Pikes in the ACW

There was a late war incident in which a cavalry force (yes, actually on horseback) captured a number of unsupported enemy machine guns and artillery pieces after a charge. I can look it up, if you fancy.

Didn't British Empire cavalry participate in the breakthrough at Amiens? I seem to recall an illustration of them surrounding a German railway gun train as it was pulling away.
 
but a unit of specially trained infantry armed with sabres could perhaps disrupt a formation of riflemen long enough for the other side to take advantage
sabres would work, or something like bovie knife, jatagan or shimitar, instead of pikes, plus shields, and pistols
if say, two hundred of them charged a line of soldiers armed with muskets and bajonets, even with casulties ower 50% once they reach the target they would cause a lot of damage, especialy if they flank or suprise attack in heavy terrain

it would be suicidal but so was standing in formation while the other side shoots

the olnly problem is finding new well trained suicide squads after ewery charge
 
Didn't British Empire cavalry participate in the breakthrough at Amiens? I seem to recall an illustration of them surrounding a German railway gun train as it was pulling away.

If my memory is correct, the incident MrP referred to is the Australian Cavalry charge in the battle of Palestine. The Australians need to captured a fortified town fast to prevent the Turks from sabotaging the crucial wells, so the commander of the cavalry brigade decided to charge the unsupported machine posts and incomplete trenchs instead of fighting as mounted infantry.
 
If my memory is correct, the incident MrP referred to is the Australian Cavalry charge in the battle of Palestine. The Australians need to captured a fortified town fast to prevent the Turks from sabotaging the crucial wells, so the commander of the cavalry brigade decided to charge the unsupported machine posts and incomplete trenchs instead of fighting as mounted infantry.

That too, which was the Third Battle of Gaza (at Bersheeba), but the incident I thought of took place near the end of the war in France.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
If my memory is correct, the incident MrP referred to is the Australian Cavalry charge in the battle of Palestine. The Australians need to captured a fortified town fast to prevent the Turks from sabotaging the crucial wells, so the commander of the cavalry brigade decided to charge the unsupported machine posts and incomplete trenchs instead of fighting as mounted infantry.

Maybe Lord Strathcona's Horse (Canadian), who made the last "British" cavalry charge in history in 1918.

Edit: Yes, maybe it was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Strathcona's_Horse_(Royal_Canadians)
 
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MrP

Banned
If my memory is correct, the incident MrP referred to is the Australian Cavalry charge in the battle of Palestine. The Australians need to captured a fortified town fast to prevent the Turks from sabotaging the crucial wells, so the commander of the cavalry brigade decided to charge the unsupported machine posts and incomplete trenchs instead of fighting as mounted infantry.

No, the Australian one's famous and a good piece of evidence that cavalry wasn't as obsolete as most people think. But I was thinking of a less well-known incident of 1918 I ran across in Paddy Griffith's The Great War on the Western Front A Short History.

p.114 said:
One notable incident came in the cavalry pursuit after the breaking of the Beaurevoir Line. On 9 October two cavalry brigades made a number of attacks on the road to Le Cateau which captured prisoners, ten guns and no fewer than 150 machine guns. This action absolutely gives the lie to all the many sneering anti-cavalry commentaries that have constantly assured us that 'the machine gun made cavalry obsolete'. If it could capture 150 machine guns on a single day, then where is the problem? Which two brigades of infantry ever captured as many in such short order? Admittedly, the cavalry did suffer some 600 casualties on that day, which was about the same as the Light Brigade at Balaklava, but on 9 October the British and Canadian cavalry opened the way to rather more of an operational advance than the Light Brigade ever did. Nor do we have to look far to find infantry brigades which lost many more than 600 casualties in a day on the Western Front.
 
Pikes are good, but there's a reason why they fell out of use. Anything a pike can do, a bayonet can do just as well, if not better.
 
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