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!7w8a5jwSBg 08/17/11(Wed)20:24 No.17849667Cavalry's effectiveness, and the infantry counter to their tactics, depends a lot on exactly what time you're fighting in.
One
thing that's generally true of most eras up the 1700s is cavalry tends
to know what they're doing, and infantry tends to be conscripted grunts
who don't. Even so, Cavalry would usually use their superior mobility to
flank the enemy and charge them down, which tended to break morale and
immediately end the battle. Most battles were usually not terribly
bloody by the standards of more modern set-piece conflicts, the two
sides would clash, and whoever broke first lost. Since there's no radios
or other forms of efficient communication, if your army breaks and runs
off it's a matter of weeks or even months before you're able to form a
fighting force again, by which point the war is probably already lost.
By
the later medieval era the lance had been developed, which allowed
armored knights to attack from any direction. Since the lance was
counterbalanced and used from horseback, it could stretch beyond the
infantry spears and halberds. Lancers could charge a line and usually
the front line will simply break before they ever get there. Heavy
cavalry were armed with larger and larger lances, eschewing other arms,
so that they could charge in, hit with the lance, and then wheel around
and hit again, avoiding getting stuck in. Meanwhile light cavalry
carried light spears or cavalry swords, and were designed for closer-in
fighting, as well as harrying the flanks and chasing down retreating
units.
The real kings of the battlefield were often the archers.
Cavalry was often more focused on preemptively killing the enemy archers
rather than charging into solid lines of infantry. Archers could kill
infantry far faster and at less cost anyway. |
