Yipeeeee ! Dismountable Units

[rajpoot]

??I thought Britain used to have its own mounted Lifeguards and Hussars........no?

[Freedom Onanist]

Actually the Light Brigade is the best example of the efficciency of cavalry charge vs artillery positions. As CBR said due to bad wording of the command and possible deliberate missreading of it (by Nolan) they attacked the wrong target. They had to ride down a valley both sides occupied by russian troops. As a consequence they got fired on from 3 sides all the way! Yet they DID ride home the charge, they captured the artillery, they chased away the cassacks guarding the artillery (units 2 or 3 times the sizes of their own!!!), and returned back losing only 1/5th of their number! The only reason why it turned into a debacle because they got almost no support at all (only the french Chasseurs supported them by attacking the russian troops on one side of the valley) and thus they were forced to retreat. Had they got support from the Heavy Brigade (which already saw action that day and its leader was less eager to fight) it would have been possible to hold on to the captured artillery and the charge would have been counted as one of the finest cavalry charges ever, which I think it was.

I think this actually just underlines:

1 The Russian guns were very poorly served

2 The Cossacks reputation was (and still is) vastly overblown. Maybe because even then there was a large number of people ready to assign super human powers to "cool" sounding units - something that haunts every TW board going. Faced with regular cavalry rather than poor benighted moujiks they fled. The largely forgotten (but more successful) Charge of the Heavy fits in with this as well.

3 Support was not provided because, no sane Allied commander, even amongst those mentalist Victorians, could have predicted that anyone would be stupid enough to attempt it, even less succeed.

The whole point of the charge was the fact that it did succeed, even if in a very limited way. The shock being the success of cavalry in this situation.

It was one of the worst military engagements ever. The only outstanding thing about it was the fortitutde and endurance of the men so badly led. Cavalry should never have done what it did, and had it succeed in driving off the Russian infantry, which of course they didn't being cavalry, they would've had no way to hold on to the guns. Typical Victorian nincompoops.

[lars573]

??I thought Britain used to have its own mounted Lifeguards and Hussars........no?

British Hussars don't exist until 1806. When the 7th, 10th, 15th and 18th light dragoon regiments were restyled into Hussars. And the household cavalry regiments (1st and 2nd lifeguards and the royal horse guards) wouldn't have been much differently equipped than the 7 dragoon guard and 6 dragoon regiments. Now days they wear metal breast plates but that's cause they defeated the French carabiners and curiassurs at Waterloo.