"Cavalry attacking cavalry question" Topic

A question for the cavalry tactics experts:

At the regimental level, was it common for cavalry regiments to enter cavalry melees already being fought between friendly and enemy cavalry regiments? And if yes, how did they get involved – from a flank, or just piling into the rear of the friendly unit?

Or was it more common to stay out of that melee and then charge the enemy's cavalry when it was in disorder after the melee (presuming it wasn't routed by the first friendly unit)?

Thanks in advance

Regards

Yes it does seem to be quite common from the accounts I have read. Far more common than an infantry charge against a flank for example. I would assume the main reason for this is speed and control. A victorious charging unit would be vunerabe to a suprise flank charge. There would be much confusion from this and not much timeme to warn the cavalry before the event.

However Remember that regiments would rarely line up everything and then charge. I think the most common tactic was to deploy in waves or echelon, based on squads.

If your first wave fails then the supporting sqds can come to their rescue or provide follow support for a success. A flank attack would probably be more likely to come from a seperate formation that suprises the enemy.

Hello Whirlwind!

I don't think there is a more common method. The basic tactic of cavalry was to hold a reserve to use as a rallying point or to reinforce the attack. If your focus is at the regimental level then the Brigadier would call the shots unless he is part of a Divisional attack, etc. So if we assume it's simply a Brigade attack then the timing of the attack by the second regiment is his call. I gather he would be looking to gain an advantage. To me that would only happen as time went on. Clearly his first regiment is blown at some point and he then has to decide to rally, withdraw or send in his second regiment.

Now keep in mind that an actual melee is a confused looking mass with no real flanks etc. An attack by a second regiment would simply plow into the mess. The second regiments attack is intended to shock the other side into withdrawing as they will now think that they are overwhelmed.

Some of the more famous mass attacks by cavalry simply pushed everything into the attack. Clearly ignoring the concept of holding back a reserve.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,

Glenn

I think you will find that cavalry commanders were not so stupid as to throw in new units without first understanding the current situation before they acted.

Sadly, authors of books tend to explain cavalry duels/melees that escalate as huge free for all melees in which both sides keep adding new units into a melee as if it was one huge barn fight. Cavalry fights I think were much more sophisticated than that in reality.

A good cavalry commander would keep his reserves and only commit them "if" needed which means that he would have to sit and wait for the outcome of the current fight before sending them in. This means that he would see his original units heading south and thus be forced to send in fresh units to halt the advantage the enemy had gained from the previous fight.

but many authors do not explain cavalry fights this way, they often explain them as I said, huge free-for-all barn fights where they fed units into a continually cranking meat grinder which could not be further from the truth and accuracy of a cavalry fight.

Check out Austerlitz and re-read the Guard cavalry fight in that battle, you see that fresh squadrons are committed as each side sees the previous fight is going bad.

Yes, I do acknowledge that many charges were committed where there was no reserve but in these situations the initial charge was thus conducted with "every" unit given the charge orders at the same time and thus committed to battle at a single time. But even in these situations it would be simply physically impossible to put thousands of men into a single charge. Units would invariably sit in the rear waiting for the orders to charge or counter charge once cavalry commanders had taken an assessment of previous fights.

Incidentally, in our games we do not allow fresh units to be thrown into existing melees. You have to await the outcome of the previous fight first.

Shane

It seems like often the last side with fresh reserves to throw in to the melee had the upper hand. Incoming fresh units had more control and order in addition to fresh sabers. The influx of fresh combatants would provide a psychological advantage as much as it would a physical one IMO.

Excellent analysis, Shane. Thanks for sharing!

Over the years I've read a lot about cavalry meless. Here's my thought when gaming to emulate what I understand.

Typically I commit one or two squadrons. The remainder of the regiment is held back. Should I get a result that does not cause my squadrons to fall back, retreat, etc, then I'll commit the rest of the regiment. This is to turn the numbers in my cavaliers' favor. I'll attempt a charge to reinforce. If successful, the reinforcements DO NOT get a charge bonus when entering the melee. But they will be formed upon impact. Assuming the opponent is not quite as fortunate to reinforce, this should tip the outcome in my favor (and no junky die rolls) to win the melee.

The first squadron(s) are of course unformed. The reinforcements are not. But clearly they're both engaged. To reflect this I average the formed/unformed penalty. I.e., If unformed get a -2 in combat, the mix of formed and unformed squadrons in the next round of combat suffer only a -1.

Further, my regiments are typically 16 figures strong in my Peninsula GdBde games. At 20/1, these are 320 men. When lined up, they're 8 figures wide, the second rank about 4 inches behind when moving around the table. When the first line charges, my second line will only advance what I deem mecessary to support the first, but leave enough space for the first rank to fall back if necessary without unforming the second rank. I've done this with one squadron (4 figures), but frankly 4 figures looks like crap to me. I just like the look of a larger units, so shoot me for my compromise if incorrect. 'The look of the thing' has to count in a game.

I'd be interested in any other ideas.

Again, and I could be wrong, this is after years of reading about cavalry combat and adjusting to my interpretation and aesthetics.

Thanks all for sharing your insightful comments – very helpful.

Regards

A lot depends on the timescale you are trying to represent- much could happen in avery short time.
A good example of this from slightly outside our period, but very similar in style to napoleonic or even SYW actions is the Heavy Brigade's action at Balaklava in 1854. This is also good as there are quite a lot of first hand accounts by both sides which tally perhaps rather better than normal.

In this action, the British were in two lines of squadrons supported by a couple of units further back who were trying to catch up with the Brigade deployment. The first British line of three squadrons charged to Russian cavalry deployed on a wider front and several (4-6) squadrons deep which was stationary or very slow moving.

These three squadrons broke through the Russian first line and disappeared into the deep formation. For at least a couple of minutes they fought effectively a stationary melee- in the sense of riders jostling around in the same small area.

Then the British second line of three squadrons, which had been quite a long way behind, struck the Russian frontage again, with one British squadron managing to find a partial flank on the left- striking at an angle. The Russian first line was not reformed and many of its men had been trying to attack the backs of the British first line troopers and thus effectively became part of the ongoing melee in the centre of the Russian formation.

This fragmented Russian first line then was much less cohesive than at the initial impact and thus broke completely under the second impact, forcing men to flee out to the flanks and even escape through the still fighting British first line.

A few minutes later first one then the other supporting British units, having manoeuvred to the right, struck that flank, and the whole of the Russian brigade (11th and 12th Hussars plus 2 Cossack regiments- almost regular light cav by now) withdrew/retreated/fled. These are the various adjectives used by British or Russian participants to describe the latters' move to the rear- so readers can pick their favourite option. But the two shocks to the Russian frontage, and the British flank attacks, are common to most accounts.

So we have a first impact, melee, second impact while this is still going on, followed by a flank attack (potentially defined as two separate attacks) again while the melee in still in progress, which finally decides the issue. The key point to remember is that the British first line troops were fighting from start to finish in this engagement, there was no withdrawal to reform or even any respite according to participants.

All of this in less than 10 minutes.

Interesting citation seneffe,

I would dare to say that the initial breakthrough of the Russian first line was completed and the British cavalry had thus moved on to continue the charge deeper into the enemy formations behind. The initial Russian line thus tried to reform and turn on its attackers as they were in turn hit. As much as it sounds like one big continuous cavalry melee I dare say that even in the space of 10 mins there were a series of sequential events that were fought out one after the other until the conclusion of the fight.

I stand by my summation that cavalry duels were far from just big punch ups where you just fed in fresh units into a meat grinder. Each action produced a result which led to reaction and new action and so on.

Shane

A useful Napoleonic example can be taken from the biggest purely cavalry battle of the war:
The Battle of Lieberwolkwitz
link
Essentially, both sides fed in squadrons and regiments with the ebb and flow of battle.

Also at the start of this period there were quite different tactics employed--In the British(Allied) army under Marlbrough cavalry were ordered to get stuck in with cold steel as opposed to the Frogs who were used to standing off first and pistol shooting their way into a fight--the British tactics reallt were shock and awe and gave us superiority….

well said, this in my point…

The French re-introduced this tactic during the Napoleonic wars as Nosworthy explains.

I'd like to add some thinking on this. Drilling down to this level of detail comes below the level granularity of rulesets I play. I think that timescale needs to be pretty short and squadron size needs to be large in relation to the increment (and rate) of attrition. If we're using a figure ration of 1:50 and the smallest increment of attrition is knocking off a single figure, then a squadron of 2-3 figures is not a viable unit in the game as a single hit from any source has it either 50% or 33% casualties already. Larger units are needed. As mentioned above, all the things that happen within a 10 minute time period in the Heavy Brigade charge have to be subsumed within a 15 minute or half hour turn. How do we show them, rather we need the effect of them having happened. I think a game using them could be very interesting, but I wouldn't try to play even a small whole battle at such a scale. GdB at 1:20 may be small enough scale (I haven't played them) and maybe even British Grenadier using disruptions before one gets to casualties would handle it.
Phil

Hi Valmy92,

You could just count one figure as 3 "personnel points" and triple the "casulty loss table" & "figures firing counting" etc. You might tote around a painted-red coin with that unit's stand for every "personnel point" lost to help keep count.

Photocopy your tables, "white out" the numbers, write in new numbers and use the new tables.

I think that timescale needs to be pretty short and squadron size needs to be large in relation to the increment (and rate) of attrition. If we're using a figure ration of 1:50 and the smallest increment of attrition is knocking off a single figure, then a squadron of 2-3 figures is not a viable unit in the game as a single hit from any source has it either 50% or 33% casualties already. Larger units are needed.

This really depends on whether you play games where figures are killed or men are killed (casualties). If your rules give a certain chance for a single figure to be knocked off then yes, you are correct. However, if your rules have casualty tables (as mine do) for actual "men" or individual casualties then this works on any scale. I use 40:1 figure ratios and use individual man casualties in my system so scoring say 10 casualties from a 3 figure (120men) squadron is simply 8.33% of their number. So 12 men would be 10% and so on.

We have no problems at all because we play this way, the Bruce Quarrie way so to speak.

Shane