Cavalry in 19th century?

[AqD]

just watched the Sharps during breakfast time....

Can someone tell me why the french cavalrymen in Napoleonic Wars seem so weak and pathetic? They got no armour (but they did a lot of melee!), no lance, and their swords look like toy Scimitars! Though the infantry still fear them

What didn't they wear metal helmets and light armour such as steel scales to protect them from melee weaopons? And what's wrong with the old Claymore or Zweihänder? They should at least look more terrifying than the crap Scimitars which cannot even slice the body and bones by one stroke!

[gaius valerius]

Afaik Napoleonic cavalry (not the light ones of course, I mean the cuirassiers) did wore pretty heavy armour and fancy looking helmets. So I'm not sure what you are referring to. In general armour was not used anymore in this period, at least not to the extend that it was used in the Early Modern Period. And light cavalry was generally not used for effective battle situations but rather for reconnaissance, etc. I think the issue is mostly one of mobility.

Zweihanders? I don't know, but I think in a musket vs Zweihander... the Zweihander loses... And if you get a scimitar slashed in your head by an oncoming rider, then I doubt it has to slash your bones to kill you.

[AqD]

Afaik Napoleonic cavalry (not the light ones of course, I mean the cuirassiers) did wore pretty heavy armour and fancy looking helmets. So I'm not sure what you are referring to. In general armour was not used anymore in this period, at least not to the extend that it was used in the Early Modern Period. And light cavalry was generally not used for effective battle situations but rather for reconnaissance, etc. I think the issue is mostly one of mobility.

I dunno. It's what I saw in the Sharp's. So it's not real?

Zweihanders? I don't know, but I think in a musket vs Zweihander... the Zweihander loses... And if you get a scimitar slashed in your head by an oncoming rider, then I doubt it has to slash your bones to kill you.

I can understand why they no longer wear heavy armours, but why didn't their cavalrymen wear helmets and shirt of steel scales or mails for upper body instead of the funny clothes? (color = bad for ambush you know ) It's cheap, light and good enough for protection during melee combat, especially since the common melee weapons at that period were so light and weak!

[gaius valerius]

I can understand why they no longer wear heavy armours, but why didn't their cavalrymen wear helmets and shirt of steel scales or mails for upper body instead of the funny clothes? (color = bad for ambush you know )

Colours were meant to be there to be able to recognize ones own troops from a few miles away. When you see Red and Blue dots colliding in the distance, you'll be able to pinpoint your red troops. If everyone wore the same 'camouflage'-colours you might as well have everyone commit suicide or go home.

That looks better!

That's a Napoleonic cuirassier for ya. Like I said, they look pretty badass.

And as has been said: mobility - even for heavy cavalry - was the key, no cumbersome mail or scales which - as alrdy said - would offer little protection from musketrounds or cannonballs.

[Fibur]

Heavy cavalry:


Light Cavalry


Now, do you realize that wearing an armor would have been exceptionally cumbersome and offered relatively little protection against muskets and cannonballs?
As for the swords, British and French cavalry used different types:

French Heavy cavalry sabre: "Latte". It's made to strike directly and cause more mortal wounds than other swords, but is relatively difficult to use.


British cavalry sabre: it has a broader sword and is made to hack at the enemy, which can cause severe wounds.



It's not because it looks frail that it is not deadly.

[AqD]

Heavy cavalry:

That looks better!

"Zweihänders" cannot be wielded on horseback, only in american movies.

hmmm what's the max length and weight a cavalry sword can be, I wonder?

[bleach]

hmmm what's the max length and weight a cavalry sword can be, I wonder?

Well that would have a lot to do with the arm strength of the guy holding it, I'm sure...

[Odovacar]

just watched the Sharps during breakfast time....

Can someone tell me why the french cavalrymen in Napoleonic Wars seem so weak and pathetic? They got no armour (but they did a lot of melee!), no lance, and their swords look like toy Scimitars! Though the infantry still fear them

What didn't they wear metal helmets and light armour such as steel scales to protect them from melee weaopons? And what's wrong with the old Claymore or Zweihänder? They should at least look more terrifying than the crap Scimitars which cannot even slice the body and bones by one stroke!

If you speaking about light cavalrymen, aka hussars, the answer is easy.

They have sabres, which is effective in cutting. Cavalrymen cut and not really thrust.
"Zweihänders" cannot be wielded on horseback, only in american movies.
( I assume you think of the Landsknecht two-handed swords)

You can wield some two-handed swords on horseback, such as falchions.
However why would you need a falchion to cut down a man in simple textil jacket?
The sabre does it.

It was not the aim of cavalrymen to slice someone in half, it was enough to wound them severely and to cause panick.

French heavies just as Gaius pointed out had cuirasses and helmets.

[Manco]

Don't use Sharpe as a basis for French combat ability.

Sharpe is ridiculously biased towards the Brits.

[The Devil's Sergeant]

Don't use Sharpe as a basis for French combat ability.

Sharpe is ridiculously biased towards the Brits.

And justly so, the Brits kicked the crapo's asses from one end of Iberia to the other.

[frontier-auxilia]

As Maraud will say, do not use tv shows as the basis to judge an army's capability. That just like using TVB series to judge the military capability of the Qin Dynasty (which from commoner eyes will be a bunch of rag tag peasants in leather with various farmtool ). Or National geographic channel. ZOMFG D00d the crossbow bolts are tipped with bronze so they can poison the enemy....but everything was pretty much made of bronze back in the days.

Btw Gaius do you have pictures of the mamluke in the 19th century? From a book i read not even Napoleon dared send his Cuirassiers against them. So i was expecting that they look badass atleast

[antaeus]

And justly so, the Brits kicked the crapo's asses from end of Iberia to the other.

awesome..

and sharps is governed by financial production constraints..

they're hardly going to pay to have 40,000 horsemen kitted out in full military dress... or even be able to pay for the cgi..

sharpes always struggled with representing scale properly.. i always felt like i was watching a small local re-enactment crew..

hornblower managed to recreate scale a little better...

but if you want real napoleonic scale... watch waterloo.

[Entropy Judge]

they're hardly going to pay to have 40,000 horsemen kitted out in full military dress... or even be able to pay for the cgi..

Well, the movies are pretty old, aren't they? So even if they did use CGI it'd look really weird.
...
Yeah, most first aired in the 90s (93-97), with one made in 06 and another in 08. So CGI wouldn't have been an option for most, I don't think.

[Watchman]

And justly so, the Brits kicked the crapo's asses from one end of Iberia to the other.

The French forces in the Iberian peninsula were nigh invariably second- or even third-rate formations mostly busy with counterinsurgency duties (and bleeding heavily from it) - Napoleon didn't normally waste first-rate troops into that hellhole. The English, operating from the natural fortress of Portugal, could more or less dictate the terms of the engagements - if they didn't like the odds, they just pulled back into their fortified bases there and waited until the French armies again had to disperse to fight the indigenous guerillas.

This, naturally, allowed them to win rather a lot (not in the least since they could usually pick the battlefield and opposition), and duly made the troops rather confident and experienced - success breeding success, as it were.

So eh.


Anyways, regarding the swords, curved sabers were pretty much the universal norm among light cavalry - the quick slashes of such weapons being well suited for the "hit and run" attacks and slicing up broken infantry formations that were the forte of the light horse, I'd imagine. Heavier horse tended to carry straight blades - whether single- or two-edged and designed for the cut or the thrust then depending upon national preferences and sometimes even the specific sub-arm of service. For example AFAIK the French heavy horse used the point, while their English colleagues preferred the edge - one French cavalryman writing to the effect that the latter duly missed with nine swings out of ten with their heavy blades, but the effects tending to be gory and spectacular when they connected.
(The debate over whether the cut or the thrust was more effective for a horseman's sword raged on as long as horsed cavalry remained a viable combat arm, the first literary salvo in the dispute I'm aware of being Xenophon's Peri Hippikes from Antiquity... which favoured the cut, incidentally.)

The lance had pretty much disappeared entirely from Western European cavalry arsenals by the end of the 16th century, being by that point largely encountered anymore only in the hands of irregular light horse such as the Scottish and English Border Rievers and eventually disappearing altogether. It remained in use in Poland at least, and Polish lancers in French service made enough of an impression that most 19th-century cavalry forces created their own specialist corps of light lancers.

[Helm]

The idea is they're meant to be the ones doing all the stabbing, the ones they're stabbing are meant to be doing all the shooting so armour won't do them much good.

[Odovacar]

In the last medieval TV show about which one friend told me, the topic was: what clothes did Robin Hood wear?
They found out that he had a green jacket 'cause "it's easier to hide with that in a wood" ......

[Helm]

In the last medieval TV show about which one friend told me, the topic was: what clothes did Robin Hood wear?
They found out that he had a green jacket 'cause "it's easier to hide with that in a wood" ......

But they didn't have green colour dye back then, leaving aside the fact that Robin Hood himself didn't exist.

[Lasias]

They have sabres, which is effective in cutting. Cavalrymen cut and not really thrust.

This might not necessarily be true, it appears that 'giving point' (attacking/charging with your point instead of using a cut) was quite widespread, especially after the Napoleonic Wars. I don't know why though, maybe because heavy cavalry no longer carried lances?

[Odovacar]

This might not necessarily be true, it appears that 'giving point' (attacking/charging with your point instead of using a cut) was quite widespread, especially after the Napoleonic Wars. I don't know why though, maybe because heavy cavalry no longer carried lances?

I fail to see the difference what would happen when cavalrymen wield lances?
Uhlands carried lances though, and nomads always used sabres, although not as primary weapon.

[Orko]

Can someone tell me why the french cavalrymen in Napoleonic Wars seem so weak and pathetic?

because they're French.
Seriously though, French cavalry were quite good. It is just that the Brits always kill them in Sharpe.