Why didn't all CAVALRY use LANCES?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ต.ค. 2024
- Looking at some of the advantages of cavalry lances, and considering why not all cavalry used them.
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Nice to hear you explore this area.
Good to see you here, now I'm thinking a collaboration re 'Polearm vs Lancer
Collaboration coming up soon?
my question is that why during the 30 years war，lances became rare to see but reappeard in 19th century？
Sir Kingsley, could you do a video showing the lance extractiontechniques , perhaps against a maniquin.
It’s a bit weird to now to think of cavalry with sabers and semiautomatic pistols but the Colt 1911 had a grip safety because the US Cavalry wanted a semiautomatic pistol that wouldn’t accidentally go off while on horseback.
The original 1911 also had a strap connection for if you dropped it, like for Calvary that would be especially important
A big argument in the UK pre-WW1 was whether to give cavalry pistols- the US Army was a great believer of "saddle fire" i.e. opening fire with pistols on the charge. The British army felt that trying to aim from a galloping horse was an exercise in futility.
Even more evident, the Austro/Hungarian Roth-Steyr with double action only, developed specially for cavalry only.
@@benlewis4241 And then they went on to pioneer shooting on the go with tank guns.
@@johanrunfeldt7174 The British put in shoulder mounts, the French sat the commander on a saddle inside the turret and the Americans built a fancy gyroscope. I think the Soviets and Nazi's just decided to leave the crazy to the west this time.
The reason why we were so obsessed with mobile firepower in tanks is actually more due to the Naval heritage in the Royal Tank Corps, doctrine imagined tanks would operate like ships out of protected "harbours" and try to cut the other side off from supply convoys while trying to prevent the enemy from doing the same to them, engaging in fast paced battles of manoeuvrer, we were very literal in our borrowing of naval terminology when we talked about squadrons of "cruiser" tanks!
Don't forget cavalry archers, they rarely used the lance since the sword is just a more versatile and portable backup. The reach of a lance is nullified with the range of the bow.
Cavalry archers were important for thousands of years but of course were rare by the 19th century.
That's pretty much the same logic as for firearms, I suppose …
@@jamielondon6436 with thouands of more years of history than firearms in the context of cav warfare
@@HistoricalWeapons Obviously. :-)
@@jamielondon6436 but ignored in this video
@@HistoricalWeapons Good point.
My grandfather was a hussar in the late 20s early 30s in the northwest frontier and was issued a 1908 pattern along with his Enfield. I was told the only time he used the sword in anger was to hit a local on the head with the flat of the blade to deter a forming crowd.
That's wild!
Hilarious!
To be fair it is something which is inadvisable to do with a rifle.
this is made to seem harmless but is pretty close to the way USAmerican troops used their swords in the later 19th and early 20th centuries; the complained about them quite a bit vis a vis having to carry them when they were rarely used in combat; they were however frequently used for 'crowd control' against civilians, usually on Black or native crowds.
@@thomashyle6098 Properly used a sword can deliver a blow that is stinging but not outright dangerous, used improperly you have the Peterloo massacre.
Crowd control would have a long way to come before it resembled what we take for granted today
Speaking of cavalry in 20th century it had quite big role in Civil war on remnants of Russian empire 1917-1922. Moreover, there were all kinds of cavalry: European pattern dragoons, kossaks, middle Asia native cavalry. All parties of this civil war were short of ammunition for some reasons.
Don't forget China too! Cavalry played a pretty important role in the north. The trick is to just imagine a horse as an all terrain vehicle which eats grass instead of petrol. Tactically speaking it was the loss of easy availability (both of the animals themself and the housemastership) rather than the machine gun which ended the military use of horses. All-terrain vehicles where actually surprisingly rare in the Second World War until Jeeps really started churning out for the allies. After 1942 the Wehrmacht was forced to pull its motor vehicles from its infantry reconnaissance regiments for horse and bicycles. The Red Army had created horse breeding studs throughout the '30's and maintained horse cavalry on the front line even after taking Berlin.
Also, a horse unit without special horse food is greatly slowed down (horses must browse for food). Meanwhile, a mechanized unit without petrol is fully stopped.
During 2WW Polish cavalry was effective on defence (but they typically dismounted to fight and were equipped with anti-tank cannons), and also performed several successful surprise charges (not on tanks; this was Nazi propaganda). Later on the East Front both sides were using cavalry in the south; as "poor man's panzer units" (for their agility). And near the end of the war (1 Mar 1945) a small unit of Polish cavalry made a successful charge on positions formerly attacked without success by infantry and tanks!!! (It was a peculiar situation; cavalry were performing a surprise attack and had to run a relatively short distance; Germans did not have enough machine guns to resist fast moving cavalrymen).
As you see, properly used cavalry can remain dangerous surprisingly long... Just like an ancient sword can still dispatch a modern soldier 😏
Hope you recover quickly. IIRC, to be considered proficient in basic training French lancers of the Napoleonic wars were trained to 'give point' in all directions -- including directly behind them (by laying back over the horses rear and thrusting over the riders' heads). At some point in the period the French decided to only have the front rank of lancers actually use the lance - since during the melee following a charge, they were felt to be an encumbrance, and the sword or pistols were preferred.
That's true. The French lancers copied Polish way of lance fencing.
Thank you for this. I've often wondered how spears were used on horseback and whether they were a single use weapon once the rider had run their target through. I don't know why I hadn't considered asking YOU all this time as you could've cleared this up for me long ago.
Regarding the introduction of firearms, I think it bears mention that after heavy cavalry charging (not caracolling, though there may be a fluid distinction) with pistols (17th century cuirassiers) they went back to heavy cavalry without pistols (except as backup weapons) charging with sabers or swords at the trot and in dense formation (boot to boot) in the 18th century again (or earlier if we consider royalist cavalry formations from the english civil war - no use of lances, but often successful in charging early parliamentarian infantry or chasing away parliamentarian cavalry.
Maybe the reduced number of pikes in favour of shot in infantry formations meant that infantry was less likely to hold position in the face of cavalry anyway, and so a dedicated impact weapon was not considered required anymore?
And the lance, when it appears, does so in the hands of cavalry which was not intended for the traditional charge. Cossacks used the lance for light cavlry action like raiding and skirmishing, whereas ulan formations seemed to have been dedicated towards countering the charge cavalry armed with swords.
Dragoons, Mounted Rifles, and mounted infantry were all used as multipurpose troops the way you described them. Especially by US mounted troops West of the Mississippi River before the Civil War. All were absorbed into the future US Cavalry. In the 1930s there were still State National Guard units of Horse Cavalry that became mechanize units in WW2. I knew a gentleman who was in a Horse Cavalry MD NG unit. He worked for Glen L Martin Co. that designed and built aircraft during WW2. He had a military deferment because his civilian job was too important for him to be drafted.
Listen to the two part talk on the Chieftain's channel about US armored doctrine up to 1942. The Cavalry Branch was very resistant.
@@mpetersen6 Thx
German lances in the imperial army were made of steel tubes with small flags close to the top to avoid too deep penetration.
In addition, the lances had a kind of leather belt so, the soldier could wear it when it was not used or the sword or the carabine rifle was the preferred weapon.
I remember that different cavalry manuals in the early 19th century had specific sword techniques, of which there were usually around 30 to learn for any variety of horseman. You can read accounts of British cavalrymen from around that time talking about how they wounded their opponent with "a number three cut" or something like that. As for lancers, I believe there were something like 55 distinct lance techniques if memory serves, nation dependent. There are only so many hours a day one can train. There's wear on horses, men, equipment etc and plenty of administrative tasks to be done within a given period. Dragoons were often said to have wobbly horsemanship and middling swordsmanship compared to their other counterparts, but they had to stay competent in infantry drills too, often to the detriment of some of their cavalry skills. One has to wonder how handy with firearms a lancer would have been. No one can master everything, hence different cavalry types for different tasks.
Additionally, there are all sorts of administrative and logistic constraints to take into account. How expensive is it to make x number of lances and transport them over however many miles to sustain the operations of a troop of lancers? What's the expenditure rate of lances for a troop in combat as opposed to one on regular duty? All these things need to be figured out and accommodated for. At the end of the day it may have just been easier for countries without an established lancer tradition to forego them all together and arm their cavalry with swords, or farm them out from other nations.
Best wishes for a speedy recovery and thanks for yet another entertaining and informative video..
The Great Patriotic War era the Soviet Red Army still had active Cossack units. Their weapons kit included pistols, carbine/sub-machine gun, lance, and sabre or shashka. Some of the native Siberian steppe Mongolic fellows brought their bows along, these were particularly useful for obtaining game to supplement rations, and for quietly remove sentries during night raids.
These units were primarily used for infiltration behind enemy lines, partisan support, and high mobility diversionary lightning raids.
I feel a bow is NOT going to quietly remove anyone. You get stuck with an arrow there's plenty of time to scream. :D
@@MrBottlecapBill : Not if the arrow is poisoned and you are shot in the throat.
@@MrBottlecapBill True, but you're much more likely to go into shock :)
Uh, no, it's EXTREMELY rare for someone to be killed instantly by an arrow
There is also the thing, that lances (in western european military doctrine) were seen as inferior to pistols from the late 16th century into 18th when it came to direct cavalry on cavalry action.This believe originated in the French Wars of Religion were catholic Gendarmes (heavy lance-wielding cavalry) were repeatedly beaten by protestant cavalry armed with Pistol(s), hand weapons and a - generally speaking - lighter armour. These "Reiter"-style units (Reiter=german for horsemen - called that way because large parts of the protestant cavalry were german protestant lesser noblemen (which were btw. too poor to afford a "proper" equipment like the french had and thus fought in this way)) were, because of this perceived success, then emulated all over western Europe and turned over time into the cuirassiers that we all know.
Funny thing is of cause that cavalry, which charged “with steel in hand” (meaning they would waste no time on shooting pistols before “impact”) often prevailed against their pistol-shooting opponent (like for example the Swedish cavalry did in the 30ty years’ war or the Royalist cavalry in the beginning of the English CW).
At early stages of ,Thirty Years War' the last ,Lanzierer' appeared. Those Reiter ( Kürisser), why horsemen when rider is possible, used only a ,Halbharnisch' ( in really 3/4) but at least a pair of pistols, often more. After 1630 pistol shooting ( catacole) became rarer, the closed helmet was replaced by Zyschäge ( orientalische Sturmhaube), also arm- and legpieces had been rarer used.
To elaborate, the dynamic is almost like a rock-paper-scissors game. Armored Lance-type cavalry typically shatters sword armed cavalry on the charge, with the lance outreaching the sword and the sword unable to penetrate decent armor. However, pistol-type cavalry can often defeat Lance-type cavalry on the charge because their pistols are often capable of penetrating armor (and even if a penetration is not achieved, the blunt force trauma is often debilitating) and outreached a lance besides, so the primary impact advantage of a lance is completely defeated. On the other hand, once both cavalry bodies merge in a melee, a one-shot empty pistol is a useless encumbrance, thus when a sword-type cavalry force has the mettle to charge at a pistol-type with steel in hand, the sword-type cavalry would often overcome the pistol-type cavalry, even with the initial damage caused by a volley of pistol fire.
The key here is that the lance may not deal as much damage as reliably as a pistol, but the lance does have a superior psychological impact. A general can reliably expect for a body of infantry to charge a force of musketeers, as done regularly in late 18th to early 19th century. However, a general cannot reliable expect any body of infantry to charge a block of ready pikemen, even though in practice a forest of pikes does not deal nearly as much damage and casualties as a volley of musket balls. The same psychological effect can be seen with cavalry armed with a lance. When two bodies of cavalry collide, a sword-armed cavalry force will not press home the charge at a lance-armed cavalry force, and thus the lance-armed cavalry force will often win by default. However, the same body of sword-armed cavalry will press home the charge at a pistol-armed cavalry force, just as musketeers with bayonets often pressed home their charge against the opposing musketeers but will never dare to do so against the wall of pikes a pike block can present. The psychological advantage that the lance-armed cavalry force possessed is not very relevant against a pistol-armed cavalry force, since the pistol-armed cavalry force will out-range and shoot the lance-armed cavalry force first, disrupting their formation (and thus, their psychological shock ability) before impact, and the advantage of causing significant damage before impact would often allow the pistol-armed cavalry force to overcome the lance-armed cavalry force in the melee.
Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. The Polish Winged Hussars were notorious for violating basically everything I just said. They often broke pistol-armed, sword-armed, and even opposing lance-armed cavalry with their own charge. They could even successfully charge pike blocks from the front and win. The Winged Hussars are the most glaring exception of the general dynamic I described.
@@albertrayjonathan7094 Well the Winged Hussars carried all those weapons on horseback: a lance, a saber, a koncerz/pallash, multiple pistols and occasionally carbines as well! They used whichever ones was most suited for the occassion, for example against the Tartars the lance was not used. Which explained their tremendous versatility and success, while they lasted.
First things first, I hope you will recover well from COVID and have no lasting effects.
Second, I really like how you pointed out that in later periods, cavalry was really mounted infantry. And in a way, it reminds me of the use of mounted archers by the English in the Hundred Years War, and in fact of English tactics in general after a certain point. Sure, men-at-arms and knights could fight mounted if need be, but mostly they fought on foot. And you can't use a 6 foot war bow from horseback.
Fun fact: one of the very few regulated (banned) weapons in 1920s-1930s Poland were lances. I guess it had something to do with the fact there's no civilian purpose for owning them according to the legislators
5:40 this kind of use is shown as the main method of attacking in a few obscure manuals (as opposed to couching), I'll try to dig them up and send you pictures
Conclusion, don't travel on horseback when carrying it then. On foot you can call it a spear. Civilian use are for boar hunting. 😉
@@michaelpettersson4919 i bet some people would just dismount when seeing a police officer lol
Carrying a pointy stick on foot? "Constructive Posession of a Lance"
Great job! One thing worth adding is that proper use of lance requires much practice; you could a bit compare it to the longbow versus musket situation; as long as even until the Crimean War a well trained bowman could actually prove deadlier than a powder weapon shooter...
When Napoleon saw Polish lancers in action (not the winged hussars of course, rather uhlans and such), he was so impressed that he created a whole sub-genre of cavalry to copy that (and other armies followed). It proved a hard task to do though and to the end of the Napoleonic Era Polish lancers maintained their reputation as the "genuine" lancers...
Heck, reading some descriptions even of recent fights in Afghanistan and such, a person is impressed how well pretty ancient weapons can do in certain situations... To the point that made me wonder if a properly trained unit of swordsmen could not pose a lethal threat under some circumstances... I believe they might; it's just the time and cost of training them to use such a weapon to its full potential that wouldn't be worth its practical benefits... Everything in life comes at a cost and is subject to some compromise after all...
As a side note; not necesserily shafts for long lances are cheap or easy to acquire... In the times of the first Polish Commonwealth for instance, there were special areas dedicated to growing proper trees to make lances of them - and just growing, but growing in a proper way, forcing plants to form long and straight stems... This, as you can imagine, didn't make hussars' equipment cheaper... But it was well worth it; it was not uncommon for hussars of the era to kill a few pikemen (standing behind each other) with a single hit of the dreadful lance...
Cheers 😊
It seems that the classic knight's weapon-set - lance, sword, dagger, supplemented by maces and/or axes - makes a LOT of sense in most situations, until the arrival of firearms.
You mean until the change of context
Even in the age of firearms , a western style cavalryman would still carry swords , daggers , warhammers alongside pistols or carbines .
@@pp-wo1sd : But in 18th century, maces, axes or warhammers had been mostly only a sign of a higher officer.
@@Vroomfondle1066 true
Pretty much all of those only went out of stile because people stopped wearing helmets, but in ww1 they made a come back because people started wearing helmets.
Matt has the most precise and straightforward introductions.
in 20'th century sword or saber would be a backup weapon or for opportunity charge. The base weapon would be actually gun and Cavalry would be mostly Dragoons, so mobile infantry. But when they have the opportunity they would still use charge with melee weapons.
As backup or opportunity weapon then a sword would be more convenient to transport and take with you every day.
the gun was the replacement for the lance; you don't adopt the new version and still keep the old; same reason rock and roll bands don't usually feature trumpets as part of their basic lineup (trumpets were largely replaced by guitars in five-piece vocal bands when guitars were electrified).
Aaaaah, Matt! I hope you feel better and recover quickly!
A great video, of course! I've always found the whole treatment of what exactly happens after the moment of lance impact to be fascinating. And it really isn't touched on enough!
If you want to embark on a fun mystery, try to look up Ancient/Medieval Chinese spears and lances. Difficult to find out what they really look like and what the various Chinese words for "spear" and "lance" actually refer to, as just like with "jian" and "dao" they have multiple words for "spear" that refer to features we don't highlight in western languages.
Yeh. I've seen the Warring States to Han Dynasty weapon "Pi" described as a long lance, a pike, a spear, a swordstaff, etc. Of course, the weapon could've evolved just like the terminology.
Now for a video on hafting and securing the heads of spears, poleaxes, and other polearms on the hafts. Type of wood, depth of socket, circumference of socket/haft, flanges, number and type of pins, etc.... (used a drawing from the Mary Rose exhibit for my personal experimenting) ---- Also get well soon
my father was one of the last u.s. horse cavalry officers prior to ww2... lances are great for riding through exposed infantry and swords are great for riding into exposed infantry... and the "patton" 1913 u.s. cavalry "sabre" was used for something to clank about on your saddle... i like the mameluke sword or a good old shashka
I was led to believe that the 1894 pattern British lance had a similar reach to the 1908 pattern sword held with an extended arm. This is because the lance was held by a leather covered grip at a midpoint on the haft. The lace was 2.79m long, half of that is only 1.4m. The 1908 sword is 1.1m, but is held at full arm’s length, where as the lance is tucked under your arm with a bent arm. I’ve certainly read that this was the thinking from around 1904, till the introduction of the 1908.
Great video, Matt, sorry to hear about your illness, hope you feel better soon.
Hope you have an easy and fast recovery man. Thank you for another great video.
Nice timing with Chieftan's video on US Armor doctrine. Officers in the US military were really unwilling to switch to armored vehicles. In hindsight it all seems really silly but back then armored warfare wasn't really settled yet.
A fellow man of culture.
I mean, you have to feel sorry for them. They signed up to ride prancing steeds into glorious combat with the wind in their hair like the knights of storybooks, not squat in a cramped, hot, noisy metal box until the blasted contraption throws a track again and they have to jump out and fix it like some glorified mechanic.
I disagree it doesn't seem silly. Cavalry was infact effective in combat in ww2, even against tanks (see us cavalry in the Philippines or Italian cavalry in east Africa).
And as shown in the video cavalry was quiter and more stealthy. Shown in modern times by us special forces useing horses and even entering battle mounted.
Its actually a greta pity horse cavalry was abandoned as it was still useful.
Retaining horse cavalry was not silly at all.
Also look up Portuguese cavlry in Angola 1966-1975.extremelu effective use of horse cavalry. It was so effective they converted an entire mechanised cavalry battalion into horse cavalry.
Or how afgan horse cavalry defeated soviet armor in the soviet afgan war in the 80s.
Dropping horse cavalry was a mistake
@@matthiuskoenig3378 wtf
Best wishes for a speedy recovery!!
Listening to the last Chieftain talk on US Army armored doctrine up to 1942. The US Army came very close to shipping a Cavalry unit to Italy. Of course the last US Atmy cavalry action was in the Philippines in late 41 or early 42.
I saw it mentioned in a history book (but haven't been able to confirm it from independent sources) that the last time the US Army was on the receiving end of a cavalry attack was in Korea when a tank company got overrun by a communist unit that caught them in the their night lager without proper sentries.
It is very important to make sure you add "tent" to that search...
I practice mainly sword off of a horse but have also done enough with a lance to speak a bit on that too. Jason Kingsley did a great video with Arne Koetts on it. You do need room to strike powerfully but a lot less than most people would think. The uprating in power by connecting a weapon strike with a horse's power is dang near nuclear, and worth the try. Needs to be experienced to really understand. Thank you for the informational video, great explanations.
I think you make a great point there at the end, fire arms really became integrated in light(or relatively) cavalry charges early on.
There was of course the Caracole tactic with units like the Reiters; fire, get out, reload and the return. And also the ‘fire and charge with drawn swords’ like the Hakkapeliitta.
And units that dismounted as well.
And through out mobility and harassment was arguably as important as how they were armed. But of course the arms need to get the job done. And that would depend.
As far as I'm aware, cavalry was used rather extensively in the beginning of WWI, as related by Von Richthoffen in his autobiography The Red Flyer/ Der rote flieger. He, in fact, served in the Imperial Prussian Cavalry before becoming a gunner in German spotter aircraft, then becoming a pilot and the highest scoring Air Ace of the war.
I was also under the impression that the last cavalry action of the war was the British cavalry charge against the Ottoman positions in Ber Sheeba, in what we now call Israel.
The Desert Mounted Corps actually stayed until the end in the middle east, in fact the Pursuit to Haritan where the force annihilated the better part of three full Ottoman divisions was later seen as the go to example of what a force of cavalry supported by artillery, armoured cars and aircraft could do. We also used cavalry to plug holes during the Ludendorff offensive.
Typical tactics were for one or two squadrons plus the light artillery and mg's to suppress the enemy with fire while another squadron manoeuvred itself to take the position (ideally from an unexpected direction) with a mounted charge. Once the position was taken the cavalry could dismount to hold the position until reinforcements arrived. Such tactics worked even in the Somme, but it was seen as wasteful to expose the limited professional manoeuvrer units to such attrition. As it was the artillery was gasping for horses, it could have been worse though, Central Powers supply essentially ran dry.
Post war the policy was to have no army capable of fighting in a European war all the way until 1936 at which point there were way more motor vehicles and people who knew how to use them than horses mobilise in the UK.
Arguably cavalry decided the war with the rapid breakout in the Macedonian front. Without Bulgarian surrender the war could have easily lasted onto 1919.
@@benlewis4241
That goes WAY beyond my familiarity with the Great War. Thanks for adding.
@@Raz.C No probs! If you can ever get you hands on Steven Badsey's "Reform of the British Cavalry" he goes into way more detail! "Theirs is not to reason why" by Graham Winton is also a really interesting book when it shows how much trouble the UK had to go to to get it's horses. The Boer Wars loss of 480,000 equines and the seemingly effortless way the Boers were able to outmanoeuvre the army was a real wake up call which caused the UK to completely rebuild the cavalry and veterinary services. Winton points out that the German army in 1918 managed to achieve a breakthrough but due to the lack of mobility were helpless to exploit it.
@@benlewis4241
"Theirs is not to reason why" sounds like it was taken from Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade, about a cavalry charge in the Crimean War. Still, there's no reason why it can't be referenced by other cavalry actions.
Still, the book sounds great. Does it cover the evolution of the British order of battle from Waterloo, onwards? Or is it strictly 20th century?
@@Raz.C Doctrine and reform in the British cavalry by Badsey covers 1880-1918 is probably what you would find more interesting in the terms of use cases for cavalry, in relation to this video one of the reasons the cavalry wanted their lances back was due to issues with engaging entrenched or prone Mahdists in Sudan and that when cavalry were not issued with swords or lances in the Boar War they charged mounted with fixed bayonets instead! One fact which blew by mind is that during the Boar war the only time a mounted charge failed to take a position in the entire conflict was when a mounted infantry officer took offence to being called a coward and charged a fortified camp. In every other attempt, even when the horses were half dead from exhaustion the position was taken. At Klip Drift the cavalry took the entrenched heights defended by over 900 men and artillery support with the loss of only five dead. It was a real shock to the argument that future wars would be decided by volleys of rifle fire decimating any formation from 2000 meters away.
Theirs is not to reason why (which you are right is a quote from the famous poem!) more covers mobilization, veterinary care and remounts which is a bit more specialist but does have interesting titbits such as dastardly German plots to put bombs on Mississippi river steamers and thus to deny the British army their cavalry! Details about how the cavalry artillery and logistics all needed completely different types of horses, and a unfortunate dispelling of the romantic notions of a bond between man and animal- "wastage" was appalling exceeding 3000 a week for the British on the western front and was even worse in other armies- for the Americans in August 1918 some 70% of their animals were sick compared to 7% for the British army. The book contains interesting stuff, but fairly specialist unless you were repeatedly triggered in your teenage years by books who claimed that all horse usage was "medieval", particularly in relation to the Poles.
The interesting thing about the charge of the Light Brigade is that they actually succeeded in not only taking the guns, but also routing the infantry and cossacks behind them all the way to a river! Even after the action a more than half the brigade escaped without wounds. Arguably if the Heavy brigade had continued to support the mistaken attack they may have been able to trigger a general rout among the Russian cavalry, cutting off the only easy path of retreat across the Chernaya river, which could have decided the campaign, but we are reaching deep into the hypotheticals here.
My grandfather was a NY National Guard Calvary noncom officer. It was the last US National Guard Calvary Regiment in US history.
I think one of the reasons Britain retains the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment is their potential use as crowd control for breaking up marches, or protests.
You are the greatest historian I know. love to learn!
Totally agree with Matt. Great video. Hope you will get better soon
Because not all cavalry are heavy shock cavalry troops. Some are skirmishers, others are ranged cavalry with bows or muskets, among others.
Having a lance doesn't mean you can't use a missile weapon. Uhlans/Chevau-légers literally evoled from formation that used bows/carabines, lances and sabres. Before that there were many. many different cavalry formations that were using bows and lances going as far back as antiquity.
Heavily armored Iranian cataphracts, Mongol heavy lancers, and Polish Winged Hussars often carried bows despite being heavy cavalry. Bows are not mutually exclusive to lancers and other heavy cavalry melee weapons.
Mounted archery could be called a Genghis drive by. The sport looks like some skill is required.
@@Intranetusa Winged Hussars for the most part did not carry bows with them, especially not when using their long lances. Instead other Polish cavalry formation: "Pancerni" was doing exactly that.
th-cam.com/video/vhOOI3b8oAk/w-d-xo.html
Good info! Feel well soon!
The greatest disadvantage to a lancer on horseback, is the fact that, according to Physics, once a lance penetrates a target, there will be some energy transfered back into the lance etc. And,when in Combat on a horse, a horse is most vulnerable when it is still. So during a Cavalry Charge with horses if the horse slows down on impact or even comes to a standstill, then there are issues of Vulnerability. A still horse on the battle field is at it's greatest disadvantage. And one thing that I recall from my Studies in Medieval History, World History, and Military history is there were two events that according to Historians, really had a big effect on Warfare and the use of Cavalry were the Battle of Pestonpans and The Battle of Agincourt in France between the English and the French. Gun powder was used in Medieval Warfare at that time and French infantry, in chain mail,got decimated by Welsh Bowmen, who had arrows with arrowheads that resembled modern day bullets. And Where, and I believe it was Agincourt, gun powder in rather primitive Cannon or even hand Cannon etc. Descimated the French forces, a lot of French Nobles died there and that just made it extremely difficult for the French to continue fighting, and it has been sugguested that as news of those events spread, Changes in armor, weapons, use of Cavalry insued. The Changes were not overnight but significant changes ensued.
Pretty sure the main reason at agincourt was the trench dug to blunt the french cavalry.
@@georgethompson1460 With all due respect George, the Phsyical evidence sugguests otherwise. Gun powder when it explodes, creates a pressure wave that can damage hearing, freighten horses, etc. The laws of Physics and the observed behavior of horses during the U.S. Civil War under bombardment from an opposing force proves otherwise.
@@georgethompson1460 Wasn't the field wet, muddy, and mucky and also had irregularly placed pits dug to confound the cavalry as well trenches?
Very interesting video. I hope you and the family fair well and recover quickly.
Wow, you muscled through this while dealing with Covid! OutSTANDING. Thank you, always love to hear your talks.
Good luck Matt. My wife just got over Covid and went back to work yesterday. It was rough.
I came across a passage in one of Richard F Burton's book where he mentioned that pistols had already displaced sword for effectiveness in cavalry action, but lacked the terror factor that could break an enemy line.
Not only were other types of weapons used on horseback, but other types of polearms were used on horseback, too. I know that Chinese armies sometimes fielded units of horsemen wielding Ji (basically the Han halberd) or Guan Dao (a polearm with a curved broadsword on the end). In a previous video, you mentioned that striking with a sword on horseback (at full speed anyways) is basically is more like holding out the sword and letting it impact the target. If you can imagine a unit of light or medium cavalry that isn't meant to perform a frontal charge, you can think of them holding out a polarm almost perpendicular to their bodies and riding alongside the enemy unit, letting the blades strike their targets. This places them further from the reach of the enemy infantry's weapons than a lance would. Artistic depictions also show these horsemen equipped with swords as sidearms for close combat and even with bows, probably meant to be used on the retreat if they dropped their Guan Dao.
Get Well soon Matt, great discussion on cavalry techniques and tactics.
Another great video, thanks Mr. Easton
Thank you for making this video! I have often wondered this very question
Good effort Matt with the COVID and all. Hope that you are feeling better. Any good first hand accounts from India of sabre versus lance?
Thanks for pointing out that it easier to use your lance on the left than the right. I was under the impression it was the opposite and am glad to be corrected.
Sorry to hear about having the Ghengis Cough. Hopefully it passes quickly.
you always read my mind man, I think something and then you talk about it!
Hope you feel better soon mate! My brother and uncle both got covid back in december, and they're doing mostly better now.
Great video as always. Take care and get well soon.
Sorry to hear you got COVID. I hope you make a quick and full recovery
Take care and get well.
Always enjoy your videos. Hope you get well soon.
Something else too, depending on the style of sword, they may be easier to retain once you strike an enemy. Once a lance becomes stuck in an enemy you got a long, smooth sided lever that you need to wrestle away. A sword, again depending on the style/construction/shape of the hilt, will probably have features that allow for good retention in the hand. At the very least there will be some kind of swell that locks into your palm, if not at the end that your hand will bump up against as you pull out. Of course there are bowl guard and knuckle bows that will engage your fingers and might make pulling a sword out easier. Then again this is just speculation on my part because I have no practical experience handling swords or lances.
Same issue was raised in 19th century literature on calvary sword. Thrust is profoundly more effective, but carries a profound risk of losing the sword. Cutting, but contrast, doesn't seem to have been hugely effective in that context, but that doesn't mean it wasn't still more optimal from a big-picture standpoint.
Great coverage of contextual use of the lance vs sword! Also, Happy New Year and here's to your rapid recovery!
Fantastic luck, I was just asking myself this the other day!
As far as late Austria-Hungary goes, the cavalry didn't use lances at all in its regular army. The cavalry was divided into three types, Uhlans, Dragoons and Hussars. While Uhlans did carry lances historically, and still did in IIRC German army, AH replaced it with a sabre in late 1800s. Entire AH cavalry forces did use a unified equipment, actually: sabre and Mannlicher carabine (50 rounds) for the men, sabre and Rast und Gasser revolver (30 rounds) for the officers.
Maybe there were some surplus-armed lancers, but I can only find lances in pre-1884-sabre switch, even in the hands of volunteers. The info can, for once, also be found in English in J. Lucas: Fighting Troops of the Austro-Hungarian Army 1868-1914
It can even be found on german wikipedia pages that the Ulans (who were the only ones using lances before in A and later A-H) dropped the lances in 1884.
Hope you get well soon Matt.
thx Mat again nice well thought out CONTEXT to a problem. hope you get over the covid without any long term effects
About breaking lances, there is a Spanish teatrise of mounted fencing of 16th century that says that if the Lance broke, it's better to fight with the broken Lance than with the sword because of the reach, even if the Lance without point is less mortal.
Sounds like Musashi and his sword carved out of an oar - range is a huge advantage when you know how to use it.
@@psychedashell The big stick for the win.
@@skyereave9454 Gotta stick to the facts.
sorry to hear you have covid.hope you have a speedy and complete recovery.
The German army equiped around 1900 all cavlary regiments with lances; cuirassiers, hussars, dragoons. The Austrians didn't, but I think they had a lot of ulans/lancers anyway. These lances were entirely made out of steel, so I don't think they were much cheaper in an industrialized age.
One big problem I see: Firearms like carbines became increasingly important, while chances for succesfull charges dwindled against machine guns. A lance isn't the most useful thing to handle when firing a carbine, especially from horseback...
In the late 19. century, at least in the German army the cavalry started to wear the sword not on the waist, but it was attached to the saddle. That suggests that dismounted, firearms were the main weapon, and the sword wasn't used regularly.
In an article of either Visier or Deutsches Waffenjournal ( two german arms magazines) years ago you could read , about 100000 cavallry lances had been produced. Such a large number makes the price a bit lower. For this you needed 300 to 360 km of pipes. I don' t know, if it was a standard ( Norm) pipe/ tube of this era or not.
Really love your videos, especially the weird weapons with Tod. On this, I assumed you'd be talking about medieval cavalry when I started watching. The revelation is a bit disappointing: why didn't all infantry use spears? Because now they use machine guns. :)
This is my favorite of your video types matt; talking about when and where a weapon is good or bad.
You remember the dual axes video, or sword vs axe? lets get it. ps. where is a video about the ROPE DART as a weapon?
Awesome. I’ve been wondering about the details of lance use around WW1. Got my answers
I think most people still do not seem to understand the difference in shock tactics and heavy melee engagements. For the cavalry in the Burmese kingdoms, they generally used javelins and later switch to pistols/carbines as primary weapons because the role of mounted shock troops was fulfilled by war elephants. The Burmese cavalry like the Meitei Cassey Regiment started goin back lances only after the elephants were mostly pushed back to artillery trains and officer mounts.
This was a very thought provoking video within the context of the late 19th and early 20th century as an American. To my knowledge, the use of the lance was never widely used by US forces, even though it was still widely used by western counterparts. This is in a period where calvary was still extensively used by the US but it's as if the lance wasn't even an option.
HI Matt,
Watching you couch that spear leads me to feel you haven't read about the lance drills use in the 1700, 1800, and 1900's.
Then the Lance was a weilded weapon, held in the middle and usually balanced and landyarded.
Nadezhda Duruva, a Russian women who served in three of that Tsar's cavalry regiments, including a Lancer regiment, writes in her memoir"The Cavalry Maiden" that she could perform every one of the drill's evolutions except twirllng that Lance over her head.
The Lance was a national weapon of the Poles and of the Cossacks and became more popular over time. Poles in Austrian service, Bavarians, Prussians, French, and Germans in the Prussian army and Russians adopted it during the Napoleonic wars, and the Mexicans after.
The British did a study in 1815 that concluded that the lance was inferior because a French lancer regiment got pinned in a town street during the 100 days campaign and coulded use their weapons effectively, yet the British army converted the first of many light dragoon regiments to lancers in 1817.
As for the mass adoption of the lance by German cavalry, this followed an analyses of a massed cavalry battle from the Fanco-Prussian showing the highest casaulty rate was inflicted on the Oldenburg Dragoons by the French Guard Lancers.
I don't think there were many cases of lancers breaking infantry squares, but they were certainly good at running down Royal North British (Scots Greys) Dragoons on blown horses.
Thanks for your content and I hope you get better soon.
Brilliant - one of your best. Earl Haig approves of your summary, and we hope the COVID passes quickly and leaves you ready for 2022.
Polish cavalry had redesign their Sabre (Szabla wz.34), and when a new pistol were designed for military (ViS wz.35) some features of it were made on requested from cavalry.
A buddy of mine uses the 1903 British Cavalry Sword in American CW Reenacting. We've called him out on it...he just laughs and rides on 🙂
Hope you're soon fully recovered Matt, you seem to be managing OK.
I think something that often get neglected about cavalry in the modern period is that they saw a lot of service off the battlefield. Foraging and policing were just as much a part of the job of cavalryman as combat, and for those tasks a lance just isn't as useful as a sword.
Patroling roads against partisans, escorting convois, scouting, messengers, fast mobile units. What do you do against persons jumping in a ditch, climbing a tree, a person standing in second floor ( english system) / first floor ( german system) without using firearms?
@@brittakriep2938 I'm not sure what point you're making, since I was talking about lance vs sword, but there are written accounts of cavalry dismounting to deal with these circumstances with swords, as well as simply setting fire to the building or tree and apprehending or killing the person as they try to escape the smoke and flames.
@@lancerd4934 : I simply described, what remaining cavallry in after 1914 mostly did. And i described, what could be done with a lance , when cavallry was used in violent riots.
I heard of a polish hussar weapon, called a Koncerz, which they used as a sidearm (while fighting with the lance primarily). A 1.4 meter or so long beast of a stabber, to be used after lances were gone iirc.
Did you ever encounter one? Would like to see a video on that…
It was just a Polish version of estock.
I've seen pictures of those, and they look wicked cool. I've heard they were used essentially as a one-handed pike, extracted from the target as the rider rides past like how Matt described in the video.
My first thought was Hussars! Most have forgotten the role the Hussars played in the defence of Vienna - and the rest of Europe - in 1683. (Americans are not expected to be aware of this event for obvious reasons).
@@random2829 We have access to Sabaton music here too so more people than you think have heard of them.
Hussars often had 3 swords with them when mounted. The szabla, or sabre was worn on the side. The koncerz, which was the long thrusting sword, was usually carried on the saddle under the left leg, and the palasz, which was a form of broadsword or backsword, was under the right leg. The Polish Hussars usually went into battle with a lot of weapons.
Great stuff as always. Get well soon.
The last cavalry charge of the US Army was on Jan. 15, 1942, in the Philippines.
Cavalry units in the Anglo-Zulu war found lances much more handy than swords. I think they felt the same way in Sudan.
First of all, I'll be wishing you a speedy recovery! I too currently have COVID and can personally relate. It sucks!
On the topic of the video, weren't most "Cavalry" really functioning more as Dragoons, even as far back as the American Revolutionary War?
For years, I struggled to conceive how Lances were used in the battlefield because I grew up with the image of the Jousting Tournament Lance. Even after seeing Lances used in War depicted in art/museums and being trained in the spear, I had a hard time imagining it not getting stuck in the enemy almost immediately.
Should have realized there were techniques used to specifically dislodge the lance from almost all angles. From the positioning, I assume pulling the spear out is even helped by the momentum of the horse moving forward, therefore pulling away from the target. Both brilliant and extremely obvious now that someone finally explained it to me 😅
I used to wonder about that too. Although it makes sense to always have a backup as you would expect significant lance damage regardless.
@@skyereave9454 Yeah those things wouldn't last very long. Especially since during a war you might have to make do with cheaper lances with weaker shafts
According to my study, the Winged Hussars used a long disposable lance for the charge (at least the first couple or so ranks), with their sabre on a sword knot for the subsequent melee
First charge with lances the sight of impaled comrades being carted away breaks enemy morale lances are dropped if they aren’t already broken and the routed remnants are run down with swords.
You can run from the horses but you can’t out run the nightmares :D
I don't think I've ever seen such a good demonstration of the disadvantage of a spear in close quarters! 🤣
I think you've missed one of the biggest strengths of the lance. Pennants. Horses not used to their sight could panic and put their riders in a very vulnerable state. This is an account of a British officer Thomas Dunleley from the time of the Peninsular War (Napoleonic Era) describing the clash of British Dragoons with Polish Lancers in French service: "They are armed with a long lance, at the end of which a flag is fixed so that, when our dragoons made a stand to receive them, the flags frighten their horses and they go about the lancers have them through the body in a, twinkling of an eye."
There's cavalry. And then there's Polish Cavalry!
Fantastic reply! Hussars for the win!
Yeah, horses are easily spooked by unfamiliar things. So pennants, flashy clothing, camels, etc would all scare them unless time had been taken to acclimate them to such things.
"So, what's better for cavalry, a lance or a sword?"
"Yes."
You said you can't put a lance on your back like in Bannerlord as I did just that and it freaked me out for a moment, Love it.
about cavalry in eastern europe in WW2
Poland had some cavalry equipped with anti tank rifles before it fell in 1939 against german tanks as far as i remember
I always knew Matt was a member of the Ceiling Scratchers Club. 7:51 Haha! Every place I've lived I had to cover up/fix my ceiling marks. People come to my house and ask "Why are there scratches in your ceiling?" I just tell them the truth, I swing around swords a lot. It's an occupational hazard.
Granted it was a spear...
Even during world war 2, in indonisia and other places there were several cavalry regiment that saw a lot of action. From what I understood tough, horses were now used to move but not so much for charging anymore.
The Germans also used tons pack animals throughout WWII but not as combat units.
As people have repeatedly pointed out in your videos, various historical cavalry did have the ability to stow relatively small lances (like the ones used in the 19th century). The best could quickly switch back & forth between lance, bow, & sword. Lances are surely more cumbersome than swords, but it's not impossible for cavalry to wear them (more or less) via straps (possibly also a pouch by a stirrup).
@@F1ghteR41 Wearing the lance in a way the left the right hand free was done in the 19th/20th century too. For example, a 1914 U.S. cavalry journal describes the practice in the French cavalry, how French lances rested in a socket by the right stirrup & had a loop in the middle to put the arm through. This was in combination with a carbine strapped to the back. The U.S. observer did describe the lance as unwieldly & a nuisance to carry. So Matt Easton isn't wrong about the encumbrance of the lance. It's just that a cavalry soldiers can bear a lance in a way that keeps their hands free. I suspect doing so skillfully, as the best 16th-century Ottoman cavalry & others apparently did, requires much training & care.
@@F1ghteR41 Accounts vary, but what I've seen doesn't indicate the hollow steel lances were particularly heavy. Some were about 4.5lbs (4.36lbs appears in multiple descriptions) at 10+ft, which is very similar to earlier & later light lances. 19th/20th-century ash or bamboo lances typically weight around 4lbs, & that was at a length of 9ft rather than 10+ft. One article claims the popularity of bamboo came from its cheapness rather than its lightness. Rather few 16th-century & earlier lances survive as far as I know. Surviving 16th-century & early spears & similar typically weigh at least 3-4lbs & sometimes as much as 6+lb. A 15th-century Burgundian account calls Ottoman lances light, but that was probably in comparison with the European heavy lance used with a rest. I suspect those weighed about as much as pikes: 7-10lbs. Surviving 17th-century winged hussar lances apparently rarely weigh beyond 6.5lbs despite their great length, because of their partially hollow construction.
@@F1ghteR41 That Russian steel lance does sound rather heavy. However, I don't see how the overall numbers indicate that steel lances were significantly less wieldy than earlier wooden lance designs. There's always been a tradeoff between durability & lightness. An 1890 piece in the Journal of the United States Cavalry Association claims a commission in Romania in 1889 tested the German steel lance & concluded it was lighter & tougher than the wooden lance. The commission recommended the steel lance for Romanian cavalry, albeit with a few modifications. Lieutenant Charles D. Rhodes's 1896 "The Cavalry of the German Empire" describes the German steel lance (1.98kg at 3.23m, lighter & longer than the 18th German lance in the Met Museum that you mention) as resting in a boot by the right stirrup. As with the 20th-century example of French practice, this seems consistent with the earlier history of cavalry stowing relatively short & light lances. Late-19th-century German cavalry bore lance, carbine, & sword, just as many earlier cavalry combined lance, bow, & sword. Certainly you can make very light lances out of wood, but then they become fragile or must be shorter. It'd be interesting to see one of the cavalry TH-cam channels practice with various historical lance designs & see what they come up with.
@@F1ghteR41 But the evidence that wooden lances were lighter is inconsistent, as I've shown. Some earlier & 19th/20th-century wooden lances were heavier than 19th/20th-century steel lances, at the same or shorter length. That 1889 Romanian military commission apparently considered the steel lance lighter & cared a lot about durability, performing tests such as striking lances with a sword. The steel lances performed better there, as you might expect, but still took damage from a horse kick. While some U.S. military descriptions of steel lances described them as unwieldy, Rhodes's account (mentioned earlier) expressed admiration for the German cavalry practice with lance, carbine, & sword. Steel lances in that era appear to have been as practical as any other type of lance (not very, given the context of increasingly potent firearms). The standard narrative says they existed primarily because of the difficulty supplying wood or bamboo, & I'm sure that's part of it, but sources like that Romanian military commission indicate at least some period military authorities thought the steel lances was superior to wood. As far Indian steel lances go, one 18th example from the Met Museum is 3.23kg at 2.42m, so they weren't necessarily light.
@@F1ghteR41 As far as Modern History TV goes, one video shows Jason Kingsley using a 4.5kg ash lance in production & finding it manageable used couched as a heavy lance. That's probably around what 15th/16th-century European heavy lances weighed. Based on fight books like Mair's, such heavy lances could still be used for other techniques, such as deflecting opposing lances & striking with the butt. That's part of the reason a 1.98kg lance doesn't seem very heavy to me.
Love the Bannerlord shout-out! I just got into that game, and as it happens, I’m pretty bad at aiming the Lance, so I always use swinging polearms despite knowing that they’re much less historically accurate!
I believe you can look even earlier to “knights” mounted, armed with cross bows and swords without lances.
Because lances or copies were transported on waggons.
The American Cavalry kept the lance round as long as they possibly could, because the lances primary use after the head had been snapped off was Supply hauling, you could use for Lance's as a skid. In addition the planes Indian that were on foot Jerry Spears and without a lance you could only approach them by shooting and yes cap-and-ball revolvers were there but once you ran out of ammunition you are running to go find a stick so that you could charge.
Great points about the use of cavalry in the 20th century, they were more dragoons than traditional cavalry by that stage of history.
I think as an enthusiast of history, and weapons it's very easy to forget that most soldiers carry their weapons far more than they fight with them. Even on campaign, or in theatre, the actual fighting is a tiny percentage of your time. Any weapon that gets in the way of battlefield tasks, or gets left behind because it's cumbersome, is inferior to a weapon that is easily carried, or kept close to hand. A carbine, and/or sword can be placed in a scabbard hanging from the saddle, so the trooper's hands are free to ride, use binos, eat, drink, etc..
In the modern world we know that longer barrels give better muzzle velocity, and more accuracy, but militaries have moved to shorter barrels because they are easier to carry when mounting/dismounting vehicles. A 20" barreled C7 doesn't sound much shorter than a 14.5" barreled C8, but in the real world it makes a big difference in how easy it is to get in and out of vehicles, or up and down ladders.
Uhlans in WWI used sabers, lances and firearms at once. A bit uncomfortable probably, but it's possible.
Hope your feeling better soon Matt 😘
There is one mounted unit that uses Lances and hand guns though, but only on special occasion's, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Musical Ride.
Nice piece of info, Matt. Btw, can you give me the link to that piece about the Chinese "yataghan" cavalry sword you spoke of? I really cannot find it. Thank you.
It turns out, you sort of can wear a lance. Byzantine cavalry was notable for using both the lance and the bow, and after a lot of looking around I found out that they managed this by attaching a leather loop to the lance and slinging it over their back when it wasn't in use.