Indeed, David, Welcome! And thank you again for sharing your knowledge with us in these forums!

Cheers,

Gordon

Benjamin,

Benjamin H. Abbott wrote:

Perhaps, but I think you may be inventing more disagreement than actually existed. Unless of course d'Evoli also wrote on the halberd against sword-&-target in a duel...

"Inventing"? :confused:

In any case, d'Evoli was critical of the use of halberds, bills, and two-handed swords in battle against pikes.

Quote:

By the way, Silver championed the short sword more than anything else, despite the fact that he ranked it very low on his hierarchy of weapons for dueling.

That's only because his book was a reaction to the spread of the rapier and the Italian school of fence.

Best,

David

Benjamin;

I guess that part of the problem is that I tend to be of two minds on this myself. There are situations in which Cavalry can be decisive because the Infantry wasn't prepared mentally (such as the Aztecs, who weren't prepared theologicaly for it either: it was too far outside of their conception of the world to fit into their tactical doctrine how to deal with it) or tactically (such as the 41st Foot at the Battle of the Thames in 1813, who were in skirmish order when the Kentucky Mounted Riflemen burst out of the woods in a roaring tomahawk charge on them and scattered them like nine-pins). Then you have some (such as Axtorna as noted by Daniel above) where the Infantry was mentally and to some degree even tactically prepared, but not physically (they had their pike support taken from them) and it led to disaster.

Then again there are examples of Cavalry managing the impossible against an entreched and expecting enemy (Bersheeba in 1917) when by rights they should end up like so much Alpo. Or the far more common, as our correspondent David is so fond of, the example of Ravenna, where the French Gendarmerie beat itself to dust against the Rock of Spanish Infantry.

It seems though, that for the most part (with huge exceptions for classical Greeks, Romans and Swiss), Horse was about the only Arm that commanders routinely had at their disposal that they could use aggressively as an offensive weapon. And sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't!

Cheers!

Gordon

Sadly, many of the published masters deal so infrequently with field tactics and strategy. Such is not their purpose. For that, we have to turn to historical accounts, which rather frequently tout the effectiveness of artillery at dispersing the pike bloc, and cavalry hemming them in. Especially interesting is the account of Somerset's victory at Pinkie Cleugh. Somerset lost a large portion of his cavalry in a delaying tactic, allowing for the arrrival and deployment of his field artillery, naval guns, and a contingent of mounted Spanish arquebusiers. After they wre fully deployed, he attacked from three sides with guns, scattering the Scots and sending the cavalry back in.