Anyone Know About Mounted Combat?

[John_Schmidt]

Does anyone know how a light cav. would fend off attacks from unmounted combatants w/ spear or greatsword

and is there any manuals or something for mounted combat?

thanx

[Brian Hunt]

Talhoffer, Ringeck, Lichtenauer, Fiore and Wallhausen all have sections on mounted combat, buty they primarily deal with one on one stuff.

Brian Hunt

GFS

[Stacy Clifford]

As far as I know, most cavalry described as "light", which I assume to mean smaller, faster and less armored, were best used for either hit and run or pursuit, so I imagine they generally tried to avoid prolonged contact with foot troops whenever possible. It also depends on what your cavalry is armed with, of course. Are they carrying lances or swords? Do they have shields? All the principles of vor and nach, deflecting and countercutting, etc. still apply, it's just a lot harder when you're so much bigger a target and you're trying to manage an adrenalized horse (who's doing the footwork for you) with your other hand.

[John_Schmidt]

Yeah I guess it would be much much harder to fight while on horseback and I can see why mounted guys trained for years and knew their horse very well but does anyone know how they would make their mounts aggressive, I have a horse myself and he's a big marshmellow and I've heard stories of warhorses biting and trampling soilders on the battlefield????


thanx

[david welch]

You may want to dig through this post for some thoughts about mounted combat:

http://www.thearma.org//forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=openresearch&Number=9796&page=4&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1

I think the mounted stuff starts about half way through. I would start at the end and work back to a good starting place.

[James_Knowles]

The only manual I've read other than what's been mentioned is the 600 A.D. Strategikon. It does go into some detail about most aspects of maintaining and training large mounted armies and large-scale mounted combat.

However on individual-level details (e.g. Talhoffer) it's no good, being written for generals.

[John_Schmidt]

Thanks alot guys for all your info it helped alot