Cavalry tactics

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Charge of the French 4th Hussars at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars

For much of history, humans have used some form of cavalry for war and, as a result, cavalry tactics have evolved over time. Tactically, the main advantages of cavalry over infantry were greater mobility, a larger impact, and a higher riding position.

History

Chariots

Celtic
warfare, light chariots (essedum) persisted among mounted troops, for their ability to transport heavily armoured warriors and as mobile command platforms.

War elephants

Elephant cavalry first appeared three thousand years ago, simultaneously in India's

archers
could rain down arrows on the enemy, and from which generals could survey the battle.

The psychological effect of war elephants was often their main tactical use.

Battle of the Hydaspes River, Alexander the Great's troops mutinied and refused to press further into India.[4] However, the animals were often not tractable in battle,[5]
and when faced with determined opponents, would often flee and trample their own infantry in their flight.

Horse cavalry developed tent pegging tactics to deal with elephant cavalry. If they maintained their nerve in the face of the larger mounts, horse cavalry could rout elephant cavalry, especially by moving into close quarters and attacking the elephants' vulnerable feet.[6] The Mongols would loose arrows at their enemy elephants' feet and legs until the elephants ran and trampled over their own army.

Dromedary and camel cavalry

Next to elephants, camels were the tallest and heaviest animals available for cavalry. They are neither as agile nor as fast as

third battle of Panipat. Another advantage was their effect on horses, if the horses had never before encountered camels. In the battle of Pterium experienced Lydian
cavalry suddenly had to struggle with their horses panicking, when trying to face an attack of dromedary riders. The psychological effect of the best trained and most reliable soldiers being overrun in confusion decided the battle.


Riding and fighting on horseback

At first it was not considered effective to use weapons on horseback, but rather to use the horse as transportation. "Mounted infantry" would ride to battle, and then dismount to fight. For a long time, riders and charioteers worked alongside each other in the cavalry. Early domesticated horses were smaller and shorter than the warhorses of later history. Combined with a lack of developed cavalry tactics and the skittish nature of an untrained horse, fighting on horseback was unintuitive at first.

The first recorded instance of

Iranian tribes appearing in Assyrian
records from the 9th century BC.

bow
, for showering the enemy with arrows from a safe distance. The aim on horseback was better than in a jiggling chariot, after it was discovered that the best time to shoot was while all the hooves of the horse were in the air. Nevertheless, an archer in a chariot could shoot potentially stronger infantry bows.

Roman equites. A significant element learned from the Celts was turning on horseback to throw javelins backwards, similar to the Parthian shot with bow and arrows.[citation needed
]

stirrups and spurs as inhibiting for this purpose. Andalusian light cavalry refused to employ them until the 12th century, nor were they used by the Baltic turcopoles of the Teutonic Order in the battle of Legnica
(1241).

An example of

Mongols
. Important for their horse archery was the use of stirrups for the archer to stand while shooting. This new position enabled them to use larger and stronger cavalry bows than the enemy.

Tactics of light cavalry using bows

Mongol
saddle cover

Armies of

horse archers could cover enemy troops with arrows from a distance and never had to engage in close combat. Slower enemies without effective long range weapons often had no chance against them. It was in this manner that the cavalry of the Parthian Empire destroyed the troops of Marcus Licinius Crassus (53 BC) in the Battle of Carrhae. During their raids in Central and Western Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries, Magyar mounted archers spread terror in West Francia and East Francia; a prayer from Modena pleads de sagittis Hungarorum libera nos, domine ("From the arrows of the Hungarians, deliver us, Lord")[8][citation needed
]

Another fairly popular tactic was known as "shower shooting". The

Sassanid Persians and the Mamluks were the chief proponents of the idea, although Muslim cavalry in India had also been known to use it in battle. It involved a line of fairly well-armoured cavalrymen (often on armoured horses) standing in a massed static position, or advancing in an ordered formation at the walk while loosing their arrows as quickly as possible. It was very effective against unsteady enemies who could easily be unnerved by the sight of a vast cloud of arrows raining down upon them; however, an enemy provided with good armour and discipline would often be able to hold out at least temporarily against the barrage. A case in point is Procopius's accounts of Belisarius's wars against the Sassanids[9]
where he states how the Byzantine cavalry engaged in massed archery duels against their Persian counterparts. The Persians loosed their arrows with far greater frequency, but as their bows were much weaker, they did not do much damage compared to the stronger Roman bows.

The great weakness of mounted archers was their need of space and their light equipment (compared to contemporary heavy cavalry). If they were forced to fight in close combat against better armoured enemies, they usually lost. Furthermore, they were not suited for participating in

, practically lived on horseback.

The

Seljuk sultan, Kilij Arslan I, were able to surround an army of Crusaders and shoot them from a distance. Suddenly, reinforcements under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon arrived, and the Seljuks themselves were encircled. They could no longer escape and were annihilated in close combat. The defeat of the Seljuks at Dorylaeum was so complete that the Crusaders then crossed Anatolia
virtually unchallenged.

Tactics of heavy cavalry using lances

Sultan of Granada

Medieval European

. The attack began from a distance of about 350 m (1,150 ft) and took about 15–20 seconds to cross the contemporary long range weapon's effective distance. A most important element, and one not easily mastered, was to stay in one line with fixed spaces while accelerating and having the maximum speed at impact. Often knights would come in several waves, with the first being the best equipped and armored. The lance as a primary weapon pierced the enemy. If an enemy soldier was hit in full gallop by a knight's lance couched under the armpit, he was thrown backwards with such a momentum that he knocked over several of his compatriots, and was more often than not, killed; in some cases, the lance would even skewer the man and kill or wound the soldier behind him. The heavy lances were dropped after the attack and the battle was continued with secondary mêlée weapons, such as swords, battle axes, war hammers, or maces.

The Persians deployed their

Mongolian heavy cavalry improved upon the charging effect by attaching hooks to their lances to take enemies down when bypassing. Usually, employed a two-ranks deep formation of heavy cavalry charging the enemy. They were supported by three ranks of light cavalry, delivering rapid closeup shots with heavy armour-breaking arrows. Chinese and Japanese cavalry often used polearms. Both handled their primary weapons in the two-handed Asian style. This method of charging attack was very effective, but it depended very much on favourable ground on the chosen battlefield.[citation needed
]

Many knights during Medieval battles fought on foot.[citation needed] Attacks would be carried out on horseback only under favorable conditions. If the enemy infantry was equipped with polearms and fought in tight formations it was not possible to charge without heavy losses. A fairly common solution to this was for the men-at-arms to dismount and assault the enemy on foot, such as the way Scottish knights dismounted to stiffen the infantry schiltron or the English combination of longbowmen with dismounted men-at-arms in the Hundred Years' War. Another possibility was to bluff an attack, but turn around before impact. This tempted many infantrymen to go on the chase, leaving their formation. The heavy cavalry then turned around again in this new situation and rode down the scattered infantry. Such a tactic was deployed in the Battle of Hastings (1066).

A further improvement of fighting ability was the use of well-armed infantry reserves during knightly battles on horseback. After some time, the battle would often split into several small groups, with space in between, and both sides would become exhausted. Then, an infantry rush could concentrate on selected targets and rout the enemy. Infantry also helped knights to remount in battle and aided the wounded.

Polish hussar formation at the Battle of Klushino 1610 – painting by Szymon Boguszowicz 1620

The

Chocim (1621), Martynów
(1624), Trzciana (1629), Ochmatów (1644),
Polish-Muscovite War, the Russians and Swedes outnumbered the commonwealth army five-to-one, yet were soundly defeated.[11][12]

Tactics of heavy cavalry using bows and javelins

The death of King Gustavus II Adolphus on 16 November 1632, at the Battle of Lützen
An Ottoman Mamluk, from 1810

Attempts at integrating ranged weapons and heavy cavalry were, for example, made by the

Persians, equipping their heavier cavalry with bows and javelins. Prior to charging, the enemy would be weakened by repeated missile attacks from combined light cavalry and heavy cavalry (cataphracts).[10] This tactical system was adopted by the Romans, as attested by the presence of an "equites sagittarii clibanarii" unit in the Notitia Dignitatum,[13] and passed down into the tactical repertoire of their Byzantine successors.[14][15]

An enemy who could suddenly strike and retreat using

guerilla warfare
tactics was a serious problem for the heavy cavalry. It was therefore important to have enough light cavalry to support the heavier mounted units.

As mentioned earlier, heavy cavalry with lances were always supported by ranged combat units. They could be heavily armoured archers, like cataphracts or clibanarii with bows, advancing together with the charging cavalry. This bow-armed cavalry could loose their arrows as they advanced in the early stages of their charge with the intention of weakening and demoralizing the enemy formation prior to the moment of shock, possibly in shower shooting style. While the enemy was usually capable of countering with equal measures of ranged combat, the horse archers often wore protective equipment, so the changeover from light to heavy cavalry is not always clear and it seems in cases they formed the second charging rank. A similar tactic of heavy skirmishers developed in Late Medieval Europe, employing the easier to handle crossbow. Frontal assaults of heavy cavalry became considered ineffective against formations of spearmen or pikemen combined with crossbowmen or longbow archers. Most of the cavalrymen wore armour that could be penetrated by contemporary crossbows at close ranges. It resulted in the development of new cavalry tactics, whereby knights and mounted mercenaries, deployed in deep triangular wedges, with the most heavily armoured men (especially those able to afford armoured horses) being deployed in the front ranks. To increase its effect, part of the formation would carry small, powerful all-metal crossbows of their own. These mounted crossbowmen could sally out from the rear ranks to provide a skirmish screen or a preliminary barrage of bolts.

Later on, the tactical landscape featured

pikemen, deployed in combined-arms formations and pitted against cavalry firing pistols or carbines. One of the cavalry tactics employed in such encounters was the caracole, developed in the mid-16th century in an attempt to integrate gunpowder weapons into cavalry tactics. Equipped with one or two wheellock pistols, cavalrymen would advance on their target at less than a gallop. As each rank came into range, the soldiers would turn away, discharge their pistols at the target, retire to reload and then repeat the manoeuvre. Early on, they had an advantage in firepower, but infantry firepower eventually increased. With the invention of the bayonet, the pike screen against charges could also be turned into a rank of firing soldiers. This tactic was accompanied by the increasing popularity of the German reiters in European armies from about 1540, or similar equipped, but usually more lightly armoured hakkapeliitta
. Their main weapons were two or more pistols and a sword; initially, most wore three-quarters armour, though as time passed this was reduced to a helmet and a cuirass over a leather coat; sometimes they also carried a long cavalry firearm known as an arquebus or a carbine (although this type of horsemen soon became regarded as a separate class of cavalry – the arquebusier or, in Britain, harquebusier).

Modern historians regard the caracole as a tactical system that ultimately proved ineffective.[

cuirassiers
would receive the enemy's charge by splitting apart to either side, and then charging back into the flanks of the overextended enemy.

Some historians associate the demise of the caracole with the name of

Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (1594–1632). He regarded the technique as fairly inefficient and forbade the cavalry regiments in Swedish employment from using it. However, he was definitely not the first military commander to dismiss the caracole; François de la Noue, in his account of his service under Henry IV of France, mentioned that the pistol-armed Protestant cavalry used their weapons much like very long swords or lances, charging fiercely against the enemy formation before discharging the pistols at point-blank range (or even laying the pistol's muzzle directly against the opponent's armour before firing). There is reason to believe that the Sweders were influenced by Henry IV's ideas, whether directly or through Dutch mediation – especially by the agency of Swedish officers who served in the Low Countries (Eighty Years' War), such as Jacob De la Gardie
.

Infantry countertactics

Against light cavalry with bows and javelins

It was impossible for infantry to engage light cavalry with bows and javelins in close combat on ground that did not seriously hinder cavalry movement. The only resort for engagement were missile weapons in ranged combat. In this case both cavalry and infantry fought only in a missile exchange. While the infantry can be considered static in comparison to the cavalry, their own protection, the damage their missiles would cause and the hit rate were important.

For example, in the prelude to the Battle of Mohi, crossbowmen protected by pavises sniped at the Mongol light cavalry, resulting in a tactical defeat of this Mongol unit, although the Mongols did go on to win the overall battle.[16]

The defence of such ranged combat units was important, for cavalry could always switch roles and engage the ranged combat infantry (often lightly armored skirmishers) in close combat.

Against heavy cavalry with lances

The

Poitiers (1356), the French knights suffered heavy casualties against the Welsh and English longbowmen
. The ability to keep several arrows in the air at any given time was an important advantage of the medieval archer. Thus, while a cavalry charge followed a strict pattern of acceleration (400 m (1,300 ft) in 2 minutes, gallop at the last 150 m (490 ft)) from a distance beyond effective missile range, once they came within range they could be met with a hail of arrows that could severely injure both horse and rider alike. However, unsupported light infantry and archers would not be able to cause enough casualties to a cavalry force, if it were charging across suitable terrain, to tip the odds in their favour in the following melee. Thus, it was always advisable for missile troops to fight on terrain disadvantageous to cavalry charges, and with supporting heavy infantry close by.

The long spears (

phalanx, the end of their pikes embedded in the ground, presenting a massive spiked wall. In battle against the Scots, the English knights proved to be as narrow-minded as their French counterparts, employing the classic cavalry charge despite the new challenge of the Scottish pike. In the battles of Stirling Bridge (1297) and Bannockburn (1314) they were defeated by the Scots. While the English imitated this tactic successfully against the French, the Swiss perfected it. Despite longer lances for the knights, this formation was now almost impenetrable. Pikemen with polearms remained an important part of armies throughout the Thirty Years' War. Later tactics used against this formation included caracole
maneuvers with ranged weapons. However, a well-trained cavalry force could outflank a force of enemy pikemen on even terrain and triumph. The most elite knights, with the best armour, immense prowess and extremely-well trained horses, could charge pike formations and still, even if only scarcely, hold their own, sometimes even triumphing; however, the cost to raise and maintain such troops was enormous and impractical when considering alternative options to the head-on charge.

Lancers needed firm even ground and ample unobstructed space for a cavalry charge to be effective. Opponents could limit avenues for such charges by deploying their forces near rivers, marshes, woodlands, or other types of rough terrain. The later Roman generals were able to defeat the Parthian Cataphracts by securing their flanks. The Scots did this at Bannockburn and Stirling, and in nearly all their guerilla fighting against the English, as did the Welsh to a great extent. The Swiss defeated the Austrian knights at the Battle of Morgarten (1315) by attacking the knightly army in a narrow place between an acclivity and a swamp. The peasants of Dithmarschen faced in 1500, at Hemmingstedt, the army of the Danish
king. They opened the dykes and flooded the country. If the terrain was not well suited for a cavalry attack, knights often fought on foot and used their lances as pikes.

New tactics of light cavalry and mounted infantry

With increasing firepower and no sufficient protection, the role of cavalry on the battlefield was slowly reduced. Light cavalry with firearms could return fire, but the aim from a moving platform was not as good as for infantry. So most important for cavalry was the ability to quickly attack enemy cavalry or scattered infantry with lances and sabres. Speed reduced the time vulnerable to gunfire, but still closed formations became impossible to defeat. This tactic was a striking surprise of Mongolian light cavalry in the battle of the Kalka River. The alternative was to use them as dragoons, reaching their positions quickly, dismounting, and fighting like infantry, often with projectile weapons. Such a way of fighting had started in Europe at least in the mid-13th century with mounted longbow and crossbow archers, but was also employed by the Mongols with their Buryatian longbows.

Cavalry in modern warfare

Cavalry is featured in modern warfare with cavalrymen retaining the light cavalry missions, albeit the missions of reconnaissance and security remain the same. Heavy cavalry, as such, has its role of shock effect fulfilled by tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles.

Land cavalry

Since the early 20th century, the use of horses and other animals for frontline cavalry has been largely supplanted by infantry fighting vehicles and armored cars. The first regular cavalry unit to mechanize was the 11th Hussars of the British Army, switching from horses to armored cars in 1928. Since then, many cavalry units have mechanized and switched to armored vehicles and armed helicopters, with horses only being used for ceremonial purposes, if not phased out of service entirely. However, some modern units, such as the Indian Army's 61st Cavalry and some People's Liberation Army's border units in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, continue to use horses on deployments.

Examples of modern military vehicles built specifically for the cavalry role include the

M113 ACAV
.

Air cavalry

Air cavalry, originally sky cavalry[17] is a United States Army term that refers to helicopter-equipped units that perform reconnaissance, screening, security, and economy-of-force missions. The term and unit designation properly only refers to those squadrons (i.e., battalion-level organizations), and some independent troops (i.e., companies), affiliated with historical U.S. cavalry regiments, that perform the traditional cavalry mission. After the Vietnam War, there also existed one independent brigade-sized air cavalry organization, the 6th Air Cavalry Combat Brigade.[18]

U.S. air cavalry squadrons consisted of three air cavalry troops, one armored cavalry troop, and a headquarters and headquarters troop. The air cavalry troops consisted of an aero-scout platoon, an aero-weapons platoon, an aero-rifle platoon, a service platoon, and a headquarters and operations platoon. The troop was commanded by a major, with a captain as executive officer, and a troop first sergeant. Each platoon was commanded by a captain with a lieutenant as assistant platoon commander/section leader and a sergeant first class as platoon sergeant.[citation needed]

References

  1. ^ War Elephants in Ancient and Medieval China, Edward H. Schafer, Oriens, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Dec. 31, 1957)
  2. ^ Chau Ju-kua, Travels in Chola (F Hirth & W W Rockhill, St Petersburg, 1912)
  3. ^ John C. Rolfe, Ammianus Marcellinus (Harvard University Press, 1956)
  4. ^ JFC Fuller, The Generalship of Alexander the Great (Da Capo Press, 1989)
  5. ^ Flavius Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (Loeb Classical Library translation, 1912)
  6. ^ A Maharaj, Tent Pegging with Unicef Team Canada Archived 2007-02-06 at the Wayback Machine (retrieved 30 January 2007)
  7. ^ "Saddle, Lance and Stirrup". Archived from the original on 2012-08-23. Retrieved 2016-07-21.
  8. ^ Bloch, Marc (1989). Feudal Society, Vol. 1. tr. L. A. Manyon. London: Routledge. p. 41.
  9. ^ History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) by Procopius - Project Gutenberg
  10. ^ a b History of Iran: Parthian Army
  11. ^ Brzezinski, Richard and Velimir Vukšić, Polish Winged Hussar 1576–1775, (Osprey Publishing Ltd., 2006), 6.
  12. ^ Polish armies 1569–1696. Richard Brzeziński
  13. ^ Notitia Dignitatum
  14. .
  15. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-02-06. Retrieved 2006-11-20.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  16. ^ Verbruggen 1997.
  17. ^ p.73 Banks, Herbert C. editor 1st Cavalry Division: A Spur Ride Through the 20th Century From Horses to the Digital Battlefield Turner January 1, 2003
  18. ^ 6th Cavalry Brigade (Air Combat) (21 February 1975 - 16 June 2005) http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/6cav.htm. Retrieved 19 December 2016.

External links