Check out this video from Imgur. My reading says horses won't do that.
https://imgur.com/gallery/IEVhmdd
Someone need to tell the horses.
In a real situation, when the line had sharp pokey things aggressively pointing at the horse, I suspect they would show more common sense.
No pikes apparent. Movie set up but still how did they get the horses to go through?
Quote from: fsn on 12 June 2020, 09:16:38 PM
Someone need to tell the horses.
In a real situation, when the line had sharp pokey things aggressively pointing at the horse, I suspect they would show more common sense.
I've heard it said they'd do it once because they've been trained to, realised how much it hurt then would never do it again!
Guess the closest available comparison/analogy is police horses used in riot control: they get trained to charge at a crowd who throw tennis balls in lieu of real missiles. Do they retire after their first real action?
I also remember an episode of QI where the poor, almost-goldfishesque, memory of horses was discussed. Maybe they just forget after a good rub-down and sugar lump :-
Also, horses must get hurt jumping and eventing, but presumably carry on. Phil, you're the closest thing to an expert we
may have on the forum, can you ask Von for her opinion please? ;)
One of the things we don't know is how cavalry charges resolved, especially cavalry v cavalry. Nobody thought to write it down, because anyone who needed to know , knew. The debate is was it a game of chicken, or did they slow down and fence?
Quote from: fsn on 12 June 2020, 09:16:38 PM
Someone need to tell the horses.
In a real situation, when the line had sharp pokey things aggressively pointing at the horse, I suspect they would show more common sense.
I tend to agree especially when accompanied by noisy, smokey bangs that hurt you (muskets).
Wow, where did the lead infantryman land?
He wrapped his arm around the horse and landed face down between the lines. Didn't move in the video after that.
I have read accounts of cavalry against cavalry where horses were overturned in the "crash". But, I don't believe the author's were participants. I can believe horses falling but not going breast to breast.
However, at Omdurman the 21st Lancers did go through the crush of natives. Also, the charge of the Heavy Brigade in the Crimea. Probably lots of individual melees.
The most useful datum in this old debate is the record from 18th century French military hospitals, where the commonest wound they treated on cavalrymen was a cut to the forearm.
I suspect that it is because the horse thinks it get through due to seeing what it perceives as a gap the infantrymen are not that close together.
Horses arn't the most intelligent of animals, and mostly see out sideways so they may not be aware of the points. However most charges against infantry would try fo an open flank. SYW infantry could easily hold cavalry chagres frontally.
Horses can be trained to do most things. That is why war horse's were such valuable items and proper cavalry horses take some training.
Quote from: ianrs54 on 13 June 2020, 08:01:01 AM
Horses arn't the most intelligent of animals, and mostly see out sideways so they may not be aware of the points. However most charges against infantry would try fo an open flank. SYW infantry could easily hold cavalry chagres frontally.
They're also herd animals who just go as a mass when they stampede! The front rank might realise they're getting hurt, but the main body behind isn't going to realise and will just press on pushing.
Witness hunter gatherers stampeding horses (and elephants) overs cliffs; wildebeest on the Maassai Mara into the river full of crocodiles!
But some horses aren't quite as brain dead as folk think they are.
Having lived with, or more accurately 'around', horses for over 40 years....They vary hugely in intelligence.
Some are way too smart for their own good.
We used to have a little 'section A' pony (Galley)....He was as intelligent as a collie dog.....Show him 'a trick'....which gave him a reward of a polo. (Initially, simply stamping his hooves)...and he would pick this up really quickly.
'Willum'......The last horse that we had to have put down, took a fortnight to learn the same 'Gimme a polo' trick....But he never forgot it.
He was a bit mental (and not the brightest button)...But he had a heart of gold.
Even he, obviously had some sort of memory....because he really knew (remembered) the road we walked him along to get him to his field, when we lived in Notts, near Newark.
Anything different....a crisp packet on the side of the road....New road markings....He'd play silly sods and rear up...."That crisp packet's a threat" !!)
What I could never understand with 'Willum', was that he wouldn't turn a hair if a really massive lorry went past, (if the A1 was closed, and vehicles were being diverted through our last village).....But if said crisp packet, that wasn't there yesterday, appeared.... =).......Blank me !
Willum was the only horse that we ever owned that caused me a trip to casualty, when he put all the half ton of his weight on my right foot. He was off with the fairies, and wasn't looking where he was going....Git ! ;D ;D
Cheers - Phil :)
fair comment Phil
Quote from: Last Hussar on 12 June 2020, 09:29:26 PM
One of the things we don't know is how cavalry charges resolved, especially cavalry v cavalry. Nobody thought to write it down, because anyone who needed to know , knew. The debate is was it a game of chicken, or did they slow down and fence?
I'd love to know far more about how this actually worked.
I've seen rules where the charge is resolved almost instantly, but both sides are pretty much useless after the clash.
I've seen others with daunting lists of reaction checks prior to contact, and lengthy modifiers, making cavalry combat one of the slowest features of the game.
The one i really wonder about is cataphracts against ancient "heavy" cavalry.
It's typically treated using the cavalry Vs cavalry rules, but I have a feeling that the "heavy" cavalry would have a good opportunity to evade their overloaded opponents.
Quote from: kipt on 12 June 2020, 09:26:34 PM
No pikes apparent. Movie set up but still how did they get the horses to go through?
A group of brood mares behind the infantry?
But only the British Nappy cavalry was mounted on stallions, rest mares or geldings. One of the reasons they beat most people.
I was offering a theory (jocular in nature) specific to the question about how they got the horses to charge through the infantry in the vid clip (I envisioned the cavalry to be mounted on incels to boot)! :D
In the categories of horses used in the Middle Ages I think the destrier type was exclusively male (and large alpha ones at that). Could be completely wrong however.
Quote from: Last Hussar on 12 June 2020, 09:29:26 PM
One of the things we don't know is how cavalry charges resolved, especially cavalry v cavalry. Nobody thought to write it down, because anyone who needed to know , knew. The debate is was it a game of chicken, or did they slow down and fence?
Several have already made useful comments about this question. I have been plagued by questions like this concerning pike vs pike. Historical descriptions usual just say "push of pike" (which apparently everyone knew The meaning of the term).
A few years ago I looked at a bunch of vids of mounted police working against crowds (many more examples now). Have not yet found an example where the crowd stands in any disciplined way. That may reflect why heavy cavalry dominated for as long as it did. Cavalry v cavalry is another matter and even harder to figure out. Now if I could find an example of mounted police v mounted police... ;)
I have been charged by Police horses (in training I add), it's very intimidating indeed, a 2 tonne animal moving at 20-30 km/hr straitght at you is a tad worrying.
In the mid-seventies I was a junior draughtsman in a drawing office which was very efficiently run by Mr Anthony Hards, ex Regimental Sergeant-Major of the Blues and Royals. As you could imagine, one of the most senior non-commissioned officers in the British Army, who after twenty-four years' service, (which included action in The Western Desert, The Italian Campaign and Normandy) had one or two wonderful stories to tell.
One of which involved the Colonel of The Regiment wanting to conduct a "Cavalry Charge". I'm guessing this was sometime in the fifties, defiantly post war. Anyway, a trench was dug long enough for half the regiment to take position, while the other half mounted up and from about five or six hundred yards away, charge the trench.
The idea was for the troopers in the trench to shoot volleys of blank rounds at the charging horses, ducking down at the last moment, as the horses jumped over the trench. However, it did not quite go according to the plan. Tony was one of the unfortunates in the trench and could not remember if they fired a single round, because he said, it was the most terrifying experience of his life... Apparently everyone took one look at this pounding, thundering, unstoppable avalanche and immediately found themselves groveling in the bottom of the trench thinking their last moment had come.
A wonderful man, sadly long passed away, but I wish I had had the opportunity to pour him a large whisky and sit with a tape-recorder while he was in full-flow.
Not so defiant, then?
Loads of very sensible comments.
Techno...spot on about horse intelligence. One Holiday horse , ( I liked him!), had 'Great Heart'. My directions were to go AROUND the Big, Muddy Puddle but for some reason, he just 'Ploughed' straight through...(Bless him!? :) ), but maybe it was deeper than HE thought! As the girl said, "We gave you a white horse...why have you got a Zebra?" :(. Same horse Knew where there had been a 'Black Bag', or 'noisy tractor ' Last Year, and would look for it! Point is, If SOME horses WANT to go through a 'problem'...they Will, however stupid it is to do so.
As for cavalry melees...in very open order, riders WOULD 'fence' once in contact...hence the wounds to the fore-arm...'Dis-arm' your opponent, (in whatever manner!), and continue.
As for massed 'Charges'...and to keep cohesion, that would probably have been at The Trot or even The Walk...until the very last seconds... Well, I was not there. However, MY thoughts are that the intention was to 'break' the opponent by sheer MASS before contact. A lot would depend on the time, weaponry and opposition, but as has been mentioned, cavalry can be very frightening to foot...and COWS can trample you in the wrong circumstances. If possible, get out of their way! ;D
In novels, ala Cornwell, etc. a single man CAN bring down a charging horse by a 'swing of a sword/axe/musket butt'...POSSIBLE, and probably DID happen...but I suspect that the 'hero' would have ended up UNDER a whole lot of crazed, dying Horse. On the other hand,..there were the Landschnects, with 'Horse Killer' swords...(VERY HIGH PAY!)? ;D
With massed cavalry...'Boot to Boot', the mass is enormous....both to the opponent, and to the horses involved. I SUSPECT (!), that, to a horse in a mass, just as with a Naoleonic infantry Column, or 'Push of Pike', there is No Place To Go except forwards, however it may wish to baulk. Maybe I'm wrong.
Then, there are SPURS! NOT the modern ones...but, the truly Evil examples from the medieval and renaissance. Now, they 'could' have been a show of 'macho' but some have been found on battlefields. Some poor, bloody horse, in a block, with his flanks getting ripped by points or rowels, WILL go CRAZY...whatever spikes are in the way, it will not care, it MUST escape what is happening to it at that second...and, in a block, the ONLY way to go crazy is forward... :( :(
Of course, a warhorse WAS a very expensive item, but to a Knight or Man At Arms, HIS life and PRESTIGE may have justified the sacrifice, in a battle which could 'set him up' for life.
Maybe the rule where you CANNOT charge formed infantry are right..(.unless you thow D6!)..but...
Poor, Bloody, Horses! :( :(
Just opinions.