUOTE]

I know this is nitpicking and apart from this sentence I tend to agree with you what you say about Kortrijk isn't entirely true.

Sure the Flemish line wasn't disordered in that you were right but this wasn't the biggest cause to why the French lost. There had been a missile duel between the Flemish and the French but it did little damage. The French infantry didn't even touch the Flemish line before the French cav hit the Flemish head on. So it's true that the French cav hit the prepared Flemish still in a decent formation.

The real battle winner (for the Flemish) was their position. They had set up just behind some streams. The French cavalry had little trouble crossing these but were as a result somewhat disordered and lost a lot of momentum. They didn't have the space left to get back to top speed and were therefor easily (at least easier) stopped by the Flemish pikemen and then killed by others who were wielding goedendags ( got a horrendous reputation because of this battle).
There was more room to recover at the center of the Flemish lines and as a result the French general and the cav he commanded were able to break the Flemish formation, they were however surrounded and killed after that.

So I agree with you to some extend, however the Flemish won mostly due to position (and the impetuousness of the French knights). If the French infantry was ordered in first, the battle would probably have gone different.

[Ringeck]

Don't worry, I'll nitpick back! At least according to Verbruggen, the french infantry was sent in after the archery duel had died down, but was called back for some reason. The Count of Artois should have known better (he wasn't inexperienced, after all, having faced the flemish at Furnes in 1297) but it can be theorized that he either misunderstood the situation or thought the flemish had been sufficently disordered. That being said, the minor breakthroughs in the centre in the inital attack, and the Count's breakthroughs in the last phase before the french rout, were relatively minor - no mass breakthrough.

[Peasant Phill]

I'm really hijacking this thread and I'm sorry for it (I wont do it again I swear)

I'm aware of the whole French infantry issue (I said that they didn't touch the Flemish lines before the cav).

What the charge of the cavalry is concerned . I think the Brugse metten (where people from Bruges killed the French garrison in their sleep) had something to do with it. The French knight probably felt wronged by these peasants. This is however just a hypothesis

[Ringeck]

Possibly. All this gets very speculative anyway, so...back on topic!

[Peasant Phill]

Right you are Ringneck.

On topic, I'm rather pleased that knights aren't overpowered killing machines(regarding gameplay). It would just be boring that some units could stroll around on the map and kill with impunity. Whether this was historically so or not (which it wasn't). Their charge will still make them battle winners, you just have to time and direct it more carefully.

[Aracnid]

People seem to think that Cavalry are weak but with the exception of Henry V's machine gunners, they are one of the most powerful units in the game. In the Demo if you hit a unit in combat in the side with a cavary charge they break, everytime and suffer 50% casulties, that is probably realistic and providing you are sensible and use infantry to fix enemy units Cavalry can still be battle winners and the core of your army. They just need a bit of help. A Cavalry heavy French army is not going to be difficult to win with!