How Terrifying is it to fend off elite heavy cavalry (such as Knights,Samurai,dragoons) with Spears?

[Tripledot]

I'm actually quite confused about that one as well.A lot of people have said that cavalry don't charge into solid blocks of men like in movies,but at the same time,if that's true,why the heck is cavalry such a fearsome tool of war?In otl,the Romans actually transferred from a military emphasis on professionally trained infantry to cavalry,so there must be merit of cavalry over well-disciplined infantry,given cavalry's much more expensive to equip and train than infantry and on a much smaller scale.

Cavalry is good at skirmishing, scouting, and harassing baggage trains. They are also far more maneuverable on the battlefield for obvious reasons. They are also far better at capturing/killing a routed enemy army. The reason why the Romans probably went from focusing on infantry tactics to cavalry is that they weren't fighting huge pitched battles anymore, and were trying to secure their vast amounts of territory. With manpower as a problem, using horsemen would be a more efficient way to defend large amounts of land from raiders and skirmishing forces.

 

[Tripledot]

As for the effectiveness of cavalry charges against spearmen, that also depends somewhat on the length of the lances. For example, the Polish hussars would have twenty foot long lances, which of course makes fending them off with spears a dicey proposition.

 

[Balaur]

Horses don't like to run head-long into pointy, stabby objects just like any other creature. They can be trained to force their way through and actually run head-long into it (A lot of the time, the riders would have the horses head up in the air, since horses only have lateral vision, they can't see what is below them, just directly in front of them).

It would normally be a very "chicken" style of game. Having dozens if not hundreds of horses charging straight at you is a very nerve racking thing. I've been in re-enactments myself and it is truly terrifying. On top of that though, if the Spearmen don't have any backing units like base line infantry, or Calvary of their own. Then all they need to do is have part of the unit go around the flank of the spear-wall and one of the two groups would be able to smash into their rear. Spear-men also wouldn't be carrying a shield on their person (more then likely) as the weapon simply would not have allowed it. Spears (or pikes, whatever you want to call them) cannot be handled with one hand, ones that are specially made for one handed use can be, but a regular spear is simply too long and heavy to be wielded with one hand effectively.

For centuries, Calvary were used more as a secondary arm then anything. Infantry was (generally) the cream of any army as they were the main sluggers and the most numerous to have in a battle. The Calvary role was normally meant as a skirmisher, recon, supply, turning flanks etc. But could also be used to prevent enemy Calvary from coming on your flank, as a way to counter archers (From what I've read, it was seldom that archer units would be giving any direct protection by another unit. It seems rather odd to me that it would be the case but I've yet to find any direct evidence that it was the norm.) and their main advantage is being able to be used as a highly mobile unit to exploit a break in the enemy lines (a gap between two infantry units more often then not)

Spears absolutely can be handled with one hand, and spearmen ARE "base line infantry". The obvious example is hoplites, who wielded a 10 foot spear single handed, but virtually everyone else also used spears single handed. This is less agile than wielding it two handed, but the protection of a shield and the reach of a spear is absolutely worth it. Anyone without a shield or armour was dead meat in a pre-modern battle, and a shield is cheaper than even a gambeson. Even pikes could be used with a shield, like the Macedonian phalangites. IIRC some Scottish pikemen also used targes strapped to their arms.

Archers would often be well equipped enough to fight in close combat. Even if they didn't, melee fighters would be close at hand. Plenty of medieval illustrations show archers and polearm infantry in mixed formations, with the polearm troops standing at the back ready to move forwards to protect the archers. Crossbowmen would often work with a Pavissier wielding a spear and massive shield, protecting the crossbowmen while he reloaded or if they were caught in close combat. Ancient middle eastern armies had a similar arrangement, with archers in deep blocks protecting by spear and shield men to the front.

 

[Daztur]

Running cavalry headlong into pikes is usually dumb. Horses aren't dumb enough to plow right in so charges would often peter out as the horses slow IIRC.

But if you can pierce the enemy line in one place it can be worth it.

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

To give you a short but pertinent description of note.

At the Battle of Rayy during the Abbasid civil war, the forces of Ali ibn Isa ibn Mahan with an army of around 45k troops engaged Tahir ibn Husayn. Tahir ibn Husayn with an army of 7k-10k engaged the enemy army on the field.

With a shroud of arrows peppering the army of ibn Mahan, Tahir ibn Husayn ordered his cavalry wing, made up of fearsome Khursani nobles trained in the old Sassanid form of cavalry combat, to hit the center of the Abbasid army and crush it and to take the head of Ibn Mahan. This dispatch using the arrow fire behind them, forced the enemy infantry to a position where all out spear thrusts were too dangerous. Thus, the cavalry crushed into the main center of the enemy force and within minutes, the battle was over as the very centre of the Abbasid army was crushed and Ibn Mahan was killed and his body visible on a horse now laid on the ground. His entire force of 40k+ forces turned and fled for Iraq.

One of the most masterful examples of a underdog victory and a terrifying note of the effectiveness of cavalry charges.

EDIT: Sorry, That I only seem to use Islamic and especially Abbasid period battlefield examples for your questions.

 

[Avrorrange]

Assuming that the enemy has no spearmen but is stuck as a solid block with just shields and swordsmen/axemen,can cavalry still charge into the infantry?One of the allegations of people was that horse aren't stupid enough to charge into a solid block of men.

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

Assuming that the enemy has no spearmen but is stuck as a solid block with just shields and swordsmen/axemen,can cavalry still charge into the infantry?One of the allegations of people was that horse aren't stupid enough to charge into a solid block of men.

Horses had to be trained to do so and heavily armored. My example at the Battle of Rayy shows this and many other Islamic period battles that I can pull up, that show cavalry charging and trampling infantry blocks or halting infantry charges simply by their presence causing utter terror in enemy forces.

 

[LSCatilina]

Assuming that the enemy has no spearmen but is stuck as a solid block with just shields and swordsmen/axemen,can cavalry still charge into the infantry?

Not that easily, if the contemporary accounts of the Battle of Tours or the Battle of Hastings are any use :

- for what matter the Battle of Tours, the Arabo-Berber cavalry faced a shildwall (probably from the frankish mounted infantry) that was compared to an ice wall made of shield and swords which allowed the Aquitain-Basque cavalry to attack the rear of Arabo-Berber forces

- As for the Battle of Hastings, the Saxon shieldwall, with footmen mostly armed with axes and swords (altough, according the Bayeux Tapestry, they still had spears but they're don't seem to be used in a particularily anti-charge manner and may have been rather hurled and projetted than held, making them more javeleens than spears in the less ancient sense), seems to have reasonably worked, forcing Normans and their allies to be stuck on the lower part of the battleground for a while. The Song of the Battle of Hastings, possibly the earlier source on the battle, call the battle as almost a defeat for Normans. Eventually, it was whoever had a more disciplined army, and who had the "eye" for using opportunities as the withdrawal (probably much more routed than feigned) of Breton and Norman forces.

It's not that easy to force an horse to charge against a shieldwall or a compact and disciplined force : it generally goes down to whoever can stand its position the best after the first tactical moves, and if the attacker can spot opportunities on the battlefield (or, at the contrary, if he's distracted).

 

[BlondieBC]

It's not all of the story, but it's certainly some of the story. Morale is important in warfare, both national and individual.

Morale is the the physical as 3 is to 1. I used to think this was just hyperbole, but the older I get, the closer I believe it is to the truth.

 

[James XI]

The heavy cavalry charge dominated warfare for centuries for a reason.

Re-enactment studies have shown that, even under those circumstances where the 'infantry' knows they're not going to be harmed/killed, they are undergoing off the charts anxiety/terror. Heart rates spike dangerously high, hyperventilation, the ground literally shakes under your feet, the sound is louder than thunder, hands gets slick with sweat, limbs lose strength/coordination, bladders/bowels open, vision and hearing become affected, etc. And even in the modern age, with test subjects accustomed to Mack trucks and trains and the like, they universally talk about the fear of the sheer size/mass of the horses coming towards them. In an age when they'd have been the biggest thing going, and they really were coming to kill you, it must have seeme suicidal, like a modern man standing in front of an oncoming train, gambling that the conductor will stop it in time. Your entire nature is screaming at you to run away...your fight/flight switc has been flipped and you can't even try and balance it by aggression, you're just going to stand there and hope what you were (often briefly) taught comes true...because every brain cell and evolutionary instinct is telling you that this is sheer madness.

And it very often was. Movies and Cornwell et al have revised perceptions to where it's simply a pragmatic calculation, horses won't charge spears, so just stand your ground, but...

1) Everyone knew that during the centuries the HC charge dominated, too. It wasn't some Renaissance notion. But it was still the decisive arm for so long because knowing something as an academic truth, and gambling your life on it in the moment are very, very different things. Soldiers in the phalanx age also all knew that most casualties happened after one side breaks...so just don't break, right? But no, they still broke.

2) Heavy cavalry horses were specifically trained for their agressiveness and courage. So, in spite of nature, they still often DID charge headlong into spears...and even if you impale a charging heavy horse, the odds are it will still push deeply into you/your ranks, causing all kinds of destruction. So you can win and still lose, as an individual.

3) Remember, too, that it's not just your fear you need to overcome to withstand a charge. You need to be sure that the guys around you will do likewise. Otherwise you're the sitting duck standing there doing the right thing on his own. This is an incredibly important factor. Any sense that your neighbours are breaking/about to break almost inevitably leads to your fight/flight instinct, already kicking into overdrive due to imminent big metal death charging towards you, pretty much taking control of the ship and you'll just run away on autopilot.

Cavalry charges were still very effective well into the modern age. Remember the disastrous charge of the Light Brigade? Pure folly, an absolute mass suicide, perfect death trap...and yet many still got through and penetrated the Russian lines....people forget that. Russian soldiers afterwards even talked about being terrified in the face of the oncoming charge, in spite of the fact that the majority didn't have a chance of even reaching them.

Because the cavalry charge's de-romanticization in the past few decades has in fact created an alternate fiction wherein it's just a matter of long sticks and guts. But it's not. Yes, if you are going to win you need those, but those don't mean you're going to win, and the fact that you can eventually train men to stand in there doesn't mean they'll succeed. In the Napoleonic age men could be trained to calmly march in slow step, pause, kneel, load, fire, stand, reload, fire etc. in the face of enemy fire and artillery...doesn't mean it wasn't often suicidal to do so. And we know that experience doesn't render men immune to the terror of facing a charge...veterans who had survived many cavalry charges were still wont to break in the moment. Until gunpowder, it was far and away the most terrifying event a soldier would ever see in his life, and all the training and experience in the world couldn't make that untrue in that moment where you're standing on shaking ground with sweaty hands, a heart bursting in your chest, eyes dimming and blurring with sweat, the growing sound of approaching thunder as huge iron clad monsters are coming right for you, right at you, and all you've got is a stick and the hope your mates with sticks won't do what your instincts are screaming for you to do too; get the hell out of the way of the oncoming deathtrain.

 

[Balaur]

Assuming that the enemy has no spearmen but is stuck as a solid block with just shields and swordsmen/axemen,can cavalry still charge into the infantry?One of the allegations of people was that horse aren't stupid enough to charge into a solid block of men.

A solid block of soldiers with hand weapons is pretty unlikely. Pretty much everyone equipped their heavy infantry with spears of some sort, and even if they preferred to throw them and then fight hand to hand with swords(like the Romans) they could still be used against cavalry in an emergency. Of course, if you've already thrown your spear, or the cavalry have lances longer than your spear, then you're in trouble. The romans seem to have had persistent problems beating heavy cavalry-of course, being Romans, they just recruited their own heavy cavalry.
A good account of an attack by cavalry on a group of infantry armed with swords, spears and rifles is Winston Churchill at the battle of Omdurman. He describes infantryman being stunned by the force of impact, riders bing thrown from their horses and having to be rescued by their comrades, point-blank shooting and attempts to cut at reins. it can be read here

 

[takerma]

In addition to everything said, timing of the charge was always the key. Often line of infantry would be peppered by arrows, flanks might be threatened, it is possible that skirmishers would ride close to shoot arrows, throw javelins etc. This might go for hours.. Idea is to disrupt the line finding a moment when charge can break enemy and turn them to rout.

 

[Balaur]

In addition to everything said, timing of the charge was always the key. Often line of infantry would be peppered by arrows, flanks might be threatened, it is possible that skirmishers would ride close to shoot arrows, throw javelins etc. This might go for hours.. Idea is to disrupt the line finding a moment when charge can break enemy and turn them to rout.

Not to mention if the cavalry were smart, they would first drive off the enemy cavalry, then fall on the flanks and rear of the enemy foot while they were occupied with friendly infantry.

Another trick cavalry could use would to charge to force the enemy into a defensive formation, then blast them with artillery while they were in squares, like the cavalry attacks at Waterloo.

 

[frustrated progressive]

So it seems like a heavy infantry formation could stop a cavalry charge, but that wasn't what usually happened, and the former outcome was dependent on, in addition to good equipment and discipline on the infantry's part, some other factor such as good defensive terrain or bad enemy leadership?
How likely, in terms of a (hypothetical of course) percentage, was it that a well-equiped and well-ordered mass of pikemen could stop a cavalry charge without any extra factors like those mentioned above?

 

[Balaur]

So it seems like a heavy infantry formation could stop a cavalry charge, but that wasn't what usually happened, and the former outcome was dependent on, in addition to good equipment and discipline on the infantry's part, some other factor such as good defensive terrain or bad enemy leadership?
How likely, in terms of a (hypothetical of course) percentage, was it that a well-equiped and well-ordered mass of pikemen could stop a cavalry charge without any extra factors like those mentioned above?

The cavalry attacking the pikes in an even fight is bad enemy leadership. Successful cavalry attacks on pikes that actually drove them off the field would be on units that had already been shot up by friendly archers(like at Falkirk) or charging into them from the sides, while they were fighting infantry to the front(pretty much any 17th century battle where a flank attack carried the day). A good commander will always try to get every advantage over the enemy and use their own troops strengths to attack the enemies weaknesses.

Another factor is what sort of cavalry are we talking about here? Cavalry with missile weapons could pick pikemen apart at a safe distance even if they couldn't charge into them(musketeers don't seem to have been much good to defend against this, since they wouldn't have room to load and shoot inside a pike block) Cavalry with armoured horses could just bulldoze straight through the pikes without risking any casualties.

So, as always, the answer is: It depends

 

[Tripledot]

Running cavalry headlong into pikes is usually dumb. Horses aren't dumb enough to plow right in so charges would often peter out as the horses slow IIRC.

But if you can pierce the enemy line in one place it can be worth it.

It's not really about raising horses "dumb enough" to charge into dense enemy formations, but raising horses aggressive enough to do such a thing. War horses aren't going to be as skittish as civilian riding horses, considering they'd have to put up with the din of battle, potentially getting injured by swords, arrows, and polearms, and in later centuries guns being discharged practically next to their heads. If a horse can be trained to not be afraid of the above, I seriously doubt they'd be scared of a line of pointy sticks.

 

[Saphroneth]

It's not really about raising horses "dumb enough" to charge into dense enemy formations, but raising horses aggressive enough to do such a thing.

This is one reason why I think the cavalry charge in Return of the King is a great example. Basically you've got a whole ten-thousand-strong force of berserk vikings and horses, and they do not give enough f*cks about the line of orc pikemen to slow down - so the orcs waver, and then as soon as some of them lose concentration and begin to break that's it.

 

[Tripledot]

This is one reason why I think the cavalry charge in Return of the King is a great example. Basically you've got a whole ten-thousand-strong force of berserk vikings and horses, and they do not give enough f*cks about the line of orc pikemen to slow down - so the orcs waver, and then as soon as some of them lose concentration and begin to break that's it.

And of course, it makes sense from a storytelling viewpoint that the Rohirrim would frontally charge Sauron's army. They are unconcerned with losing horses, or even losing men, because it's a desperate last stand, and they honestly don't think they'll live to see the end of the battle. I think cavalrymen not wanting to lose their horses (and not wanting to get unhorsed and possibly die) would be a bigger reason why cavalry wouldn't frontally charge a spear wall than their horses being skittish.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Terrifying, you also have to 100% trust that the rest of the people at your back aren't going to run away because the more people in the wall the less likely you are to die.

Even just a couple of people legging it can start a chain reaction of panic and leave the front of the wall (who lets face it may well die because even shanking the horse is going to break the spear and potentially see a dead horse or living rider come flying towards them at 20mph+) isolated and cut down.

 

[Saphroneth]

So the answer is - yes, it is as simple as just standing there and keeping your position.

But... that is REALLY HARD. It's fighting against an instinct that evolved for a very important reason, which is that BIG THING GOING TO SQUASH YOU LITTLE MAN, and evolution has not yet adjusted to the concept of the pike. I'd compare it to a situation in which all you have to do to survive is to repeatedly punch oneself in the nuts, or possibly hold a red-hot iron bar for several seconds - it's entirely physically possible, but psychologically speaking it can be a very big ask.