[Ben P.]

We all know that 1500s on cavalry was taking the back seat as support and in the 1700-1800s a good square would beat cavalry

I got to wondering (since muskets back then were pretty slow and whatnot) what if in the 1700s cavalry took up the lance (I know they had a few but the lances were very short and there were only a few of them) again (say 12 feet long) Would they have made a comeback as the dominant arm? Would they have been of any use? Say to smash infantry squares? How would history and military tactics at the time be affected? What tactics/equipment would the lancers use? Could they have been of use in the American Civil War? Also (This question is sort of an aside) how thick would Armour have to be to stop musket rounds? And would horse archery still be of use?

[Lukasz Papaj]

I would advise "regional specification"; while your statement is basically true for Western Europe, cavalry was the core of fighting force in Central/East region up to early 1700's. Up to this date Hussars tended to exterminate infantry whenever used by competent commander. Same for horse archers (though in modified form of "Pancerni")
As far as I know , in the West lance dissapears from record in early XVIIc , and was reintroduced by Poles in service of Napoleon I in early XIXc to dissappear again after Polish- Bolshevik war of 1920. Contrary to some propaganda, lances were not issued for the 1939 "september campaign".
As for US, i do not recall any mention of usage of any form of lancers. (though my sources are severly lacking in "American History" area)

[Jonathan Hopkins]

I don't have any answers, but I thought you might enjoy this picture (from The Victorian Army In Photographs by David Clammer):

[Elling Polden]

As far as I've read, there where one or two units of lancers in the US army at the outbreak of the civil war. These, however, quickly discareded their lances as they where found to cumbersome. By this time, revolvers and magazine carabines where the order of the day.

The napoleonic era lancers where not medevial style heavy cavalry (though the polish hussars where). They where mainly used for skirmishing and chasing down other cavalrymen rather than head on charges.
This beeing said, against a wavering or disorganized unit, even light cavalry, like (western) hussars could break an infantry regiment. For instance, the prussian (5th, at the time, later 1sth life)Black Hussars overran a french regiment at Eylau.

[Lukasz Papaj]

Agreed on above.

There is some semantic gap here - there is slight difference in polish language: "Husarz" means heavy cavalryman, while "Huzar" means light, Hungarian-style cavalry. Both are translated as "Hussar" in English.
It was the Hungarian style that was reintroduced in the West, and term "lancer" usually means that kind of formation.
One might add that in the timeframe of the topic there was this difference between "light" and "heavy" brigades of lancers, at least in British army, when they were (rather unsuccessfully) used in Crimean war.

One must remember that cavalry warfare is not just blind charge- one need specific training of the horses and men, usually for long time. One need terrain suitably flat to deploy large formations. Actually, closest thing we have right now to cavalry are the tank units trained in deep flanking strikes. It was not a coincidence that greatest tank battles were on the East front.

Western commanders , It seems to me, never fully grasped the idea of autonomous cavalry "armies" , popular in the East ... well, maybe excluding general Patton.

Last thing- mindset. In Poland we have term of "kawaleryjska fantazja" , that literary translates to something like "cavalryman imagination", but means combination of lack of survival instinct, fast thinking, high self respect (to point of anarchy) and homicidal attitude that is thought needed for the job. Westerners are just too rational, to focused on order to do it right, again, excluding Patton, who seems to be perfect example of that atttitude

EDIT: another form of that saying is "ułańska fantazja", from light lancers of turkish origin that appeared in first half of XVIII c, which till the "partitioning" of Poland formed the core of national cavalry, and after that core of Polish regiments in service of Napoleon I, and after that in "Druga Rzeczypospolita", that is Poland from 1918-1939

Ulans in Napoleonic times (Warsaw Principality):

Ulan versus Infantryman (by Wojciech Kossak):

[Eric Meulemans]

As already pointed out by Lukasz and Elling, it is difficult to address such huge questions as a generalization, or to speak in generic terms as "lancers" - which were present in most cavalry forces up through the First World War. As the original poster inquired as to the hypothetical use of heavy lances in the medieval tradition, I think there is at least one factor that must be considered: artillery.

In considering the use of heavy cav to smash a square, it must be remembered that the battlefield is a dynamic place - it is not so simple a matter to simply say "we will run them down with a shock cavalry charge," particularly when the force in question possess artillery or (later) machine guns which will decimate you before you reach their lines. Think of the medieval heavy lance as the modern battle tank and you will see that while an infantry man or even a unit of infantry stand little chance of removing it from action, a single well placed hit from an artillery piece or anti-tank missile will do so handily. When you see this, it is clear why light cav were far more predominate in the 19th-20th C. (for scouting/recon and to give chase).

There have been instances of successful cavalry charges against artillery in the modern era, most notably perhaps at Beersheba in 1917, when the Australian 4th Light Horse over-ran the Turkish lines (literaly jumping the trenches). This was due in great part to luck - the Turks failed to recalibrate their sights as the normally dismounted riflemen charged over more than three miles of terrain and managed to stay under the guns. It could have ended quite differently but succeded perhaps because someone had the sort of kawaleryjska fantazja that Lukasz speaks of.

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Lukasz Papaj]

[Daniel Staberg]

Actually the Swedish army had included lancers until the 1560's, the problem was however that mantaining lancers, particulary heavily armored Western style lancers was highly expensive wich menat that apart from the force mantained by the King as his househodl cavalry only the nobility could provide lancers. And the Swedish nobility was increasingly reluctant to performe the armed service it was supposed to provide the Crown. Even when the men turned up they lacked the training needed of a lancer so instead they fought with pistol & sword. It is doubt full that the Swedish Crown was ever able to assemble more than 400-500 lancers from all sources. No nearly enough to defend the huge Swedish territory.

So instead the focus was on recruiting cheaper cavalry, basicly so called 'mounted arquebusiers' together with proportion of more heavily armored pistoliers. This kind of cavalry actually worked fairly well for the Swedes during the 25-years war with Russia with numerous victories in battle. The flaws only became apparent during the Livonian war which started in 1600 by which time the Swedish cavalry not only were fairly reliant on firearms but had almost stopped using body armour. All of which rendered them very vulnerable to lance charges.

Once the cavalry began to use armour, started using proper French style tactics and was given improved training and morale by the reforms and leadership by the reforms of Gustav Adolf the Great Polish & Lithuanian cavalry stopped winning easy victories. Indeed from 1625 onwards they suffered a string of defeats when facing Swedish armies.

.

[James R.Fox]

Sirs-I would point out that the Russian Imperial Calvary used Cossack Lamcers untill after the Napoleonic Wars. After that as far as I can find, they were used as light calvary and/or crowd control.( It was Cossack Brutality trowards crowds in the street that caused the St Petersburg garrison to start the February Revolution, in 1917according to one of the Garrison officers that joined the Revolution)

[Ben P.]

[quote="Lafayette C Curtis"][quote="Ben P."]

[Lukasz Papaj]

About infantry/artillery vs cavalry charge - there are some examples in Napoleonic wars - positive is Somosierra pass charge ; negative is say, Waterloo. One can use few lancers to "do the job" or waste thousands blindly charging on opponent
I do not know if that's accurate information, but if I recall in Waterloo battle correctly Ney ordered charge of some 9000 cavalrymen where was the place for only third of that number to use effectively; actually, I'm wondering how much of that number got proper training or were Poles ... even the count of cuirassiers - twice more than light units is somewhat suspicious to me - I mean, where Napoleon raised/trained them, after loosing Great Army? would they be issued/trained in lance? had they any idea how to fight unbroken infantry? Cavalry is not just "men riding horses".

There is large difference between sabre and lance - the latter gives you reach needed to get to those pesky infantrymen in squares. Sabre is for riding down those unfortunate fleeing guys- be that infantry or protesters.

Bow in battle - I think i remember reading some British officer account of use of bows by locals in India. There are some vague reference of using such weapons in "Winter uprising" in Russian-occupied Poland in 1863, still - one should remember that learning to use bow, especially from horseback is not easy thing, especially when such art is virtually lost. Another problem is supply of proper arrows - that require industry that is focused on just supplying needed amount of single-use projectiles. Warfare from XVth century (or even before that) goes towards using as-many-as-possible cheapest troops that need minimal skills and as uniform needs as possible (giving less logistic nightmares). Germans forgot that and got overrun.

As for thickness of armour to be bulletproof -two words: Ned Kelly
I also remember some story of commander of cuirassiers from English Civil War era that ordered set of bulletproof plates, but that's again way off from given timeset.

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[M. Eversberg II]

What were the changes between a 16th and 18th century musket that would have made the latter less powerful? If I'm not mistaken, the latter used higher quality and more regular powder; did they adopt larger, slower rounds?

M.

[Ben P.]

[quote="Lafayette C Curtis"]

[Lukasz Papaj]

I would again argue that weapons are not quite as important as their tactical/strategic employment

I would again go bit off from given time, to recall Polish-Swedish war, especially the early XVII century ones- In first wars Swedes were using "countermarch" volley fire. and they were regurarly riden down by heavy cavalry. Given that situation for 200 men "banner" the casualities averaged at 1 "companion" and 3 "retinue" , which was "perfectly acceptable".
Now, enter Gustavus Adolphus - he ordered "deep volley"- that is 4-6 ranks simultanous fire - and in the Battle of Gniew (1626) Hussary paid with about 25 casualities per banner per charge, which chronicles note "stupefied the Hussars", they charged "heartless" in the next day of battle, unable to break Swedish ranks.
This changed emphasis in Polish strategy from pushing into "one deciding battle" to eastern-style harassing, also marked by fielding less costly "Pancerni", that in the time of "Second Northern War"/Deluge (1655-1661) formed half of armoured units. Nevertheless , heavy cavalry charge was still employed at least till 1683 (Battle of Vienna, Battle of Parkany), while in the 1698 campaign there is noticable regression of cavalry tactics (still that come with overall decline of Polish Army)
Till 1750 there were no more heavy units formed.

One need to look at this in the light of overall economical decline in Europe - remember that countries lost 30-50% of their population in XVII century. Also the weather was far colder (so called "little ice age", which peaked in 1680's) In Poland economy was based on export of grain via Gdansk, and that route was often blocked by wars. The noble "middle class" was greatly reduced, so were their abilities to field arms and armour.
Similar thing happen in all Europe - heavy or mercenary units are phased out in favour of conscripts - armies are larger but cheaper. Of course the centralization of goverment was important factor. What was left of wealth was greatly focused in few hands. Similar thing happened in military - with inferior troop quality the focus was on fortifications and logistics - armies were centrally controlled too. So was the supply of arms - they were centrally issued based on few "national patterns".
Also one must remember how British "New Model Army" changed military thinking.

The "Big Picture", in my opinion, was that effectiveness was often abandoned in favor of predictability and low cost in XVIII and XIX century, with just few exceptions. Wars gotten impersonal, casualities just statistics. Soldier was expected to be automatons. Deep hierarchy of commanders often cloaked personal ineffectiveness or plain stupidity.
This was somewhat changed by the WWII, still sometimes I see very similar doctrine in modern armies too (especially in Easten Block) - mass of conscrips given AK and pointed in which direction to shoot, with special troop behind that would make sure they WILL go in right direction.

Or maybe its just me, that sees those pararel lines of troops some 50 meters apart shooting volley afrer volley, that thinks "what a stupidity"

[Dariusz Dario T. W]

[Dariusz Dario T. W]