Cavalry Armies

[SMIDSY]

Back in the Medieval I days I used to make armies made up entirely of cavalry, they suffered horrible losses, mostly due to my lack of tactical skill at the time.

Recently, I've gotten the hang of dragoons and horse artillery. So I decided to make an entirely mounted army. Light dragoons have substituted line infantry, and heavy cavalry is used as cavalry. The idea is you use guerilla tactics on a massive scale, then envelope the enemy formation using superior mobility.
As I use the campaign to test new army style (don't like the single battle thing, doesn't feel authentic), I haven't tested the concept in a large scale battle.

Thoughts on the idea?

[daniu]

Thoughts on the idea?

Not too convinced...
Cavalry is quite vulnerable to both bullets and artillery, so i'd expect heavy losses.
Terrain will often reduce mobility so one of the advantages is gone.
Good luck in siege assaults.
Infantry in squares are nearly invulnerable against cav in melee, so you'd need dragoons which need to dismount to fire, but then they're at a numerical disadvantage against line; that's not the case with light dragoons, but I doubt you'll be able to recruit them fast enough to build and maintain your armies.
But if you try it, give us your experiences. Maybe you do get it to work.

[SMIDSY]

Put down a rebellion in Muskovy. Not a full on battle, but the enemy had some respectable units. They did decently enough to warrent further use.

Mobility was key, regularly shifting formations and flanking.

[daniu]

Put down a rebellion in Muskovy. Not a full on battle, but the enemy had some respectable units.

Actually, I can imagine keeping a somewhat smaller cav only force (I'm thinking 6 melee, 4 missile cav) as something like a fast response unit against rebels and especially those small raiding armies; that also makes use the mobility on the campaign map because they can operate in a larger area for interception.

[Mike in Montreal]

I'm not sure. It would probably depend on who you're fighting and when. I usually have a pretty large proportion of infantry and tend to fight defensively so I never had any real problems with large cavalry formations. BUT last night I tried to invade the Netherlands who had an army of, get this, 1 line, 1 cavalry, 1 12lb, 1 howitzer and the rest as horse artillery. I won but at one heck of a price. Most of my units had been routed and he simply didn't have anything to hit back with so I'm thinking that with a reasonable number of dragoons I would have been beaten, easily.

The only real inconvenience I see is that you could only field 1,200 rifles maximum (on Huge), and that's without using anything else than dragoons. So balanced, your army would probably only field about 840 rifles; that's less than 6 line infantry on the same setting. Against a balanced army, you're outgunned at least 2 to 1.

Yet, against a smaller army, maybe you'd have better results with your all-cavalry force.

[british_general]

Of my 20 unit stack, 6 of it is calvary. It generally helps when the infantry is in a tight situation, but if it is not supported, the calvary will die, like the 2 calvary regiments sent to whack my 1 regiment of infantry 2 days ago. And with your maneouvering, I should just use the defensive positioning that this guy(whose name I forgot) used to defend his flanks, front, and rear. Plus, square is really good against horsies.

[british_general]

Anyway, you can destroy enemies with cavalry in M2TW 'cause the horses played the role of medieval line infantry as there are only pathetic levy spearmen who had a chance against horses unless they were surrounded. Line infantry is designed as all-rounded backbones of an army who can fight averagely against anything.

[♔DoomBunny666♔]

Ive been working on this style, trying to get a Blitzkrieg army in my campaigns, here is what I have...

1 General

4 Life Guards, Garde Du Corpes call um whatever

1 3lber horse- this is a sacrificial unit, the idea is ride up close to the enemy let of a canister, retreat out of range, reload, then repeat

8 Dragoons- replace line inf

4 LDs- Replace light inf

4 6lbers horse- the real hitting power, but still fast enough to keep up on campaign...

[SMIDSY]

Is 3lb horse artillery faster than 6lb?

[Khassaki]

Ive been working on this style, trying to get a Blitzkrieg army in my campaigns, here is what I have...

1 General

4 Life Guards, Garde Du Corpes call um whatever

1 3lber horse- this is a sacrificial unit, the idea is ride up close to the enemy let of a canister, retreat out of range, reload, then repeat

8 Dragoons- replace line inf

4 LDs- Replace light inf

4 6lbers horse- the real hitting power, but still fast enough to keep up on campaign...

Pretty much, except I don't usually bother with light dragoons or horse guards. Heavy dragoons shoot 3 times as fast and have more ammo, and in the rear the bigger unit does enough damage that lesser stat line doesn't matter If you micro manage a couple while leaving the rest as a gunline with the artillery, you can get some serious shooting out of them. They can break crap troops with just shooting, but you need a combo of rear charges and shooting for better moral units.

[The_Chaotician]

I am actually going to use such tactics once I buy the game. Good luck, and tell me how you fare with those tactics in a larger battle.

[♔DoomBunny666♔]

No buts its cheaper and limbers and reloads faster!

[OldCrowWhiskey]

I imagine these tactics work well for field armies or for attacking cities without improved fortifications, But against any type of fort a horse army will be nearly useless. An all cavalry army could be really useful on large land masses like Russia, southeastern europe, India, or the midwestern US as a flanking army or as a flank guarding force.

Wouldn't artillery (even 3lb or 6lb) slow down campaign movement range? I would think the real advantage would be the increased campaign movement range and you would trade that speed for a less than ideal fighting force.

[SMIDSY]

The army is currently deployed in a rapid response position in the desert north of Martha held Persia. I am bracing for the Indian storm to come, as the Marthas are the only single credible threat left to my empire.

[The_Chaotician]

How has your mobile army been so far? Can you list the tactics you use step-by-step?

[SMIDSY]

How has your mobile army been so far? Can you list the tactics you use step-by-step?

It has been working decently. As it has been theorized, they work best on open plains. As for the EXACT list of tactics, I'll keep that a trade secret.

Anyway. At the outset of battle move up 3 troops of light dragoons to slow the advance by peppering one of the flanks while the horse artillery gives the other flank a good pounding (or kill the general if I'm not feeling very sporting).

Then deploy a "Flying Squad" of a single unit of light dragoons used just to run around behind the enemy and bumble up their formation while the artillery and the screening force grind away at the enemy lines. Also, they might draw out the enemy cavalry, if this happens, lead them into your cannons and give em some canister.

At all costs, you must avoid melee with the enemy at this point.

The enemy will be getting close by now, limber up all your artillery and have your army hoof it to another part of the battle map, then repeat the process over again. All enemy cavalry should be engaged with your heavy cavalry or lancers if you have them.

Sorry, I'm not very good at explaining my strategies.

[bluebird1927]

Is this cavalry army part of your offerings to the mighty, all powerful Blood God? If so then do you get double kills when the calvalry die, seeing as you are offering both man and horse to the blood god.