Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XXVII

[rrgg]

Repeatedly cutting out and destroying little bodies of infantry (assuming you can even isolate them) doesn't sound like a particularly effective tactic to me. Sounds more like a recipe for blown horses and cavalry too tired to fight. Contrast that to a successfully executed charge, which might send hundreds of infantry running for the shelter of another block of infantry or cover. Panic could spread inexplicably, turning into a cascade effect, a good example (and yes it's effectively an anecdote with many situational factors making it possible) was the cavalry charge at Garcia Hernandez.

That's an extreme example, but in the Napoleonic context at least, it was repeatedly the case that worn-down infantry was broken by cavalry charge, often after being engaged by infantry or fired on by artillery. The only shooting cavalry did was generally at other cavalry, trying to drive others off important points or forging ahead for their infantry. I do acknowledge you're mostly talking about a century or more earlier, where different conditions prevailed.

Yeah, it makes a bit more sense in situations where the infantry can't easily be just ridden down, for instance if they're protected by a dense square of pikes. Then you can send skirmish cavalry to harrass them and potentially cause enough damage or confusion that the heavier cavalry has an opportunity to charge home. If nothing else the presence of nearby cavalry at least meant that the musketeers couldn't spread out to skirmish and had to remain very close to their pikemen at all times, reducing their overall firepower and leaving them more vulnerable to artillery and other musketeers. Curiously during the pike and shot era you seem to see a lot more experimenting with close coordination between cavalry and infantry, for instance deploying squadrons of horsemen in the gaps inbetween pike squares where they could keep firing while also watching for opportunities and keeping the enemy on their toes.



Pistols and carbines seem to have been also considered more useful when attacking infantry who are behind some obstacle such as a ditch, hedge or sharpened stakes. Though it tends to be much harder to break an inanimate object's morale.

Indeed, it's a difficult one to definitively classify, especially when comparing different eras, and I recognise I'm often referring to the period at the end of the evolution you're describing. My own reading is mostly in antiquity, and light cavalry is generally unarmoured men (who might have shields and possibly helmets) on unarmoured horses (or ponies), equipped with missile weapons and generally focusing on skirmishing; medium is armoured men on unarmoured horses, able to stay in melee as well as skirmish; and heavy is well-armoured men on big, barded horses, equipped to close and fight it out up close; as a broad classification.

Quality of horse adds another facet entirely, again in the Napoleonic context, the British often had better horses than the French, and fed them on corn, not just grass. Unfortunately, the French were often better cavalrymen, so the two things would tend to cancel each other out.

One argument i've heard goes that as the wars dragged on, especially after the russia campaign, France was starting to suffer a serious shortage of good horses and that this may have been part of the reason that the french cavalry performed so poorly at Waterloo.

It does seem that sword and pistol cavalry who fought in very dense, squadron formations were considered able to worry less about the quality/price of their horse overall. There was also napoleon's quote where he claims something along the lines of 1 mamluk could defeat 2 french horsemen, but that 500 french horsemen could defeat 1000 mamluks, i.e. when large numbers of horsemen are fighting, individual skill becomes much less important than learning good discipline, cooperation, and tactics.

It might also have to do with just how well you do utilize your most talented troops. John Cruso's manual, for example, repeatedly stresses that when fighting other cavalry, whether you have harquebusiers, cuirassers, or lancers, you should always keep 10 or so of your "best mounted" troops in reserve with a good officer. The idea apparently being that if the main body of horse gets routed then the fastest enemy horsemen will pursue, at which point your best mounted troops can intercept them and try to either punish them for breaking ranks to pursue or scare them off and then hopefully manage to escape without taking any losses themselves.