Cavalry - Part 1: Shock Attacks

Roughly from the end of the Roman empire to Renaissance, heavy cavalry, chiefly in terms of the armored knight, has dominated European battlefields. This is no accident, as the quality of infantry during that time was lower than in the Roman age and against lower quality infantry, heavy cavalry can be used to devastating effect.

This is caused by three different factors:

impact shock: physically, a rider on a horse represents a sizable mass (some 700-900 kg) moving at high velocity (up to 12 m/s), and that means that a tremendous amount of momentum is delivered if the rider crashes into an infantry line. Conservation of momentum dictates that the infantry line must stagger back at least, if it is not simply thrown. This effect relies purely on physical properties - masses and velocities - and is therefore independent of armor, weapons or morale.
damage shock: propelled by the additional force of a fast-moving horse, weapons such as the lance can achieve an extrordinary high amount of kinetic energy. A charge by knights can thus cause tremendous damage even to a relatively heavily armored infantry unit
psychological shock: the effect of a large number of horses coming full speed towards an infantry line will inevitably be to create an urge for the soldiers to run away. This is not only instinct but also sound reasoning - if the cavalry charge is executed, the first ranks stand little chance regardless of whether the line ultimately holds or not. So most soldiers except the most disciplined ones will be tempted to run - which, if it occurs, makes the damage even more severe.

Cavalry charges

When a cavalry unit meets an infantry line, there's two basic outcomes: If the line is broken, the cavalry unit can continue through it at speed, turn around and charge again or attack another target. If the line holds, the cavalry is stopped. This is not a desirable situation for the cavalry - a tightly packed mass of horses is awkward for both mounts and rider, lances in this situation are not optimal weapons and in the resulting melee the infantry might get their revenge.

An interesting question is under what condition heavy cavalry can hope to break an infantry line. This depends on the depth of the infantry line (to dissipate impact shock), on their level of armor (to survive damage) and on their morale (to avoid the psychological shock).

Try the provided example08.cfg - this sets up a line of Persian infantry which is charged by Greek cataphracts.

unit_type
unit_type
name Cataphract
speed 700.0
attack 50
armour 5
damage 4
num_soldiers 100
turn_deg_per_min 360
mount horse
mount_weight 700
bonus_mounted_charge 20

The only new parameter here is bonus_mounted_charge which determines how much stronger the unit is when it is moving fast compared with when it is stopped.

By default the Persian line is three ranks deep in the scenario. The result of a charge is typically as follows:

Charge against a 3 rank deep line

Most cataphracts have broken through, one Persian unit has been anihilated, others severely damaged, one cavalry unit has been stopped and is now in close-combat.

Doubling the depth to six ranks changes the picture - now most of the time the charge is stopped and only a minority of cataphracts manages to push through:

Charge against a 6 rank deep line

Both of these examples have been run without battle morale simulation. If you switch it on in the config header, the picture changes again. Now, even a ten rank deep infantry line has a fair share of being broken - largely due to the psychological shock effect.

The findings are thus: A line of six ranks can expect to hold against a cavalry charge if their morale holds, even deeper lines are in danger of morale fails.

Thinking further along the line of shock troops, one inevitably arrives at the concept of war elephants. They have an even higher mass (which means they cause a larger impact shock) and also tower more over soldiers than a horse does (which means a more substantial psychological shock) - and that means it needs a really dedicated unit to hold out against a charge of war elephants. However, a highly professional unit like the Macedonian phalanx was able to do it.

Continue with Global Events.

Back to main index Back to science Back to historical battle simulation

Created by Thorsten Renk 2022 - see the disclaimer, privacy statement and contact information.