I think the 93rd were confident in the fact that the Russian cavalry were pants...

Quote from: Matt J on 23 August 2024, 01:54:07 PMI think the 93rd were confident in the fact that the Russian cavalry were pants...

Absolutely (seriously pants!).

But we a similar situation with (not that great) Danish Line infantry v Austrian Cavalry in the First Schleswig War (1848–1852) - rifled muskets being used in a line formation to take-on charging cavalry, rather than the infantry forming into a defensive square.

By 1870, formed cavalry never successfully contacted formed infantry.
But moments like Vron or Von Bredlow's Death Ride skewed opinion that cavalry were still a worthwhile battle force, a myth that continued until late WWI when cavalry was meant to sweep through the gaps in the trenches.
Hence the reliance on lancers as they were felt to have better reach.

Reliance on the lance? Late WWI?
They were carrying rifles, not carbines, short Lee Enfields like the infantry, and were trained in musketry as well as any infantry regiment.
They weren't expected to conduct frontal charges, they were supposed to be a mobile force to exploit a broken demoralised enemy running from the infantry and artillery (and tanks), much as they had always been in many cases.

The return of fluid war in 1918 as Op Michael failed and the Germans cracked, allowed cavalry to be used again.

The Canadian Cavalry Brigade at Le Cateau on 9 October advanced eight miles on a three-mile front and took over 400 prisoners and 100 machine guns, along with several pieces of enemy artillery.

The 5th Dragoon Guards disposed of over 700 Germans when the cavalry attacked them disembarking from a troop train at Harbonniers on 8 August 1918.

Not perhaps attacking formed secure infantry, but then that hadn't worked as well over the preceding couple of centuries as we sometimes like to think. Normally there were other circumstances involved in successful cavalry attacks.
You'll be telling me they were lions led by donkeys next! (Donkey wallopers perhaps )