The British Military Open Encyclopedia - ARRSE-Pedia. Back to British Army Rumour Service Home
Cavalry
From ARRSEpedia
| To avoid the wrath of the Mods, please do not edit this article while this message is displayed. The user who added this notice will be listed in its edit history should you wish to contact him or her. |
Cavalry is the technical name for specialist soldiers mounted upon and who intend to fight from the back of a horse. Soldiers mounted on horses or mules but intending to do their fighting on foot and using the insane herbivore as a transportation system are 'mounted infantry'.
Cavalry missions were numerous and equipment was a sure indicator to what a unit could do: Missions for lightly equipped cavalry include Scouting, Screening advance/retreat, harassing a main body and driving off opposing screening/harassing cavalry. Heavily equipped cavalry was used for shock impact. Both heavily and lightly equipped cavalry could be used for pursuit of a beaten enemy.
Typical weapons include bow, javelin, sword, darts, thrusting spear, crossbow and lances of varying sizes and lengths. Firearms were not used on horseback until the 17th century. From the 17th century onwards weapons carried were pistol, sword, light lance and the carbine although the lance had fallen out of favour by the Napoleonic wars.
Contents |
[edit] Classical
In the early bronze age warfare horses were simply used for scouting and a little harassing. There were few of them per army and did not contribute much since the victory would be won by the Hoplite infantry. Usually youths unable to afford armour made up the cavalry. This changed with Macedonian King Phillip who built a unit of 'Companions' who job on the battlefield was as shock cavalry. Led by his son Alexander, this unit proved decisive on the battlefield.
The horse was still quite small during this period and had yet to be bred into a beast capable of carrying a great deal of armour and warrior. It was probably not much bigger than a pony. No saddle was used and the main shock weapon on horseback was a spear thrust overarm as couching it as a lance meant you fell off hard when you hit someone!
[edit] Roman
In the earliest days of the Roman Empire, cavalry had an extremely limited role. Each legion had a small number of lightly armed and armoured auxiliaries intended to scout, carry messages and very occasionally pursue (with care) a beaten enemy. In a combat role, they could skirmish but little more.
A time progressed the Empire came into contact with other races who were more proficient with horses than they were. This led to something of an evolution. Heavier armour was given to elite strike cavalry (Equite Singularis) and fully armoured shock cavalry (cataphract – think chally 2 on 4 legs) was created to counter similar horsemen from Palmyra and the east. Horse archers were hired from various eastern tribes for scouting and screening.
Towards the end of the Roman period, 400ad onwards, the Roman army was a hodgepodge of mercenaries with heavy shock cavalry supplied by Goths, light horse archers supplied by Huns and all of them subject to the whims of the mercenary – as a result reliability was not high. The eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) however created some of the best trained cavalry of the era equipped with bow, lance, darts and protected by armour. These Kataphractoi evolved due to contact with the Persian empire whose shock cavalry were legendary.
Even into the late period of Rome (500ad+), none of the above had proper saddles with stirrups thus leading to cavalry battles rapidly becoming infantry battles as everyone fell off! Round about 600ad-ish stirrups were pinched from the Avars (a nomadic steppes tribe) by the Byzantines. This immediately improved cavalry as riders did not fall off as much and spears could now be couched thus providing a more devastating impact.
[edit] Medieval/Renaissance Europe
[edit] Horse Archers
[edit] Japan
[edit] 19th Century
[edit] Boer War till World War 1
[edit] World War 2
| Find out more in the Dictionary |
