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By logic, if light missile cavalry was more effective, it would promt a change of tactics by those facing them. |
True, though logic does not alway dicate the evolution of arms/tactics.
And sometimes the emulators are wrong in which part of the opponents they choose to emulate. For example, French or Bergundian Longbowmen also needed to have the training program practiced by the English to achieve the same numbers and quality of archers available to them. Simply giving them the weapon does not make them the same, it would have taken in essence a societal change. And the Selucid "Silver Shields" using roman style armnaments did not seem to be as effective as Roman Legionairres - and perhaps what they missed on was they needed to transpose the whole Roman military system, not just the weapons (though I think legionary style armnament in theory would have worked great covering pike flanks, similar to the Alexandrian Hypaspists).
But using the above logic, is does appear light horse tactics were effective, as the Crusaders started using "turkomans" which judging by the names on musters had many europeans in their ranks. This shows an attempt by the crusaders to adapt to the horse archer tactics of the mamluks.
There also seemed to be more use of the crossbow among the crusaders than in European theatres, again I believe as a counter to the bow armed cavalry.
Byzantine Cavalry, when having it's period of greatest sucess against horse archer armies relied not only on mercenary horse archers, but also upon native bow equipped archers in the ranks of their lancers.
Though it's very arguable that the loss of Byzantine mlitary effiiciency was not due to bad tactics but problems within their own infrastructure, as well as dynastic struggles. But as their armies became more reliant on western type cavalry, they seemed to enjoy less sucess.
ETA - I believe the strength of light archer based cavalry was in it's performance against cavalry. Heavy cavalry still often had exposed horses, and by killing a horse you make the rider infantry, if he's not badly injured or trampled when his horse goes down. Armour the horse itslef, and you lose some of the mobility of the horse which is it's strength, and/or it's endurance, which makes it easier for archers to use a favorite technique - close to almost point blank range, loose an arrow, and retreat.