Cataphract, Clibanarii, whatever, against Infantry

[PMBardunias]

Only in the sixteen hundreds are cavalry mentioned attacking a trot and this was against the other guy's cavalry. Attacking at a walk destroys any shock capability.

You are assuming that the "shock" capability is important in attacking infantry. I worry that much of our view of "shock" comes from a joust mentality. A horse hitting a man at anything faster than a walk might be overkill, since a horse walking into you will knock you over or impart sufficient impetus to the weapon of its rider. In at least one reliable breaking of formed men who give no indication of breaking ranks prior to contact, the French lances at Dresden simply walked up an stabbed.

At battles such as Omdurman the 21st is mentioned being slowed to walk only after they hacked their way through the mahadist square. Which shows that the 21st hit the enemy at a gallop as well as Churchhills account of the massive amount of shock. (At least two hundred Mahadists were knocked flying and forty lancers were unhorsed)

Perhaps the exception that proves the rule if these horses tripped over the fallen, but even these men cannot have been packed very tight, since the majority will not have been "flying", but ridden down and over.

As for a running horse hitting a phalanx, well the horses wouldn't have to worry about breaking a leg on a corpse (which seems highly unlikely anyway) because someone who gets hit by a 1,500 pound horse that's running at 35 miles an hour won't fall down, they'll go flying. . . and since the only place the victim can go is among his buddies that would also help destroy the integrity of the formation.

Probably the height of the center of mass of a man, even assuming his simply stands straight up and gets hit, is low enough compared to the chest of a horse that his most likely vector is angled downwards, not up in the air as in a car crash.

Something else that seems to go unappreciated is that if an 800 lb horse (960 lb with rider) hit a relatively tightly massed phalanx of say 8 ranks of 160 lb men, then is is the horse that would go flying when it hit the 1280 lb mass! Of course the weight does not add up as neatly as that due to some space between ranks, but if the men pack tight, it is suicidal for a rider to hit them at speed.


So why charge? There is a great psychological advantage in charging down on infantry, undoubtably they often loosened their ranks just prior to contact and "flinched". But, if they instead nestled in close to the men in front, I doubt a horse could get through except by fighting their way in. So charges surely were performed at a gallop, but they likely slowed prior to contact if the men stood firm. This reduces the often stated "horses won't charge through a mass of men at the gallop," to "horses can't charge through a mass of men at the gallop."