Heavy Cavalry Versus Infantry – Charging the Lines

[Mad Swede]

I agree about the strategy - but to say that cavalry tactics were not known at the time is false. What it was deficient in compared to the Mongols was heavy cavalry and artillery, and more crucially organization and command and control.

The cavalry tactics used by the Mongols had been forgotten by the Hungarians and many others, simply because they hadn't faced such enemies for a couple of hundred years and because they themselves did not use cavalry in that way. That meant the best ways to counter the Mongol cavalry tactics had to be relearnt.

Military organisation and the associated command and control did not exist during that period, certainly not in modern military terms - it was Napoleon who first introduced the idea of a military staff with the ability to plan operations over a wide area. Prior to that command was about what you could see and keep in your head. Subutai was a good military leader and had several very able subordinates so the Mongol forces could be divided to conduct operations in different area within an overall comman aim - but they operated independently and so could not easily support one another or coordinate operations. Once the Hungarians and others got over their shock and got themselves organised they were able to pick the Mongols off by concentrating their forces against the individual Mongol armies.

False, and for one simple reason: heavy cavalry requires more horses per man. A knight or a man-at-arms would have a horse he rode into battle, a horse he rode normally, a horse or a mule (or several) for luggage and food, as well as several servants (not all of whom actually fought) to help him prepare for battle and tend to his other needs. In fact, in several Byzantine treatises it is specifically said that not too many servants should be brought on the campaign; heavy cavalrymen clearly tended to overindulge in such luxuries, thus bringing a "useless crowd of noncombatants" as well as "unnecessary baggage, luxury items, expensive equipment which serves no purpose" with the outcome that "a journey of one day will not be completed even in four" (quotes taken literally from "On Campaign Organization"). Meaning that my estimate above is really the best-case scenario - if Byzantines couldn't prevent their professional heavy cavalry from bringing along a crowd of servants, what success would feudal authorities have vis-a-vis armed nobility? For reference, Polish Winged Hussars tended to bring 3 - 6 warhorses, in addition to a dozen pack mules or draught animals.

A light cavalryman would only have his own horse, perhaps another horse for riding and/or backup (Mongols with their herds of horses per rider were an exception), and a mule or two for (far smaller) baggage (though this depended on the distance they were going). He also wouldn't have servants; though as I noted, at least some of heavy cavalryman's servants actually fought in battle and were thus not dead weight.

Lastly, not all horses are equal. Heavy chargers could easily weight 700 kg or more, though more typical weight was I think some 550 to 650 kg. By comparison, light cavalry horses would weight some 360 to 450 kg. So even there there would be some difference in food requirements, though they would obviously be minor compared to everything else I noted above.

Horses of any size have limited endurance, so any attempt to cover large distances and conduct mounted operations requires periods of rest and the right sort of fodder. In fact, ideally each cavalry rider will need two or three horses to give that endurance over time. The Swedish and Finnish cavalry units of Gustav II Adolf's armies had three horses per rider, irrespective of whether they were light or heavy cavalry.

Supplies (fodder, food, arrows, bolts, spare swords etc) also had to be brought along, and that meant more horses - and this was also an issue for the Mongols. What any camp followers might need is not relevant to the argument.

As a rider and horse owner I can assure you that horses don't vary that much in the amount of fodder they need. Even a small Shetland pony will eat almost as much as a horse 20 hands high - it is the level of activity which drives how much they eat. As for the right sort of fodder, that doesn't mean just grass, it means more than that. Oats, some corn, apples, carrots, alfa alfa etc. Keeping a horse in good shape whilst in the field requires care and quite a bit of planning. It is these fodder supplies which, together with water, limit field operations with horses.

 

[Aldarion]

The cavalry tactics used by the Mongols had been forgotten by the Hungarians and many others, simply because they hadn't faced such enemies for a couple of hundred years and because they themselves did not use cavalry in that way. That meant the best ways to counter the Mongol cavalry tactics had to be relearnt.

Not really "relearnt", since Hungarians never really used what turned out to be best answer to the Mongols - stone castles, crossbowmen and heavy cavalry. So less "relearnt" and more "created from ground-up".

Mongols were a far cry from previous nomadic enemies such as the Huns and Hungarians themselves.

Military organisation and the associated command and control did not exist during that period, certainly not in modern military terms - it was Napoleon who first introduced the idea of a military staff with the ability to plan operations over a wide area. Prior to that command was about what you could see and keep in your head. Subutai was a good military leader and had several very able subordinates so the Mongol forces could be divided to conduct operations in different area within an overall comman aim - but they operated independently and so could not easily support one another or coordinate operations. Once the Hungarians and others got over their shock and got themselves organised they were able to pick the Mongols off by concentrating their forces against the individual Mongol armies.

Modern military staff =/= "military organization and associated command and control". Even barbarians had some organization and command and control, based largely on familial lines. And more advanced armies such as Roman, Byzantine and Mongol armies had very strict chain of command, standardized unit subdivision, standardized logistics as well as widespread intelligence networks. Regarding the last one, even feudal Hungary was aware of major Ottoman campaigns months before Ottoman army would even leave its assembly area(s). Issue it did face was not so much whether attack was coming - large invasions were obvious - but rather the fact that it was impossible to know where Ottoman army would enter the kingdom until it actually did.

Of course this wasn't the same as command and control in modern armies, largely due to issues with communication. So it is correct that armies in the field could not easily (and usually would not at all) support each other, and it is indeed very difficult to find examples of coordinated maneuvers by premodern armies. But while it was rare, mutual support was not impossible. Good example of such is Battle of Lalakaon in 863, where several Byzantine armies, arriving independently from geographically widely disparate areas, surrounded and annihilated invading Arab army.

Usually however, separate forces would simply meet up some distance away from the enemy and go into battle as one unified force.

Horses of any size have limited endurance, so any attempt to cover large distances and conduct mounted operations requires periods of rest and the right sort of fodder. In fact, ideally each cavalry rider will need two or three horses to give that endurance over time. The Swedish and Finnish cavalry units of Gustav II Adolf's armies had three horses per rider, irrespective of whether they were light or heavy cavalry.

Supplies (fodder, food, arrows, bolts, spare swords etc) also had to be brought along, and that meant more horses - and this was also an issue for the Mongols. What any camp followers might need is not relevant to the argument.

As a rider and horse owner I can assure you that horses don't vary that much in the amount of fodder they need. Even a small Shetland pony will eat almost as much as a horse 20 hands high - it is the level of activity which drives how much they eat. As for the right sort of fodder, that doesn't mean just grass, it means more than that. Oats, some corn, apples, carrots, alfa alfa etc. Keeping a horse in good shape whilst in the field requires care and quite a bit of planning. It is these fodder supplies which, together with water, limit field operations with horses.

I agree with the rest, but...

Cavalrymen of Gustav II Adolf were not the same as medieval cavalry. As I have pointed out, heavy cavalrymen of the medieval times usually also had servants with them, which meant that a heavy cavalryman brought not only himself but also a number of non-combatants into the army. For this reason alone, a medieval heavy cavalryman will have brought more horses (and humans) with him compared to a light cavalryman.

"What any camp followers might need" is indeed relevant to the argument, otherwise historical generals would not be going to such pains to get rid of them.

 

[Malik]

If heavy cavalry was as overrated as some historians would have you believe, it will not have existed in the first place. Heavy cavalry is expensive, and if raiding and outflanking was all it was good for... well, you can use light cavalry for that as well.

For starters, this.

heavy cavalry requires more horses per man. A knight or a man-at-arms would have a horse he rode into battle, a horse he rode normally, a horse or a mule (or several) for luggage and food, as well as several servants (not all of whom actually fought) to help him prepare for battle and tend to his other needs. In fact, in several Byzantine treatises it is specifically said that not too many servants should be brought on the campaign; heavy cavalrymen clearly tended to overindulge in such luxuries, thus bringing a "useless crowd of noncombatants" as well as "unnecessary baggage, luxury items, expensive equipment which serves no purpose" with the outcome that "a journey of one day will not be completed even in four"

"My horse needs his own horse," my protag, talking to himself in Dragon's Trail. His "lone mission" is a traveling circus--12 horses, 7 people, a mule, a dog, and a wheeled cart to haul everything. You know when the heavy cavalry is coming. Large troupes require more time to move, because you have to stop more often, which means you have to pack up, mount up, scout ahead, and then move out more times. I based this on my own experiences horse camping and bowhunting--not hunting from horseback, but using horses to get up in the mountains where the big deer hide out. Three hunters, a cook, a guide, and a wrangler, and our horse train looked like the Rose Parade.

In my world, the armies mainly rely on dragoons--they ride to battle, then dismount to fight. It saves the horses, and they move fast. I wrote a whole thing on this site someplace about the speeds of a walking horse vs. a walking human, and the short of it is, a horse will be out of sight over the horizon from the human in an hour, and be a full day's walk ahead by sunset. That's why we rode horses. That extra mile or two per hour makes a difference over ten hours.

My armies save the knights--the heavy cav--for the Oh Crap moments. Tactically and operationally, they're akin to modern-day tanks. You only need a couple for a battalion-strength unit of infantry, and it's exceedingly rare to see a whole line of tanks charging. When you do, get the hell out of the way.

Also, one knight with heavy weapons and a mean horse can hold a section of field until the infantry or light cav get there. For more on this, please read my piece on the Great Sword of War. A 4-lb. sword wielded from horseback will collapse helmets, break shields, and shatter bones, which is all you need to eliminate a threat in shin-deep mud. This is where, as an Army NCO, I'd stomp my foot three times to get my troops' attention: It is not necessary to kill someone on a pre-industrial battlefield. In fact, it's a waste of energy.

From horseback, that sword is on 8 feet of moment arm--you've got the knight's arm at the lever end--and there's a trick to timing the blow with the momentum of the horse, so the sword weighs about a thousand pounds coming down. Read up on the Dempsey Jolt for the math behind this--it's a trick punch in boxing where you basically throw yourself off-balance and strike just before your foot comes down, effectively catching yourself with your fist on your opponent's face. I've hit guys on their gloves with a Jolt and knocked them down, and I fought at 178 lbs.

Anyway. Great article. I hope what I'm adding here kinda helps anyone who needed a little more explanation.

My books are full of this stuff. Plus elf boobs.

 

[Malik]

So, basically, a medieval battle looked a whole lot like Dumb and Dumber with mud and blood and entrails crushed beneath your wet feet.

One reason heavy cavalry was so damned effective is that the knights trained together and could work in formations. When the lines collapse, a few armored destriers moving in sync would be like a steamroller.

A smart warhorse isn't a good warhorse, at least according to @Malik .

A whole scene in Dragon's Trail where the protag is buying a warhorse and the trainer is trying to assure him he doesn't want the smartest horse he's got; he wants the dumbest. The short of it is, a smart horse will look at a battlefield and tell you to go f*ck yourself.

There's a great TikTok about a pair of horses who refuse to go down a trail--even for dinner--because there's a rabbit sitting in the middle of it.

Editing: found it. CW: language.

There's also a meme about not needing an app to find invisible monsters if you own a horse.

 

[Mad Swede]

One reason heavy cavalry was so damned effective is that the knights trained together and could work in formations. When the lines collapse, a few armored destriers moving in sync would be like a steamroller.

That's true of light and heavy cavalry - and a good infantry unit. This is the reason any trained unit is effective. It's why there's such a focus on drill during basic training, it's this which, amongst other things, creates and develops that sense of unit identity.

A whole scene in Dragon's Trail where the protag is buying a warhorse and the trainer is trying to assure him he doesn't want the smartest horse he's got; he wants the dumbest. The short of it is, a smart horse will look at a battlefield and tell you to go f*ck yourself.

That is, to use a Swedish expression, a truth with some modification. You want a horse with which you just "click", a relationship where you trust one another and where you have complete confidence in each other. It's why many show jumping riders go down the rankings when they lose their best horse, it takes time to build a similar relationship with a new horse. You don't neccesarily need the smartest horse, but neither do you want the dumbest horse.

 

[Mad Swede]

For starters, this.


"My horse needs his own horse," my protag, talking to himself in Dragon's Trail. His "lone mission" is a traveling circus--12 horses, 7 people, a mule, a dog, and a wheeled cart to haul everything. You know when the heavy cavalry is coming. Large troupes require more time to move, because you have to stop more often, which means you have to pack up, mount up, scout ahead, and then move out more times. I based this on my own experiences horse camping and bowhunting--not hunting from horseback, but using horses to get up in the mountains where the big deer hide out. Three hunters, a cook, a guide, and a wrangler, and our horse train looked like the Rose Parade.

That's true of a single knight, it's not neccesarily true of a troop of knights or cavalry. Sure, each knight/cavalryman needs two or three horses. But the rest of the support could be shared between several of them, as it was in the Swedish armies of Gustav II Adolf - or as it is now when you lead an armoured brigade into the field.

In my world, the armies mainly rely on dragoons--they ride to battle, then dismount to fight. It saves the horses, and they move fast. I wrote a whole thing on this site someplace about the speeds of a walking horse vs. a walking human, and the short of it is, a horse will be out of sight over the horizon from the human in an hour, and be a full day's walk ahead by sunset. That's why we rode horses. That extra mile or two per hour makes a difference over ten hours.

It does, but what it doesn't do is remove the need to rest the horses during the day - at least four times, with a mid-day stop of at least an hour where you feed the horses. Two or three days of that and the horses will need a full days rest.

My armies save the knights--the heavy cav--for the Oh Crap moments. Tactically and operationally, they're akin to modern-day tanks. You only need a couple for a battalion-strength unit of infantry, and it's exceedingly rare to see a whole line of tanks charging. When you do, get the hell out of the way.

I'll just point out that this depends on the terrain and the situation. As the first Gulf War proved, sometimes a whole line of charging tanks (or heavy cavalry) is exactly what you need.

Also, one knight with heavy weapons and a mean horse can hold a section of field until the infantry or light cav get there. For more on this, please read my piece on the Great Sword of War. A 4-lb. sword wielded from horseback will collapse helmets, break shields, and shatter bones, which is all you need to eliminate a threat in shin-deep mud. This is where, as an Army NCO, I'd stomp my foot three times to get my troops' attention: It is not necessary to kill someone on a pre-industrial battlefield. In fact, it's a waste of energy.

This depends on what those foot soldiers are armed with. Someone with a crossbow or big longbow can take that knight out fairly easily, as the Field of Gold and Agincourt proved.

From horseback, that sword is on 8 feet of moment arm--you've got the knight's arm at the lever end--and there's a trick to timing the blow with the momentum of the horse, so the sword weighs about a thousand pounds coming down. Read up on the Dempsey Jolt for the math behind this--it's a trick punch in boxing where you basically throw yourself off-balance and strike just before your foot comes down, effectively catching yourself with your fist on your opponent's face. I've hit guys on their gloves with a Jolt and knocked them down, and I fought at 178 lbs.

It is. But the initial charge was usually done with lances. A lgood ance will take out several enemy foot soldiers before it breaks, and the effect can be enhanced by having hooks on the lances to side swipe and kill or main any other soldiers you happen to pass. After that a sword, mace or hammer would be the wepaon of choice for the ensuing melee.

 

[skip.knox]

I'm a little surprised no one has cited battles from the Crusades. There are any number of examples of well-armed knights (I suppose they'd be called heavy cavalry? hard to say, as that's not a contemporaneous term) being extremely effective. There are also good examples of how to best such a force, with the Battle of Hattin being one such.

The points made here about the training of war horses is definitely relevant. The horses and their training were both exceptional (and expensive).

One question occurs to me: is saying something about what constitutes victory relevant here? That is, when considering the "effectiveness" of heavy cavalry, is the measure simply breaking an infantry line? Is it being the most important element in victory in a specific battle? Does victory mean the other side sued for peace? Left the field and never engaged again? Would simply inflicting some level of damage on the enemy have been a goal (that is, using heavy cavalry for attrition)?

Medieval sources, anyway, are not always especially clear on the point.

 

[JBCrowson]

I wrote it, yes.

Well, yes - heavy cavalry charges were generally not done lightly. But the point here is that they could be done, and if done properly, could be very successful. It is not enough for infantry to merely "not break ranks" in order to withstand a heavy cavalry charge - they need to have proper training, tactics and equipment to do so.

Agreed.

Yes, there are. But considering how expensive heavy cavalry is, I would suggest that it was successful more often than not - especially during the Middle Ages.

If heavy cavalry was as overrated as some historians would have you believe, it will not have existed in the first place. Heavy cavalry is expensive, and if raiding and outflanking was all it was good for... well, you can use light cavalry for that as well.

Indeed by virtue of being lighter and faster (and therefore probably more manoeuverable as well) light cavalry would be better for the flanking work. I dimly recall reading that war horses were trained to be tolerant to the noise and especially the smell of blood, but also that they could have their eyes covered, so they wouldn't see what they were charging at.

If I was making armour for heavy cavalry I'd have the front shaped like a snow plough to deflect spear points aside and reduce the chances of an impaling.

 

[Aldarion]

I'm a little surprised no one has cited battles from the Crusades. There are any number of examples of well-armed knights (I suppose they'd be called heavy cavalry? hard to say, as that's not a contemporaneous term) being extremely effective. There are also good examples of how to best such a force, with the Battle of Hattin being one such.

I did mention two in the article itself:

Heavy Cavalry Versus Infantry – Charging the Lines

Introduction Heavy cavalry charging the lines of infantry is an awesome sight in historical fiction and fantasy alike. It is difficult to forget Eomer’s charge at Helm’s Deep or the cha…

warfantasy.wordpress.com

At Battle of Ramla in 1101, Crusader army under Balwin had only 260 heavy cavalry and 900 infantry against some 3 000 – 5 000 Egyptian soldiers. Crusader infantry was nearly wiped out, but when Egyptians were pursuing the third division, Baldwin ordered a counter-attack. Egyptian forces were broken up by cavalry charge and dispersed. At the Second Battle of Ramla, Crusader knights – 200 of them – were slaughtered by a ~5 000 strong Egyptian force due to faulty reconnaissance and lack of infantry support. At the third battle of Ramla in 1105, Crusaders again won a victory, but this time the presence of Turkish horse archers prevented them from pursuing the enemy.

At Battle of Jaffa in 1192, Saladin’s cavalry repeatedly charged Richard’s spearmen, but never once came to blows with them. This on the face of it might seem to support the idea that cavalry will not charge steadfast infantry. In reality however, Saladin did not have any heavy cavalry in this battle. All cavalry he had were light cavalry, of Turkish, Egyptian and Bedouin provenance. These horsemen had neither the training, the horses nor the equipment for mounting a charge. Horse archers are skirmishing troops, whose entire purpose is avoiding direct engagement – they will not have trained, at all, to mount a charge against infantry in defensive formation. Horses used by horse archers were usually mares, because they are of a calmer temperament and more easily controlled than stallions. Yet these qualities which made mares so prized among the horse archers would make them a very bad fit for heavy cavalry, which needs strong and aggressive horses. And lastly, horse archers had neither the long lances nor the heavy armor required to survive close combat with enemy infantry. Since Saladin’s horsemen were neither stupid nor suicidal, they will have been aware of these factors and thus done everything they could to avoid close combat. Any “charges” mounted by Saladin’s cavalry in this battle will have been for the purpose of coming to close range where their bows had a chance of penetrating heavy mail armor worn by Richard’s infantry.

The points made here about the training of war horses is definitely relevant. The horses and their training were both exceptional (and expensive).

Indeed. Unfortunately, we do not know how exactly medieval war horses were trained; but there is a video by Modern History TV here that discusses the question:

But training was one of major reasons why destriers were so damn expensive. It took a long time to train a good war horse.

One question occurs to me: is saying something about what constitutes victory relevant here? That is, when considering the "effectiveness" of heavy cavalry, is the measure simply breaking an infantry line? Is it being the most important element in victory in a specific battle? Does victory mean the other side sued for peace? Left the field and never engaged again? Would simply inflicting some level of damage on the enemy have been a goal (that is, using heavy cavalry for attrition)?

Medieval sources, anyway, are not always especially clear on the point.

Well, my article is specifically about situations when heavy cavalry actually charged infantry. But it was far from the only way heavy cavalry could be effective.

In some situations, heavy cavalry didn't need to do anything to have massive impact on battle: a combination of shock power and mobility that heavy cavalry possesses meant that the enemy had to take countermeasures even if said heavy cavalry just stood there doing nothing. And these countermeasures automatically meant that other elements of one's own army would have more freedom to do their own stuff.

Heavy cavalry was also important as a flank guard. Infantry arrayed in a linear formation (so not a square) was vulnerable to attacks from the flank. Again, combination of mobility and shock power meant that heavy cavalry was ideal to both guard one's own flanks and threaten the enemy's flanks. And this is again a situation where, while shock power (against cavalry and infantry) was important, merely presence of heavy cavalry could have major impact on conduct of the battle.

Victory means merely achieving the objective. If enemy is e.g. raiding, then victory would be to prevent the enemy from raiding and force him to retire to his own lands. And that is something which can be, in certain situations at least, achieved without engaging the enemy army at all: merely presence of a trailing force may force him to abandon the campaign. French used this approach against the English in some periods of the Hundred Years War, IIRC.

But yeah, sources can be unclear.

 

[Mad Swede]

I'm a little surprised no one has cited battles from the Crusades. There are any number of examples of well-armed knights (I suppose they'd be called heavy cavalry? hard to say, as that's not a contemporaneous term) being extremely effective. There are also good examples of how to best such a force, with the Battle of Hattin being one such.

Well, that was what I meant when I wrote that the Hungarians and others had forgotten the tactics needed to use mounted knights (or heavy cavalry) successfully against light cavalry. As you say, those lessons were learnt and then applied during the Crusades.

Another lesson which hasn't been mentioned so far is the use of geldings and mares rather than stallions as mounts for cavalry. A lesson learnt during the Crusades was that using stallions (which are bigger and stronger) can land you in situations where your horse gets distracted - using mares as mounts was a tactic Saladin and his armies used quite a lot.

The points made here about the training of war horses is definitely relevant. The horses and their training were both exceptional (and expensive).

One question occurs to me: is saying something about what constitutes victory relevant here? That is, when considering the "effectiveness" of heavy cavalry, is the measure simply breaking an infantry line? Is it being the most important element in victory in a specific battle? Does victory mean the other side sued for peace? Left the field and never engaged again? Would simply inflicting some level of damage on the enemy have been a goal (that is, using heavy cavalry for attrition)?

Medieval sources, anyway, are not always especially clear on the point.

There's a couple of different issues here.

One is that medieval battles were limited in scope, in the sense that battles covered a relatively small area. That's because those commanders had no way of coordinating their forces beyond what they could see. So winning a battle didn't neccesarily mean winning a war, and because the battles often only involved a few thousand men a charge by knights could make a big difference to the outcome.

The second thing is that at the time there was no concept of training military leaders in tactics. Armies were mostly made up of soldiers called up for service, with limited training and experience. Those leading them were not a lot better, almost all of them lacked formal training in leadership and military tactics and operations. There was no real concept that someone might want to read about what decisions they'd made during the battle, so there is no medieval western European equivalent of Procopius. Consequently there was for most of the period not much development in tactics.

It's this limited medieval development which makes the Thirty Years War so interesting. That war brought together a series of western European leaders who systematically analysed and developed their military forces - and the way their states were run. Gustav II Adolf reformed the way Sweden was run, which mean that he could raise the money he needed to train and equip his armies. That meant that he could train his soldiers and their officers, which in turn meant that he could innovate tactically and use what we now called combined operations in battle. More than that, his administrative reforms in Sweden meant that he could continuously train new soldiers and officers to replace losses, so ensuring that he could maintain his army in the field.

In some ways the administration needed to run the state is more important than the armies you have. Without the ability to raise money medieval rulers had no easy way of maintaining their armies in the field, which tended to limit how long campaigns (and indirectly wars) could be. This is something which Prince John, later King John of England, does not get enough credit for. The need to raise money to pay for King Richard's campaigns meant that John had to instigate a series of administrative reforms. Those reforms and the associated taxation were very effective, and meant that the various vassals saw some of their power removed.

 

[Aldarion]

Well, that was what I meant when I wrote that the Hungarians and others had forgotten the tactics needed to use mounted knights (or heavy cavalry) successfully against light cavalry. As you say, those lessons were learnt and then applied during the Crusades.

This is actually a myth: in the 1241 invasion, they couldn't use knights against the Mongols because they didn't have any. The only knights Poles and Hungarians had at the time were members of the military orders (Templars, most notably), and these were far too few in number to make any impact.

In fact, Mongols had significant superiority in heavy cavalry, in quality and numbers alike.

In the 1285 invasion, both kingdoms had introduced significant numbers of heavy cavalry (as well as crossbowmen), and - combined with newly-built stone castles - defeated the Mongol invasion without too much issue.

Fact is that Mongols didn't fare all that well against Westernized armies that included large numbers of heavy cavalry and foot archers.