Cavalry tactics

Tactically, the main advantages of cavalry over infantry were greater mobility, a larger impact, and a higher riding position.

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

[1] Female Asian elephants were used, sometimes in small groups, sometimes in vast regiments of thousands of animals in the 13th century,[2] primarily to produce a tactical "shock and awe" effect in the field.

In addition, the large animals provided elevated platforms from which archers could rain down arrows on the enemy, and from which generals could survey the battle.

[3] After encountering elephant cavalry in the Battle of the Hydaspes River, Alexander the Great's troops mutinied and refused to press further into India.

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.

Combined with a lack of developed cavalry tactics and the skittish nature of an untrained horse, fighting on horseback was unintuitive at first.

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 improved the ability of riders to act fast and securely in melées and manoeuvres demanding agility of the horse, but their employment was not unquestioned; ancient shock cavalry performed quite satisfactorily without them.

Modern historical reenactors have shown that neither the stirrup nor the saddle are strictly necessary for the effective use of the couched lance,[7] refuting a previously widely held belief.

Free movement of the rider on horseback were highly esteemed for light cavalry to shoot and fight in all directions, and contemporaries regarded stirrups and spurs as inhibiting for this purpose.

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".

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.

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.

For example, although victorious in the field the Mongols originally had been unable to take the fortified Chinese cities until they managed to capture and enlist the services of Islamic siege engineers.

The Mongols subsequently failed to retake Hungary in 1280 after the Hungarians became more focused on Western European heavy cavalry and castle building.

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.

Frontal assaults of heavy cavalry became considered ineffective against formations of spearmen or pikemen combined with crossbowmen or longbow archers.

Later on, the tactical landscape featured harquebusiers, musketeers, halberdiers, and pikemen, deployed in combined-arms formations and pitted against cavalry firing pistols or carbines.

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).

[citation needed] It sacrificed the cavalry advantages of speed and mobility, while also leaving mounted soldiers at a disadvantage to massed infantry equipped with heavier and longer-ranged weapons.

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.

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.

The warriors stood in tight formations like an ancient 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.

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.

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.