Useful weapons on horseback?

[Spider]

What are some practical weapons that someone could use while riding a horse? This is in a world which is not too advanced in technology. It would also be great if you could describe the advantages and disadvantages of the weapon(s).

 

[CupofJoe]

The basic three that will crop up most often that I know of are
Spear [can be thrown or used as lance - but once thrown or broken you need something else]
Sword [Hack and slash with the extra height of the horse with you and against them but you have to get close so they can attack you back]
Bow [usually small than infantry bows - why get close to them when you can attack from 50-100 yards away but if they have shields/armour or room to move/hide and you might not kill too many of them...]
But the possibilities could be endless...
What weapons that are used goes at least two ways - what is best for you and what is worst for them...
What are your riders fighting?
Then you can add in terrain and climate.
Where are they fighting? Flat ground plain or rugged slopes? Lots of trees or open grassland?
[Trees make charges manoeuvring and archery harder but can give you cover... Marsh land may be easier to cross on foot than on horseback. rivers are easier to cross on horse a lot of the time but the banks may be impassible...]
Are your riders lightly or unarmoured or more like Knights?

If it's large groups infantry with no crossbows or bows and you have little or no armour, then bows are good - stay along way away and fire in...
If it's large groups infantry with no crossbows or bows and you have lots of armour, then lance/spear and a big sword - charge in with spear/lance and use sword to cut a way out....
If it's large groups infantry with crossbows or bows and you have little or no armour, - try not to attack them head on if at all. Use your speed and manuoverability to hack and slash with spear, sword and bow.
If it's large groups infantry with crossbows or bows and you have lots of armour, try not to charge head on or get surrounded.... if you have to, then lance/spear and a big sword - use your mass against them
If it is lighter cavalry and you have armour - if you can catch them - swords.
If it is lighter cavalry and you no armour - swords, spears bows... if you can catch them
If it is heavy cavalry and you have armour - lance and sword/mace - smash in and hack.
If it is heavy cavalry and you have no armour - bow - ride around and let them chase you as you fire back.
If its a big slow creature and you have armour - lance and sword and charge on in
If its a big slow creature and you have no armour - spears and bows, then swords once you can close in safely
If its a big fast creature and you have armour - Bow or Crossbow and stay away. close in for kill with swords etc...
If its a big fast creature and you have no armour - Bow or Crossbow and stay away.
...
There are lassos, Y forked sticks, bolas, wire/rope between horses, fire bombs, even horse-back fired rockets... there are some strange things out there...
Sorry if it looks like I'm going on but it's a big question...
Hope this helps you get rolling...

 

[wordwalker]

Great breakdown, Joe. I'd just add:

Crossbows don't work from horseback well. (The horse's motion bounces the bolt out of place, and it's hard to cock a crossbow in a saddle.)

You mentioned lassos. This was a favorite weapon for Mongols: pull clumsier horsemen (everyone!) out of the saddle, or shieldwallers out of line, and carve them up.

And, an often-forgotten fact is that the classic cavalry charge was best at smashing troops that were already retreating. Against intact units, it might break them, or the defenders might just bring up their spears and make the horses pull up short and get their riders killed.

 

[Spider]

Thanks for the great responses! This helped a lot.

 

[Devor]

Nobody's said the mace yet. Great for breaking armor, smashing skulls, and doesn't get caught as often as a sword would.

 

[Athena]

Well if the bolt bounces out of place depends on the type of horse used.I realize that Spider most likely meant regular non magical horses...but if the horse was a pegasus then crossbows would work because then it could try to balance the movements when it's flying.And weapons...technically magic is also a weapon so a person could also shoot with a bow made of energy or just create energy arrows,shooting them with a movement of his hand.

 

[WeilderOfTheMonkeyBlade]

I would like to add the javelin. bundles could be carried with relative ease, and really easy to make. swarms of very lightly armoured horsemen to swarm around the enemy constantly harassing them, and a javelin can do damage, even a light one.
the horsemen are also hard to catch due to light weight and can harass anything( except bowmen and slingers - crossbowmen maybe, if they are using windlass crossbows because they take so long to reload your horsemen could gallop in range and leave most of them full of javelins.)
small crossbows work better in horseback, not the full sized ones.
lots of heavy cavalry charges where against not yet retreating foes, cataphracts, knights, cuirassiers (the best combination is lots of mobile missile horsemen and a small core of super heavy cavalry, like the partians- look them up because they were super horsemen, like the Scythians and Mongols)

 

[Alex97]

If you go for swords, you might want to consider what type. Obviously there's the variations that knights used (hand and a half swords etc..)

If you want an eastern feel to the cavalry they could use scimitars. Scimitars were often used by mounted Islamic warriors, Sikhs and Mongols because of their light weight and slashing capability. Downside is that they are pretty useless at stabbing.

A lot of cavalry in my WIP use a kopis. This was a Greek sword used by both infantry and more commonly cavalry. It had a recurved blade that met forward at a point which is why it was a good chopping and slashing weapon. Famous cavalry like the Companions and the Thessalians used these along with their spears. If your world resembles classical antiquity a Spatha might fit in just as well as the Kopis. This was a longer version of the Roman Gladuis used by the cavalry (later infantry as well).

And of course there are sabers as well. A lot of curved weapons are suited to the role, but more versatile double edged swords can work as well.

Hope this helps!

 

[Caged Maiden]

maces, flails and clubs were widely used, but s less glamorous than swords, they are often overlooked by writers and directors. Swords were of course, very popular throughout history, and it's true that mounted riders were often knights or men with money enough to afford a sword, but many people used maces and flails, and if you're going for the Mongol horde-type of image, clubs, hammers and axes would have to be at the top of the list for me.

 

[Spider]

Thanks everyone! I really appreciate it.

 

[Alex97]

maces, flails and clubs were widely used

Wouldn't a flail be a little dodgy on a horse? I don't doubt that they were used but users had to be careful not to hit themselves let alone a horse.

 

[WeilderOfTheMonkeyBlade]

Backing up Alex97 Kopis and Falcatas are AWSOME weapons but sadly overlooked. They are like forward curving sword axes

 

[Abbas-Al-Morim]

Cudgels, lances, clubs, flails, maces, spears, axes, swords, sabers, bows, javelins. Crossbows were fine too. Bit trickier to reload on horseback and the less expensive models had the "bouncing bolts" problem. But a good quality crossbow with perfect sizes for everything didn't have those problems. The problem with crossbows is that you need your foot (or a special system) to reload it. Only smaller crossbows could be reloaded by hand. And those smaller crossbows are less powerful.

The flail - like nun chucks - was always a tricky weapon to use. But that also made it unpredictable and very hard to parry.

 

[Addison]

As someone with lots of experience on a horse I can say for certain that the type of weapon you can use without hurting yourself or the horse depends on your skill. This includes a hunting rifle.

Aside from that the best weapons for horseback would be: bow and arrow, spear, lance, sword. Those are basics, going from beginning to intermediate experience.

Advanced experience would be flails and maces. As an experienced axe wielder (not on horseback) the experience to use an axe while on a horse would have to be astronomical. An axe is heavy and the shape of the head is like a rudder. Use it wrong and you'll chop the horse's leg off.