Cataphract, Clibanarii, whatever, against Infantry

[PMBardunias]

An infantry formation is much more flexible than a pot of beans and the speed is the only way you'll get through and have any chance of breaking them.

Not at 30 mph. Men are a solid wall because if they start off belly to back, they cannot move into a looser formation fast enough if they wanted to.

You ever see a medieval saddle? There's no way you're going over then neck and it doesn't make any sense because a smart cavalry man would hold his seat. You also seem to stacking the deck, one horse against a phalanx?

Well, as you note later, I am for the most part considering ancient cavalry, but even the highest saddle will not hold you on a horse when it goes from 30-0 in short order. As for the one against many. This is simply the fact that at the moment of collision it is a single horse against a mass of packed men, the next horse hits moments later. if we believe Arrian then horses will not push in a group like men, so the one against many match up may be valid even at slower speeds.

Yes fifteen feet. That's how far a running horse can knock someone. A horse wouldn't lose that much velocity, the guys in front wouldn't be slowing the horse down

the point is not how far a collision could throw a man, but that there is no room between men for them to be thrown. The are instantly impacting the men in ranks behind them which serves to add their total combined weight to what the horse it hitting. The horse is hitting a block weighing well over a thousand pounds- 2560lbs if they are in 16 ranks as was the Macedonian common practice.

However I never said the press of bodies wouldn't slow the horse down. But even if did/does it still makes for more sense to engage at a full gallop than a walk.

Once slowed,more likely stopped, they would then be hit from behind by a horse moving at 30 mph if the second rank did not pull up. This would not end well.

On the contrary it is quite easy, medieval warhorses were trained to bloody corpses and trample things and my horse will go at a gallop over snow and ice and rough ground, a horses legs aren't that fragile.

Perhaps, that was my original question after all, but I doubt it would be as easy as that.

There doesn't need to be a lot of room, there just needs to be running horses

And they have something that weighs 160 lbs, but multiplied by a few thousand of them in a mass, all moving at 30 mph relative to you. That does a lot more damage

That doesn't make any sense.

This is the heart of our disagreement. You are not following the physics of this collision- don't take that as an attack, its not obvious. If you and your horse are moving 30 mph, then the men you hit are moving 30 mph relative to you. It is exactly the same thing as if they were moving and you were standing still. A mass of men 8-16 ranks deep, hitting you at 30 mph is worse than a horse hitting you at the same speed.

Actually history shows that in a head on clash you're supposed to charge at a gallop and keep going, and don't stop for anything

History generally shows that you are not supposed to attack steady, formed infantry head on at all. The instances of cavalry of all sorts NOT doing this are innumerable. If it were as easy as you describe, then massed infantry would be worthless on a battlefield. We see just the opposite, infantry always masses to repel cavalry.

However you'll notice that every cavalry type that engaged enemy infantry did it a gallop.

They charged at a gallop, but we don't know if they hit men who remained in tight formation at a gallop. The fact that we can name one or two battles where this might have happened should be telling. If it commonly occurred we'd not be discussing this.

If the cavalry that broke solid infantry had engaged a walk they to would have been thrown back.

Cleary this was not the case for the French lancers mentioned above.

The polish winged hussars wielded lances from 18-25 odd feet long and the lance was designed so that it could impale multiple people before it broke. The hussars horse's are mentioned crashing through solid infantry and swines feathers and ridding across spiked ditches and hacking there way through the enemy. They had guts, that's for sure. *Goes all misty-eyed*

I'm a big fan of Polish Hussars, but there surely is a lot of romance surrounding their abilities in battle. I think it far more likely that the Swedes flinched at Kircholm than that the poles rode through steady, formed men. Their lances were longer than swinefeathers and had an advantage imparted by the angle they were held at over a pike that was braced on the ground and held up steeply as well. Also they regularly charged multiple times into their foes. Why would they need to do this if they could hit at 30 mph and cut through. Clearly they did not.

My apologies, but I'll be out of town for about a week. If I don't respond its not out of a lack of respect, but a lack of internet! Good conversation.