Why no heavy cavalry?

[teh bunneh]

Pardon me for this, but I'm really just thinking out loud.

 

In my fantasy world, there is little use of heavy cav -- no heavily armored knights on big horses in massed charges. Wars tend to be fought in skirmishes, often in heavy terrain (forest, hills, that sort of thing). The question is, why?

 

Here's my thinking:

 

1. Magic. The use of powerful spells reduces the efficiency of a cavalry charge. If all it takes is a couple of fireballs to break up your line and spook your horses, you're not going to invest a lot of energy into equiping/training heavy knights.

 

2. "The Book." About a thousand years ago, demonic armies roamed the earth. One man formed an army to oppose them. However, the demons were so tough that meeting them in open battle was suicide, so the general came up with new tactics -- guerilla warfare, essentially. Hit and run. Strike at supply lines. Never fight out in the open; use terrain to confuse the enemy and negate his strengths. Also, they discovered that it takes a lot of resources to feed and equip heavy cav -- resources that are very scarce during a rebellion.

 

From that day forward, generals and tacticians have used his lessons as examples on how to fight a war. He quite literally "wrote the book" on tactics and warfare. So armies are made up primarily of lightly armed, fast-moving troops, sometimes mounted on small, quick ponies but just as often on foot.

Heavy troops are sometimes used, but as backup shock troops, not front-line fighters.

 

Sound reasonable?

[Onyxclaw]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

It sounds relatively reasonable.

 

For a lot of low fantasy games where the gM doesn't want to have caverlry and a lot of knights and such, they just either:

 

A: never domesticated a riding animal, only plow animals

B: never invented the Saddel or Tack

 

therefore:

 

A: knights can not exist because there is either nothing for them to ride, or they can not control a steed.

B: only light highly trained bareback riders could exist

 

All of the things you listed would also justiy forgetting how to make tack items and making horses rare as domesticated animals.

 

So yes, sounds reasonable.

[Old Man]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

The arabs didn't really have heavy cav either - probably a practical thing though due to the environment.

[Old Man]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

 

A: never domesticated a riding animal, only plow animals

B: never invented the Saddel or Tack

 

Just like the Ewoks! They didn't have heavy cav.

[nobody]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

Well, it is reasonable to say that specific regions never developed heavy cavalry, such as the previously mentioned Arab nations in the real world. However, it isn't reasonable to say that no one, anywhere, was able to develop a form of "Heavy Cavalry." Of course, heavy cavalry is not necessarily a Knight in full plate riding a Destrier in full barding. For example, the arabs frequently used heavy chariots in some of their battles. Maybe those aren't cavalry as such, but they fulfill the same purpose. Knights were usually used to break the enemy lines and cause plenty of havoc until the footmen arrive. In a fantasy setting, maybe the orcish tribes have an alliance with the Giants, who fill the role of line-breakers quite nicely.

 

Still, it might make a nice surprise for your players if it is established that heavy cavalry is a rarity, but then foreign invaders arrive atop war elephants and Kelpies.

[Onyxclaw]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

Still' date=' it might make a nice surprise for your players if it is established that heavy cavalry is a rarity, but then foreign invaders arrive atop war elephants and Kelpies.[/quote']

 

Amen to that!

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

well in the low fantasy game, our country hadn't invented stirrups, so mounted combat was unfeasalbe. Then once we had stolen the technology, we had the cost problem, because training warhorses and knights costed lots in money and time. So we had at most 20, for one battle (like we only used them once).

 

In a high magic environment, it's just as effective to put a shield on the horses, so that the fireball breaks before them (a forcewall).

 

Remember that as offense increases, so would defense. An example of this is in the "Sword of Truth" series (i belive "faith of the fallen")

[Cancer]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

The heavy armored lancer, what we think of when we think of the mounted knight, has two technological prerequisites: invention of the stirrup, and development of breeds of horses large enough to carry tack, armored rider, and its own armor while still being fast enough so the impact shock makes it worth it. If you want to have other riding animals for the same purpose, then the "warhorse" breed of that animal also has to be stupid and aggressive enough that it will charge into a thicket of spears.

 

If the draft animals are too small to carry that burden, or too intelligent to perform headlong charges into near-certain death, or too slow for a charge to be worth it, then you won't get heavy lancers.

 

The Roman era didn't have horses large enough to have heavy lancers, though war elephants did exist; elephants are not lance-type animals, though. They tend to go berserk when combat starts, and although that is gratifyingly destructive, it isn't the steerable charge that horse cavalry gets you. Horse cavalry in that era were slashing-sword types and horse archers.

[Troll]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

 

The Roman era didn't have horses large enough to have heavy lancers, though war elephants did exist; elephants are not lance-type animals, though. They tend to go berserk when combat starts, and although that is gratifyingly destructive, it isn't the steerable charge that horse cavalry gets you. Horse cavalry in that era were slashing-sword types and horse archers.

 

Rome also didn't have the stirrup. Which made it very difficult to charge with a lance.

[LordGhee]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

Sorry Alexnader had heavy Cav, more on why late when I get back from work.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

If the terrain of most of the world is made up of heavy forests and steep hills, then there's no use for heavy cavalry. Why spend all the time and resources feeding and training such a huge beast (or a whole unit of such huge beasts) if the only place you can ever use them is a half acre of Bill Thatcher's farm? It's better just to have infantry in that case.

 

Horses that big need grains, too, if they're going to be active. If you're in an area where grains are hard to come by, smaller horses who can make do with grasses are more economically feasible. This accounts for most of the instances in the real world (at least after the stirrup became widespread) where light cavalry or infantry was preferred over heavy cavalry.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

If the terrain of most of the world is made up of heavy forests and steep hills' date=' then there's no use for heavy cavalry. Why spend all the time and resources feeding and training such a huge beast (or a whole unit of such huge beasts) if the only place you can ever use them is a half acre of Bill Thatcher's farm? It's better just to have infantry in that case.[/quote']

Heh. Because our system has no Turn Mode on Running, so we can charge at 30" through a maze with U-turns and right angles every hex or two if we like.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

Special effects trump all.

[Old Man]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

The heavy armored lancer' date=' what we think of when we think of the mounted knight, has two technological prerequisites: invention of the stirrup, and development of breeds of horses large enough to carry tack, armored rider, and its own armor while still being fast enough so the impact shock makes it worth it....The Roman era didn't have horses large enough to have heavy lancers, ...Horse cavalry in that era were slashing-sword types and horse archers.[/quote']

 

Well, not exactly. The first recorded use of heavy cavalry was by the Sarmatians in (wiki) the 5th century BC, predating both the stirrup and horses bred to the task. Such cavalry was not as 'heavy' as that typical of the Middle Ages, but the use of heavy lance, tight formations, heavy armor (for the time), and shock were all consistent with the 'heavy cavalry' familiar to the genre.

 

The Sarmatians were eventually displaced on the steppes by the Huns, but their tactics were adopted by the Russians (their usual victims) and spread westward through the wooded countries that were better suited to the tactics. Out on the steppe, the light mounted archer reigned supreme until the invention of the AK-47.

[pinecone]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

there are a couple of differant issues here. First terminology, lots of cultures had "heavy cavalry", but not "shock cavalry' (Lancers commited to the charge) Shock cavalry is a cultural issue, it just happened that Europe became dominated by cultures that were commited to the "shock cavalry" model, though even into the middle ages Breton cav was very highly regarded despite using the skirmishing javlin based tactics of the Celts and Romans.

 

The second issue is what is a "Knight" , this was a military elite supported by land grant. Remove the economic system (Fuedalism basicly) and no knights.

 

So you can easaly have a world that for the most part has no Lancers and even prefers light cavalry to heavy. Though that needs more justification, because historicly heavy cav tended to dominate light cav, so it would be odd for no one to make use of it......heavy in this case just means that the men and horses fight in close order rather than open order, they need not use differing equipment, though they almost always used a sheild and/or spear

while light cav often used the bow, or javlin and sheild just like the "heavys"

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

You could probably make it that the only horses good for heavy cavalry are wild horses and the cost of capturing and training them make them too expensive for any normal army to find worth while.

[Markdoc]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

The arabs didn't really have heavy cav either - probably a practical thing though due to the environment.

 

Actually, the Arabs had plenty of heavy cav - the Arab armies that spread islam were mostly spearheaded by shock cavalry who charged with leveled spears. The Syrians' armies were mostly composed of Heavy Cav, supported by spearmen and crosbowmen - as were those of their neighbours like the Persians and Egyptians. That's why they took such a beating from the first crusaders - they were throwing shock cavalry against better armed, better trained, better motivated shock cavalry mounted on heavier horses.

 

You're probably confusing the Arabs with the turkish successor states that relied on masses of light skirmishing cavalry.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

Oh - and in a mostly unrelated note - in the game I am ramping up right now, I also have no heavy cav. The game reason is illustrated in the herophile art thread:

 

http://herogame.dans.cust.servlets.net/forums/showthread.php?t=32056

 

The real reason though is that I wanted to have a feudal warior class (knights, right?). On the other hand I didn't want all the emotional baggage that comes with the word knight. They behave in many ways more like samurai - but THAT word comes with even more misleading baggage.

 

So .. knights without horses and knights without land. That breaks one of the emotional links and makes it easier to feed the idea that the word "knight" does not mean "code of chivalry" or "damsels in distress" - but simply refers to a full-time warrior in heavy armour who fights for a lord.

 

cheers, Mark

[Jkeown]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

In Caleon we don't have heavy cav because the giant, flightless birds that knights ride don't like cannon going off in their faces. So, mounted troops, and for that matter, all the others, stick to the forests and rocky terrain where the big stompy steam-powered monsters can't go.

 

They do look cool, running through the forests, though... So it's a balanced trade off... you get the awesome mecha visual, and the giant bird skirmishing through the forest visual... Caleon should be a movie...

[CourtFool]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

Expense seems to be a popular choice. I would say because heavy calvary would trample all the bunnies. And we can't have that, now can we?

[Nightshade]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

I'd say that terrian, economics, and technology would be your best bet on why no heavy cav. My fantasy world has huge swaths of tropical savannah, and is fairly advanced, technologically speaking. So, heavy cavalry are all over the place.

 

In the jungle empires, though, not so much, due to their relative uselessness in that sort of environment.

 

Nightshade

[Brother Jim]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

Expense seems to be a popular choice. I would say because heavy calvary would trample all the bunnies. And we can't have that' date=' now can we?[/quote']

 

 

that depends entirely on how big the bunnies are !!!

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

The Horse God and the War God don't get along.

[CourtFool]

Horsey only flight, no fight

 

The Horse God and the War God don't get along.

 

I like this idea. As contrived as it may sound, this could really add some interesting detail to the world.

[Vanguard00]

Re: Why no heavy cavalry?

 

Expense seems to be a popular choice. I would say because heavy calvary would trample all the bunnies. And we can't have that' date=' now can we?[/quote']

Right up til I read this I was chompin' at the bit. The part about expense, that is. Bunnies optional.

 

Assuming the technology is there then it's most likely an expense issue. It costs a great deal to outfit a heavily armored warrior, and even more to equip him with a strong horse. That horse needs to be trained, and then the man needs to be trained to use the horse. Even if you can outfit a few of these heavy cavalry, it's unlikely there will be many of them about.

 

By the time the 'heavy cavalry' of popular myth and legend arose (the true knights in plate with heavily-barded coursers), there were cheaper ways to deal with them (crossbow, English longbow, etc). It's just not cost effective to have a large force of heavily armored knights about doing nothing. A small shock troop, perhaps, but certainly not in any great numbers.

 

Environment and terrain (arid? mountainous? swampy?) would also be a factor, as has been said.