Medieval cavalry charges?

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Piotr Kapuscinski
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Re: Medieval cavalry charges?

#31

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 13 May 2012, 00:21

Interesting discussion on cavalry charges, its mechanics, aggressive nature of stallions, etc. - here:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthre ... st11453701
I have read that horses will not run into something solid (makes sense).
Doesn't make sense. Read the discussion in the link above (especially the last few pages).

Stallions (war horses were mostly stallions) are aggressive by nature.

You can also specially breed & train horses to do what you want.

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Re: Medieval cavalry charges?

#32

Post by Galahad » 13 May 2012, 05:18

--He wasn't quite correct. Horses are not stupid, generally, and they won't charge into a bunch of sharp points. Which is why pikes remained in use to protect the musketeers, until replaced by the socket bayonet, and why the standard infantry response to a prospective cavalry charge was to fix bayonets and form square. If they were able to do that, they were basically invulnerable to cavalry charges alone, so long as they maintained the integrity of their ranks.

--For example, look at the French cavalry at Waterloo. If Ney's lads had a few guns along with them (or some dragoons) and some grapeshot or cannister rounds, the British squares could have been opened up like tin cans, allowing the cavalry to charge in. But all the poor French had were mounted horse, and the horses wouldn't impale themselves on all those British (pardon the pun) frog-stickers. Which same were mounted on muskets that kept firing into the faces of the French.


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Re: Medieval cavalry charges?

#33

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 13 May 2012, 14:08

--He wasn't quite correct. Horses are not stupid, generally, and they won't charge into a bunch of sharp points. Which is why pikes remained in use to protect the musketeers
This is another myth (like that "horses will not run into something solid" myth). You can surely force a horse to charge into a bunch of sharp points, as numerous historical examples of cavalry charges clearly prove.

They did charge pikemen (and formation called Winged Hussars did it successfully on numerous occasions).

Some accounts about Winged Hussars vs pikemen combats:

Battle of Kircholm (600 cavalry charging & defeating 3840 pike-musket infantry):

"Hussars attacked against pikemen, as it could not be differently, they broke the enemy formation, not without own damages."

Battle of Klushino (pike-musket infantry deployed behind a solid wooden fence):

"(...) our horsemen, after ramming fences, with which the enemies treacherously strengthened their defences, plunging into pikes with chests of horses, suffered a lot of damage."

Another account of the same events:

"German musketeers (...) deployed near field fortifications like behind a swamp, behind a fence, in dense formation, harmed us, protected by pikemen."

But in the end German mercenary infantry was defeated by again and again repeated charges of Hussars. But the final blow could be inflicted to them by Hussars only after Polish infantry forced them with musket fire to retreat from their position behind the fence, to a new, less protected defensive position.

About Polish-Swedish combats in Livonia:

"(...) our lancers wipe out not only enemy cavalry, but also pikemen, as fresh examples from Livonia prove."

In the battle of Mitawa in 1622 (the battle as a whole was inconclusive) 2 banners of Hussars (ca. 600 horsemen) charged against 2000 Swedish pike-musket infantry, broke through their lines and descended on the rear of the Swedish lines. However, mercenary Reiters of the Polish army refused to charge the Swedes to support the Hussars. Hussars thus had to withdraw - but their casualties during the charge which broke through Swedish lines were just mere 2 soldiers killed (and probably several soldiers wounded and over a dozen horses killed / wounded).

Even more examples of Hussars defeating pikemen in frontal charges are from Polish-Russian wars (Russian armies also made extensive use of pikemen). All of this was possible thanks to long lances they used (which were longer than pikes), combined with tactics they used.

Painting by Pieter Snayers (exact year unknown, but before 1630) - Hussars vs pike-musket square:

Image

And here painting showing the mentioned above charge vs pikemen behind fences at Klushino:

Image

Also French Gendarmes heavy cavalry were reported to successfully charge pikemen on some occassions.
If they were able to do that, they were basically invulnerable to cavalry charges alone, so long as they maintained the integrity of their ranks.
Maybe if cavalry was untrained / badly trained and horses not accustomed / trained to do such things.

You can train a horse to do a lot of things which an untrained horse would normally hardly do. For example a horse will generally run away from gunpowder fire (due to noise it produces), but not if a horse is accustomed to such sound. Polish armies in 16th - 17th centuries made extensive use of firearms against Crimean Tatars, because most of their horses were not accustomed to sound of gunpowder (otherwise firearms wouldn't really be efficient against swiftly moving & fighting in loose formations Tatars, considering how inaccurate firearms were back then).
--For example, look at the French cavalry at Waterloo. If Ney's lads had a few guns along with them (or some dragoons) and some grapeshot or cannister rounds, the British squares could have been opened up like tin cans, allowing the cavalry to charge in. But all the poor French had were mounted horse, and the horses wouldn't impale themselves on all those British (pardon the pun) frog-stickers. Which same were mounted on muskets that kept firing into the faces of the French.
I've read that the failure of the French charge against British squares at Waterloo was to large extent caused by difficult terrain across which they charged - i.e. their formation got shattered and disorganized already during charge, due to roughness of terrain and terrain obstacles which slowed them down and reduced their cohesion.

And regarding that famous movie scene - it was more the problem with men, than with horses:

"Extras playing British infantry panicked repeatedly and scattered during the filming of some of the cavalry charges. Attempts to reassure them by marking the closest approach of the horses with white tape similarly failed, and the scene was cut."

Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066549/trivia

In reality during that charge French cavalry clearly did charge into those British "frog-stickers", because British infantry also suffered heavy casualties in that combat, inflicted by French cavalry (if we assume that horses couldn't even be forced to get close to those British squares, then what would be the cause of British losses?).

And actually some of 26 British squares were nearly broken by French cavalry - Lord Uxbridge sent remnants of his cavalry to save them, and only that's why the situation was brought again under British control.
Horses are not stupid, generally
Soviet "cannon fodder" soldiers were also not stupid, generally (I guess), yet they held their lines - which was totally suicidal for most of them - at the gates of Moscow in 1941, when NKVD squads with MPIs were deployed behind their lines, to implement "special measures" and ensure that everyone would fulfil the "not a step back" order of Stalin. The same refers to horses - you can force a horse to do what you want by inflicting pain on it & teaching it who is its master. You have spurs & other things to do it. And defenders of animal rights didn't exist back then.

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Re: Medieval cavalry charges?

#34

Post by pugsville » 13 May 2012, 17:28

Stallions were rarely used as warhorses. If the Lances are longer than the Pikes, They are short pikes, and I question their classification as pikes.

Reading the Wikipedia account of the battles it's not clear that the steady pikes were taken frontal by lancers. Flanking, troops been pushed back into infantry etc. Disordered Pikes, taken in the flank are easy meat. Repeated charges are mentioned which against pikes if steady and the Lancers charge hom eshould just be mass carnage. I'm out of period I know little, it's early too early or late.

Steady disciplined pikes on flat ground are in no danger on being ridden down by lancers. Cavalry will not charge home against them.

Colorful accounts have to be treated with caution.

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Re: Medieval cavalry charges?

#35

Post by LWD » 13 May 2012, 17:33

pugsville wrote:Stallions were rarely used as warhorses.
My understanding is that knights did indeed prefer stallions as their war horses, almost no body else did.
If the Lances are longer than the Pikes, They are short pikes, and I question their classification as pikes.
It would be interesting to know the length of the weapons involved. The definition of what constitutes a pike is rather nebulous. In the ancient period it seemed to be any two handed spear over about 12' in length. I believe some lances were as long as 14 feet but some later pikes were also shorter than 12.

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Re: Medieval cavalry charges?

#36

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 13 May 2012, 20:55

If the Lances are longer than the Pikes, They are short pikes, and I question their classification as pikes.
It would be interesting to know the length of the weapons involved.
Actually they are extraordinarily long lances and pikes of normal length in this case. ;)

Lances of Winged Hussars were fearsome thanks to their extreme length - hollow inside, they were on average 18 feet long - but there were also longer specimens, some over 6.2 meters long. Most likely longer ones were used in combats against pikemen, while against cavalry Hussars used shorter ones. The longest surviving to modern times original long lance of Winged Hussars (it can be found in a museum in Austria) is 6.15 meters long.

And in this link there is a photo of a modern replica of a Hussar's lance, but only 4.41 meters long:

http://www.radoslawsikora.republika.pl/ ... czenie.pdf

This replica is 4.41 meters long and its weight is 2.3 kg. It is so light thanks to being hollow inside.

Often during charge instead of holding lance undearm (like Medieval knights did), hussars held them in toks:

Image
Reading the Wikipedia account of the battles it's not clear that the steady pikes were taken frontal by lancers.
Often when you read Wikipedia articles, nothing is clear. :wink:
Repeated charges are mentioned which against pikes if steady and the Lancers charge home should just be mass carnage.
Actually casualties of Hussars from the banner of Mikolaj Strus (strength: 180 horsemen) in repeated charges against Taube's infantry regiment (5 companies - ca. 400 men) at Klushino were rather low. We know the number of casualties of this banner at Klushino from Polish casualty records compiled after the battle:

Soldiers: 2 killed, 9 wounded, 1 missing - 12 in total
Horses: 20 killed, 7 wounded, 1 missing - 28 in total

These are Strus' unit losses for entire battle, but surely vast majority of them was suffered vs Taube's men.

In total Strus' banner charged Taube's infantry 3 times. One of soldiers - Porycki - lost 2 horses to enemy musket fire (after each charge he replaced the lost horse by another one), but personally didn't suffer any injuries.

Aditionally, some (if not most) of casualties among horses were caused by enemy pikes - not muskets - because Hussars were "plunging" into pikes in order to break them (after pikes were broken, enemy infantry was almost defenceless against cavalry - but breaking pikes cost some casualties among horses):

"(...) our horsemen, after ramming fences, with which the enemies treacherously strengthened their defences, plunging into pikes with chests of horses, suffered a lot of damage. (...)"

And here a picture depicting the confrontation of Strus' Hussars and Taube's infantry:

Image

We also know what were casualties of Taube's infantry in entire battle - ca. 50 killed soldiers (out of 400).

Regarding Kircholm:

At Kircholm 600 cavalry (300 Hussars charging in the first echelon and 300 Courland Reiters behind them) defeated 3840 pike-musket infantry of the first Swedish echelon in a frontal charge. Cavalry paid moderate price for this victory: 30-40 dead & 35-50 wounded soldiers, but also 150 horses (or 25% of all horses) were lost.

Conclusion - defeating pikemen was possible for Winged Hussars who used very long lances, longer than enemy pikes (which means they could hit first), but while doing this horses often suffered heavy losses.
Steady disciplined pikes on flat ground are in no danger on being ridden down by lancers. Cavalry will not charge home against them.
Then why after the crushing defeat at Kircholm Swedish armies used various types of anti-cavalry obstacles vs Polish armies? And why they tried to take advantage of terrain difficult for cavalry as much as they could. And why Gustaphus Adolphus tried to avoid open field battles during the Swedish-Polish war of 1626-1629?

If what you say was true, then why would anyone even bother to make use of terrain & obstacles?

There were numerous kinds of anti-cavalry obstacles - for example cheval de frise (kobylice in Polish):

Image
Colorful accounts have to be treated with caution.
What criteria do you apply to decide which is colorful and which is not? :wink: "I think so" and thus it must be colorful & treated with caution? Well, this is not really objective. There are numerous accounts which say that pikemen were defeated by Winged Hussars - not 1 or 2. And these accounts refer to numerous battles - not 1 or 2.
My understanding is that knights did indeed prefer stallions as their war horses, almost no body else did.
Yes. And thanks to existence of knighthood Medieval Europe developed the finest breeds of horses for heavy cavalry. During the age of Crusades Muslims were importing horses for their Mamluk heavy cavalry (a formation which was developed specifically to counter charges of Frankish knights) from Italian city-states and from Persia, their own horses (Arabians) were not suitable for heavy cavalry formations. It was a very lucrative trade for Italy.

Arabians were not suitable to fight in formation because they were skittish by nature. And European knights fought in formations (this required training and discipline from both men & horses) - such as for example wedge formation (also known as "pig"), which was very efficient and had great power of penetrating enemy lines.

All Muslim sources from the age of crusades admit the superiority of Frankish heavy cavalry over both Muslim cavalry & infantry. Later Mamluks compensated for this superiority, but still even in battles lost by crusaders - such as the battle of Hattin in 1187 - Frankish heavy cavalry proved its great efficiency in melee combat. This is confirmed by both Muslim & Christian sources. Frankish knights cut through Muslim infantry (and majority of them carried spears) like a knife cuts through butter. And that was not due to poor morale or something likes this (actually at Hattin Muslim forces had surely higher morale than Frankish, who were hungry, thirsty and exhausted - while Muslim soldiers laughed in their faces and poured water over the sand before their very eyes).

Later more sophisticated formations were developed - like the wedge-column formation with heavy lancers in the front and on both wings, while mounted crossbowmen in the center (during a charge mounted crossbowmen shot over the heads of their heavier comrades in order to "soften" enemy lines before impact of lancers).

A good combat horse for a heavy lancer was worth fortune (and this for a reason). For example in 1302 Robert II, count of Artois, bought 5 "great combat horses" for 280 livres each (on average), 2 "cart-horses" for 50 livres each, one "fast horse" for 60 livres, 14 "nags" for 34 livres each and 3 "small horses" for 12 livres each. As you can see one "great horse" was worth as much as 5 "fast horses", 6 "cart-horses", 8 "nags" and 23 "small horses".

The same refers also to later times. According to "Eques Polonus" (written in 1628) prices of horses used by Polish Winged Hussars were between 200 (the poorest soldiers) and 1000 - 1500 (the richest soldiers) ducats (1 ducat was equivalent to 44,55 g of silver in 1628). By comparison in the same time (1626 - 1629) in Lwow (today Lviv, Ukraine) you could buy an ox for less than 3,5 ducats (152,5 g of silver).

In other words, 1 combat horse of a Winged Hussar was worth as much as between 58 and 438 oxen.

You could provide oxen for several villages or Folwarks (Falvaraks) instead of buying 1 such horse.

Nobody would pay such a fortune for an animal who would not charge into "something solid or sharp".

These horses were perfectly trained, they were of finest breeds. With best features useful in combat. A fine horse made a real difference in battle - and that's why it was worth a fortune, compared to "average" horse.

================================================

All photos used in this post come from: http://radoslawsikora.prv.pl and wikipedia.

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Re: Medieval cavalry charges?

#37

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 13 May 2012, 22:32

Recommended to watch - a panic-stricken horse charges straight into a mass / crowd of people:

http://animal.discovery.com/videos/unta ... crowd.html

Anyone didn't even have to convince it - this horse did it by itself. ;)

=================================================

Found also this:



As well as this:



Another one - horse tramples oncoming car:

http://www.break.com/index/horse-trampl ... g-car.html

Spectator run over by horse:

http://www.break.com/index/spectator-ru ... horse.html

Horse slams into starting gate:

http://www.break.com/index/horse-slams- ... -gate.html

Horse runs into fence (on its own, without any encouragement):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOXmruNJjQE

And:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-05-08/h ... ce/2708746

And:



So - a horse wouldn't charge into something solid? Really? :P

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Re: Medieval cavalry charges?

#38

Post by pugsville » 14 May 2012, 10:38

Pikes gotta be 16ft or it's sub standard. Question both the ability of horsemen to use a very long lance, and the practicality of having different lance sizes for different opponents. On the battlefield constraints dont general allow re-arming for the likely next opponent.

Arabian horses are not skittish by nature. Smartest,best natured horses on the planet. Given my own Arab at aged 5. Undersized for heavy cavalry yes.

Most Arabic spearmen during the crusades were very very poor quality troops.

"the enemies treacherously strengthened their defences" really? colorfull, partizan account. Nothing genuinely indicates that lancers charged home against STEADY pikes. How do you know the Hussars lances were longer than the pikes?

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Re: Medieval cavalry charges?

#39

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 14 May 2012, 11:11

Question both the ability of horsemen to use a very long lance, and the practicality of having different lance sizes for different opponents. On the battlefield constraints dont general allow re-arming for the likely next opponent.
Actually a lance (especially hollow inside) was a weapon for single use only. That's why units transported many lances in their supply columns, because often individual soldiers would use and break many lances in one battle.

At Klushino in 1610 some banners of Hussars charged for 8 - 10 times during the entire battle.

In case of shortage of long lances, Hussars could use koncerz swords or short lances during impact:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koncerz

Regarding the ability to use very long lance - physics & mathematics can give you the answer, alongside with knowledge about construction of this type of lance and way how it was used. Maybe later I will quote some info books in which such calculations, construction schemes and descriptions / explanations are provided.

But as I wrote above, often lances were kept in so called tok (which was attached to the saddle - see the picture above) instead of being held underarm. This certainly helped to operate a very long lance in battle.

And already in Medieval knights started to use various types of hooks attached to their body armour which were then used as additional abutment for lance during charge. This allowed using longer and heavier lances.

Even the longest of Hussar lances were not much heavier than 3 kg (as they were hollow inside).
On the battlefield constraints dont general allow re-arming for the likely next opponent.
Why would that be? Just return to your camp / supply wagons for the next portion of lances.

Battle in 16th - 17th century (and pretty much in every period) was not - like we imagine, or like Hollywood movies show - a one huge clash of entire armies. It was a series of engagements between portions of armies.
Arabian horses are not skittish by nature.
This is what I've read regarding that time (11th - 12th centuries).

It is however possible that modern Arabians are different from Arabians of that time. Or the author of that book about the battle of Hattin (that's where I've read this) was wrong in this case.

Anyway as you wrote, they were undersized for heavy cavalry.
How do you know the Hussars lances were longer than the pikes?
I already provided you the length of lances. Do you know examples of pikes over 6 m long?

Except of Macedonian sarissas of course (which were between 4 and 7 m long according to Wiki).

==================================================

You can find some interesting articles on Hussars in English here (click "Materiały" tab):

http://radoslawsikora.prv.pl/

For example this one (also comments on the way how a charge was conducted):

http://www.radoslawsikora.republika.pl/ ... Liubar.pdf

And here - but this article is from 2000 and is not as detailed & up-to-date as this author's books:

http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/HowHussarFought.htm

========================================

Regarding casualties of Hussars in various types of engagements:
Peter K wrote:
pugsville wrote:Repeated charges are mentioned which against pikes if steady and the Lancers charge home should just be mass carnage.
Actually casualties of Hussars from the banner of Mikolaj Strus (strength: 180 horsemen) in repeated (3) charges against Taube's infantry regiment (5 companies - ca. 400 men) at Klushino were rather low. We know the number of casualties of this banner at Klushino from Polish casualty records compiled after the battle:

Soldiers: 2 killed, 9 wounded, 1 missing - 12 in total
Horses: 20 killed, 7 wounded, 1 missing - 28 in total

These are Strus' unit losses for entire battle, but surely vast majority of them was suffered vs Taube's men.
A much more deadly was a reconnaissance charge of also one banner (149 horsemen) vs Turkish army in the battle of Vienna in 1683. It was carried out before the final attack of the main cavalry force (to examine if terrain was suitable for a cavalry charge). In battles often the enemy tried to avoid frontal collision with Hussars and their lances - either by escaping backwards, or by trying to step aside. In this case Turkish forces avoided head-on confrontation - Turkish cavalry stepped aside or ran away backwards before the charging tiny force of 149 men. The Polish unit penetrated deeply into the Turkish lines - up to the camp of their commander. Only encircling the Hussars from all sides & hammering the riders with large battle mauls and battle axes helped - as Turkish account says:
The first [Polish] unit, clad in iron, attacked the tent of the illustrious Serdar master [Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha]. Faced them and engaged them in combat levands [personal guard units] of the Serdar master under command of a sercheshmesh, as well as his palace and court aghas. Giaours however, were all clad in iron, so saber was not useful there, but experienced in battles heroes [Turkish soldiers] were not disconcerted by this at all. Each of them had a maul, a mace or an axe, so they started to hammer giaours in heads, faces and arms, while those who didn't have such weapons, tried to rip their horses with sabers. This way with grace of Allah they were forced to retreat, and most of them were killed or wounded.
The banner lost 12 dead NCOs (companions) and 23-24 dead enlisted men (in total 35-36 out of 149) in this charge, as Sobieski reported. Losses among horses, as well as number of wounded & captured men (but those captured were most likely all recaptured after the battle was won and Turkish army defeated) are not given.

No other Polish cavalry banner suffered so heavy losses in the battle of Vienna as this banner in its "suicidal" reconnaissance charge. It is easy for a numerically superior force to encircle a tiny charging force of 149 cavalry - but impossible to outflank & encircle a cavalry force of many thousands, charging in wide line.

=============================
pugsville wrote:"the enemies treacherously strengthened their defences" really? colorfull, partizan account.
Regarding that allegedly "colorfull, partizan account". It is not colorfull - it is simply the style of writing from that time (17th century). Check the Turkish account above, it is written in a pretty similar style. ;)
pugsville wrote:Nothing genuinely indicates that lancers charged home against STEADY pikes.
You should rather find something which genuinely indictaes that those pikes were not steady. Because the typical condition for pikes is being steady. On the other hand, not being steady is an anomaly.

Normal, typical condition doesn't require to have a "genuine indication" to be proved. But an anomaly does. If there is no genuine proof of an anomaly, a presumption of typical condition should be applied.

By the way - here examples of some other battles in which Hussars fought & defeated pikemen:

- Lubieszow 1577 - German pikemen broken and defeated by Hussars
- Smolensk 1633 - Hussars defeating Russian pikemen & musketeers
- Mogilev 1655 - Hussars defeating Russian pikemen and then participating in street combats
- Domany 1655 - Russian pikemen defeated by Hussars
- Polonka 1660 - victorious combats vs Russian pikemen
- Kutyszcze (near Pidkamin) 1660 - Hussars defeat Russian-Cossack forces (Cuirassiers & infantry)

And surely some other examples, which I don't remember at the moment.

In some of these battles pikemen were steady, in some not (for example at Lubieszow - not).

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Re: Medieval cavalry charges?

#40

Post by Larso » 14 May 2012, 13:08

I see my thread has come alive again. The footage above is of dubious value. Panicked animals will do dumb things. That last horse is more trying to jump that fence than ram it. The other thing is even if the horse can be trained to charge a wall of pikes, it is suicide for the rider. Who would engage in such a charge when the only likely result will be a summersault over the horses head to be impailed on pikes held by men in the back ranks? It's not much good pointing to a handfull of battles which seem to support suicidal charges, better to accept that in the vast majority of battles it simply didn't happen.

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Re: Medieval cavalry charges?

#41

Post by pugsville » 14 May 2012, 13:09

Firstly let me say I'm out of period. Ancient /Middle ages and ww1/ww2 is what I know some stuff about.

The Pikes appear to be shorter and in shallower formations.

- Lubieszow 1577 - German pikemen broken and defeated by Hussars

http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/Lubiesow.htm
"6. On Left wing of Crown Army –when the foote on the right wing were fully engaged in close fighting, the Crown cavalry (200 hussars) attacked again. The attack smashed through the reiters. The reiters, fleeing, entangled with the formation of landsknechts standing behind them. The Hussars, after breaking through the reiters immediately pressed on and broke through the ranks of the German infantry."

Seems to be where the Hussars fought pikes in the battle, and they are clearly disordered.

Wiki version
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lubiesz%C3%B3w
"The landsknechts held their ground before the enemy infantry but finally broke when another two companies of Polish hussars attacked them in the flank."

Flank attack.


- Smolensk 1633 - Hussars defeating Russian pikemen & musketeers

cant find account.

- Mohylew 1655 - Hussars defeating Russian pikemen and then participating in street combats

cant find account.

- Domany 1655 - Russian pikemen defeated by Hussars

cant find account.

- Polonka 1660 - victorious combats vs Russian pikemen

cant find account.


- Kutyszcze 1660 - Hussars defeat much more numerous Russian-Cossack forces (Cuirassiers & infantry)

only account I can find does not mention pikemen.
http://www.radoslawsikora.republika.pl/ ... Liubar.pdf


found this article,

http://home.comcast.net/~gmcdavid/HistN ... ussar.html

Quotes Osprey book on winged hussars
"In fact the few successes of hussars against pikeman occurred before 1629. There are far fewer of them than than the legend suggests, and the hussars rarely achieved victory unassisted. For example, at Lubieszów (1577) during the Danzig Rebellion, 3,000 landsknechts were routed by hussars, but only after they had been engaged frontally by 600 Hungarian _haiduk_ infantry of the the royal guard. Nor were other famous victories such as Pitschen (1588) and Klushino (1610) achieved by the direct charges of hussars on steady pikemen.

The single exception is Kircholm (1605), where about 3,500 Lithuanians managed to trounce a Swedish army of nearly 11,000. But these were not the immaculately trained troops of Gustavus Adolphus. The native Swedish infantry were virtually unarmoured, still reluctant to 'trail' the pike and poorly trained in its use

....it would be quite wrong to generalize from a single battle that the Polish lance was a super-weapon never seen anywhere else in the history of warfare, which allowed hussars to break pikemen as a matter of routine."

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Re: Medieval cavalry charges?

#42

Post by LWD » 14 May 2012, 14:20

Peter K wrote: ... Conclusion - defeating pikemen was possible for Winged Hussars who used very long lances, longer than enemy pikes (which means they could hit first), but while doing this horses often suffered heavy losses.....
Looking at your picture I won't dispute your conclusion but the part ofabout the lancers being able to hit first is questionable. The extreme case you stated was a ~20 foot lance. However the grip is several feet from the butt of the lance and the horse further forward yet. That would mean that they are unlikely to be able to strike before the pikemen. However I suspect the pikemen were not trained against such long lances and even if they were self protection could easily start affecting their aim. The horse casualties would tend to support this.

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Re: Medieval cavalry charges?

#43

Post by LWD » 14 May 2012, 14:27

pugsville wrote:Pikes gotta be 16ft or it's sub standard.
Really? Why? From what I recall the Scottish pikes tended to be about 14' long for instance.
Question both the ability of horsemen to use a very long lance, and the practicality of having different lance sizes for different opponents. On the battlefield constraints dont general allow re-arming for the likely next opponent.
One charge with lances and a signifcant number of your cavalry are going to need to be rearmed anyway. One simply arms them for their intended use that day.

pugsville
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Re: Medieval cavalry charges?

#44

Post by pugsville » 14 May 2012, 15:23

You're fighting a battle, if significant units are going to trot off to camp re-equip and trot back the enemy is likely to take advantage, retirements in most battles are normally bad, bad for moral, often interrupted wrongly by friends, lifts enemies. You re-equip and come back and the situation has changed you going to go back and re-arm again? The sifbificant portion of battles is normally quite short.

Scottish pikes were more long spears. The length of Hussar spears is disputed (arcane polish measurements etc).
see
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=GCW ... y#PPA49,M1

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waldzee
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Re: Medieval cavalry charges?

#45

Post by waldzee » 14 May 2012, 15:43

Peter K. writes:
The same refers also to later times. According to "Eques Polonus" (written in 1628) prices of horses used by Polish Winged Hussars were between 200 (the poorest soldiers) and 1000 - 1500 (the richest soldiers) ducats (1 ducat was equivalent to 44,55 g of silver in 1628). By comparison in the same time (1626 - 1629) in Lwow (today Lviv, Ukraine) you could buy an ox for less than 3,5 ducats (152,5 g of silver).

In other words, 1 combat horse of a Winged Hussar was worth as much as between 58 and 438 oxen.
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Hmmm...
Although I am out of time span here,I can also certify that ox calvary are much slower in the charge, as well as extremely rare at re-enactments... :)
I found one reference to an ox borne warrior terrifying a complete town:
http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=mongo+bla ... 66&bih=565
&
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28khv-B
& plenty of references under "Yaks in world war two" which I have yet to get to...
Last edited by waldzee on 14 May 2012, 22:09, edited 1 time in total.

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