History UsefulNotes / MountedCombat

Cavalry comes with certain restrictions and disadvantages, however, which apply both in single combat and in battle. First, cavalry loses much of its effectiveness on rough or hilly terrain; horses do the most damage when they are charging over flat ground. Charging uphill just tires the horses, and charging downhill risks a fatal stumble. Difficult or broken ground can also throw a tightly-packed heavy cavalry charge into chaos just as well as a pike line can be thrown out by the same ground. Besides this, cavalry cannot hold ground or defend an entrenched position the way that infantry can. Men on horseback are like sitting ducks unless they are either moving forward or withdrawing, simply because the horse is a vulnerable target and their combined silhouette makes an easy target for unfriendly archers. A horse is also not as stable a fighting platform as solid ground, and riders could be struck off their horse by other riders' lances or dragged from the saddle by infantrymen with staff weapons. This is why a unit of horsemen did not simply ride up to the enemy and stop to engage them in a stationary slugging match, as you often unrealistically see in strategy videogames. That wastes the advantage of having the mount's mobility, while still exposing you to all the disadvantages it presents. If the infantry did not immediately rout or crumble under a shock attack, in which case the horsemen could ride through them, then the horsemen would have deliver their strike or projectile and veer off to one side, withdrawing in order to minimize the amount of time that they were vulnerable to counterattack.

After the collapse of the Western Roman and Hunnic empires, the Normans initially were among the first mounted soldiers who had a decent chance of giving an infantry formation serious pause for thought from the front, breaking the dominance of the infantry soldier through Europe's "Dark Ages", though they preferred to soften such formations up with hails of javelins from horseback and, when that failed, archer support, before punching through the weakened lines with their lances. In the 11th century there was hardly any difference between the cavalry lance and infantry spear except possibly length, and although sources such as the Bayeux tapestry are sometimes ambiguous it seems horsemen used their lances in three ways: overhanded thrusts downward, underhanded thrusts with an extended arm, and charging with the lance firmly "couched" or braced under the arm.

Horses are not born fighters. Although warhorses have been bred over the centuries for calmness, strength, and stature, a horse's first instinct when facing an individual with a [[AnAxeToGrind sharp piece]] [[{{UsefulNotes/Swords}} of metal]] and a SlasherSmile is to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere flee as fast as it can]]. Fighting is not completely alien to the animal's nature; anything that gets too close to its rear can expect a nasty kick from both hind legs. However, the fact that its main weapon is rear-facing only reinforces the idea that a horse's first instinct when faced with a threat is to flee, fighting only to keep retreating if fleeing fails.

The invention of the wheel-lock pistol around this time made the use of firearms by cavalry practical for the first time, so that by the 1550s the German heavy cavalry had abandoned their lances in favor of pistols. This led to a contest between the lance and the pistol that played out on the battlefields of the late 16th century. The old lance charge as favored by the French was conducted in the ''en haye'' ("in line") formation, which was rarely more than two ranks deep because its goal was to present a broad front to take full advantage of the charging power of lancers at full gallop. The Gendarmes on their armored horses formed the first rank, while their squires rode behind to take advantage of their protection. The Germans, in contrast, preferred the ''caracole'' formation that used the momentum of a deep column. They would ride up to the enemy and the first rank would discharge their pistols, breaking off and riding to the back so that the next rank could fire, and so on. While this worked well enough against infantry, it was less effective against a disciplined force of lancers. Having admitted that a picked and chosen squadron of pistols would kill more of the enemy than a squadron of lances, Roger Williams nonetheless claimed to have often seen German ''reiters'' flee from a determined lancer whom they outnumbered three to one, and noted that too many wasted their shots by firing at a distance and didn't charge their pistols with the right amount of power, resulting in inaccuracy or under-penetration. François de la Noue responded to this line of argument by pointing out that lances were only really good for wounding horses and became useless after the initial charge, while the second and third ranks of lancers wouldn't even get to use their lances before they had to drop them and draw their swords in the melee. In contrast, if the pistoliers were disciplined enough to hold their fire until they were at point blank range, they would wound their opponents by shooting them in the face or thigh. They also became more effective when, after firing their pistols, they drew their swords and laid into the enemy instead of wheeling off. A combination of the pistol and a modified ''caracole'' formation helped the Protestants to repeatedly defeat the Royalists and Catholic League lancers at the end of the 16th century, which helped to demonstrate the tactical superiority of the pistol when used correctly.

Cavalry continued to develop as time wore on, but it never regained its supremacy. Horsemen could still be dangerous; during UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars infantry needed to form a special square formation in order to prevent cavalry from overrunning their lines, and during the Crimean War incidents such as Film/TheChargeOfTheLightBrigade showed that even when supposedy completely outclassed, the cavalryman could still achieve their objectives (despite the horrific losses the cavalry did actually manage to take the guns; they merely failed to ''hold'' them. [[CrazyAwesome British cavalry were scary, scary folk.]]) In the same battle (the Battle of Balaclava) however, the "thin red line" incident demonstrated just how vulnerable cavalry could be when taking on disciplined infantry directly; a mere regiment of British soldiers, the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders, backed up by Ottoman infantry, probably numbering between 400 and 650 men (remember the regiment would almost certainly have been under-strength) routed a Russian cavalry charge of 2,500 soldiers.