How Effective were Spears Against Cavalry?

[rrgg]

One question I have that may or may not have been brought up in another discussion is how exactly a one-handed spearman such as a hoplite would have been able to ward off cavalry.

There is the psychological aspect on the horses of course and the reach would probably be very useful against a standing horseman (such as how Caesar describes the reach of the pilum being used to stab at the faces of the riders at Pharsalus), although at a full charge how would a one-handed grip be enough to stop more than 1000 lbs of horse and rider, particularly against an armored horseman with a longer and heavier lance? On the other hand you have cavalry that will charge in close, throw their lances and then wheel about making a wall of spearpoints useless entirely.

In both situations wouldn't it be preferable for the spearman to simply throw his spear at a charging cavalryman rather than attempt to brace against the impact?

[M. Demetrius]

ONE spearman against one cavalryman is one thing, a hundred spearmen with spears toward the horses is something else altogether.

Some spears were not meant for throwing. Some were. And you have not only the horse, but the rider to deal with. He might very well be carrying a spear/lance or a javelin himself.

[PMBardunias]

although at a full charge how would a one-handed grip be enough to stop more than 1000 lbs of horse and rider, particularly against an armored horseman with a longer and heavier lance?

How could anything of a length and thicknes that allows it to be man-portable stop a 1,000 lb object hurtling towards you at 25-30 mph of full charge?

Answer: It cannot. Luckily horses don't charge full speed into masses of men. The spear is largely irrelevent interms of halting the horse. It is far more important as a psychological crutch for the bearer and a threat to the rider. The formation of men into what appears to the horse to be an obstacle is the key- hence men with short muskets and bayonettes can hold up cavalry.

In both situations wouldn't it be preferable for the spearman to simply throw his spear at a charging cavalryman rather than attempt to brace against the impact?

This requires that we split the question in two, offense and defense. The mass of men will ward off the horses from charging into them, but of course the cavalry can still fight their way into the mass. Thrown weapons will make this less likely as will stout or long spears- like pikes- which give a reach advantage to infantry.

[rrgg]

How could anything of a length and thicknes that allows it to be man-portable stop a 1,000 lb object hurtling towards you at 25-30 mph of full charge?

Answer: It cannot. Luckily horses don't charge full speed into masses of men. The spear is largely irrelevent interms of halting the horse. It is far more important as a psychological crutch for the bearer and a threat to the rider. The formation of men into what appears to the horse to be an obstacle is the key- hence men with short muskets and bayonettes can hold up cavalry.

I suppose the closest you could get other than missiles were long, heavy pikes braced against the ground in multiple ranks so that you had both plenty of distance to slow them down and were able to use the combined strength of multiple men in the formation.

Anyways with the psychological aspect there would also be the factor of whether or not the infantry actually hold their formation when faced with the charge, so that could possibly go either way, but if victory were determined solely by how courageous or disciplined the troops were then sooner or later you would have the worst case scenario with and infantry force which has been beaten and drilled so that they don't even flinch and the horsemen and mounts who have been whipped and trained until they show absolutely no fear colliding into each other. So the question is, who comes out on top?

[M. Demetrius]

Well, if rows of sharp points directed toward the horses were not somewhat effective, they would not have used the tactic for over 2000 years or so. And should our warfare take a step back to that level, they'll use it again, whether sharpened saplings, stone tips, or elaborately forged metal points, they'll do the same thing. Once the horeseman is unceremonially launched into the ranks of infantry, his longevity index decreases dramatically. The third and fourth row of infantry are glad to help with that, I'd reckon.

[Macedon]

A very multi-faceted issue...

1. One horseman vs one spearman.

The horseman is at a disadvantage if equipped with a melee weapon because the horse is not that maneuverable and a single man can fairly easily avoid it, unless too much encumbered by very very heavy armor. If the horseman is equipped with missile weapons the rider can more easily hit the lone spearman. Javelins would be good, bows would be better. A single obstacle like a tree or rock would be enough for any single man to ward off any enemy horseman really effectively.

2. A line of horsemen vs individual spearmen (that is in skirmish, very disordered etc)

The horsemen ride through the enemy and truly cut them down both with the weight of their horses and the impact of their weapons. Since they cover the whole ground the spearmen cannot avoid them and spears in disorder are not effective against galloping cavalry for many reasons. As was mentioned before, horses are heavy animals and the impetus they have cannot be checked by a spear, even if the latter does not crush but clearly pierces through the heart of the animal. Consider ancient boar hunt. Boars weigh much less and their speed is comparable to a galloping horse. The force of the impact would be proportionately less than that of a galloping horse with its rider. Yet, the spears used for the hunt were exceptionally sturdy and even had a perpendicular part (were shaped like a cross) to further check the movement of the boar which would easily kill a man even though it was pierced. Death alone does not stop a mass moving towards you, it has to break...

3. A line of horsemen vs a dense line of spearmen

Here it is the spearmen who have the upper hand. The horse will not (under most circumstances, with the training techniques, the equipment and stratagems used in those - and I think even today - times) blindly run into what it perceives as a wall. That means that the horses would actually not even wildly charge into a line of swordsmen. One, two, maybe three would but not the whole line. So there goes the main threat. Spears though give an edge, since they can hit against horsemen approaching the line, pushing with a trotting movement against the men, jabbing with spears or those galloping along it. What a cavalry charge, a massive line of iron-clad horses thundering towards the infantry could achieve was that the line could not withstand the psychological pressure and left their lines degenerating into a disordered mass, taking us back to situation Nr 2.

Of course the ability of the horse to blindly charge into a wall (this is how the horse perceives a dense shieldwall) and its tactical use on the battlefield are an issue many of us have debated on for a long time and with a lot of arguments, but I think that consensus is that this was not the role of cavalry. After all, in order for such a tactic to be implemented one such horse with an equally resolute rider are not enough... you need hundreds of both of them.

[Forty-One]

Marcus Junkelmann experimented with this and wrote a little report in the third volume of his "Die Reiter Roms". His conclusion was that you can actually train horses to run at, and to bully into, a formed up line of men shouting and waving pointy objects (they managed to get their horses to do it), but it takes an insane amount of training over a long time to get them to do so. I recall it took them several months. He thought it unlikely that any army would have had the time or inclination to train their horses to that extent. Certainly history seems to bear this conclusion out.

I recall once sitting in Peter Connolly's Roman saddle reconstruction on a wooden horse mockup while others surrounded me and attacked me with "spears" or tried to pull me onto the ground. I lasted about 3 seconds, not that I'm a trained cavalryman of course and the wooden horse wasn't exactly what you might call "frisky".

[PMBardunias]

Are "run at" and "Bully into" discrete actions done at different speeds? If so i have no problem with it. But the often fantasized collision of horse and close ordered phalanx at "full charge" fails in the physics department as much as psychology. Have you ever seen a car hit a man or a deer at 30 mph? Imagine a horse moving nearly that fast, hitting not a man who can fall backwards or be deflected to the side, but ranks of men who can only fall down and together have a combined mass that exceeds the horse's. The results would not be pretty for either side even if the men were unarmed.

More importantly, what happens to a rider without a saddle when his horse hits such a mass of men at speed? My guess is instant "winged hussar".

[rrgg]

3. A line of horsemen vs a dense line of spearmen

Here it is the spearmen who have the upper hand. The horse will not (under most circumstances, with the training techniques, the equipment and stratagems used in those - and I think even today - times) blindly run into what it perceives as a wall. That means that the horses would actually not even wildly charge into a line of swordsmen. One, two, maybe three would but not the whole line. So there goes the main threat. Spears though give an edge, since they can hit against horsemen approaching the line, pushing with a trotting movement against the men, jabbing with spears or those galloping along it. What a cavalry charge, a massive line of iron-clad horses thundering towards the infantry could achieve was that the line could not withstand the psychological pressure and left their lines degenerating into a disordered mass, taking us back to situation Nr 2.

Of course the ability of the horse to blindly charge into a wall (this is how the horse perceives a dense shieldwall) and its tactical use on the battlefield are an issue many of us have debated on for a long time and with a lot of arguments, but I think that consensus is that this was not the role of cavalry. After all, in order for such a tactic to be implemented one such horse with an equally resolute rider are not enough... you need hundreds of both of them.

With number 3 is that assuming a large number of infantry against a smaller number of horsemen or a large number of infantry against an equal number of horsemen? How much damage would a horse that did keep charging cause?


Slightly related question, in large numbers would a 'stampede mentality' make horses more likely to charge into danger?

[Macedon]

3. A line of horsemen vs a dense line of spearmen

Here it is the spearmen who have the upper hand. The horse will not (under most circumstances, with the training techniques, the equipment and stratagems used in those - and I think even today - times) blindly run into what it perceives as a wall. That means that the horses would actually not even wildly charge into a line of swordsmen. One, two, maybe three would but not the whole line. So there goes the main threat. Spears though give an edge, since they can hit against horsemen approaching the line, pushing with a trotting movement against the men, jabbing with spears or those galloping along it. What a cavalry charge, a massive line of iron-clad horses thundering towards the infantry could achieve was that the line could not withstand the psychological pressure and left their lines degenerating into a disordered mass, taking us back to situation Nr 2.

Of course the ability of the horse to blindly charge into a wall (this is how the horse perceives a dense shieldwall) and its tactical use on the battlefield are an issue many of us have debated on for a long time and with a lot of arguments, but I think that consensus is that this was not the role of cavalry. After all, in order for such a tactic to be implemented one such horse with an equally resolute rider are not enough... you need hundreds of both of them.

With number 3 is that assuming a large number of infantry against a smaller number of horsemen or a large number of infantry against an equal number of horsemen? How much damage would a horse that did keep charging cause?


Slightly related question, in large numbers would a 'stampede mentality' make horses more likely to charge into danger?

This would be about any substantial mass of infantry regardless the number of cavalry. A densely formed (close or compact order) line (or square if the infantry fears flank attacks) would have this wall effect. As I have stated in the past, this does not mean that in the whole of history there was no cavalry charge against massed infantry, there have been such cases however debatable the circumstances of the charge (were the infantry in disorder? Does the writer imply a melee or just an approach to discharge javelins by the use of the word "attack"?, etc etc etc), but the study of battles and manuals reveals that such instances were very rare and were usually not a tactical choice to use cavalry. I think it was Nicephorus Phocas who urged in his manual that the cataphracts should attack the enemy commander EVEN if he was among infantry, and went on that cataphracts should not be afraid to attack infantry, (I can provide the exact quote if anyone needs it) which only shows that however this charge would take place (trot, slow gallop etc) it was not standard tactics and was considered very dangerous, even by the Nicephorian elite cataphract units.

I think that a horse that for any reason kept charging would first and foremost mean death for itself and most possibly for its rider. It reminds me of Xenophon's account of the use of chariots against the deep lines of the Egyptians in Cyropedia. I think that a single horse falling on the shields would not even be able to stampede more than a single enemy before checking its speed on its own and being stabbed from all sides with spears and swords fall among them. If it were a dead horse, it would probably slide a bit more and make more damage to the first men of the line. Yet, the infantry line would quickly recover, while horses of the back ranks would have to stop being unable to push the horse (dead or alive) in front of them. This inability of the horses to "push" is very often stressed in the sources.

In the extreme case where a cavalry line falls blindly as a whole into an infantry line, it becomes a matter of morale. If the infantry stands and does not instantly break by the suicidal resolution of the enemy, they will again have the upper hand, since they will be many against few. The infantry will have back ranks to push forward (assuming a non-shallow depth of 8-16) and there will be many men standing among the fallen masses of horses stabbing at them and their riders while the rear cavalry ranks will not be able to charge in (the masses of dead/dying horses also check the movement of horses) remaining stationary in front of infantry and thus at a great disadvantage.

[Robert Vermaat]

Marcus Junkelmann experimented with this and wrote a little report in the third volume of his "Die Reiter Roms". His conclusion was that you can actually train horses to run at, and to bully into, a formed up line of men shouting and waving pointy objects (they managed to get their horses to do it), but it takes an insane amount of training over a long time to get them to do so. I recall it took them several months. He thought it unlikely that any army would have had the time or inclination to train their horses to that extent. Certainly history seems to bear this conclusion out.

The questions asked should be:
a) were horses ever actually trained to charge into solid infantry, if yes
b) was this ever a tactical option to any commander, if yes
c) was it ever actually executed?

As noted below, you can train horses to charge into certain death, but how about the riders? Suidice attacks are known throughout history, but a whole cavalry unit of them?
Therefore I think Junkelmann was right. Of course you can train horses to deny their own natural instincts, but you can also train bears to dance and monkeys to ride on bicycles. And we have plenty of battlefield account relating of spear-armed infantry solidly standing their ground, causing the cavalry to dismount.

NB: What should not be forgotten is that the question (cavalry vs. spears) is not an entirely correct one. Almost every army supported spear-armed infantry with missiles. Roman armies seem to have continued a barrage of missiles throughout the battle, which would have added to the threat against attacking cavalry.

[rrgg]

Alright I think one more question as far as this goes, you mention the density of the infantry formation as being a deciding factor and horses perceiving a shieldwall as a solid object. Wouldn't this give infantry the advantage regardless of what weapons they are armed with?

[Macedon]

Yes, against cavalry charging in it would. I have often stated that in my opinion, it is not the spear that makes a horse not wish to gallop in but the wall it perceives in front of it. Napoleonic squares were not protected by pikes nor were Republican or early Imperial Roman lines and they would still not "habitually" be charged into by enemy cavalry. Nor do we have any manual stating that it is all right and safe to charge into infantry without spears. Spears were valuable though, because exactly since enemy cavalry would not charge into dense infantry, they could be used to poke at horses coming too close or allowing the infantry to come close and also hit at those who would ride along the line to shoot or hit at the front-men with their lances, whereas swords, for example, would be too short for the job.

[joeandmich]

Hi I'm new to this forum but something came to mind after reading this topic. Didn't the Normans and English cavalry charge directly into infantry lines? I know that was quite some time later but their technology was basically the same. I think the Scottish army used a spear formation called a schiltron to counter the charge.

[Macedon]

We do have descriptions of cavalry charging towards infantry, but towards and into are two different things. In another thread about the same issue I had suggested that in my opinion, medieval infantry was inferior in many aspects to ancient infantry, especially regarding discipline, professionalism and quality of leadership (particularly lower rank officers). This made the chances of an infantry line withstanding the psychological impact of an impressive cavalry charge even more difficult than it was before. It was also much harder to muster large numbers of men (let alone men trained in warfare) and as such, battles tended to be less tactical and more skirmishing/irregular, a must for cavalry bodies to be able to excel. Yet, even in those years, we see that cavalry again did not often (that is as a regular tactical choice instead of getting the command as a result of their commanding officer wishing to exploit some weakness he thought he saw in the enemy force) resort to such cavalry charges. For example, look at how many charges the Normans did at Hastings or in many other battles, often given in number of two digits. And also look at the results... The former shows that these charges were not as suicidal as they would be if they resembled to what we are discussing here (my opinion being that they were taunting their target, stopping and retreating, riding by or maybe some individual knights charging or pushing into the line) and the latter that infantry did hold its place, even though its armament and discipline could not really compare to this of the ancients, besting even the most renowned cavalry of the time. In the end, it took the Saxons voluntarily breaking their lines, running down the hill in an imaginary pursuit of their enemy to allow William's knights to run them down. As for the Scottish shiltrons, they resembled the Seleucid pike squares (although a shiltron was not only rectangular in shape) we read of at Magnesia and their density made them a formidable opponent on the British battlegrounds of the era.