AH Challenge: Make cavalry king of the battlefield again after 1300

[JimmyJimJam]

Here is the challenge:
(This entire post applies to Western Europe)
Starting a bit before 1300, cavalry was pretty quickly supplanted by infantry. Said cavalrymen began fighting on foot instead, and massed formations of infantry, including infantry armed with missile weapons and pikes took their place.

Is there any way this trend could have been reversed? Are there any tactics that armored cavalrymen could have employed at all to combat archers and pikemen, besides what they did historically (heavy horse barding etc.)?

 

[Makemakean]

Are there any limitations as to what cavalry we are talking about, or could we have war elephants being the cavalry that is king of the battlefield?

What?!

I love war elephants...

Why aren't there more war elephant wanks out there...

 

[Marja]

Elephants are very effective against horse cavalry. And both Pyrrhus and the Carthaginians used elephants effectively against Roman sword-armed infantry. But the Diodachi rarely, if ever, used elephants against each others' pike-armed infantry.

Also, the logistics of elephants are even worse than the logistics of horses.

Cavalry could be the decisive arm for some time though. Didn't the French rely on their heavy cavalry through the Italian wars?

P.S. We need a timeline where vast herds of elephants roam the steppe into modern times...

 

[Elfwine]

Cavalry WAS the decisive arm for some time.

What military history are you reading?


http://www.uscavalryschool.com/cavalry_history.htm

http://greatestbattles.iblogger.org/Renaissance/05_Cavalry.htm

I can find more if you like.

But the development of infantry able to resist cavalry in some circumstances did not demote cavalry until nearly the end of the period of this forum (1863+)



So, yeah, war elephant wank.

Um, you probably need something where elephants can be bred dumber so that they don't run away and trample your own men.

 

[PhilippeO]

Create breed of fast-breeding easy-keeper horse in 1300.


All the ways of fighting cavalry in 1300 is expensive (longbow need years to train, crossbow is complicated and need specialized troops, Swiss/Landsknecht/tercio is need disciplined trained troops), if the price of horse low enough that Ruler can hire cheap cavalrymen instead of infantry, cavalry will king of battlefield again.


on elephant wank :


elephant weakness if how slow maturity is (9-15 years) if they mature faster, they can be domesticated. trait such as less panicky, easier to tame, no mush , etc could be selected

 

[Elfwine]

Create breed of fast-breeding easy-keeper horse in 1300.


All the ways of fighting cavalry in 1300 is expensive (longbow need years to train, crossbow is complicated and need specialized troops, Swiss/Landsknecht/tercio is need disciplined trained troops), if the price of horse low enough that Ruler can hire cheap cavalrymen instead of infantry, cavalry will king of battlefield again.

Cavalry WAS king of the battlefield in this period. Expense didn't have anything to do with its status as battle-winning.

Not undisputed and unbeatable, but it never was never beatable. And cheap cavalrymen...cavalry will always be more expensive than infantry no matter how cheap horses become, because the horse and the training to fight on horseback is always an additional expense.

Seriously, the fact infantry was actually used instead of just being lance fodder does not mean cavalry was not king (though to nitpick, the term king of the battlefield was coined for artillery, that depended heavily on being part of combined arms, otherwise they're too vulnerable).

http://greatestbattles.iblogger.org/Renaissance/16_French.htm

 

[tallwingedgoat]

Here is the challenge:
(This entire post applies to Western Europe)
Starting a bit before 1300, cavalry was pretty quickly supplanted by infantry. Said cavalrymen began fighting on foot instead, and massed formations of infantry, including infantry armed with missile weapons and pikes took their place.

Is there any way this trend could have been reversed? Are there any tactics that armored cavalrymen could have employed at all to combat archers and pikemen, besides what they did historically (heavy horse barding etc.)?

The cavalry needs to convert to projectile weapons as its main tactic. Horse archery remained effective well into the gunpowder era. However the technique was difficult to master and proved a high barrier of entry for non-nomadic peoples. In Europe this problem was resolved by the wheelock horse pistol of the 16th century.

 

[JimmyJimJam]

Cavalry WAS king of the battlefield in this period.

http://greatestbattles.iblogger.org/Renaissance/16_French.htm

So the knight was an equally dominant weapon on the battlefields of 13th century europe as it was on the battlefields of 15th century europe?

 

[Errnge]

Knights and Cavalry are not the same thing

 

[Elfwine]

So the knight was an equally dominant weapon on the battlefields of 13th century europe as it was on the battlefields of 15th century europe?

I don't know if I'd say cavalry was quite as dominant in the age when trained infantry actually existed as in the age of knighthood, but it was still dominant.

Infantry expanded in usage because it was cheap and moar soldiers were desired - you still see armies of up to half cavalry (well beyond the usual medieval ratio, in fact) into the 17th century.

The longbow and dismounted man-at-arms, or pikeman (including pike-and-shot and the terico) were valuable, but not to the point of making cavalry a secondary arm.

Knights and Cavalry are not the same thing

And then there's that. All knights were cavalrymen, not all cavalrymen were knights.

 

[tallwingedgoat]

You could invent shrapnel shells earlier and remove the pike square from the battle field. Once infantry is forced into loose battle order, the cavalry will be dominant.

 

[Elfwine]

You could invent shrapnel shells earlier and remove the pike square from the battle field. Once infantry is forced into loose battle order, the cavalry will be dominant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapeshot Even round shot is fairly effective, but this is the early form of the same principle.

Didn't seem to stop the tight formations of musketmen, why will it do that to pikemen?

Not to mention, what's to stop it from ripping cavalry formations apart just as well? In this alt-development idea, it doesn't seem to have been a problem OTL.

 

[Errnge]

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

Didn't seem to stop the tight formations of musketmen, why will it do that to pikemen?

pikemen cant fire back?

i do think it would be quite effective to blow the formation apart, then have the cavalry swoop in and tear whats left of them to pieces.

 

[Elfwine]

pikemen cant fire back?

i do think it would be quite effective to blow the formation apart, then have the cavalry swoop in and tear whats left of them to pieces.

That's what the "shot" in pike and shot is for anyway. More to the point, what I mean is that the formations were still used - people didn't go to open order in the bad old days despite troops being torn up by it because of reasons that would require radio and similar to correct.

And agreed, but that's not going to make pikemen go away, its going to be a response to the enemy not being able to counter your artillery.

And having more effective artillery is an even worse threat to cavalry's dominance than infantry was to it, in my opinion.

 

[PhilippeO]

> Cavalry WAS king of the battlefield in this period. Expense didn't have anything to do with its status as battle-winning. Not undisputed and unbeatable, but it never was never beatable.

more kingly / more dominant then, make it cheaper to have enough cavalry to break infantry formation than buy your own infantry .

> And cheap cavalrymen...cavalry will always be more expensive than infantry no matter how cheap horses become, because the horse and the training to fight on horseback is always an additional expense.

if the horse is cheap enough that every herder own a pony, then cost of training could be reduced. the goal is make it that its cheaper for king of france to have thousands of jinette than to hire Swiss to fight in Italy.

 

[TemplarKnight]

Elfwine.... You are so correct, just ask the survivors of the Light Brigade about the effect of good artillery on cavalry is.

 

[Elfwine]

more kingly / more dominant then, make it cheaper to have enough cavalry to break infantry formation than buy your own infantry .

Not possible. Infantry is the cheapest possible arm. And making cavalry cheaper doesn't make it more dominant, it still needs to be useful.

Now, you could presumably preserve circumstances that would make having infantry able to stand up to cavalry be uncommon, but that would require something where towns and such places never develop, which has its own consequences - and I'm not sure its possible to prevent them entirely.

if the horse is cheap enough that every herder own a pony, then cost of training could be reduced. the goal is make it that its cheaper for king of france to have thousands of jinette than to hire Swiss to fight in Italy.

Again, even if you reduce it to be much cheaper than OTL...infantry is still cheaper. And trained warhorses (defined as horses used for cavalry, whether as weapons in their own right to the extent a knight's warhorse was or not) are going to be difficult to make cheaper than OTL - no matter how easily fed or fast breeding, they need to be trained too. And then there's the training of horse and rider together. It adds up. Its money well spent, but it adds up.

The Swiss were hired because you need good infantry as well as good cavalry.

So I think this thread is either a) trying for the impossible, or b) missing that OTL met its requirements.

 

[tallwingedgoat]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapeshot Even round shot is fairly effective, but this is the early form of the same principle.

Didn't seem to stop the tight formations of musketmen, why will it do that to pikemen?

Not to mention, what's to stop it from ripping cavalry formations apart just as well? In this alt-development idea, it doesn't seem to have been a problem OTL.

How can you compare grapeshot to shrapnel? The latter actually out range muskets, the former do not.

Cavalry was a key asset against artillery. So long as you're flanking them, and not going the wrong way and taking flanking fire like the incident in the Crimea.

 

[Elfwine]

How can you compare grapeshot to shrapnel? The latter actually out range muskets, the former do not.

What it does to tight formations is about the same, therefore its compatible. Also, musket range is beneath effective artillery range anyway.

http://www.7score10years.com/index....-23-1861-weapons-of-war-the-smoothbore-cannon
http://www.wtj.com/articles/napart/

By comparison:
Musket range extends out to 200 yards only in the sense you might hit "something" at that distance. Half that distance is still long range

Cavalry was a key asset against artillery. So long as you're going straight at them, and not going the wrong way and taking flanking fire like the incident in the Crimea.

But if you're going straight at them, and they're backed by infantry...horses make big damn targets.

I'm not saying artillery alone > cavalry, but that coming up is a sign of tactical incompetence. Or Empire Earth.

 

[PhilippeO]

> Now, you could presumably preserve circumstances that would make having infantry able to stand up to cavalry be uncommon, but that would require something where towns and such places never develop, which has its own consequences - and I'm not sure its possible to prevent them entirely.

is it that easy to stand up to cavalry ? my impression is very difficult to train people to not break when charged. only Swiss and Flanders managed to do that, that why Swiss hired as mercenary.

> Again, even if you reduce it to be much cheaper than OTL...infantry is still cheaper.

doesn't infantry that can stand when charged is very expensive ? did Swiss have a lot of buyer because other town militia couldn't do the same ?