Box / Line / Wedge / Skirmish

[psymann]

Hmm, some useful points...

Because the peasants have a low cohesion rating. They're fumbling around for their weapons, wondering if their cow is still in its pen, thinking about their wife/kids. They might have big weapons, but if they can't use them then they're going to do very little damage.

That's true. |  But that's describing their training.  Which is also low.

Yes, the peasants did do low damage. What did you expect? They're unarmored, and use flails and pitchforks at best.

Because the horses managed to trample straight over your guys, scare them a little and wound them greatly in the process.

That the cavalry deals a lot of damage is perfectly understandable as well. Simply throwing dead horses with the same velocity into a crowd would kill a lot of people. On top of that, the infantrymen get cramped together, where the cavalerists can still attack from horseback - with more space to swing their weapons.

Many very similar points, all saying that the peasants fought less well because they had low stats (be that cohesion, training, morale, whatever).  Or the horses fought better because they're big and strong and horselike.

But as Chernier's just posted, that's all already taken into account (or should be) in calculating CS.  That's why 23 men (peasants) have only 75CS, whereas just 16 men (army) have 219CS.  You can't then go double-counting it, and saying that they should then fight even less well.

Similarly, if it really is the case that cavalry charge can pretty much break through any formation I throw at them, then their CS should be considerably higher.  They have the ability to wipe two thirds of my unit out in one go, while I don't so much as wound one of them, yet they have a lower CS.  This doesn't make sense.

As far as I can tell from my experience, the peasants should have been listed as having about 15CS.  And the horses probably more like 350CS.  That would more accurately have reflected the fact that even with a good formation, the peasants were useless (apart from as fodder), and the horses were really rather strong.  Showing it as 375 CS vs 219 CS would probably have been a fairer reflection of the outcome.

1. Against walls, they are completely and utterly useless.
2. They deal a lot of damage, but they also die fast.
3. They're more expensive to recruit than infantry.
4. Their centers are more expensive to build than infantry.
5. A given noble can command a lot fewer cavalry than infantry.
6. Did I mention they're useless against walls? 'Cause that's pretty darn important.

1. Fair point, although most battles happen in the rural regions, I find.
2. These didn't die at all.  They'd destroyed my troops so fast that they could barely fight back to case any damage anyway.  And they do their massive charge before they get hit by infantry at all.
3. No, they're more expensive per person.  But since 4 cavalry can decimate 16 infantry, they can be four times the price and still be better value.
4. OK, that's something at least, didn't know that.
5. Which doesn't matter because they do much more damage than infantry, so you don't need to command as many of them.
6. Yes, you did.

And I take it that the answer to "what formation helps infantry defend against cavalry" is "none - just run away or die"?

One thing that is important to realize, and something that I was confused about initially as well, is that when you put your men in box formation, it is not equivalent to a cavalry square.

As someone else already stated, a traditional cavalry square without pikes is damn near useless.

Oh!

Well then, that does start to explain things.  I thought box was like a cavalry square - that is that you have men in a tight box shape, facing outwards on all sides with swords pointing out at each side.  Then when a horse runs towards it, it just stops (like a refusal at the showjumping) and/or ends up in the face of the box, impaled on swords.

But I question them being useless without pikes.  You mentioned their use in Napoleonic wars - I don't think they had pikes then, they just held their bayonets out on the end of their muskets, didn't they?  After all, I'm sure it was (with difficulty) possible to keep the square intact while advancing or retreating, and you'd not have been able to move while in a square if you had pikes fixed in the ground - nor would soldiers have carried around both a gun and a pike.

The cavalry may also have just charged straight through the infantry and then fought them from back to front (less likely game-mechanic wise, but RP wise makes sense)

It didn't make any sense when I thought they were in a cavalry square.  Because there's not really a 'back'.
But it does make sense when understood to be a column, not a square.

I'm not a student of medieval or military history, but I believe that getting into a box against cavalry is really only effective if you've got pikes.

Yet Anaris still seems to think, like me, that a box is a cavalry square, because you certainly wouldn't pair pikes with a column.


So it sounds as if the reason the box formation was so lousy is that it was (probably) really a column formation (all facing fowards) not a cavalry square formation (facing in all four directions) as I'd thought.  But even so, there really wasn't any formation the infantry could have picked that would have made them more effective against horses, because a cavalry charge is unstoppable.  And so the CS value for the horses is really too low because it ignores the damage of their charge.  Then the CS for the peasants is too high because they massively underperform compared to their CS.  And the infantry should only ever try to attack cavalry when they greatly outnumber them in CS terms, or when they're behind a wall.

You live and learn.   

[Bedwyr]

Your problem was that your infantry could not soak the initial charge enough to do real damage to the cav.  Cav does lots of damage on that first turn, your infantry will get smashed...And then the infantry cut the cavalry to pieces assuming they haven't been broken by the initial charge.

But, yes.  In open field battles, cavalry are better than infantry.  End of story.  An equivalent CS of cavalry will almost always beat infantry in the field.  Digging in will help a lot against cav, but not enough to even the odds.

Cavalry in a siege battle are overpriced pincushions more often than not, which balances it out, and explains why their CS equivalence seems off.  You essentially have to average the extra usefulness in the field vs the lack of usefulness in sieges.

And, here's the other thing: You had no archers to soften that cav charge up.  They die from archers just as easily as infantry, and each casualty hurts more.  Infantry/Archers do better than pure infantry against cav, in my experience, but it's still not enough to off-set the field advantage.

[Zakilevo]

Horses do afraid of squares. I am pretty sure that is how British beat French in one of the vital wars.

Wellington's infantry responded by forming squares (hollow box-formations four ranks deep). Squares were much smaller than usually depicted in paintings of the battle – a 500-man battalion square would have been no more than 60 feet (18 m) in length on a side. Vulnerable to artillery or infantry, squares that stood their ground were deadly to cavalry, because they could not be outflanked and because horses would not charge into a hedge of bayonets. Wellington ordered his artillery crews to take shelter within the squares as the cavalry approached, and to return to their guns and resume fire as they retreated.

[vanKaya]

But I question them being useless without pikes.  You mentioned their use in Napoleonic wars - I don't think they had pikes then, they just held their bayonets out on the end of their muskets, didn't they?  After all, I'm sure it was (with difficulty) possible to keep the square intact while advancing or retreating, and you'd not have been able to move while in a square if you had pikes fixed in the ground - nor would soldiers have carried around both a gun and a pike.

A quick review of napoleanic era cavalry squares:

The first rank fixed bayonets and knelt, pointing their bayonet outward at 45 degrees and stabilizing it on the ground or against their foot. The bayonets were used principally to prevent the horses getting to close (the stopping effect like at a showjump as you mentioned)

The second rank stands behind with rifles/ muskets at the ready and when the cavalry is within range, lets say 25/30 feet, they fire at the approaching cavalry.

What's meant to happen is that the musket fire decimates the cavalry's front line and causes so much blood and confusion from injured men and horses that it becomes impossible for them to make a proper charge at the square and thus they must swerve away, giving that face of the square time to reload for the next attack.

When things go wrong for the square is when the musket volley is insufficient in curbing the charge. Either firing too early, and not causing enough damage and allowing the charge to continue toward the square, or firing too late and allowing the horses to get to close, both have dire results.

If even one or two injured horses manage to get anywhere near the line, the ensuing panic amongst the infantry will almost always seal the fate of the entire square.

So in conclusion, a napoleonic square deters cavalry by a) making sure the cavalry can't outflank and b) keeping the cavalry at a safe distance from the square

Also, a moving square is almost certainly a dead square. You'd have to move while the cavalry were retreating and reform during the charge. An extremely well drilled group of soldiers could probably do it but, on the other hand, a well drilled group of cavalry would almost certainly be able to time their attack at the right time or locate a weakness along the moving square.

I'm not sure if Anaris really does think that the BM box formation refers to a cavalry square but regardless I stand by the idea that is doesnt

[psymann]

Cavalry in a siege battle are overpriced pincushions more often than not, which balances it out, and explains why their CS equivalence seems off.  You essentially have to average the extra usefulness in the field vs the lack of usefulness in sieges.

I see what you mean, but I would argue that the CS should be determined based on their performance in the field (not least because that's where the vast majority of battles happen).  Then, if you go against a wall, you can make note of the fact that cavalry won't do much for you.  Taking some sort of average (which would have to assume a percentage of how many battles you had against walls compared to not against walls), is a bit dodgy I think.

I think if the CS was a bit higher for cavalry, to take into account their charge, then the infantry would be expected to lose, as they did.  And an infantry of matching higher CS value would be able to withstand enough of the charge to fight back afterwards and make a battle of it.

It's a good point about archers as well, of course.  But I bet archers die even quicker when hit by the charge when it arrives


Would still be interesting if anyone does know what formations are good for cavalry to use (or is it just, boringly, always use Wedge and Rearguard?).  And would be interesting if anyone does know what formations are good against them (clearly not Box!) if indeed there is any formation that is effective against cavalry as it sounds to me as if cavalry just stampede over any formation thrown at them.

[Bedwyr]

Problem is it depends on the island and war.  For instance, one of the (many) reasons why Arcaea on the FEI doesn't use a lot of cav is that in almost every war we've fought in the last three years, fortification battles have been at least as prevalent as field battles, just because of the sheer number of fortifications on the Far East and because the wars tended to swing from "OMG frantically defend Talex!" to "Bwahaha, now we just need to crack Nahad/Taop/Azros/Hatdhes/Nahad/Soniel/Enlod/Nahad".

Now, that's not to say that I disagree with the concept of making CS make more sense, because I do like it, I'm just not sure it's worth the time-investment.

And yes, archers die even faster when the cav charge hits...Unless the infantry move up to soak the damage first.  That's why you have your archers in front, and your infantry in the middle (assuming the cav is doing the usual back/rear position).

Everyone uses Wedge for cav because it increases melee damage, which, given how charge works, is a multiplicative effect and thus well-worth the offset.  I have seen cav used with other formations, but never well.

What line you set up on is dependent on 1. when your infantry will impact the enemy and 2. when you want your cav to hit with regards to your infantry.

Most people have their infantry in either the front or middle, and want their cav to hit at the same time as the infantry to crack the opposing melee line, so cav is either in back or rear.  But if, for instance, you know the enemy is using archer opening, and you want your cavalry to butcher their archers before your infantry arrives, you might set them on front to get to them before the infantry can stop you from hitting them at all.  Or, if you outnumber the enemy melee by a lot and want to avoid overcrowding penalties, you have your cav hit the turn before the infantry, or perhaps the turn after hoping the line has cracked and you can charge through to the archers.

[egamma]

I think part of the confusion stems from the fact that we have only a single battle to draw conclusions from.

For example, it would be fair to make these statements:
if the peasants had fought archers, they might have actually killed someone
if the infantry had used skirmish formation, the peasants might have killed someone
if the attacker had used a different formation, or had archers or more infantry or another unit with them, the cavalry would have taken more casualties.

[Chenier]

I think part of the confusion stems from the fact that we have only a single battle to draw conclusions from.

For example, it would be fair to make these statements:
if the peasants had fought archers, they might have actually killed someone
if the infantry had used skirmish formation, the peasants might have killed someone
if the attacker had used a different formation, or had archers or more infantry or another unit with them, the cavalry would have taken more casualties.

It must also be considered that there is an important random factor, and that the peasants might have been "low-rollers" for that battle while the infantry were "high-rolling" (comparing to dice-based games). This could have skewed the hit/cs comparison significantly with such small units.

[fodder]

why is napoleanic even relevant? ain't no guns at all in this era. you could say xbow, but they ain't infantry.

surely roman or its ilk would be more relevant. what did they do back then?

[psymann]

why is napoleanic even relevant? ain't no guns at all in this era.

That's true, but since in this situation they just put bayonets on the end and used the guns as pointy swords (ie not firing them), it's not as irrelevant as it first appears.

[Fleugs]

That's true, but since in this situation they just put bayonets on the end and used the guns as pointy swords (ie not firing them), it's not as irrelevant as it first appears.

Because battletactics have always been the same?

[psymann]

Because battletactics have always been the same?

Well, there I have no idea really - I'm not a historian

I'm interested to know, then, what medieval armies did do against cavalry if they met them in the field.  Did they just die horribly?  Did they have no defence tactic?

If so, why weren't armies of horses conquering the world back then?

[Fleugs]

I'm interested to know, then, what medieval armies did do against cavalry if they met them in the field.  Did they just die horribly?  Did they have no defence tactic?

If so, why weren't armies of horses conquering the world back then?

Well, a wall of spears was most effective. Most of the times one side would also be able to have a "fixed position", meaning that they would have wooden spikes lodged into the ground (e.g. in front of their archers) to defend them against charging cavalry. In any case, cavalry is considered to be worth 10 times a footsoldier in medieval terms, so whatever the defence... they were still pretty heavy. Compare them to a modern-day tank, if you wish. They were fully armoured (including their horses), heavily armed and very capable of wielding their weapon with great skill. Regular infantry would exist out of more unexperienced armed farmers (~peasants) and would have great trouble fighting against cavalry in any case, even if they did have spears.

Also, armies of horses did conquer massive amounts of the world. All these Asian hordes...

[Jens Namtrah]

Well, there I have no idea really - I'm not a historian

I'm interested to know, then, what medieval armies did do against cavalry if they met them in the field.  Did they just die horribly?  Did they have no defence tactic?

If so, why weren't armies of horses conquering the world back then?

Archers.

Large masses of archers were effective at stopping them. But until people learned that, cavalry was enormously effective at "conquering the world"

[Huntsmaster]

If so, why weren't armies of horses conquering the world back then?

See: Mongols in Asia, Muslims in North Africa and Spain. The first was eventually stopped by walls, the second by knights in a square.