"'Blown' horses and cavalry charges" Topic

We are led to believe by quite a few authors, the consensus probably, that cavalry charges were delivered at the walk or trot, but not at the gallop.

One also reads, however, of the risk to cavalry on 'blown' horses presented by other cavalry. So my question is, if they hadn't been galloping, how does a horse get 'blown' in the first place? A horse can keep up a trot or canter for literally miles. One charge followed by a melee is not going to exhaust your average horse.

Further, as this was known to be an issue, was anything done about it? I mean, I don't exercise enough and if I ran 200 yards I'd certainly be 'blown' at the end of it, but if I implemented an exercise plan, I can improve that. Did anyone get their horses to gallop frequently to improve the animals' stamina? It seems a simple and obvious win and they had horse races 200 years ago so for sure someone was doing this.

In game terms this has always struck me as quite hard to reflect. I can see how a cavalry unit that whoops and goes after a defeated foe is going to get out of control and 'blown', but I would have thought this should be the only circumstance given that charges weren't conducted this way.

Fatigue points in Empire do help having some powerful cavalry unit running all over a battlefield. I find after 2 charges a cavalry unit is done as a force unless it's only faced by another in same situation, but even that won't happen long unless it's at end of the battle.

When I had horses, my riding instructor gave me an interval training program to improve my horse's endurance. It was a walk/trot program. I asked about cantering (aka loping), which to my understanding of ACW cavalry was termed a gallop, and she said I could do a bit of that at the end, but the walk/trot interval training (with increasing time spent on trotting as time went on is the best way to condition a horse.

I don't have time to dig up the info now, but the cavalry manuals in the US in the 1860's, to my recollection, called for a gallop (canter) at a certain distance from the enemy, and for the last few yards, an extended gallop.

My recollection of reading about the French Napoleonic cavalry is that this was what they often did. Some (I believe Lasalle was one), advocated a charge at the trot. My understanding is that this was primarily to keep a coherent formation which was deemed to be essential to a successful charge. Otherwise you get something almost as ridiculous (but probably not quite) as the Scots Greys in the film Waterloo.

I agree wholeheartedly that a horse can keep up the trot for quite a while. I used to trot for 45 minutes on a horse in Wyoming, only slowing when I had to open a gate or cross some very difficult terrain.

Nearly every cavalry charge I have read about described the necessity to reform after the charge. I have also read about the blown horses. A charge at trot or a gall op would require reforming. A charge that ended in an extended gallop, or any gallop if it was started too soon, could easily result in blown horses.

For those reasons, it was commonly said that the winner of a cavalry versus cavalry fight is he who had the last reserve, the last "sabres in hand", to quote David Johnson.

All charging cavalry should probably be treated as disordered, or some equivalent, after a charge that does contact the enemy.

Tom

Many years ago the commander of the mounted police of France got the whole regiment to Charge in order the celebrate his retirement. He was the commander after all. this has become something of a thing for retirement of unit commanders. a number of modern charges exist on you tube.

YouTube link

I seem to remember reading that charges would start slowly, but accelerate to canter or gallop at the end. Charges at the trot were noted as an exception – for some reason I remember this being described at Borodino. Before Napoleonic wars, charges were often delivered at less than a gallop

Horse speeds are described as walk, trot, canter, gallop based on the leg action. Each is a different rhythm and can be felt by the rider, but the leg actions weren't fully understood before the invention of photography

Horse physiology is a bit different from human. They can go very fast for short periods of time, but may take days to recover from that. So it's not just a question of training – a horse's ability to make repeated charges depends on activities over the last few days, the amount and quality of feed available and the skill of the rider at managing the horse's condition

John

Very cool link. As a devotee of Horse & Musket periods this is a question I have often considered. There are references to Cavalry making repeated charges in the WSS but no information about what speed.

This is an interesting thread. I was raised on horseback, but can't contribute to the discussion, as I was never in a position to ride for miles other than at a walk or the occasion canter, galloping only when necessary.

But I do have retired racing greyhounds. The are extremely fast over a short distance, after which all they want to do is curl up on the couch. For all appearances, they are blown. And getting them off the couch until they are ready is quite a task. In fact, they have been referred to as 45mph couch potatoes.

"When I had horses, my riding instructor gave me an interval training program to improve my horse's endurance. It was a walk/trot program."

Kikkuli the Mitannian did much the same thing in 1345 BC – link

Cool video, more ragged than I would like to see but probably accurate

In our games we do not know if they went further than trot, nor how long, unless you have a bad rule which thinks hollywood is right there are melees all the time. The enemy might have turned away, on which case unless they pursue, there should not be much impact on your victorious horse.
They they might have effectively run, then they might have stopped bemused…
I have variants in results and a die for the blown or not,if they rout or pursue yes anyway.

I think some here have hit on the right point. It isn't simply an issue of how long an individual horse and rider could go in a canter, or a gallop. It is how long a group of horses and riders could go and hope to keep in formation.

Lets also throw a couple of other factors into the mix. Horses today are usually well cared for and fed between the times they are ridden. A horse in battle would have been used, possibly used hard, for days before the battle, and have been poorly fed. The other part is that most riding today is done over ground that has been determined to be safe. There are things a horse could encounter in what would be considered a clear field that could cause a faster moving horse problems .

This is a film by the Lumiere brothers showing French cuirasiers advancing at the trot and coming to a halt.

youtu.be/OIzLImEKEYQ

One thing to consider for fatigue and blown cavalry is the going. Soft going with wet ground will be tiring to cross.
Going uphill would also tire the horses

It's surely also the case that a cavalry horse was carrying a heavier load than a modern hunter or horse used for recreational riding.

I wonder if there's an uncut version of the film Charge of the Light Brigade- surely that would show something, evan as cut it does, but of course they had to add in special effects etc.

I'm sure they'd have run the charge in total etc…

Well they filmed, but then totally cut, the charge of the Heavy Brigade for example. Many a cut sequence has been shown eg stealing breakfast from the Other Ranks. But Tony Richardson cannot be blamed half as much as old Sergei B for his Direction of "Waterloo"

I wonder if another factor might also have been in play, and I solicit the opinion of the horse-knowledgeable. In humans it is known that fear and fatigue are essentially interchangeable – that tired men lose heart more rapidly, and frightened men (that is, everyone in a combat situation) finds it far harder to move and act than it is in peacetime training.

Is the same thing true for horses, perhaps? A cavalry charge must seem to horses like an immense dominance battle. They may be being slashed and stabbed
by men; they may be shoved and bit and kicked by strange new horses; they may witness their stall-mates scream as arrows or bullets cause agonizing wounds. Assuming this is a contributing factor, it is not simply the distance galloped and the burden borne, but the stress of combat that is exhausting the mounts.

Very interesting thread. Thanks all!

The question still remains though – why do some charges result in a 'blown' result when others don't? In some rules this is a specific possible post melee outcome. Not all charges resulted in horses being 'blown' while others didn't.

I don't see a pattern. Why some charges result in blown horses while others don't. Some regiments in some battles seem to have been able to charge and rally multiple times without suffering from being blown and others seem to cop it from the start.

Cheers,
John

Most famously the Union Brigade was 'blown' after routing most of d'Erlon's corps, but I wonder how accurate this often-repeated statement is. Were the horses actually exhausted, or did the formation simply break up in a disorderly pursuit and take heavy losses because it was countercharged by formed cavalry? If it were scattered all over the place it would have been massacred on fresh horses.

The state of the horses matters.
There were frequently shortages of good horses.

I would imagine charging in a solid mass is very stressful for most horses. Their legs are quite fragile and they wouldn't be able to veer to avoid any small rock or whatever on the ground.

There was a tv documentary about the charge of the light brigade some years back. I tried to find it on the web. Might have been part of the secret history series. In it they explained the various stages of a charge. Calculated times and shots likely fired as they advanced. It was emphasised how slow a charge starts and that the gallop is only in a short final stage just before contact.

There are accounts of charges of cavalry charging at the walk because the horses were in such poor condition that was as fast as the horses could go. Often this was at the end of the campaign season. You start seeing such accounts in the TYW and right up to the Napoleonic era.

Some useful material here.

link

Cavalry moved at a walk, or a trot on the battlefield. A charge by heavy cavalry could often be at a trot to keep formation. The video of the French Republican Guard is a good example of a light cavalry charge. A walk, then trot, then slow gallop/canter/lope and then the final charge.

The whole thing falls apart because the cavalry hasn't really been trained to charge [if that video is any indication]

1. Cavalry won't keep order at a full gallop. Horses will do the herd thing and try and be in front so the predador gets the slower animal.
2. Horses of different sizes have different gaits, so horses won't cover the ground at the same rate once you hit a cantor.
3. Some horses respond to the charge as a race.

Bottom line. Near impossible to keep horses in line or close together once they start the gallop.

A full gallop wasn't ordered until the last 50 yards or less. A charge over 600 yards was mostly walking.

The one thing I find annoying with rules containing 'blown' effects for a regiment or brigade-sized cavalry unit is that most cavalry commanders husbanded their horse to avoid whole units being blown. Squadrons were rotated and relieved so that there were always fresh squadrons available.

To render an entire brigade 'blown' required stupid brigade commanders or over an hour of constant fighting.

Even the French cavalry charges at Waterloo sent in waves of cavalry, and the fight went on for quite a while and there were still combat-ready squadrons afterward.

The Scots Greys at Waterloo charged, but then continued without rallying, resulting in their horses being blown.

The O'Reilly cheveaux leger in the aftermath of Austerlitz, charged and defeated 5 French dragoon regiments in successive charges. The sixth regiment drove them off.Were they finally 'blown' after the last successful combat? I don't know. Is it only in overextending that this becomes a problem?

Perhaps 'blown' as an outcome is a misnomer. Maybe cavalry just need rallying time and if they're contacted before that time, they're vulnerable. Then if it seems appropriate when we write up our game accounts, we can say they were blown if it seems appropriate to the circumstances.

Cheers,
John

,

Is it only in overextending that this becomes a problem?…Perhaps 'blown' as an outcome is a misnomer. Maybe cavalry just need rallying time and if they're contacted before that time, they're vulnerable.

That is what I understand. Cavalry officers at the regimental and brigade level tried to 'pace' the combat with a rotation of reserves to avoid horses being entirely blown. THis was watched so carefully, some narratives even call their mounts 'half-blown'.

Cavalry could be vulnerable when they were scattered during an attack and had to rally. That was quite common, another reason to have reserves. It is why British cavalry brigade [and regiments] for instance, deployed one squadron behind the next, four lines deep. The cavalry certainly would charge in line, but often not the entire brigade. Those 'successive Charges by the O'Reilly Cheveaux Leger were not the whole large regiment. The whole regiment might have been blown by the time the sixth French regiment charged them, or a good portion of them hadn't reformed by the time the French charged them. Remember than the Austrian Regiment had already broken some French infantry battalions before that.

Being scattered in an attack isn't the same as being formed together, but with blown mounts. Placing one label on 'one charge result' might be easier, particularly if during a 30 minute turn, but it is misleading on a number of levels.

"Being scattered in an attack isn't the same as being formed together, but with blown mounts. Placing one label on 'one charge result' might be easier, particularly if during a 30 minute turn, but it is misleading on a number of levels."

That's true, and in the end it depends too on the level the game represents. If you're playing a game where the company/squadron is represented (1/20 – 1/40), that difference might be more significant. If you're playing a game like Blucher, where the basic unit is a brigade, all you, as overall commander,need to know is that your brigade is, or is not still a viable formation. Blown, scattered or anything else is immaterial, and is only useful when getting creative in the AAR write up :-)

Cheers,
John

It's my understanding that when a cavalry reg charged a basic rule was to keep a reserve of a squadron or two. Obviously, the charge would result in a disruption and be extremely vulnerable and the reserve would cover that. Hence the heavy brigade being overthrown by lancers at waterloo. (There was no reserve). As to blown, there are so many variables, quality of horse, length and intensity of the charge, etc.

There is excellent information on cavalry in Antoine de Brack's memoir-highly recommended.

The Union Brigade was caught and defeated by cuirassiers and lancers at Waterloo. Farine's cuirassier brigade hit them in their front and Jacquinot's lancers on their flank.

Some cavalry commanders did indeed charge at the trot for more control. The French cuirassiers at Eckmuhl charged at the trot because the horses were tired after a long march and that was all they were capable of at the time.

I would have to think that the pace at which a charge was delivered would vary considerably depending on the circumstances. In particular, whether the cavalry was under fire during the approach. If I had to cover a half-mile of open ground and there was artillery shooting at me I might tend to pick up the pace a bit. :)

So, in general, what would be the best rule for "blown horses" or otherwise reduced capacity without having to refer to a ton of modifiers?

In a simplified set of rules, is it reasonable to limit the number of charges a unit can make during a game to 2 or 3 max?
I realize this does not cover a lot of factors, just looking for an approximation of historical results.