Comments on: Cavalry Charges: Shock

By: Gavin Robinson

Gavin Robinson — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 07:26:44 +0000

There isn't much contemporary evidence that Rupert's cavalry charged faster or that Cromwell's charged slower. Most accounts of battles which describe cavalry charges don't mention the pace at all, and those few that do are open to a variety of interpretations. This is just a lazy assumption which has been made by some historians in the absence of any conclusive proof. It might be somehow related to the cultural stereotypes of roundhead and cavalier. In this follow-up post I suggested that there might be some trade-off between speed and tightness of formation, and that either might help to intimidate the enemy into running away before contact was made. But in this period if they got right up to each other it looks like they always stopped and went into hand to hand combat (Keegan found that cavalry might pass through each other in the Napoleonic wars but I haven't found any definite examples in the English Civil War). You should also see this post which includes more evidence of what actually happens when horses crash into each other. It ain't pretty.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:44:44 +0000

Surely it could have worked if horses can ride roughly in a formation, but it would obviously have had to be a lot slower. I agree that two shock charges against each other would not haave been a good idea, but in the civil war, when used by Cromwell’s new model army, it would have worked, as Prince Rupert used a lesstightly packed, but faster charge. Because Prince Rupert’s men were spread out, wouldn’t Cromwell’s cavalry have stayed together as one strong body, that Rupert would have had trouble breaking, while his cavalry would be pushed backwards by a solid wall of cavalry?

By: Gavin Robinson

Gavin Robinson — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 12:25:22 +0000

What pace do you use for the charge? Can you keep the boot-to-boot formation at a full gallop? I’m assuming there’s a trade off between speed and tightness of formation, and that when cavalry charged at the trot it was so they could keep closer together. The most important point I was trying to make was about the collision between walls of horses. That would be very difficult to prove or disprove with re-enactment. I like to think that experienced cavalrymen would have realised that even if it could be done it would be undesirable, but there are examples (some cited by Keegan) of men who thought that it could and should be done, and even believed that it had happened when it almost certainly hadn’t. Maybe a few accidental collisions between horses which couldn’t stop or get out of the way in time, but not the “single missile” which Frank Jones talks about.

By: Charles Felthousen

Charles Felthousen — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 21:30:23 +0000

I do cavalry renacting we do charges on horseback and often against other charging cavalry units. The key to it all is that the horses are trained to overcome their natural instents. I have drilled boot to boot with other trooprs and the horses do not kick or bite each other. The key again is the training of te horse and more importent the rider.

By: Gavin Robinson

Gavin Robinson — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 16:04:34 +0000

There has been lots of interesting discussion of this post at the Napoleon Series forum. There's also some discussion in French here.

By: Gavin Robinson

Gavin Robinson — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 11:46:43 +0000

I haven’t seen that, but John Keegan cites some similar stuff from Waterloo. The next post is going to look at what seventeenth-century theorists thought about the idea of shock, but the one after that will try to get at what really happened, and how cavalry charges worked (or didn’t).

By: Gary Smailes

Gary Smailes — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 06:46:26 +0000

This post is really interesting and raises an important point.
The ideas of shock tactics are clearly misunderstood.
My main problem has always been with the effectiveness of infantry withstanding cavalry charges. If the cavalry had been simply a massive steamroller, then no infantry formation would have been able to resist the charge. However, we see time and time again formed steady infantry, from all periods of history, being able to withstand a �shock� charge.
Have you considered Winston Churchill�s first hand account of the cavalry charge at Omdurman? Here he describes the 21st Lancers first contact with the enemy. He explains that despite the horses charging at full gallop, they are brought to a standstill by the mass of Dervishes. He likens the resultant stationary combat to police horses dispersing a crowd.

By: Gavin Robinson

Gavin Robinson — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 16:34:04 +0000

Yes, horses can panic in a stressful situation — loud noises and pain are both prime causes — and bolt, meaning they become completely uncontrollable and gallop in one direction as fast as they can. In this state, they can actually run into solid objects or drown themselves by running straight into water. Panic can easily spread through a herd and cause a stampede.

Horses are herd animals: they like to stay together and follow each other. You can see the herd mentality at work in horse races: horses often carry on running and jumping the fences even when they’ve lost their jockeys. Some people see this in sentimental anthropomorphic terms (the horses love racing) but a more realistic assessment is that they’re just following the rest of the horses.

All this can have big implications for cavalry. In Edgehill: The Battle Reinterpreted (2004, ISBN: 1844151336), Chris Scott and Alan Turton compared the cavalry charges to stampedes. This was at the start of the civil war, when men and horses on both sides had relatively little training or experience. This could well account for the difficulty of bringing cavalry back into a battle after a successful charge, which I’ll be talking about more in a later post.

By: Stryker

Stryker — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 15:51:19 +0000

fascinating!

Is there a “herd” mentality that can be brought about with horses to make them “stampede” given a sufficiently large number of animals? (I am woefully ignorant about horses).