Cavalry charges

[Cyrus]

Hello again everybody!
After a long break from EB I've decided to come back, but first I have a question that has been on my mind for quite a while: how exactly would a stirrup-less rider cope with the impact?
I've been riding horses for 5 years now and I can ride without'em, even gallop. But jumping and charging? it seems almost impossible unless one has his legs tied to the horse.
I know of some gallic saddles made specifically for that reason wich had "lumps" (for lack of a better word) that would act as receivers of the impact (for lack of a better word) but those I think were pretty rare and expensive to make, am I right?
Thx in advance

[Titus Magnus]

this is because, cavalry was not supposed to "crash" into the enemy but get close up to engage quickly then retreat maybe even dismount, it was just fast inf. plus if i owned that horse i know i wouldnt charge it into anything since it was worth very much, even if i somehow coerced it to charge into another object.

[Cyrus]

What i meant was that i imagine it would be nearly imossible to charge a horse without stirrups.
Why the hell would I charge a horse agaist something\one?
And then why is it mentioned time and time again in EB that horses would charge in the real sense of the word?
PS what does fast inf mean?

[miotas]

inf = infantry

[Watchman]

...it can't have been *that* long since this was last discussed...

Anyway, to nutshell it: you're trained in riding with stirrups. Back then, cavalrymen learned from ground up to do without in full combat. Easy as that, really; a lot of "impossible" acts are just a question of putting in enough training hours.

As for the impact, eh. Just loosen your hold on the spear-shaft if it seems to become a problem, and let it "glide" until it's safe to grab it again and extract. This is really what the stirrup, the couching technique and eventually the full-plate lance-rest did, in fact; hike up the "absolute threshold" of impact the rider-horse team could deal with before having to "let loose" for safety reasons.

[Cyrus]

Just loosen your hold on the spear-shaft if it seems to become a problem, and let it "glide" until it's safe to grab it again and extract. This is really what the stirrup, the couching technique and eventually the full-plate lance-rest did, in fact; hike up the "absolute threshold" of impact the rider-horse team could deal with before having to "let loose" for safety reasons.

Sorry but could you explain that? i don't understand what you mean at all, eg how do i let a spear glide?

[Watchman]

Loosen your grip on the damn thing so the problematic levels of impact force are no longer applied to the rider/mount team. Duh.

[Cyrus]

ok, what about the rest?

[Watchman]

...although, given the spear techniques used, just relaxing your arms in a controlled fashion and "rolling" the weapon out of the target would probably do the trick. Or in any case from what I've read this is how you extract the xyston when using the Mac one-handed lance technique, right off the charge.

[Watchman]

ok, what about the rest?

What rest ?

[Cyrus]

This is really what the stirrup, the couching technique and eventually the full-plate lance-rest did, in fact; hike up the "absolute threshold" of impact the rider-horse team could deal with before having to "let loose" for safety reasons.

this rest

[Watchman]

You mean the lance-rest ?

[Aemilius Paulus]

Forget not the saddles they used in the pre-stirrup era. Most of them had "horns" and various other features to hold the rider in place. Such as the back and the front of the saddle being very high to keep the horseman from falling with the shock of the charge. This and the techniques used for delivering the charge enabled cavalrymen to get by.

[Cyrus]

I know of some gallic saddles made specifically for that reason wich had "lumps" (for lack of a better word) that would act as receivers of the impact (for lack of a better word) but those I think were pretty rare and expensive to make, am I right?
Thx in advance

I already knew that as u can see AP.
and watchman, what i don't understand is what is written in the quote box.

[antisocialmunky]

The saddle and stirrups keep the rider in the horse so he can absorb more impact. This allows for things like couching your lance and absorbing the impact instead of having to redirect the impact. Basically you can deliver much kinetic energy per run than you could with the uncouched techniques.

Polish Winged Hussars even charged and broke through pikewalls.

[Aemilius Paulus]

Polish Winged Hussars even charged and broke through pikewalls.

Everyone had their brief and/or single moments of glory. The question is, how common was it for them to to such thing? Winged Hussars did not armour their horses, unlike their early contemporaries (gendarmes were eclipsing when winged hussars were just rising), the ultra-heavy French gendarmes. Now, by the Hussar's time (primarily 17th century), armour was becoming lighter and ever more sparse, so their unarmoured horses were the only norm, but still, I am wondering. Such as when that incident happened, when the hussars broke through pikes. And how the pikes were deployed. Too many variables here.

[antisocialmunky]

They managed to do it fairly often I believe. Certainly more than enough times to chalk it up to luck or coincidence. Again and again, they managed to literally just charge through enemy formations. Sometimes the Hussars managed to break the enemy with their initial charge and rout their opponents before.

http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/HowHussarFought.htm

This is a pretty in depth read on how winged Hussars managed to break pike and musket formations. I would take the calculations with a grain of salt but it does provide a good summary.

Long story short, they used a combination of a very dense formation and extremely long lances to plow through a formation supplemented with excellent training and very high morale. The artistic depictions of winged hussars in a charge many times depict them in a running pike wall formation.

What's probably less commented on is the role of artillery and missile fire to help disupt enemy formations so the Hussars could plow through them. Just like Napoleon's use of the column of attack, artillery probably had a pronounced effect on the resulting charge. Support staff always gets the shaft when it comes to history glamor.

[AqD]

Hello again everybody!
After a long break from EB I've decided to come back, but first I have a question that has been on my mind for quite a while: how exactly would a stirrup-less rider cope with the impact?

There is no impact to cope with for most cavalrymen.

Just run into enemies and they'd be scared, trying to run away, and get cut down!

[satalexton]

no one with the right mind would charge into a solid wall of pointies, with steadfast and prepared men behind...

[Chris1959]

Breaking steady formed infantry with cavalry is an almost no no in any era, other factors have to be appllied. Suprise, missle disruption, terrain disruption, morale failure etc as antisocialmonkey says artillery in the Napoleonic era. Look at the failure of two of the finest cavalry forces of the era the Prussians at Auerstadt and the French at Waterloo when infantry were not suitably disrupted by artillery or infantry fire.

[Ca Putt]

I agree, Charging into a Pikewall of absolutely steady and absolutely diciplined soldiers is highly ineffective to say the least, unless, you're in a Tank ;)

If charging from the front The defender has to be disrupted(most commonly through Moral). Winged Hussars were a very fierce force, especially with their utterly stylish wings^^. This helped the Polish to demoralize and Disrupt enemy formations and beat them the good ole Knight way. and Polish Winged hussars were heavy cavalry whereas normal hussars were light cavalry. at least after the decline of the super heavy European Knights. and look at The Ultra heavy Cataphrakts from EB: Givpanvar with their Badass Mail veil and Baktians with thier Lion masks. Or chariots, If the infantry would stand ground the horses would be turned into Kebab. one has to imagine a (enemy) horse galloping towards you the Rider in a martial costume pointing a long sharp stick at you, I think many people would forget that they won't be harmed if they all stay put and run away. If you're inner life consists of the digestion, you can achieve quite a lot in military, ask the spartans^^

[Chris1959]

In the town where I live we had many carnivals where military units from the British armed forces took part. On one memorable occasion we had a couple of squadrons of the household cavalry in the parade. Put bluntly big men on big horses in full regalia, you would have to be well trained bloody disciplined infantry if 3-400 of them were thundering at you with unpleasantness in mind!

[antisocialmunky]

I agree, Charging into a Pikewall of absolutely steady and absolutely diciplined soldiers is highly ineffective to say the least, unless, you're in a Tank ;)

There was one battle where one of the Polish Hussars reported that his company had charged the same point in the enemy lines 8-10 times before the enemy broke.

If charging from the front The defender has to be disrupted(most commonly through Moral). Winged Hussars were a very fierce force, especially with their utterly stylish wings

That's why they painted their horses bright red and even green if a few reports are correct.

[Ezephkiel]

They managed to do it fairly often I believe. Certainly more than enough times to chalk it up to luck or coincidence. Again and again, they managed to literally just charge through enemy formations. Sometimes the Hussars managed to break the enemy with their initial charge and rout their opponents before.

http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/HowHussarFought.htm

This is a pretty in depth read on how winged Hussars managed to break pike and musket formations. I would take the calculations with a grain of salt but it does provide a good summary.

Long story short, they used a combination of a very dense formation and extremely long lances to plow through a formation supplemented with excellent training and very high morale. The artistic depictions of winged hussars in a charge many times depict them in a running pike wall formation.

What's probably less commented on is the role of artillery and missile fire to help disupt enemy formations so the Hussars could plow through them. Just like Napoleon's use of the column of attack, artillery probably had a pronounced effect on the resulting charge. Support staff always gets the shaft when it comes to history glamor.

Interesting read, kind of a documentation of the demise of cavaly vs gunfire though, i imagine that riflemen/musketiers became more highly trained, enabling them to release more powerfull volleys at closer range over time. Reducing the need for pikes with the advance of technology. Don't quite understand why it went back to sabres in napoleonic times, (apart from the uhlans). Unless it was more geared toward cavalry vs cavaly.

Obviously the poles over analised their cavalry charges a bit much. Instead of sticking with new age weapons (hence the demise of their empire maybe?).

[antisocialmunky]

It wasn't a matter of training, it was an issue of technology finally obsoleting massed cavalry formations. Later cavalry used swords because they ran into already disordered/loose order troops to hack them to bits and run out instead of charging a formation.

[Watchman]

Far as I know the talk about the Husaria being able to frontally charge pikemen is total national-romanticist bull. Unless they actually managed to scare the footsloggers so witless they broke ranks and fled in face of the charge that is, but I frankly doubt it.

Bluntly put, the Polish lancers flat out didn't have the nigh-invulnerable degree of armouring on man and horse alike that enabled the heavy lancers of Western Europe to occasionally punch through pike blocks (French gendarmes at least are known to have managed it on a few occasions).

Rather, the fast-moving comparatively lightly armed Poles did the smart thing and flanked. The standard MO was to first rout the enemy cavalry on the flanks while a small force of cavalry "masked" the pikes (ie. hung withing striking distance so they couldn't turn their flanks to them) and then cheerfully converged on the now isolated and rather demoralised infantry from all directions.
Which unsurprisingly tended to result in a wholesale collapse.

[Domen]

Far as I know the talk about the Husaria being able to frontally charge pikemen is total national-romanticist bull. Unless they actually managed to scare the footsloggers so witless they broke ranks and fled in face of the charge that is, but I frankly doubt it.

Bluntly put, the Polish lancers flat out didn't have the nigh-invulnerable degree of armouring on man and horse alike that enabled the heavy lancers of Western Europe to occasionally punch through pike blocks (French gendarmes at least are known to have managed it on a few occasions).

There are examples of breaking through steady (not disrupted) pike formations in such battles like Klushino or Kircholm.

The Poles achieved this thanks to very long & very light lances (up to over 6 meters long - there is an original Hussar lance 498 cm long and only 2,425 kg heavy in the National Museum in Cracow if you want to see it) as well as innovative tactics of using them.

Those lances were so light because their production technology was special and they were empty inside (like bamboo).

With so long lances Hussars were able to hit enemy pikemen before the pikemen could hit them.

This doesn't mean that charging pikemen was bloodless, however. Especially horses were exposed to casualties.

But Hussars & their horses were so well trained, that while charging at full speed they could stop and turn their horses literally in place. This helped in reducing losses against pikes - after destroying the first line of enemy pikemen thanks to long lances, there was still untouched 2nd line of pikemen behind them - and also 3rd, 4th, etc. This is why Hussars often needed to carry out several charges to defeat a single enemy pikemen unit.

Regarding efficiency of those long lances:

There are sourced examples of impaling several enemies by one Hussar lance (the record is 6 men impaled by one lance; 2 - 3 was common).

Of course such a lance was a "one-shot" weapon (it always got broken when striking). That's why Polish army always transported a considerable stockpile of lances. Each Hussar had to have at least few lances for each battle. And Hussar's lance, despite being "one-shot", was a very expensive weapon - it was even few (up to 9) times more expensive than pike. There were cheaper lances in use, but much shorter (ca. 3 - 3,5 m).

Those shorter lances were usually being used by Hussars when it was not necessary to use those long and expensive.

At Klushino - where some Hussar banners (companies) charged even 10 times - there was shortage of lances by the end of the battle.

But of course long lances and "short" lances were not the only weapons Hussars used. They had a great variety of weapons for their disposal.

Certainly also pistols were useful against pikemen (after charges Hussars used to conduct a bit of "skirmish warfare" against pikemen).

Polish Winged Hussars even charged and broke through pikewalls.

Everyone had their brief and/or single moments of glory. The question is, how common was it for them to to such thing? Winged Hussars did not armour their horses, unlike their early contemporaries (gendarmes were eclipsing when winged hussars were just rising), the ultra-heavy French gendarmes. Now, by the Hussar's time (primarily 17th century), armour was becoming lighter and ever more sparse, so their unarmoured horses were the only norm, but still, I am wondering. Such as when that incident happened, when the hussars broke through pikes. And how the pikes were deployed. Too many variables here.

Check this (excellent read on the battle of Klushino - in English):

http://www.radoslawsikora.republika....ly/Kluszyn.pdf

There is an example of breaking enemy pike formation by a frontal charge of Hussars in this battle.

Although it is possible that those pikemen were a little bit demoralised yet by previous combats.

There is also an example of a Hussar banner (ca. 150 men) charging frontally a 400 men strong pike-musket regiment 3 times without success. However, in those 3 charges, Hussars suffered relatively minimal casualties, while this infantry regiment lost even up to 50 men killed.

Plus conditions were unfavourable, because that regiment of 400 men was deployed behind fences (which were obstacles for cavalry).

Anyway - it seems that even when Hussars were unable to immediately break enemy pike-musket formation, they were still able to frontally charge it without suffering heavy losses. So they were somehow able to reduce their own casualties to minimum even while charging pikemen.

This must have had a crushing effect on morale - seeing how cavalry repeatedly charges your pike wall without suffering much harm...

I suppose - as I already wrote above - that Hussars were striking only the first line of enemy pikemen with their lances (as the result of which the first line was being "lanced down"). And after doing so, they were immediately halting their horses & turning back - in order not to fell into second line of enemy pikemen. At this point they were also conducting some "skirmish warfare" firing to pikemen from close distance with their pistols.

Then further lines of Hussars could "lance down" further lines of pikemen (as we know, the first line of Hussars already broke their lances).

And if further lines of Hussars also lost their lances - then the entire company could withdraw, take new lances, and charge again later.

Another thing is that in close, hand 2 hand combat, a Hussar with - let's say - a piece of already broken lance or a broadsword / sabre - probably has an advantage over a pikemen, whose pike is far too long and far too heavy to do any fencing or any blows / parrying enemy blows using it.

So a Hussar - already in close combat (after charge), using broadsword could probably repel or even cut to pieces enemy wooden pike. Anyway - avoiding being hit by pike in close combat is not such a hard thing (that's why infantry with swords is > infantry with spears / pikes).

Of course in instances when it was possible, I guess even Hussars prefered to outflank pikemen rather than charge frontally. But for an enemy who didn't know Hussars' tactics & abilities, a frontal charge against pikes could be more surprising than even most brilliant flanking maneuver...

=================================================================

Edit:

There is also an example of a Hussar banner (ca. 150 men) charging frontally a 400 men strong pike-musket regiment 3 times without success. However, in those 3 charges, Hussars suffered relatively minimal casualties, while this infantry regiment lost even up to 50 men killed.

Plus conditions were unfavourable, because that regiment of 400 men was deployed behind fences (which were obstacles for cavalry).

Anyway - it seems that even when Hussars were unable to immediately break enemy pike-musket formation, they were still able to frontally charge it without suffering heavy losses. So they were somehow able to reduce their own casualties to minimum even while charging pikemen.

In the battle of Klushino (1610) a Polish banner of Husaria under command of Mikolaj Strus (ca. 140 - 180 soldiers) charged frontally 3 times against a German pike-musket infantry regiment consisting of 5 companies (ca. 400 soldiers) and protected by fences, under Reinhold Taube:



In 3 charges the Poles were unable to smash Taube's infantry completely, but killed even up to 50 Germans, while their own losses were relatively small.

In entire battle (not only in this one engagement against Taube's regiment, also in combats against enemy cavalry - but majority of casualties were most probably suffered in these 3 charges against Taube's infantry) Mikolaj Strus' banner of 140 - 180 soldiers lost:

Soldiers:

- 2 killed
- 9 wounded
- 1 missing

Horses:

- 20 killed
- 7 wounded
- 1 missing

One of Hussars - Porycki - lost 2 horses to enemy musket fire (and after each charge replaced the lost horse by another one), but personally didn't suffer any injuries. After each charge, Hussars were conducting a little bit of "skirmish warfare" against this regiment from close distance, also using pistols.

Aditionally, some (if not most) of casualties among horses were caused by enemy pikes - not muskets - because Hussars were "charging against pikes / jumping on enemy pikes (probably from side) in order to break them" (after pikes were broken, enemy infantry was almost defenceless against cavalry - but breaking pikes cost some casualties among horses).

Moreover, that charge was conducted in very difficult conditions because charging horses had to destroy or jump over the fences first and then - after destroying or jumping over the fences - were encountering enemy pikemen with musketers deployed behind those fences.

[Domen]

It wasn't a matter of training, it was an issue of technology finally obsoleting massed cavalry formations.

But traditional cavalry was obsoletted by technology not before late 19th century - the introduction of machine guns & bolt-action rifles.

After all in the Napoleonic Wars and also later (even in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 - 1871) heavy cavalry (Cuirassiers) was still used, and was often successful on the battlefield vs infantry, despite its supposedly increasing rate of fire and - to a much smaller extent - accuracy.

Just to mention the devastating (for enemy infantry) charge of Prussian cavalry at Mars-la-Tour and Gravelotte in 1871.

Or another example (a bit earlier) - the battle of Striegau of 1745 in which a cavalry charge carried out by the Bayeruth dragoon regiment (10 squadrons) in some 15 - 20 minutes disrupted a many times numerically superior enemy force of 20 battalions of fusiliers and 14 companies of grenadiers, capturing 2500 prisoners and 5 artillery guns.

While the decline of Husaria was in 18th century - 100 years before heavy cavalry as such was definitely obsoletted.

So it was not caused by technology, even if technology could be one of factors causing that decline.

Radoslaw Sikora - author of the above linked article about Klushino in English (he also wrote entire book about this battle but in Polish) explains the reasons why Husaria declined while for example Cuirassiers survived for the next 100 years in one of his books.

The primary reason of decline of Husaria was huge decline of its own quality and quantity. Not improvement of enemy technology.

Plus Husaria was always an expensive formation (this was a price for its awesome efficiency) with very limited manpower recruiting base. The biggest amount of Hussars serving in the Polish army at one time was 8,000 - but this was really "the peak of all peaks" of its strength.

Yet for most part of the second half of 17th century number of Hussars in entire Poland only occasionally exceeded 1,000.

For the battle of Warsaw in 1656, Poles were able to deploy only ca. 800 Hussars. No surprise they couldn't change the course of the battle (despite the fact that their lonely charge against much more numerous Swedes - without support from other Polish troops - initially succeeded).

It was during the reign of Jan III Sobieski (and the battle of Vienna in 1683) when their number once again approached over 3,000.

After Sobieski it was yet only worse - not only quantity rapidly decreased, but also quality of training, command and everything else.

But during the Great Northern War Husaria still had some combat value (and proved this in the battle of Kalisz in 1706).

In the battle of Klissow in 1702 only 260 Hussars actually carried out a reconnaissance charge (not a real attack), which was halted by anti-cavalry obstacles - not by musket fire. After that, the Polish commander ordered his forces to retreat - they did not take part in the battle.

Only the times of August III Sas (1733 - 1763) saw the final and embarrassing decline of Winged Hussars.

After August III Sas, Husaria existed for a few more years until 1770s, but was used only during parades and funerals... Even soldiers of other types of Polish cavalry at that time (1750s+) laughed at Husaria calling it "funeral cavalry", instead of admiring it as it always had been before.

In 1776 (if I remember correctly) - during reforms of the Polish army - Husaria was finally dissolved as a military formation.

============================================

Check this (excellent read on the battle of Klushino - in English):

http://www.radoslawsikora.republika....ly/Kluszyn.pdf

Here also links to a few more articles of dr. R. Sikora in English (the link to his "How the Hussars Fought" article was already given):

Battle of Lubar 1660 (one part of this article is dealing with "How did hussars charge?" issue basing on good sources):

http://www.radoslawsikora.republika....aly/Liubar.pdf

Author also proves that Hussars while charging were able to alter (loosen / tighten their ranks) their formation.

Battle of Chocim 1621 (here explanation why Turkish armies were always so massive. Answer: they were THAT massive only "on paper"):

http://www.radoslawsikora.republika....Chocim1621.pdf

Winged Hussars at Vienna part 1:

http://www.radoslawsikora.republika....ly/Vienna1.pdf

Painted horses of Winged Hussars:

http://www.radoslawsikora.republika....ntedhorses.pdf

Battlefields of Winged Hussars (mainly photos and maps):

http://www.radoslawsikora.republika....ttlefields.pdf

[A_Dane]

What's with the thread necromancy? s:

[Domen]

Thread necromancy is better than spamming new threads about the same.