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As I said, the innovation of the Medieval Knight was "charging full speed ahead with crouched lances". "Charging" cavalry, in that sense, was not a thing before

As I said, the innovation of the Medieval Knight was "charging full speed ahead with crouched lances". "Charging" cavalry, in that sense, was not a thing before. Byzantine Cataphracts fought like all known cavalry of antiquity: they didn't crash into enemy formations, they slowed down and attacked like infantry trying to maintain formation. The cavalry charge became a lost art, because people learned how to counter it I don't know, mounted knights charging where dominant from the mid 1000s until around Agincourt (1415), that's a long time to find a specific counter. What happened imho, is that armies got big again to the point where the charges wouldn't scale anymore. Armies started resembling more the classical period: the landschneckts, and specially the Spanish Tercios resemble Alexander's armies a lot. And as for being a lost art, the art was really in the breeding and teaching horses to trample through a formation. I imagine it would have been a useful resource in later periods, it's not as there where no <8k unit battles anymore. It's just that since that wasn't the META for the important battles nobody could justify maintaining such an expensive skill.

jltsiren 4y ago
Crashing into enemy formations was not a thing, because it was not survivable for the horses. Because horses are not large enough to crash through 10 or 16 ranks of infantry, their momentum works against them. Elephants could do that, but not horses. Crashing through a loose formation was possible, as was making a dense formation panic and flee. As I mentioned, the immediate counter to a cavalry charge was feigned retreat. It worked, because it looked very much like a successful charge. You charge, the enemy breaks formation and flees. You give chase, but you are a bit too eager and proceed a bit too far. Then you find yourself in a trap, exhausted and surrounded. You mentioned Agincourt, but the Battle of Crécy (1346) was similar but larger.

jltsiren 4y ago

Crashing into enemy formations was not a thing, because it was not survivable for the horses. Because horses are not large enough to crash through 10 or 16 ranks of infantry, their momentum works against them. Elephants could do that, but not horses. Crashing through a loose formation was possible, as was making a dense formation panic and flee. As I mentioned, the immediate counter to a cavalry charge was feigned retreat. It worked, because it looked very much like a successful charge. You charge, the enemy breaks formation and flees. You give chase, but you are a bit too eager and proceed a bit too far. Then you find yourself in a trap, exhausted and surrounded. You mentioned Agincourt, but the Battle of Crécy (1346) was similar but larger.