Just wondering,what would it take for light cavalry tactics,especially horse archery and Parthian shot,to be the primary military doctrine of most feudal European armies(especially the ones from Western Europe) instead of heavy shock cavalry tactics like couched lance charge?
AHC:Light cavalry tactics more favoured than heavy cavalry tactics in Europe by 1000.
- Thread starter darthfanta
- Start date
I'd first point that by the time feudality was a thing in Europe, heavy cavalry supremacy was kinda a given. I assumed that your point was more not having heavy cavalry predominance by 1000 AD.
You'd have to keep infantry (heavy mounted, heavy, etc.) as the basis of western kingdoms in the VIIIth centuries.
IOTL, the growth of the Frankish kingdom forced the more massive use of heavy cavalry : as only a part of men in arms could be gathered (for logistical purposes), you end with a growing specialized equipment of the Carolingian army, that only relatively important landowners could support (themselves, or in community) that goes for cavalry because of the distances involved (that ask for a more mobile army, would it be only for seasonal licencement).
You'd notice that the trend isn't specifically tied to Franks : Ostrogoths used a large heavy cavalry themselves by the VIth century that is interestingly close to the latter Carolingian and post-Carolingian situation.
Not that light cavalry tactics were unknown, but they were more tied to regional recruitment (Vascons, Alamans, etc.) or to Byzantine/Nomadic warfare.
Basically, you'd need to have maybe three important PoDs, if not more minor ones.
No Islam to screw Byzzies, allowing them to be a great influence in the West. It could as well prevent, totally or partially, the economical/commercial crisis in Scandinavia by the VIIIth/IXth centuries (with the Abassid economical decline) that was a main reason for Viking expeditions, and even more important need of a mobile military force for Franks.
Screwing Peppinids even more importantly than IOTL in the VIIth century, and hoping really hard they don't get a revival from their sippe, as it happened historically. With these PoDs combined you'd maintain Aquitains and Franco-Germanic particularism, critically if you manage to make Merovingian back in business(the Carolingian policy of peripherical annexation partially comes from their lack of legitimacy on regional dynasties).
Keeping that in mind, you may slow down the establishment of great landed aristocracies or rather, make the armed freemen more influential than IOTL.
It would ask for more refinement, but you may have a base to prevent the tendence to the appearance of a western heavy cavalry when a western kingdom get wealthy and big enough.
That said, light cavalry wouldn't have a that important role in such multi-PoD TL either, but rather as a support of infantry and mounted infantry IMO. Having them being the prime military strctures seems quite implausible to me, even with other PoDs; unless going for a Roman survival in the West. (and even there, use of cataphracts and infantry would really dispute a light cavalry predominance. But it's technically more doable from this than with Romano-Barbarian kingdoms)
You'd have to keep infantry (heavy mounted, heavy, etc.) as the basis of western kingdoms in the VIIIth centuries.
IOTL, the growth of the Frankish kingdom forced the more massive use of heavy cavalry : as only a part of men in arms could be gathered (for logistical purposes), you end with a growing specialized equipment of the Carolingian army, that only relatively important landowners could support (themselves, or in community) that goes for cavalry because of the distances involved (that ask for a more mobile army, would it be only for seasonal licencement).
You'd notice that the trend isn't specifically tied to Franks : Ostrogoths used a large heavy cavalry themselves by the VIth century that is interestingly close to the latter Carolingian and post-Carolingian situation.
Not that light cavalry tactics were unknown, but they were more tied to regional recruitment (Vascons, Alamans, etc.) or to Byzantine/Nomadic warfare.
Basically, you'd need to have maybe three important PoDs, if not more minor ones.
No Islam to screw Byzzies, allowing them to be a great influence in the West. It could as well prevent, totally or partially, the economical/commercial crisis in Scandinavia by the VIIIth/IXth centuries (with the Abassid economical decline) that was a main reason for Viking expeditions, and even more important need of a mobile military force for Franks.
Screwing Peppinids even more importantly than IOTL in the VIIth century, and hoping really hard they don't get a revival from their sippe, as it happened historically. With these PoDs combined you'd maintain Aquitains and Franco-Germanic particularism, critically if you manage to make Merovingian back in business(the Carolingian policy of peripherical annexation partially comes from their lack of legitimacy on regional dynasties).
Keeping that in mind, you may slow down the establishment of great landed aristocracies or rather, make the armed freemen more influential than IOTL.
It would ask for more refinement, but you may have a base to prevent the tendence to the appearance of a western heavy cavalry when a western kingdom get wealthy and big enough.
That said, light cavalry wouldn't have a that important role in such multi-PoD TL either, but rather as a support of infantry and mounted infantry IMO. Having them being the prime military strctures seems quite implausible to me, even with other PoDs; unless going for a Roman survival in the West. (and even there, use of cataphracts and infantry would really dispute a light cavalry predominance. But it's technically more doable from this than with Romano-Barbarian kingdoms)
RodentRevolution
Banned
You would need different terrain in Europe. The problem is that most of Europe is naturally woodland, you might clear it for farmland but sight lines are relatively short. Much of the rest that is not wooded is hilly and much of the rest that is not wooded or hilly is wet albeit sometimes only in comparison to the Steppe and the Middle East but still there a lot more rivers to add to all the other terrain features restricting mobility.
All in all Western Europe is an awkward landscape to be a horse archer. The whole point of horse archery was that it relied on sweeping movements and not being forced prematurely into close engagement with the foe. As several nomad tribes discovered to their cost this was not always a given from the Germanies on west.
In Eastern Europe we see different flatter, more open terrain and thus horse archers are not uncommon. In Western Europe it is far easier to pin your opponent against an obstacle and so shock action is often decisive.
RodentRevolution
Banned
No battles are mostly fought on the routes to one or other army's objectives. Besides the essential difference between regions like the steppes and the Middle East and regions like Western Europe is that in more arid climates flat land if not cultivated reverts to grassland while in Western Europe flat land if not cultivated reverts to woodland.
There are some areas that suited steppe nomads like for example the Hungarian plain and there you did see horse archer culture. Horse archers in Eastern Europe endured even among primarily sedentary cultures.
You're really exagerating the forest cover in Western Europe and its importance for heavy cavalry : for Francia (for example) the forest cover was roughly the same than for Gauls that were able to maintain armies with roughly half of it being heavy cavalrymen.
And the great clearing of the Middles Ages didn't saw a greater use of cavalry, at the contrary.
Not that it couldn't have played a secondary, or below, role. But making it the prime reason goes against what we know of the social-military development of western Middle Ages.
I'll suggest you to look at, say Procopius, to see about the use of Romano-Barbarian light cavalry in a supposedly "unsuitable" region.
I'd point that Early Medieval Danubian basin and Northern Balkanic regions were more covered by forest, and having less strucrtures as romans roads or urban centers as military redeloyment, and that it never prevented Romans to use nomadic warfare and light cavarly tactics in the Early MA.
That's only one of the possibility of horse archers actually : half of the archers in HYW were actually mounted archers and crossbowmen that, not unlike mounted infantry, beneficied from cavalry mobility and harsassment of flanks.
Quite at the contrary : field battles were rarely decisive because they rarely happened (usually a side "forcing the decision" on the other) and even when they did didn't led to an occupation of territory (especially fortifications).
The period is really the perfect case for distinguishing tactics from strategy.
Which is a bit irrelevant eventually when it comes to army organisation and tactics : the crushing majority of battles in Middle Ages are sieges, and (far beyond) skirmishes.
Field battles are the exception (and it's why they're remembered) and rarely decisive.
Eventually, the predominance of heavy cavalry owes as much to the social situation (rise of landed military-based nobility) than military needs (as for a mobile cavalry)
Question:Why would cataphracts and light cavalry dispute light cavalry predominance?I thought light cavalry(namely horse archers) are actually the bane of cataphracts and infantry since they can outrun heavy cavalry until they are exhausted,and then pick them off while able to outmaneuver infantry utterly.I'm not saying such an army shouldn't have some heavy cavalry and a lot of infantry,I'm just saying that most cavalry of such army should be light cavalry and there some be some,but limited,number of heavy cavalry for the purpose of delivering shock charges.
Last edited:
Mostly because of ressources/logistical limits : you could only equip so much fighters, and the preference towards an heavy cavalry meant as much ressources you couldn't give to light cavalry (remember that each milites came with not one, but at least two or three horses at some point).
Not that light cavalry was unknown in Western Christiendom, jinete were for exemple massively used in Reconquista warfare (in spite of Spain being supposdely unsuitable because of its geography) and get used importantly with the XIVth/XVth centuries.
(And being everything you could expect from a light cavalry, up to feigned retreat)
But it was associated with tactics where field battle and resolution of conflicts trough hiting the ennemy rather than hold its territory was favoured. Reconquista and Crusader warfare comes in mind as good exemples. But as well "little war" as during wars in British Islands.
By the Late Middle Ages, these came to be used even more (as during Wars of Italy), but you really have to remember as well that heavy cavalry was as well a military tendency than a social structure.
Milites and fighting nobles were heavy cavalrymen : that was part of their social status, and to be straight, their social justification as well. (See previous post). It eventually fit a given social/political model, and where this model was less present, as well the predominance (which shouldn't be taken as obvious or even hegemonic* : infantry played an important tactical role, even in the High Middle Ages) of heavy cavalry (as with Bretons against late Carolingians: or Anglo-Saxons against Normans)
The advantage of light cavalry against heavy cavalry isn't exactly that obvious. You can have an idea with German/Hungarian battles or Crusader warfare about it, or Berber cavalry against Frankish heavy infantry.
Or the adoption on regional Arabo-Islamic warfare of an heavy cavalry to counter it (using Christian mercenaries, or their own).
Eventually, and keeping in mind field battles aren't the average situation of western medieval warfare : you simply didn't have a real incitative before the XIVth to massivly use light cavalry (except in Spain), and even sergents d'arme cavalry was more a second-hand heavy cavalry than a light cavalry.
* Heavy cavalry in most medieval armies never represent more than 1/3 of the whole troops usually.
Again, the existence of a predominant heavy cavalry, depends for its partial dominance on warfare as well on social than military matters. Hence why you probably have to butterfly away or at least limit what's usually called feudality (political desintegration), disappearance of people-in-arms as well than searching for military alternatives (there, probably heavy infantry).
It's not about what should or shouldn't for the sake of personal conveniance with what we think would be "best", but to think along contextual lines.
Can I strongly suggest, as I always do but it's a fundamental, War in Middle Ages by Philippe Contamine?
Thanks,I will read it when I have time.
The model of army I'm looking for is the Ottoman Anatolian Sipahi model by the way where owner of land grants were mostly outfitted as horse archers instead of heavy cavalry.Just wondering how it could be done that individuals receiving land grants are mostly horse archers in Western Europe rather than as heavy cavalry.
Last edited:
RodentRevolution
Banned
The you are not looking at light cavalry.
Light and heavy cavalry are along with light and heavy infantry basically a state of mind. That is their nature relies more on the method on employment rather than their equipment. We have to be careful of thinking of the Sipahi as having one model of equipment just as we have to be careful of doing the same for the East Roman/Byzantine cataphract. However both saw at least periods in which they were majority represented by lancers who also wielded bows but their tactics made use of shock action as an arm of decision, essentially the heavy cavalry role.
Now you can have a warrior aristocracy of light order cavalrymen however these tend to dominate best in wide open spaces where armies have much greater room of manoeuvre and are less likely to be forced into a pinch point.
You can thus see these on the steppes most often.
Heavy cavalry aristocracies were thus more common in Europe even if at times the actual level of equipment might appear to make them light cavalry. The point about heavy cavalry is that it relies on the close order charge and is an arm of decision. Although we have to be careful here as in Greek and early Roman warfare the aristocratic cavalry performed essentially screening and patrolling roles and the pursuit of defeated enemies which are often regarded as light cavalry roles so as always in life be aware there are no neat boxes.
Now as to the use of horse archers as part of a combined arms forces in European terrain they can certainly be effective. However it should be noted that not having effectively infinite room to manoeuvre they need a strong base such as might be provided by disciplined heavy infantry (on the Byzantine model) or close order (yes heavy again) cavalry for those occasions when melee cannot be avoided. As LSCatalina points out Western Europe does see a wide variety of light cavalry throughout the Middle Ages though these are not normally aristocratic, the Jinettes being one example the British (as in all the Isles) hobilars being another.
Combined arms was not alien to warfare of the period but recall light cavalry are essentially for scouting, screening, patrol, pursuit and raiding. Heavy cavalry are traditionally an arm of decision, that is they are deployed to win the battle, maybe once another arm has worn the enemy down, maybe in flanking movements but still providing the critical blow that breaks the enemy's will to fight at that juncture.
Now giving the terrain of Europe lent itself to numerous chokepoints that could be further constrained by fortification light cavalry rarely got to enjoy as much of a long rang mobility advantage over heavy cavalry as they did in more open terrains. This meant that heavy cavalry could perform much the same role as light cavalry in the raiding warfare that often went on but also had the ability to operate as a more decisive element if battle did occur, it could even though this was more common later act as fairly effective heavy infantry once dismounted (you see this a lot on British warfare) .
Giving that each aristocrat equipped himself he is as likely to try and be equipped for everything he can and the man at arms model thus predominated among the higher social orders in Western Europe.
Yet...a canny observer might note this does not explain the absence of the cavalry bow. After all we have several earlier examples of cavalry armed as both lancers and archers and the increasing strength of horses should have made that easier not harder to pull off. Now one reason might have been purely social suggesting a simple change in culture could easily change that. However once again we should also consider climate.
The climate of Western Europe is quite simply wetter than Eastern Europe. This makes maintenance of the composite warbow while not impossible considerably more problematic. Thus the bows are more work to keep effective in terrain which while not always working against them tends to give far more opportunities for warriors without them to be effective.
Now if you want timariot siphai or allagion of cavalry raised by a system of pronoia or bow armed men at arms raised by feudal levy or even some kind of centralised state funded standing army then it is not impossible but they probably would not have been employed as light cavalry at least not so much in Western Europe.
Didn't the late Roman era Romans actually deploy horse archers,Hunnic mercenaries in particular by Aetius, in Western Europe,and wrecked the hell out of the barbarians?
Last edited:
RodentRevolution
Banned
Well yes and no. Aetius had an awful lot of barbarians that were settled on his patch when he came to office and most of those same barbarians remained there when he was long gone. Now he did indeed employ Hunnic mercenaries but they were serving as part of an army that had several other arms and so their operation was as part of a package of options available to late Roman generals and not the primary tool. Aetius made as much use of political means in keep control of the various factions that confronted him as he did military ones as he was at no point able to win a decisive military advantage and force the barbarians to either leave or Romanise completely.
takerma
Banned
Is there something special about Japanese composite bow construction to allow it to operate well in wet conditions? Japan did have a warrior class that was mounted warriors primarily and for whom bow was primary weapon originally. Terrain in the area seems even worse for cavalry the most of the Western Europe.
I am unsure at where the "too wet" dividing line really lies.
It's obvious that Russia, Turkey, Hungary and to some extent Poland and the Balkans, as well as almost all of Classical/Antique Europe did use a composite bow. Presumably they are not as wet as France but just how big is that difference?
And is Hungary really drier than Spain or Italy?
The wet climate might be a good explanation but it always seemed under-researched to me, without any particulars on where that line might be drawn, and how much moisture it takes to ruin a bow.
Until I see something like that I will not totally discount the idea that it could be a cultural thing more than anything else.
It's obvious that Russia, Turkey, Hungary and to some extent Poland and the Balkans, as well as almost all of Classical/Antique Europe did use a composite bow. Presumably they are not as wet as France but just how big is that difference?
And is Hungary really drier than Spain or Italy?
The wet climate might be a good explanation but it always seemed under-researched to me, without any particulars on where that line might be drawn, and how much moisture it takes to ruin a bow.
Until I see something like that I will not totally discount the idea that it could be a cultural thing more than anything else.
RodentRevolution
Banned
How effective was Japanese archery in the rain? Was it simply they kept out of the worst of the wet weather and used them on better days? As for cavalry in Japan there too we see the trend towards increasing use of combined arms tactics and castle building to exploit the terrain.
I would have to confess I do not know near as much about Japanese warfare of the medieval period as I would like. I would point out that that the climatic conditions of Europe are not by themselves a showstopper for composite bows it just means they seem to require more work to maintain.
The Huns certainly got the blame later but as I understand it from the sources the exact circumstance of the massacre are a little unclear. What we do know is that sufficient Burgundians survived to be resettled as a people. Also we know it was not as if the Huns could smash Aetius when he has local support either. So they were no magic bullet and it is worth recalling that by the fifth century they had a range of subject peoples who fought using more Germanic style equipment and tactics in their armies.
Weren't the samurai experts on close combat? Or were they usually mounter?
I think that you may systematizing it : I'd agree if decisive field battles were common enough during Middle Ages (and even there, milites on foot rather than horse is well attested since the Xth*), but it's quite rare**, and rare enough to wonder about the "regular" usefulness of milites.
In siege warfare for exemple, which is the crushing majority of medieval warfare, the milites role is more to paralyze and weaken the adversary (chevauchées, raids, counter-attacks, preventing a counter-siege, etc.) and generally to threaten of weakening him structurally.
While you do have field battles, and with some of them forcing the decision and on which heavy cavalry unquestionably played a role; there aren't the norm : whole campaigns without such battles are quite current.
We're a bit fooled by the fact the chroniclers are nobles, issued from a milites (in the largest sense of the word) background and that naturally focus on it, and its "epicness" rather than everyday use.
But eventually, medieval heavy cavalry often had to undergo tactics that we'd consider part of dragoon or light cavalry in later periods.
Things would change from the XIVth century, with a more structured heavy cavalry in face of the new infantry (while, I stress it, infantry alreadu played a role by the High Middle Ages) that lead to a huge revival of heavy cavalry in a tactical purpose (even Italian armies used heavy cavalry as main military feature in the XVth).***
*Arguably, more in Germany and Italy than in France.
**Except, and that's worth mentioning, non-"feudal" armies. Which leads to pointing the ritualisation of the feudal war as well its paradoxal dependence/contradiction with castellisation of territories.
***The Caroline phase, though, points that such evolution wasn't bound to happen, especially if it went against military logic.
It depends a lot about ressources and social order at hand, there as well : Macedonians and Thessalians had an important cavalry based on landed aristocracy; at the contrary of Greek poleis that had to count on a more limited wheat ressource, too limited to maintain a predominant heavy cavalry.
That said, yes. The differenciation between heavy cavalry as shock cavalry and light as skirmisher wasn't really a thing. (Unarmored lancers, for exemple).
Still : the point at hand there is that it's less of a cultural thing, than a social one (even if the former can play), and the semi-landed recruitement of Hellenistic armies allowed IMO the smooth transition to cataphract cavalry in Selucid Empire.
I'd want to stress that part of this (as raiding or pursuit) was more an heavy cavalry thing for most of Middle-Ages, while depending on the situation, light cavalries tended to slowly replace them by the Late MA.
Less because of structural issues, such as terrain (even if it may have played a role, but not decisive IMO), than the social role (ransom, "provocation" in order to force an open battle, unwillingness to mix with piétons, etc.)
You already had such by the XIth century, especially among Germans (see the battle of Civitae, for example). I don't think it's really clear why it was seen as a German speciality, that early (it's more for England, when sustaining an heavy cavalry, critically on a more decentralized than desintegrated feudal structure, proven to be too great of a burden), but I'd think ressources problems (especially far from heartlands) played a role there (as it did during Crusades).
Its effectiveness, though, against heavy cavalry isn't that obvious to me, compared to its effectiveness was against regular heavy infantry. Before the XIVth, dismounted knights tend to be regularly beaten in such situation.
Giving that each aristocrat equipped himself he is as likely to try and be equipped for everything he can and the man at arms model thus predominated among the higher social orders in Western Europe.
Rather than cultural, a social explanation may be more fitting : bows and crossbow were tought being non-noble weapons, if not outright cowardly (as in useful, but lacking elegance at best) : basically too useful to make them dismissed, but not "chivalric" enough (and there we enter class ethos) to be commandable.
This is hardly a western thing, at least when it comes to crossbow (Byzantine perception of the weapon as "diabolical" or even bows (you don't have a real mounted archery in the west of Arabo-Islamic civilisation).
I don't think the climate explanation is really fitting there, at least not directly : Byzantine mounted archery, for exemple, is directly influenced on nomadic warfare.
Conversly, it was present in Western medieval warfare in regions in contact with steppe warfare : Hungary (trough Pechenegs or directly); and if mounted bowmen wasn't that present elsewhere (a bit in Germany, IIRC), cranequiniers or mounted crossbowmen were.
Eventually, the main problems were their "ressource rivality" with cavalry; and a relative redundance with heavy and light cavalry anti-archer tactics. Still, it managed to be a thing for 2 centuries, which is not nothing.
It would actually bit quite hard : see, heavy cavalry social dominance really became a thing when the distribution of landed honores became widespread, early feudality explaining heavy cavalry, rather than the contrary.
The specialisation and shielding of cavalry came as a developement of an already established heavy infantry. To change that would require making archers the bulk and the main feature of Romano-Barbarian armies which I'm not sure you could even get, except with foreign "influence" more or less akin to nomadic warfare on Byzantines.
The absence of a true mounted (or else) archery threat at this point (unlike medieval Turks) allowed the bow perception as a pieton's and eventually non-noble weapon. (Which really comes far in western culture, and would require an early PoD to change that). Not unlike gunpowder weapons were seen in medieval Japanese warfare, while it allowed (and praised) bow by mounted elite.
And even that may not really deeply change things. You'd have more chances with develloping "native" light cavalry traditions (as long the OP is about light cavalry, and not siphai-like cavalry).
The main point is "Hunnic auxiliaries" (rather than mercenaries). Because it was not a Roman feature as as Rodent said, mostly because he didn't have much choice.
They weren't seen as the "perfect answer" but as the most convenient army at hand, when Roman military ressources went down.