For some reason, there seem to be a few Mongol threads coming up again, which raised this question in my mind. What would it take for Western Europe to adopt Horse Archers using Mongol style tactics in the Ancient/Medieval period?
I'm presuming that men at arms, Roman Legionaries etc all decided to use heavy infantry/cavalry based tactics for a reason (more hedgerows in fields, lack of stirrups, not living on a steppe etc)-but their armies don't seem to have a good record when they face horse archers, from Atilla the Hun to Genghis Khan and beyond. So-how to give them the horse archers?