02-18-2013, 01:31 AM
Study the mechanics of Napoleonic land warfare, including Keegan's classic study of Waterloo. Note carefully the similarities and differences between Napoleonic and ancient warfare. For example, Napoleonic infantry had cannon and muskets, which disrupted cavalry attacks and forced cavalry to use very shallow formations.
I think you will find Ardant du Pic (Keegan's most important source, but he believes Ardant is his Christian name, which really is Charles, but everybody calls him colonel) very interesting on the subject of shallow attack formations. He does not connect it with guns but with other cavalry.
I believe that anyone who does these three things will find it difficult to recite “No horse will charge into a dense mass of men waving pointy things.” Instead, they will have a long list of things which could happen, of which the horses shying away is only one.
Well, I have done those three things, but I am afraid I still don't get it. So for argument's sake, let us suppose that a horse does charge into a dense mass of men waving pointy things. Then what?
Seems to me the soldier loses a valuable horse and his plunged to the ground, even if he takes a couple of foot-soldiers with him. Since he is using relatively heavy armour (as he is a large target sitting on horse-back, and as he does not have to carry this armour across the battle-field like a foot-soldier), and could very well have landed partly underneath his horse, he is a dead man, however much his kamikaze action might have frightened the foot-soldiers around him. If he attacked in a deep formation, the horses behind him will trample him and trip over his wounded horse. If he also used a lance to attack the infantry and the weapon did not break, he has either lost it or has been launched by it over the crupper of his horse, after which it might well have impaled a comrade following up behind him.
But I am sure I am wrong, and somehow the whole thing resolved itself without looking like a gigantic suicidal pile-up. But how? Never mind what the literature says, that is a whole different ball-game, but what is the logic of the thing?
I think you will find Ardant du Pic (Keegan's most important source, but he believes Ardant is his Christian name, which really is Charles, but everybody calls him colonel) very interesting on the subject of shallow attack formations. He does not connect it with guns but with other cavalry.
I believe that anyone who does these three things will find it difficult to recite “No horse will charge into a dense mass of men waving pointy things.” Instead, they will have a long list of things which could happen, of which the horses shying away is only one.
Well, I have done those three things, but I am afraid I still don't get it. So for argument's sake, let us suppose that a horse does charge into a dense mass of men waving pointy things. Then what?
Seems to me the soldier loses a valuable horse and his plunged to the ground, even if he takes a couple of foot-soldiers with him. Since he is using relatively heavy armour (as he is a large target sitting on horse-back, and as he does not have to carry this armour across the battle-field like a foot-soldier), and could very well have landed partly underneath his horse, he is a dead man, however much his kamikaze action might have frightened the foot-soldiers around him. If he attacked in a deep formation, the horses behind him will trample him and trip over his wounded horse. If he also used a lance to attack the infantry and the weapon did not break, he has either lost it or has been launched by it over the crupper of his horse, after which it might well have impaled a comrade following up behind him.
But I am sure I am wrong, and somehow the whole thing resolved itself without looking like a gigantic suicidal pile-up. But how? Never mind what the literature says, that is a whole different ball-game, but what is the logic of the thing?
