"The relative rarity of heavy cavalry" Topic

The thread on the Prussian Hussars reminds me of something I'm always slightly puzzled by, which is this PSR insistence that light cavalry had little battlefield role.

Many armies of this era had, approximately, no heavy cavalry to speak of. Looking for example at post-1806/7, only Prussia's cuirassiers were truly heavy, her dragoons, hussars, uhlans and Landwehr all being light; Britain rarely fielded her heavies and then in small numbers; all Portugal and Poland's cavalry were light except for the latter's two-squadron cuirassier regiment; Spain's dragoons, like Austria's and Prussia's, were in fact light and her nominal twelve 'heavy' regiments lacked horses. Eight of Austria's 35 cavalry regiments were cuirassiers, but they had fewer squadrons than the light, so were less than 20% of the total.

It's really only France and Russia who had a lot of heavy cavalry, not least because in both these armies the dragoons were heavy too.

In short, in many cases if you didn't use light cavalry as battle cavalry, you had no battle cavalry at all.

Most rules I've seen make heavy cavalry significantly more effective than light. I have to wonder if that is correct, because if it were so, why would only two or three armies focus on having a substantial amount of it?

Was it because of the availability of larger horses in certain area?

Heavy cavalry was more expensive, in aquisition and maintenance, as the horses were bigger.

In Prussia, after 1788, a cuirassier horse (minimum height of 5 feet 1 inch) got 3 Metzen oats, 4 pounds hay and 10 pounds straw per day, and a hussar horse (minimum height of 4 feet 9 inches) only 2,5 Metzen oats, 4 pounds hay and 8 pounds straw per day.

Prussia lost their big horses after Jena. Feeding them was the main issue and replenishing them once lost was a another problem. Russian dragoon horses could be big or small depending on the area they were formed is the way I read it.

Empire rules list Prussian Cuirassiers as medium cavalry, my battles between Russians and Prussians does become awkward at times.

The British heavy dragoons were basically unarmored cuirassiers. Some countries like the Saxons had a high proportion of "heavies".

Post 1807 Prussia was chronically broke.

In re Austria, why isnt 20% heavy cavalry a goodly proportion? Their dragoons were battle cavalry.

Didnt the French actually reduce their number of heavies from the Revolutionary army to the Empire?

The trend during the Napoleonic wars was towards lancers and they were a sort of liaison between the lights and the dragoons.

My opinion, as an amateur who's done a bit of reading, is this.

Light cavalry had little battlefield role IF you have a shedload of heavy cavalry.

On a battlefield, cavalry was more effective the heavier it was. So you could use your light cavalry if you had no heavies. They would do the job, just not so well.

That leads to the question, why haven't you got any heavies? Money. As mentioned above, cavalry was expensive to maintain. Heavy cavalry was REALLY expensive to maintain.

So what made heavy cavalry 'heavy'? According to people who know about horses it is all about the size of horse, not the kit of the rider. This leads to another problem for your military-minded autocrat. As the wars went on and horses died, it became harder and harder to find replacements. And big horses in particular were in short supply. It takes several years, and skilled people and land and resources to grow a horse.

The quality of horseflesh is an interesting point, I think. I remember reading about British Hussars attacking theoretically heavier French cavalry and soundly beating them. My wargamer brain went 'how the hell did that happen? The heavier guys should have won'. It would appear that the British had better access to bigger and better horses, so the Hussars were actually mounted on bigger horses. This difference was magnified by the better condition of the Hussars' horses as the logistic situation led to them receiving much better fodder.

This whole horsey business becomes increasingly complicated the more you look into it!

So what made heavy cavalry 'heavy'? According to people who know about horses it is all about the size of horse, not the kit of the rider.

It's also the size of the man/trooper that makes cavalry heavy.

We forget about this factor sometimes. just like with grenadiers where it was as often the size of the man that made a grenadier not his efficiency as a soldier.

Very true. But a big bloke looks a pillock on a tiny horse…

An interesting factoid I read a few years ago.
It has to do with the pay the men received.
Cuirassiers were supposedly paid 50% more than other "horse".
Dragoons were paid the least because they were paid as mounted infantry. "Light horse" were paid as cavalry, even if they did the same function as Dragoons.

Follow the money.

Re horse supply.

Apparently larger horses take longer to train than smaller ones.

A cousin had a trakehner and told me that it'd take six years to train him (dressage) whereas the bay pony she had had only taken four years.

" We forget about this factor sometimes. just like with grenadiers where it was as often the size of the man that made a grenadier not his efficiency as a soldier."

There's a reason for that. Hand to hand, the larger man has an inherent advantage, and the bigger his height and reach, the more strongly that advantage compounds. That's why combative sports are divided by weight class- because otherwise the size differential would make too many matches one-sided.

As John says, follow the money; when you are in the thick of it and the bullets are flying, heavy cavalry is great – on the other hand, in peacetime when you need to have fast trooper to impress on the local peasantry the importance of coughing up taxes for their liege lords, light cavalry are both perfectly adequate and much cheaper; for the frugal autocrats, having a boatload of light cavalry makes a lot of sense

Even if you look at the "big powers" in heavy cavalry, for line cavalry for most of the First Empire the French had 2 regiments of carabineers and 12 regiments of cuirassiers versus 30 regiments of dragoons, 30 regiments of chasserus a cheval and 12 or so regiments of hussars (i.e. 14 versus 42 regiments); for the Russians for a good hunk of time they had 9 regiments of cuirassiers versus about 55 regiments of other types of cavalry

I feel certain from the infantryman's POV there was little difference. Any sized man on a horse is towering above you with either a lance or a wicked length of cutting steel. Very nasty.

I suspect any differences come down to cavalry on cavalry encounters. A larger horse with a larger and perhaps armoured rider looks to a smaller cavalryman like any of them might look to an infantryman. Reach and height advantages in melee would be a distinct advantage.

Given the loss in horses through campaigning and battle, would not the French have been pressing the horses of defeated armies into their service also? The more you win, the more you gain and conversely the more you lose the harder it becomes to make up the loss. It would go a long way in explaining shifts in cavalry composition across nations throughout the period. Just a thought.

According to people who know about horses it is all about the size of horse, not the kit of the rider.

Not necessarily, look at the Russian cuirassier horses, not that high, but enduring

@ Frederick

I make that 44 heavy regiments and 42 light.

Quarrie says that

When Napoleon returned from Elba in 1815 he authorised a million francs for the purchase of remounts, out of which he was able to secure 900 heavy cavalry horses, 787 for the dragoons, 1,084 for the lancers and 3,785 for the hussars and chasseurs, giving an average price of around 300 francs for a heavy cavalry mount, 100 for a light.

The arithmetic only works if dragoon horses were heavy.

I understand that dragoon horses weren't necessarily heavier but were more clever. Some of them were even capable of a decent game of backgammon. You have to pay more for a clever horse.

The French did press foreign horses into service- they were used to remount dismounted dragoons after the Jena campaign. The Saxon cavalry's mounts were supposedly particularly prized.

The experience of twenty years of warfare, with constant purchases and requisitions, must have been hard on the Continent's equine population. I suspect one reason that the British cavalry were so well mounted was the Channel: no foreign remount service to disrupt the studbooks and breeding plans.

Why do you need cavalry at all, before the internal combustion engine?

Let us try a list;

Reconnaissance (above all).
Harrying the enemy's supply lines.
Protecting your flanks from recce or harassment.
Pursuing a broken enemy.
Charging formed infantry in squares (oh sure, let us try that).
Facing enemy cavalry, who look so butch in their cuirasses and square portmanteaux.

OK, other than the last, Lights win every time for any commander.

Cheaper. Far more useful. More of them. Easier maintained (Belgium in a five day campaign is not Spain or Eastern Europe/ Russia)

For every role Lights beat Heavies hands down

Don't forget enforcing the Riot Act.

Don't underestimate terrain. Countries fighting on the North German Plain tend to be heavy cavalry prone. Bavaria and Wurttemberg much less so. As several people have pointed out, heavy horse trump dragoons and light horse, but if there are no heavy cavalry around, dragoons and light horse work out fine against infantry, and are substantially cheaper and easier to maintain.

… this PSR insistence that light cavalry had little battlefield role.

In short, in many cases if you didn't use light cavalry as battle cavalry, you had no battle cavalry at all.

I am not sure why this is even a question.

1. Were light cavalry brigades/regiments seen on the battlefield assigned to battlefield formations? Yes

2. Were light cavalry brigades/regiments reported to have 1. charged, 2. engaged in combat with different arms? Yes.

3. Where light cavalry assigned to battle formations throughout the twenty years of war? Yes.

4. Name famous cavalry generals. How many were light cavalry commanders?

5. Can you name a battle where light cavalry WASN'T involved in combat?

The cost for most heavy cavalry wasn't that much more than light infantry. The cost of outfitting a hussar wasn't much different than a dragoon, a lancer much different than most heavy cavalry [sans cuirass]

To insist that light cavalry had little battlefield role is to be pretty ignorant of Napoleonic battle. It isn't a matter of what the light cavalry was supposed to be good for or do outside the battlefield, but how they were actually used regardless.

To add light cavalry was employed all the time in most fatiguing work – like reconnaissance, outpost duties, patrolling, skirmishing with the enemy, while heavy cavalry was usually not employed for such mundane duties and could maintain the strength of the horses better.

So whats PSR apart from something obscene?

Also to mention:
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"rarity of" is a bit extreme, scarcity, only in certain nations probably -means a full analysis needs to be done- to determine what is normal (%, grouping/ strength/ relevance/ longevity etc.) and check all derivatives from those stats.
WSY?
d

Yes, enquiring minds want to know what PSR is. I'm struggling to imagine the Plastic Soldier Review being an authority on the operation of Napoleonic cavalry.

Public Service Report I think. Public Service Announcement is more common in the US. Think advertisements telling you things the government would like you to believe. The broadcast stations in the US have to do a certain number of them as a licensing requirement. And of course Armed Forces Radio and TV--Germany and Korea in my day--had even more of them to fill in the spaces where there would have been commercials. I saw more Marine recruiting commercials while on duty in countries with no USMC units…

Heavy cavalry was more expensive to organize and mount than light cavalry. The larger horses were more fragile, health-wise, than the smaller horses used by light cavalry.

In the French service, heavy cavalry and dragoon regiments were smaller than light cavalry regiments.

Cuirassier and carabinier regiments had 89 all ranks per company, dragoons 119, and light cavalry 144. And the 'standard' cavalry regiment of the Consulate and early Empire had four squadrons each, which would later change when regiments became larger or provisional regiments were formed. Each squadron no matter what type-two companies each.

A well-cared for horse could usually carry one quarter of its own weight. The average cuirassier complete with kit and weapons weighed in at 309 pounds; a dragoon at 273 poundes, and a light cavalryman at 251 pounds.

The rank of chef d'escadron was used for all mounted units-cavalry, horse artillery, gendarmerie, as well as train units.

To add light cavalry was employed all the time in most fatiguing work – like reconnaissance, outpost duties, patrolling, skirmishing with the enemy, while heavy cavalry was usually not employed for such mundane duties and could maintain the strength of the horses better.

'Mundane'? Necessary would be a more useful term. And light cavalry was also employed on the battlefield along with their heavy brethren.

Heavy cavalry was more expensive to organize and mount than light cavalry.

Apart from 30+ pounds body armor, why would cuirassiers or more particularly, non-armored heavy cavalry be more expensive? Unless heavier horses were that much more expensive. Organizational-wise, wouldn't a company of 144 light cavalry be as difficult to organize as 89 heavy or 119 dragoons?

Pretty much the same equipment otherwise. Larger regiments of light cavalry would end up being as expensive as a smaller heavy regiment. Or was that the compensation to make them all about equal in actual costs?

If anything, I think the rarity of heavy cavalry vs light would be the heavies more limited uses: Only on the battlefield itself.

That sounds like an excellent subject for research…

If anything, I think the rarity of heavy cavalry vs light would be the heavies more limited uses: Only on the battlefield itself.

Whilst I'd question the statement itself, I believe there is a fundamental error being performed both in academic and mental processes here.

The fact of being 'heavy' or 'light' classed cavalry, IS NOT, IMHO and recently developed thinking- nothing at all to do with the weight/ size/ cost at all.

It is solely to do with their actions.

'Heavy' cavalry fought in dense, compact (as possible) formations- perfectly able to do anything else a man on a horse could do- but their primary role as given, was 'shock'.

'Light' cavalry could do the same, however they inherently were utilised in smaller units; perfomed less structured actions; were more agile (to use the modern form of this meaning) etc.

The slanted construction given by wargamers and rules is an abstract of science that didn't exist at the time of the 18th and 19thC.

Similarly, the anocronism of 'light or heavy dragoons, or lancers' etc. Simply irrelevant. Even worse 'medium cavalry'!

I'm not sure what 'Kriegspiel' makes of the issue as I haven't looked it up. There was a good site but it seems to have died… however I'm suspecting that 'mounted troop' is about as close to detail as it gets.

The values or factors for pursuit/ reconnaisance etc. are all add-ons to the value of various cavalry.

Remember N. formed/ converted the 'light horse lancers' from existing (and senior- by number!) dragoon regiments, without alteration of horses or manpower, to be the eyes and ears of the cuirassier brigades for 1812 so they were not engaged in those 'other' duties.

If we dropped the expression 'heavy' and used close order or light order to make distinctions in combat terms, as we do for infantry, and I see no valid reason they should be different, the actual differences become less important.

Whether French, Austrian, Russian or Prussian, Saxon or Baden, regular army regiments each submitted to a common activity and command role.

How each played out in various circumstances is the variable. Cossacks and other 'unformed' bodies whose 'alternative' actions have been even less well depicted in gaming. Much of it due to the assumed 'superiority' by western culture over 'ancient' ones.

~d

Apologies- I had not intended to use the whole as a quote- that was simply the first paragraph. And I usually check formatting prior to posting…

-
Whilst I'd question the statement itself, I believe there is a fundamental error being performed both in academic and mental processes here.

The fact of being 'heavy' or 'light' classed cavalry, IS NOT, IMHO and recently developed thinking- nothing at all to do with the weight/ size/ cost at all.

It is solely to do with their actions.

As I wrote earlier "rarity is a bit extreme, scarcity perhaps" in certain circumstances. Look at the Austrian deployment of Kurassier- mostly in Germany, not Italy, where they'd have been of more use.
They did however, maintain them in 'reserves', whereas they had insufficient other cavalry anyway. That may constiture 'rarity'.
~d

In 1809 in the order of battle for Aspern-Essling (I haven't checked other OBs), the six present Kurassier regiments and two of the three Dragoon regiments were held in the Reserve Korps, along with the Grenadier battalions. There was also a light division of Hussars. The Chevaux-Leger, Uhlans, one Dragoon regiment and some more hussars are allocated to the infantry Korps' avant garde divisions. So that would suggest that Austrian dragoons were "heavy" or shock cavalry. Certainly they seemed to see a difference in the function of curassiers and dragoons, compared to the other cavalry types.

Cheers,
John

Austria had 6 dragoon regiments at that time, in additionto the 8 Kurassier regiments.

Other will doubtless be able to comment more fully on this, but it also looks as if light cavalry units were attached to heavy cavalry formations to protect their flanks from "interference" whilst they were manoeuvring and to follow up the pursuit if the charge was successful, whilst the heavies regrouped.

The fact of being 'heavy' or 'light' classed cavalry, IS NOT, IMHO and recently developed thinking- nothing at all to do with the weight/ size/ cost at all.

It is solely to do with their actions.

IMO the difference is in their traditions. Heavy cavalry arose out of the tradition of the knights and men-at-arms, men wearing armor and riding heavy horses. Light cavalry largely arose out of the tradition of the eastern raiding cavalry such as stradiots and hussars. Medium horse arose out of the archers and arquebusiers, basically jacks of all trades who are capable of performing reconnaissance and skirmishing, and if needed can also be put into the line of battle. With growing professionalism, regional variations and changes in style the picture gets more muddied. Light cavalry becomes more reliable in the recon roll and on the fringes of the battle. Meanwhile dragoons increasingly are seen as line of battle horse. On the flip side in some countries such as Sweden where with the abandonment of armor the native heavy cavalry becomes comparable to their German dragoons.

I think there are two different distinctions here. One is light versus heavy, and the other is "battle cavalry" versus "not." In the second case, I don't think there is an historical distinction. All cavalry considered themselves to be "battle cavalry."

I'm currently re-reading Parquin, just got past his description of his brigade, under Colbert and consisting of the 10th hussars, 7th and 20th chasseurs, fighting at Wagram. They broke two squares. That's "battle" enough for me.

>>IMO the difference is in their traditions.

So many new corps and without traditions of any kind, 'adopted inheritence' aside, you can draw a microscopic line of similarity through centuries if you wish, but frnkly, not an hypothesis I'd ascribe to real living military fighting men.
Perhaps those of a completely token and ceremonial nature is all.
cheers d

Hello 4th Cuirassier!

"I'm always slightly puzzled by, which is this PSR insistence that light cavalry had little battlefield role"

A false statement. If present light cavalry was often used in various roles.

"In short, in many cases if you didn't use light cavalry as battle cavalry, you had no battle cavalry at all."

Exactly.

"Most rules I've seen make heavy cavalry significantly more effective than light. I have to wonder if that is correct"

The vast majority of wargame rules fall down that rabbit hole as they often have a complete misunderstanding of the realities of Napoleonic warfare. They are often designed to fit a certain pattern within the rules. Under close examination the pattern rarely matches up well to actual battlefield performance. To use them as a reference simply muddies the water.

Best regards,

Glenn

I suggest that a great laboratory experiment to answer this question is provided by the Hungarian War of Independence of 1848-1849, which was essentially fought with Napoleonic weapons and tactics (certainly as far as the cavalry were concerned).

Short answer: yes, heavy cavalry was significantly superior in combat; light cavalry significantly superior for non-combat duties such as reconnaissance.

It's a great case study because it's virtually a civil war between the Austrian army's hussars (almost all of which joined the Hungarian cause) and its cuirassiers and dragoons (which all remained on the imperial side). The heavies repeatedly demonstrated their value as shock troops. While they did not win every clash against the hussars, their victories tended to be more emphatic. The imperials did have some light cavalry – chevaulegers and uhlans – but too few, to the point that the Austrian C-in-C Windisch-Graetz pleaded for Radetzky to send him more light cavalry from the Italian front. The history of the Winter Campaign particularly notes how having to do light cavalry duty wore out the heavies' horses. Incidentally, a couple of military stud farms in Hungary were important objectives during the war.

For more details see here:
"Hungary 1848: The Winter Campaign"
link

Most Napoleonic rules might be rubbish. However, in certain cases, Heavy cavalry was more effective than light cavalry. Like any other branch of service, they had to be used correctly.

The original issue raised is if they were so much more effective historically, then why weren't more units raised? Some of the reasoning deploys a bizarre approach with unexamined statistics to create a sort of "call and response" to explain why there were not hundreds of regiments of cuirassiers trotting around the Napoleonic era. Aside from revealing a certain over-fascination with the troop type, it ignores how quickly things did or did not change back then. After all, if it were all about innovation, then most cavalry units wouldve been converted to lancers overnight. But it doesnt always work this way and hard numbers only tell part of the story. Sometimes other factors are important like quality over quantity; which is why Napoleon reduced the number of Heavy units to create a higher grade strike force.

Similar questions might be levied in other areas. For instance, why if NHL Hockey was so popular why didnt it expand sooner? Well, yes, it took a long time to go from 6 to 12 teams and the quality of games were maintained but once it expanded to its near current number of teams, the pool of available talent got watered down to near mediocrity. The lesson is that a straight retroactive application of percentages cannot hope to give a full picture of fondness, utility or effectiveness for the heavy cavalry arm.

Cost was one issue as well as finding suitable men and horses. I think it is wrong to think the number of heavy cavalry units raised among Napoleonic armies to be wanting. We must look at the strains even some small nations went to to foot heavy cavalry expenses. For instance, the Saxons had two regiments, the Westphalians had one as well and so did the Neapolitans. Even the Spanish had a three squadron unit that they outfitted from captured French cuirassiers equipment.

Additionally, the idea that light cavalry wasn't also battle cavalry is false; although it does depend on which term of art is used for the concept of "battle cavalry". It may not have been breakthrough cavalry but light cavalry like lancers, hussars, chevaulegers etc were used on the battlefield where it could often pack quite a punch; just ask Colborne's brigade at Albuera.

@ Glenn

I wonder if the right approach here is to make cavalry, regardless of nominal type, more or less equally effective against infantry, but to give heavy cavalry a melee advantage over light.

An infantryman's experience of being sabred by a bloke in a dolman and pelisse would surely have been pretty similar to being sabred by one in a breastplate. Put the bloke in the dolman up against the bloke in the breastplate, however, and the smart money is probably on the latter.

And if you can't afford any of the latter, at least you've still got the others…

Incidentally yes, PSR is "Plastic Soldier Review". It's a handy website for seeing what you're going to get before you order it, but whoever writes it has some funny ideas. One is that more pose variety is always A Good Thing. YMMV but IMNSHO different poses make units look improbably untidy. Another is that light were not "battle" cavalry; so charging poses are inappropriate, and they should be depicted opening mail boxes, chatting up women, standing around smoking, and so on, I suppose. It just struck me as an odd contention given that most cavalry was light, so that by inference, most cavalry didn't fight – which was news to me…

@ 4th Cuirassier: to go back to my 1848 lab test, the Austrian cuirassiers smashed massed Hungarian infantry on several occasions in a manner that the Hungarian hussars did not match. My conclusion from this limited sample is that heavy cavalry was more effective than light cavalry as a shock weapon against infantry as well.

Hello 4th Cuirassier!

Wonderful to hear from you.

"I wonder if the right approach here is to make cavalry, regardless of nominal type, more or less equally effective"

Sorry to cut off your statement, but I'm in full agreement with this part of it. I've never found any historical evidence that confirms that cavalry or for that matter any troop type should be on a rating chart based on type. I think that training, experience, leadership, cohesion and the situation at hand are much more important to the results of any combat.

"An infantryman's experience of being sabred by a bloke in a dolman and pelisse would surely have been pretty similar to being sabred by one in a breastplate. Put the bloke in the dolman up against the bloke in the breastplate, however, and the smart money is probably on the latter."

I can't give you a quote but I do believe there was at least one encounter between dolmans and breastplates that didn't end well for the breastplates. Regardless, I don't think just comparing troop types gives you anything other than it happened. The reasons for one side beating the other are generally much more complicated than that.

When we dropped troop type charts I noticed that some players lost that "my guys better than your guys" attitude and began to focus more on the situation at hand which generally required much more thought and produced a more in depth and enjoyable style of game.

I can only suggest that you restrict your interest in "Plastic Soldier Review" to its reviews and ignore the other comments.

Best regards,

Glenn

If we know that overall, a cuirasser unit is likely to beat a hussar unit, then the rules should be weighted in favour of that result. The "at least one encounter between dolmans and breastplates that didn't end well for the breastplates" can be represented by a dice roll in favour of the hussars, numbers, individual regiment quality rules etc.If that "at least one encounter" is atypical then the rules should make it atypical too. That's what doing something like a 3 for heavies and a 2 for lights will do. Roll higher with the lights and you can get the upset result without doing harm to the overall experience of the period.

Generals did know which troops under their command were better than others so *some* "my guys better than your guys" is fine, as long as it doesn't come to the dominate the game. If you've got troops that I really need to drive off, there's nothing wrong with me thinking it better to throw in the grenadiers (or the heavy cavalry, or the guard etc) rather than the line troops because I perceive this as the critical point in the battle.

Cheers,
John

Hello John!

"If we know that overall, a cuirasser unit is likely to beat a hussar unit, then the rules should be weighted in favour of that result."

For me that's the crux of the problem. I've never seen any evidence to support that conclusion. As far as I can tell it's simply another wargaming myth.

"The "at least one encounter between dolmans and breastplates that didn't end well for the breastplates" can be represented by a dice roll in favour of the hussars, numbers, individual regiment quality rules etc.If that "at least one encounter" is atypical then the rules should make it atypical too. That's what doing something like a 3 for heavies and a 2 for lights will do. Roll higher with the lights and you can get the upset result without doing harm to the overall experience of the period."

Same problem for me. I've never seen any evidence to support any kind of "odds chart" that justifies "3 for heavies and a 2 for lights". That automatically assumes that in every encounter heavies are always better. In most rules the dice roll covers a host of variables. Why not leave it at that? We have for years and not noted any problems.

"Generals did know which troops under their command were better than others so *some* "my guys better than your guys" is fine, as long as it doesn't come to the dominate the game. If you've got troops that I really need to drive off, there's nothing wrong with me thinking it better to throw in the grenadiers (or the heavy cavalry, or the guard etc) rather than the line troops because I perceive this as the critical point in the battle."

We do have troops that are higher rated than others. It's just not an automatic or entitled rating based on troop type alone. The game designer rates the troops based on his knowledge of them that includes training, experience and leadership. If unknown troop type can be used. He only has three choices Well Trained, Trained and Poorly Trained. The limited choices avoids the extremes often found in troop type classification games.

Best regards,

Glenn

While i understand heavies had larger horses, was there any difference in the density of Kurassiers versus Uhlan, or better yet, Hussars. Did the Kurassiers adopt a more closed up formation and did the Hussars adopt a more open formation, or did cavalry adopt the same density depending on the circumstance.

All I know is that charging cavalry tended to spread out because it's what the horses want to do. Different types may have adopted different frontages at rest, but in motion I reckon they would have converged on a similar and likely wider frontage. This might benefit lancers more than others.

@pfmodel: you ask "Did the Kurassiers adopt a more closed up formation and did the Hussars adopt a more open formation, or did cavalry adopt the same density depending on the circumstance." From my Hungary 1848 example, according to Professor Robert Hermann, they differed: "When facing cavalry, chevau-legers and hussars sought to disrupt the enemy cavalry's close order formations and turn the action into a series of single combats. […] Cuirassiers and dragoons on the other hand sought to stay in close order when fighting chevau-legers and hussars."

@Glenn: you say "I've never seen any evidence to support that conclusion [i.e., that overall, a cuirassier unit is likely to beat a hussar unit, so the rules should be weighted in favour of that result]." I thought I'd just offered exactly such evidence earlier in this thread. Prof Hermann again: "In the clashes between Hungarian hussars and Austrian heavy cavalrymen, both sides scored victories and suffered defeats, but the hussars were never able to win as completely and decisively as the cuirassiers or dragoons. […] Cavalry engaging other cavalry in close order was a particularly difficult task, especially if hussars were engaging heavy cavalry, as the heavy cavalry's shock power was far greater owing to their heavier horses and broadswords." And: "[For breaking through the enemy line] heavy cavalry was the most suitable, but hussars were also used this way out of necessity." Prof Hermann is a secondary source, of course, but his conclusions tally with mine from reading the official histories and other sources.

That seems to me like evidence of a qualitative difference between lights and heavies that could justifiably be reflected in wargames rules.

True heavies could fight in column while most other cavalry, including most dragoons, fought in line.

Also, it wasnt just a case of what cuirassiers could do to infantry or hussars etc in combat, it was also a question about what could be done to them and, due to the cuirass, they were more invulnerable to injury.

Also, it isnt a good measure that a hussar does a whole lot of damage to an infantryman so why would a cuirassier do more? They are not mutually exclusive and cuirassiers did more damage to infantry than hussars. Part of it was their size, part of it their armor/sword type and part of it was their training. Morale and troop type can make a difference but there wasnt a whole lot of green cuirassiers units.

Dragoons are often called medium cavalry because they had bigger men and horses and used the heavier straight swords but fought in line like the "lights".

Hello Chris!

Thanks for your help, but I still see things a little different. Hopefully I can explain it.

"In the clashes between Hungarian hussars and Austrian heavy cavalrymen, both sides scored victories and suffered defeats, but the hussars were never able to win as completely and decisively as the cuirassiers or dragoons"

This mainly refers to the results or outcome which you can incorporate into any rule system if you like. Cuirassiers won +1 to damage results. If the cuirassiers didn't win, well then you couldn't use that result. Makes more sense to me to use it that way rather than give all cuirassiers a +1 going in and they lose. You have also already mitigated their loss going in.

At the same time it also says "both sides scored victories and suffered defeats". To me that doesn't sound like any justification for always giving an automatic +1 to cuirassiers or dragoons before considering anything else just because they have the potential to cause more damage. I think they have to do the damage to actually claim it, not get it automatically, before anything happens.

"Cavalry engaging other cavalry in close order was a particularly difficult task, especially if hussars were engaging heavy cavalry, as the heavy cavalry's shock power was far greater owing to their heavier horses and broadswords."

We all know that heavy cavalry did have the potential of using greater shock power after all that's what they were designed for. We also know that hussars were designed to be faster and more flexible. Which attributes are better and how were they employed in any particular combat is probably unknown. We also know that "both sides scored victories and suffered defeats". So in my mind I still see no reason to justify a consistent +1 for cuirassiers for every combat, just for being cuirassiers.

In our system both cuirassiers and hussars are generally found to be well trained, experienced, under good leadership. If so they are treated equally. Their actual condition/status at time of the combat and the circumstances of the combat are considered to be important factors as well. The dice roll considers the other variables.

Best regards,

Glenn