Timeline for How good would a formation of pikemen & archers be against mounted archers?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
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| Oct 25 at 17:16 | comment | added | Questor | @Nosajimiki The infantry weren't chasing down the cavalry. They were trying to beat their buddies to the retreating armies camp so that they get the best loot. For a lot of armies lot from the enemies camp was their only combat bonus. | |
| Mar 7, 2020 at 19:54 | comment | added | Mazura | Really good, or not at all, because you don't send cavalry into walls of spears. "The Saxon's rode horses to battles but always fought on foot." What was the point of horse armour? | |
| Mar 7, 2020 at 14:34 | comment | added | Michael | How much more mobile is cavalry really? Humans with a light rucksack can walk ~40km in a day. How much could medieval war horses do? And how do you supply them on the move? | |
| Mar 7, 2020 at 9:10 | comment | added | Ville Niemi | @Zwuwdz Depends. Infantry would expect to eventually catch heavy cavalry such as cataphrachts since they can simply keep running longer than the horses can. Whether trying it makes any sense under the circumstances is something else. A unit running after cavalry is not really contributing much to the fight, supporting its allies, or capable of responding to enemy actions. Including to the cataphracts turning around and fighting. I think most sane people would just look at the cataphracts going somewhere else and be grateful. | |
| S Mar 7, 2020 at 7:51 | history | suggested | Fivesideddice | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
grammar, formatting etc.
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| Mar 7, 2020 at 7:45 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Mar 7, 2020 at 7:51 | |||||
| Mar 7, 2020 at 1:57 | comment | added | Zwuwdz | Is a feigned retreat a particularly effective tactic (moreso than baseline) when used by cavalry against infantry? I imagine it is possible to pull it off, but if anything infantry would be more likely to say "well no way we're catching those guys" than they would be when fighting other infantry. | |
| Mar 6, 2020 at 23:32 | comment | added | llywrch | If you have a disciplined army (pick your favorite ancient or Early modern unit), sure they will hold their positions. In deCamp's novel, however, you have a band of warrior Goths who see Byzantine Cataphractoi running away the engagement, & seeing this break formation to chase after the enemy & be heroes. I'm not saying a feigned retreat will always work, but it's a possibility that needs to be kept in mind. (Something that should be covered by Skyler's comment about training.) And William the Conqueror did use it with some success in 1066. | |
| Mar 6, 2020 at 22:49 | comment | added | Nosajimiki | @llywrch Why would pikemen try to chase down horsemen? Once a horse is more than a few paces away, any half intelligent human being will simply accept that there is no catching up to it at that point. A feigned retreat would probably work a lot better with an unmounted army. | |
| Mar 6, 2020 at 22:34 | comment | added | llywrch | The one weakness in this infantry setup is if the attacking cavalry could successfully execute a feigned retreat. (See the Wikipedia article for an explanation of this term.) This would cause the infantry to lose formation as they pursued the apparently defeated horsemen, who could then whirl around & cut them down. Of course, that depends on just how eager the infantry would be to chase after enemy horsemen. (Although this tactic almost worked in one of L. Sprague DeCamp's novels.) | |
| Mar 6, 2020 at 21:21 | comment | added | Zwuwdz | I agree with this answer (although mostly based on the Total War series, where generally foot archers counter horse archers pretty well -- more dudes, and longer range, mitigate the horse archer advantage). I did want to note, though, that it is generally considered nice to wait a day to accept an answer. You'll get more answers if you give the whole globe a crack at you question. | |
| Mar 6, 2020 at 20:17 | vote | accept | yirad | ||
| Mar 6, 2020 at 20:14 | comment | added | yirad | I was thinking in that direction. As far as I understand the best advantage of the cavalry army is its mobility so on a flat terrain, they could choose where & when to fight. If the enemy is strong retreat and try to pick off isolated units. | |
| Mar 6, 2020 at 20:07 | history | edited | Skyler | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 602 characters in body
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| Mar 6, 2020 at 19:53 | history | answered | Skyler | CC BY-SA 4.0 |