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 ! 

Cheers - Phil