Cataphract, Clibanarii, whatever, against Infantry

[Aulus Perrinius]

A walk would hardly generate the force needed.

Needed to what? It is enough to give added thrust to a spear point. Pushing through dense ranks has to be easier at a walk than a gallop, because if you hit formed men at 30 mph it is like hitting a solid mass, while in walking through you can wade into them you can push them apart. Try punching a pot full of beans or rice, then simply push your hand into it- the speed you impart forces the mass to act as one entity.

To break the enemy formation of course, all a spear thrust form a walk would do is bounce of the other guy's armour.

An infantry formation is much more flexible than a pot of beans and the speed is the only way you'll get through and have any chance of breaking them.

Churchill's account clearly states that the Mahadists were solid and someone hit by a running horse will be knocked flying.

Solid, but at what spacing? Clearly there was a lot of room in between them for them to go flying.[/quote]

There doesn't need to be a lot of room, there just needs to be running horses

A horse can weigh a lot more than 800 pounds 1,500 pounds is an average weight for a 14-16 hand horse. And since one 1,500 pound mount would outweigh the combined weight of the phalanx. And since there would more than one horse and they would be charging at 35 miles an hour. . .

Ok, so I need 9.73 ranks then. But even with a slight weight advantage, a horse is not going to slice through dense ranks, and as his velocity is sharply checked, you are going over his neck in any case.[/quote]

You ever see a medieval saddle? There's no way you're going over then neck and it doesn't make any sense because a smart cavalry man would hold his seat. You also seem to stacking the deck, one horse against a phalanx? :wink: :lol:

And even if the man went down he would still be knocked back a good fifteen feet and into the legs of his comrades.

fifteen feet? If the infantry is formed with 15' between ranks, then sure a horse could gallop through. Surely there is less than 3' spacing per rank if they are recieving cavalry. What happens is that your horse hits the first rank and knocks it back into the second losing some fraction of its own momentum in the process. This continues through each rank, but at anything approaching 30 mph you might as well be hitting a wall at that spacing. The problem gets worse for your horse because he is likely wider than a man, and so may be hitting more than one file at once if shields are overlapped.[/quote]

Yes fifteen feet. That's how far a running horse can knock someone. A horse wouldn't lose that much velocity, the guys in front wouldn't be slowing the horse down (stabbed, spitted, slashed, trampled, knocked over, etc.) and then the guys behind would have a bunch of their buddies which had been turned into impromptu missiles flying into them and their legs which would in turn knock those guys over and/or trip them and so with all those gaps created that wouldn't slow the horse very much. However I never said the press of bodies wouldn't slow the horse down. But even if did/does it still makes for more sense to engage at a full gallop than a walk.

Even if the first horse went kamakazi and did end its life in a collision such as this, there would not be corpses of men and your horse all over the ground for the next horse to try to cross at the gallop. I doubt this can be done easily.

On the contrary it is quite easy, medieval warhorses were trained to bloody corpses and trample things and my horse will go at a gallop over snow and ice and rough ground, a horses legs aren't that fragile.

Why charge? Well you have something that weighs three quarters of a ton and is moving over 30 miles an hour and you have a few hundred of them. That would do a lot of damage to the enemy.

And they have something that weighs 160 lbs, but multiplied by a few thousand of them in a mass, all moving at 30 mph relative to you. That does a lot more damage.

That doesn't make any sense.

Slowing down is suicide, every military manual I've read on cavalry tactics states that they should go to a gallop at fifty yards, and don't stop for anything, keep going otherwise there's no way you can break the enemy,

Sure, because the intention is that the enemy will break ranks. It is unlikely that they would add a footnote to the manuals that says "if they don't break ranks you're gonna hit a mass of men at speed and end up stopped dead- or your horse will, you will surely keep moving." :wink:

Well I already mentioned the medieval warsaddle. Keep in mind pinning someone's infantry in a charge is still useful (Napoleon did it) And I never disagreed about solid infantry being able to stop charging cavalry.

once cavalry slow down the advantage goes to the infantry. And the rider can't do much, he's flailing around from the back of his mount the horses weight and speed does the most damage.

Which is why I am writing in English and not French. If cavalry could easily break infantry then much of history would be quite different. Where we read of anything approaching reliability in accounts of horse breaking steady infantry it is always big horses and well armored, or with riders equipped with long lances. Either you hit infantry with a long weapon as you pull up so as not to crash into them until you have disrupted their ranks, or you simply wade into them on your big armoured horse as riot police regularly do.

That might account for some of the disrepancies between our posts you seem to be talking about greek and Napoleonic cavalry and I'm thinking of armoued men on armoured horses with lances. And riot police aren't intended to be function like ancient cavalry.

And yes, you are at a disadvantage, but that is what history has shown to be true for a head on clash of cavalry and infantry.

Sources? Actually history shows that in a head on clash you're supposed to charge at a gallop and keep going, and don't stop for anything

Notice we are not discussing instances where formed infantry repulsed cavalry, for that is the norm.

Agreed. However you'll notice that every cavalry type that engaged enemy infantry did it a gallop. Sixteen hundreds cavalry did operate at a trot but never engaged infantry. If the cavalry that broke solid infantry had engaged a walk they to would have been thrown back.

So yes horses change be trained to charge home against what they think is a solid object (although there's a great deal of debate on whether or not a horse could even see spears) and they can charge at a gallop. Of course charging into the front of the spear points is not a good idea and your surperior speed and maneuverability makes it doubly unnessesary anyway.

The point is that the horse is smarter than the trainer. A tight packed mass of men at 30 mph IS a solid object! Spears are the least of your worries.

A human is much smarter than a horse, and spears are the biggest worry those can kill me, a bunhc of guys disrupted by a line of running horses isn't a problem. If one hits solid enemy infantry then you have to go at a gallop otherwise you'll be dragged for your horse and hacked apart.

If I was a cavalryman I would take the enemy infantry in the flank or the rear and I would only charge the front if: (A. They had been pounded by friendly missle troops. (B. I had no other choice (Like the 21st at Omdurman) And I would only attack the infantry after I had swept the other guys cavalry off the field.

I agree with all of that, and surely there were incidents like Omdurman where being in the middle of a charging herd limited options, but this cannot have been the norm.

Another point if I may, charging at a trot in armour would be a living hell. And you can forget about posting.

Don't confuse pulling up from a gallop on contact with charging at a trot. You have to charge hell for leather to put the fear of Zeus in the infantry. If they don't lose cohesion, I'd wheel and try again rather than fight an infantry battle from horseback, but if I had a big horse or equal or greater reach with my weapons I might try to see if they'd hold up to assault.

And fighting from a walk would be even worse all you'd do is get stopped held off unable to reach the enemy and if a charge is slowed or stopped then it's thrown back with heavy losses. Every military manual that adresses shock cavalry states that they must go into a gallop within fifty yards of the enemy and like I said don't stop for anything. As for longer lances and bigger horses . . .

The polish winged hussars wielded lances from 18-25 odd feet long and the lance was designed so that it could impale multiple people before it broke. The hussars horse's are mentioned crashing through solid infantry and swines feathers and ridding across spiked ditches and hacking there way through the enemy. They had guts, that's for sure. *Goes all misty-eyed*