pistol cavalry?

[Inhuman One]

Wasnt there cavalry armed with multible pistols at this period of time?

They would have several pistols fully loaded and ready to fire, being able to get close, quickly give a few shots and ride away.

[Chevalier IX]

yeah...there really needs to be pistols involved with the cav units here...especially the heavies from several nations of note,at least 2 shots per battle I would think to open up the ball

[Black Prince IV]

In the description of the Winged Hussars it says they had a pistol that they would use so they definitely should be in there.

[Chevalier IX]

yeah...I am rather beside myself as to why the heavy ca do not have a small firepiece with at leas a shot or 2

[Salieri]

As far as I understood it, the Finnish Hakkapeliitta carried 2 pistols and a saber which made for a devastating + fearsome charge. However they have no pistols and are a crappy excuse for cavalry in ETW!

[zoleman]

Each and every light cav regiments (hussars) of the era carried pistols to battle. As it seems CA only knew about curassiers and dragoons, but nothing is mentioned about the famous light cav regiments that were created in the 17th-18th century. And no, hunmgarian hussars were not unique to austria, hussar tradition (the light cav, not the polish winged hussars, thats another story) was world spread by this time. Cuirassiers charge head on into lines, hussars do all the rest. Give us light cav with pistols for every nation that had the hussar regiments.

[Chevalier IX]

indeed even the cuirassiers had 2 pistols that they carried with them to break up the opposing formations

[Naked Emperor]

Pistoleers....I hoped my cavalry had pistols when I got the game....but no luck

[Thanatos]

Thread moved to the Historical Research Center. PM me if you have any questions. - Thanatos

[schoenkoenig]

You are describing Caracole tactics, which were abandoned in the latter 17th century. In the 18th century, military minds thought cavalry was most effective when it pressed the charge home and did not stop to fire pistols, as this would decrease its momentum.

[Inhuman One]

I am not sure how accurate the Ruyter unit in age of empires 3 is, if its accurate it would seem the dutch could use a pistol armed cavalry unit. It may be before the age of course since in age of empires 3 they made the mistake of covering a too large time period.

[dead-cat]

Prussan cavalry regulations under Frederick forbade the use of firearms until the enemy was running.

[joedreck]

I make experimence with hussars at the moment. I gave the hungirian hussars carabines, but to not change the balance to much, they have bad reload time and accuracy. I don't test it how the AI use it, but I hope they go more for close combat, then for range.

I tried pistols too, but it's not work at the moment, because of animations. It's only possible at the moment to use muskets animation for standard troops. But we work on it.

[Adar]

I think that the reason that heavy cavalry isn't armed with pistols is that CA failed to make it work well with the AI. Most heavy cavalry in the 18th century carried pistols but did not fire them prior to their charge. This transition time is exactly around year 1700 (Sweden and England had already abandoned it, Austria and Saxony ~1705 and the French used different tactics depending on their commander). This change was becuase commanders at the time came to the conclusion that by not fireing their pistols would the cavalry be able to charge at a higher speed and with less risk of becoming disorganised.

This mean that the chargeing done in the game is mostly historically correct for the heavy cavalry. They charge without fireing their pistols.

As far as I understood it, the Finnish Hakkapeliitta carried 2 pistols and a saber which made for a devastating + fearsome charge. However they have no pistols and are a crappy excuse for cavalry in ETW!

Sweden (Hakkapeliitta is actually only a popularized way to specify the fact that they are from the Finnish parts of historical Sweden) was one of the first nations to abandon the caracole. Instead they replaced this tactic with the fire and charge tactic just like you say. The problem is that the term "Hakkapeliitta" isn't used for cavalry during the 2nd half of the 17th century. At 1700 had the Swedish cavalry abandoned the practice to fire their pistols prior to charging inorder to instead charge at a higher speed and cohesion.

This mean that the Hakkapeliittas fight in a correct 18th century style but not like the Hakkapeliittas fought since they actually existed 70 years before this era.

[Inhuman One]

Maybe buccaneers and other sword infantry could carry pistols as a side arm, having short range and keeping their swords as their main weapons. This would be a lot better for them I imagine.

Captains seem to use a combination of a sword and a pistol so the animations are there.