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:
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.
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:
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):
Colorful accounts have to be treated with caution.
What criteria do you apply to decide which is colorful and which is not?
"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.
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All photos used in this post come from:
http://radoslawsikora.prv.pl and wikipedia.