"cavalry fighting" Topic

I think I understand Nap cavalry battles (you rode at the enemy & if he didn't run/ride away you slashed at him with your dirty big sword) but I'm not sure I understand how cavalry fought in the Ancient World.
No stirrups.
In DBA terms how did light cavalry & (regular) cavalry fight infantry or other mounted troops?

In DBA terms?

They move up to each other, people roll some dice, one of them moves back.

In actual terms they probably rode near each other, threw their javelins while holding on with their legs and then moved away.

Sometimes infantry would run with the horses by holding onto their tails and more or less keeping their balance. These would then swing themselves forward and under the enemy cav stabbing at the bellies of the horses.

Heavier cavalry probably rode in amongst the enemy swinging their sword after they broke or lost their lances on the first guy.

Stirrups have nothing to do with shock action. All that was needed was a good saddle. I have heard shock action was possible without a saddle but I don't see how.

Rich

Alexander's Companions would ride at the enemy and, if they didn't run away, poked them with their great big spears until they did.

The Persians would ride at their enemy. Any infantry would run away. The cavalry would exchange a few javelins and then poke pointy things at each other until one side ran away.

The Greeks would ride around until their Hoplites made the enemy run away. Then they would ride at the enemy and poke them with pointy things until they stopped running.

Shock action is possible even with a low saddle or pad. The horse weighs c. 10 times more than a man, after all! Stirrups don't change a thing; a high saddle does impart a firm seat for getting maximum thrusting power with the lance, either swung or couched: the horse's forward momentum imparts only as much force as the man's grip can sustain. In all periods, the main mechanical force of "shock cavalry is always the horse itself; the man is controller and adds in a second, far less effective "shock" factor. Any spear/pike that meets the horse with a grounded shaft is going to scewer the horse like a shishkabob. The trick is in the drill: if the phalanx stands, the horses must stop or turn back to avoid the impenetrable "scewers." Horse to horse combat is really man to man; the horses don't "shock" into each other at all. Again, stirrups or saddles don't change this. Stirrups are more like a lazy man's horsemanship shortcut; without them, a horseman simply develops fantastic leg muscles to fight lateral drag when he uses his weapons to the side.

You are missing the primary function of ancient cavalry.

Ancient cavalry would charge headlong at the enemy lines. The horses would then rear up, and the infantry would drag the riders off and the two would wrassle on the ground. Occasionally flaming fireballs, cunningly hidden thirty-foot poles and very very shiney shields used in conjunction with a trench the enemy had not noticed also lent a hand.

I refer the poster to my answer on the other thread he began – people STILL don't agree how Napoleonic cavalry fought.

Pat

Pat, "he"? And I thought we were friends.

calling you 'He' does not affect our love, surely?

I regularly refer to my wife as 'she'. She likes it.

Pat

From what I've seen in films any cavalry action is generally preceeded by a charge at full gallop over a distance of some 4 or 5 miles, usually in extremely extended order.
There will also need to be the fist fight between the two leaders-usually some distance from the main action, on account of a frantic horseback chase.
Then of course there's jumping out of trees-that how the Romans defeated the Huns in one film!

Actually I tried riding around bareback(on a horse)and throwing, hitting and poking with sticks are all fairly easy. Mind you, you would need to be able to stand in stirups to delver a mighty downward blow with an edged weapon, so that sort of thing is out.

Of course, I forgot jumping out of trees… I don't claim to be a historian you understand.

But all of these seem pretty sensible ways of defeating cavalry, compared to dressing camels up as elephants, which are still regarded by one rule-set as entirely cromulent.

How do you dress up a camel anyway? I tried putting a little skimpy nurses outfit on one, it just spat at me. Dressing it up as a gigantic wrinkly thang ? How?

Pat

Captain-the Cromulens are here.

Cavalry jumping out of trees … gee I am way impressed with that and off to whinge that FoG doesn't allow this impressive ability at all … do they know 'nuffin?'

Dressing up a camel to look like an elephant – what happens if the elephants on the other side think they look cute in the fishnets and get amorous?

Gee I think I have been cooked up doing jury service for too long this week!!!!

Dressing up an elephant to look like a camel-now that's a challenge.
If you're going to all this effort you should dress the camel up to look like a dragon or a giant or a howitzer or something. Mind you ,I suppose an elephant would be more believable to the opposition.
Don't forget the classic Edward Woodward in the Wicker Camel (Wica??)

Disguising elephants as camels on the other hand- that was just messy.

Pat

Incidently Sane Max, thanks for Cromulent.
Is that a word/
-it is now!

Don't thank me – it's from The Simpsons.

'Jebediah: [on film] A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.
Edna: Embiggens? I never heard that word before I moved to
Springfield
Ms.Hoover: I don't know why. It's a perfectly cromulent word.

Pat

cromulent? cromulens?

Are these worshipful and worshipers of the Howardean deity?

All the movie nonsense aside (and it is almost entirely nonsense)…

As I understand it (and I could have some things wrong) the Xyston, Kontos and eventually – lance, evolved in the first place so that cavalry could out reach infantry weapons and probe at formed infantry lines, without having to "charge headlong in" at all – because horses just won't do that unless infantry lines break. Look at Hastings.

Cavalry "lancers" (for want of a better term) would rush up to just in front of the infantry, probe with the xyston/kontos/lance, then pull away again to regroup and prepare for another advance. It was fluid, fast moving repetitive hit and fades. The thrusting was done often two handed with the body behind the strike, using the legs to grip, which for a probing action was more than sufficient. Think of it as the jabs of a boxer. If the infantry was in loose order or looked set to break, THEN it became a shock action, rapidly followed (hopefully) by a pursuit and overrun.

Later, when the discipline of infantry opponents had considerably declined and most infantry were expected to break or else were deployed in too loose order to intimidate the horse, the lance evolved into a couched under-the-armpit weapon which required the shock of a charge at pace to be completely effective. Ironically this negated much of it's reach and original usefullness. Combined that with the fact that such reach was no longer even required and hand weapons such as maces were now more effective, and one sees why over time the lance fell out of favour. At least until infantry once more stood in close order ranks to fire black powder weapons and cavalry could again no longer just charge in. Then some bright boffin remembered the reach of the lance and the Napoleonic lancers were(re)born.

In summary, cavalry did fight most effectively without stirrup or even saddle. And they didn't need missiles to do it. Having said that however the javelin or bow remained by far the dominant cavalry weapons. I suppose it took a particular kind of bravery to probe massed infantry ranks at just a few feet, on a not entirely predicatable mount, while staying mounted only by the grip of one's legs…

I remember reading some trueism, from the Byzantines (can't remember who was quoting it)- that against Arabs and Persians , who ever had the last cavalry reserve to throw in, would win. Which sounds not far different than 18thC and Napoleonic tactics.

Last week a Russian archaeologist came to the university and gave several talks about central asian warfare. His area of specialty is the cataphract and light horse archer.

He does not agree with the idea the stirrup had any significant impact on the battle field, but it did help for long marches.

He believes the saddle has had much more of an impact than the stirrup.

C

Thanks one & all for your informed answers (especially you, Scutatus).
It is a pleasure reading such wit & knowledge.