"Followup Spear question, foot vs mounted" Topic

I get the fact that a bunch of guys with pointy sticks might be good against cav, but doesn't it really come down to nerve/resolve and or training?

So on one side, you have a line of guys holding long pointy sticks. And on the other, you have a thundering line of horses perhaps with their own pointy sticks.

Doesn't it come down to who blinks first? Foot hold, bad day for horse and foot(to a degree, cause a dead horse still has mass and momentum). Cav charge home bad day for foot and horse.

Reminds me why we stand at table doing this.

Cheers, Xin

I think your understanding it probably about right, that it's bad both ways and comes down to nerve.

I think nerve is actually where spears and pole weapons have it over swords, axes and hand weapons for foot soldiers facing horsemen. The extra reach FEELS to the infantryman like a bit more safety. Objectively, a few more feet might not make much difference, but from his viewpoint it's safer to have the point out in front. As well, spears let the guys on foot crowd in tighter, and again, that feels safer, even if objectively it doesn't add much.

If the spear (or pike or pole arm) gives the infantry feeling of relative safety, and more nerve, then the effect becomes real because they're less likely to bolt. And, whatever the propaganda, the guys on horseback probably don't really want to charge steady foot, they want to ride down routing peasants, so they're less likely to push the charge all the way home… and the cycle repeats.

Not to say it works out that way every time, both sides can miscalculate, but statistically, over time, I expect that the spears provided a real edge for infantry survival over hand weapons.

The "classical" paper-scissors-rocks relationship is that infantry defends against cavalry, (missile) skirmishers attack infantry, and cavalry attacks skirmishers.

In the case of a phalanx, you've got over a dozen sharp pointy things in front of each soldier, so cavalry ain't gonna go through that. Thing is, there's not much to the flank of a phalanx -- even cavalry with dinky sabers is a threat over there.

Basically, no matter how brave/stupid his rider is, a horse isn't going to commit suicide; it's extremely difficult to get a horse to throw himself into a row of pointy objects. If the infantry are sans long pointy objects convincing the horse to charge home becomes a lot easier. That's why spear is better against horse than someone with just a hand weapon. It's the deterrent value that makes the spear so useful.

Now if the foot panic and their formation breaks down it provides plenty of chances for the cavalry to charge in, and one can see historial examples of this.

-Will

Same with chariots. They don't charge into formations – the formations give way before them, or the chariot veers off.

In the SYW there are accounts of cav vs cav where both sides do not intermingle (ie. crash into each other) but veer off and ride along side each other slahing at one another. IIRC Duffy mentions it in one of his books.

Infantry stands firm, horse will not close en masse.
But if some foot sloggers turn and run, the horse gets into the gaps and it's slice and dice time.

It's all a question of nerve and morale. It's why Napoleon said moral is to physical as three is to one. Patton rated it more like five to one.

Put like this, would you run full speed at a hedge of points, 4 rows, each point a couple of feet apart? So why would a horse!

I can't remember where- pre internet- but I read that if charging horse got in among infantry they have a 7:1 advantage- half a ton of flesh moving at 30mph.

As others have pretty much said.

The spear means infantry look like they can reach the rider and that's a plus for the infantry morale and a negative to the riders.

Setting aside weird rare and expensive training plus blinkers… That maybe no people in world history actually used.
A horse sees a unit of close order infantry as an obstacle.
It will not run into them.
As far as it is concerned it's a wall.
You wouldn't run full tilt into a wall and a horse won't neither.

If it can see a way through or even perhaps over then it will give it a go. But several ranks of infantry and the horse will refuse.
The riders know this.
They know that if they charge up and the horse refuses then there'll be a good chance they come off.
Falling off a horse is no fun.
Right in front of some thug who will stick a spear through you is suicide.
Unless they have missile weapons the only realistic option is to slow down, stop and poke at the infantry.
The cavalryman has a height advantage and if he can being it to bear a weight advantage in the horse.
Problem is the infantryman has a narrower frontage so more infantrymen are poking and slashing at rider and horse.

You can see what happens at Hastings.
Super duper quality knights ride up to the mostly scum infantry. They stop and fight a bit and are driven away.
Repeat a number of times and every time they lose.
Then something happens.
A unit of infantry follows up and the knights can get in amongst them
They carve them up.

And that's about it.

If the infantry stay in a block then heavy cavalry can do pretty much nothing but threaten them.
Should infantry break formation and show a flank or open up then they're done.

Frontal cavalry charges against quality infantry just didn't work. From a flank maybe their morale would break.
Maybe not.

What cavalry were really great at was cutting down a broken enemy.
A unit will break with surprisingly few casualties.
Many battles most of the actual killing took place after the battle was really won.

Now you might be thinking about police horses versus football supporters.
Surely they push people around?
Yes they do.
Very slowly.
The football supporter doesn't have anything to fight back with, no discipline, very brittle morale and they're in open order. Perhaps more importantly – they don't really expect anyone to get hurt let alone themselves.

Frontal cavalry charges against quality infantry just didn't work.

A point worth repeating; the number of historical cases where a cavalry charge broke well-formed infantry, let alone spear armed infantry, is perishingly small. The cavalry had to wear the infantry out with missile fire or catch the infantry out of position.

-Will

There's a mechanical reason why planted spear/pike work against massed horses, and that is the simple fact that the more insistent the horse(man) is on pressing home, the greater damage the planted spear/pike does to the horse or rider. Simple physics at work. The momentum of the horse and rider are what kill them if they push against the point. The spearman/pikeman doesn't have to do anything more than present the pointy end toward the chest of the horse, or the rider, either way. The momentum of the cavalry does the rest. That is why all phalanx troops stop and plant to receive cavalry….