Roman Heavy Cavalry Fighting Techniques

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Paul,

Thank for the reply. First of all, I must say that I'm with Ben of the opinion that this would NOT be a regular occurrance, but only used very occasionally, if at all. the cost would, as you rightly say, be horrendous, not something any commander would want. These forces were extremely costly and not to be wasted.
But, we are talking if it were possible, and the reply below is in that context alone.

How long would it take to train thousands of horses? (and no, most ancient armies didn't have vast peacetime training facilities).

You’re right, but I was thinking of the Roman army, which I assume would have been training horses all year round to supply the troops with spares. And yes, even then a shortage could occur that would make commanders hesitate how to use their steeds.
But in the case of ample supply, I think that well-trained horses could in theory be used in a charge (more below).

Napoleon took several hundred thousand horses into Russia, but in six months, in the Russian campaign, they were annihilated, and not in battle.

Indeed, very true. But Hannibal only had just a few elephants left after he entered Italy, but he still used what he had in battle. I think that no matter the cost, a commander will always risk what he has to gain victory. That is IF the consequences are a disaster. If not using the last man is unnecessary, of course a commander might disengage and fight again. But often enough, men and animals are sacrificed to (attempt to) gain the upper hand.

As a consequence of this, armies seldom indulged in the sort of training you describe, Robert, for it was largely a pointless waste of time, and could not be done on a mass scale anyway.

If we concentrate on the Roman army, do we have any information about this? I mean, we are talking what ifs etc., but in theory, I think this is not far-fetched.

Now let us turn to the effectiveness of the training itself. While it is possible to "trick" a horse into thinking a wall of men will always open up ( and even then, it is difficult, as Robert has described), what does the horse do when the time for real action occurs? It is galloping toward the 'wall', either of foot or horse, and ten or so metres away, it realises that lots of nasty pointy things are being brandished at it, and the 'wall' hasn't opened up. It knows something is different and involuntarily, by instinct pulls up !

True, but in training, the formation opens up when the horse is just a second away from the line, and if it does not open (with the horse at full gallop), it would not have the chance to pull up in time anyway – the shock of the collision (which was intended) still occurs.

If it hears a fellow horse scream in pain from being hit by a missile, it knows things are not the same! I said horses were stupid, but not THAT stupid - they will tell the difference, and not commit suicide.

..

Furthermore, the line of horses behaves like a herd - if one or two pull up, they all pull up - bar the odd one dead on its feet, as occurred so remarkably at Garcia Hernandez, the day after Salamanca in the Peninsular war

Good point.
You are right there, and I would be very interested to know what makes the difference between the instincts of the animal as an individual or as a herd animal. The first ones will (in my opinion) be fooled (which was the idea behind the training), but how will the others behind it react?

( and all this pre-supposes they aren't driven off by a hail of missiles - arrows, stones and those nasty 'martiobarbuli').

Absolutely right. I think that a barrage of plumbatae would be devastating for a cavalry attack.

Then there's the riders. How many of them are bent on suicide?

Well, now we’re talking humans, and as you know, humans can fully well impale themselves on spears or run into murderous machine-gun fire. Humans will do that. Plenty of evidence for it.

What kind of General would be pleased to have his 'strike force' of Heavy cavalry "tumble into ruin", even if victorious, the first time they are in action?

I agree, not the first time, but I’m not talking about using any cavalry that way as a rule. This is but one option of course, and an option that will be extremely costly, but which just might clinch victory.

P.S. Another problem of 'scaled up' training. How does an infantry line a couple of hundred yards "open up" in the face of a similar length line of cavalry riding 'boot-to-boot'? Impossible!

Why would you want to train the horses against a line of a hundred yards? You can train horses on an individual basis, against perhaps 10-20 men, or maybe with a few more. No need for such large numbers.

But even so, it could be trained, as the Roman infantry did when being attacked by elephants. Those troops would have had to be trained to open up ranks to allow the elephants through in case of such an attack, or they would have made a jumble of it. Therefore I think that this could, in theory at least, also have been used in the training of cavalry. Come to think of it, armies in those days weren’t even standing professional armies either. Therefore I think that training would be more feasible than you imagine.