Lt.Cavalry vs. Infantry - Case: Roman Lt.Cavalry vs. Gaul Swordsmen

[Bobby-The Centurion]

Hi to all,
I know this case is not a major battle (I am at the beggining of imp.campaign), but interesting case happened to me.

I was sieging Gaul city and saw that relief 2 armies are closing. Due to distance from my nearby cities I have chosen cavalry only units to beef up sieging army. Even cavalry was not able to reach the town and I stopped near the town with two armies - one sieging and mentioned cavalry only army. My cavalry units were attacked by one of Gaul relief armies. Unit composition was following:

Roman forces:
2 Generals with 19 bodyguards - 21 men
5 Equites light cavalry 27 men each - 135 men
Total: 156 men

Gaul forces:
1 General with 25 bodyguards - 26 men
5 Swordsmen units with 41 men each - 205 men
1 Gaul cavalry with 27 men - 27 men
1 Skirmisher unit with 20 men only - 20 men
Total: 278 men

Fight took place in winter on flat field without obstacles and forests.
What tactics would you use? Formations? Movement?

I am preparing scheme how I fought with such a foe and I will put it here soon.

[Bobby-The Centurion]

I put my units in opened formation to be able to attack sides of enemy units in any kind of their movement. Right wing was purposely put forward to draw attention first and phase battle.

Bottom formation is mine, red triangles are light cavalry a circle are bodyguard units. Green formation are Gauls: squares are swordsmen, triangle is Gaul cavalry, circle is bodyguard unit and large rectangle is skirmisher unit. All fights except final slaughter took place out of their range. Note that vertical dimension was bigger in reality. Scheme is quite illustrative. Timing of cavalry charges is critical.





Although I expected heavy losses I finally won.

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

nicely done =)

[LordSaradain]

I would proably had pulled it off in a quite diffrent manner, but your tactic apperently worked quite good. Congrats. It didn't look as good on paper as the final outcome though. (in the images you posted, it looked like you were going to suffer severe losses, but in the campaingn, you didn't)

[Bobby-The Centurion]

Most of cavalry charges were aimed to the SIDE (worse case) or preferably to the REAR (better case) of advancing infantry. Note direction ov movement of infantry.NO headons.
This was aim of my formation. In case of movement of enemy to whatever direction, he will receive calvary charge to side of the formation or single unit. Enemy did what I wanted, If he would advarce to the center, he would receive cavalry charge to sides and center formation will charge to the side/rear of both battle zones, where infantry wouldl fight my wings.

Pic1> Initial fomation
Pic2> Gaul Swordsmen after while of warcry run agains my right wing and receives cavalry charge to side, big mess and killed. I put all cavalry into 4-5 mes in one row (quite long formation - maybe I should use wedge, but i thought it woud be risky) before fight to maximize punch of charge.
Pic3> Second Gaul Swordsmen wanted to join battle receives cavalry charge to side/rear.
Pic4> Right wing General aiming to nearly headon with Gaul Light cavalry, left wing slowly advance to bait Gaul right wing.
Pic5> Gaul right wing Swordsmen run against slowly marching left wing and being aimed by Roman Lt.cav. Swordsmen from right wing are to be hit by Lt.cav from my center and second swordsmen unit is to be hit by lt.cav from my rigt wing.
Pic6> Both swordsmen units were hit into its sided while running towards my left wing. Enemy general and central Swodsmen advance to help attacked infantry and are aimed by my left wing General and Lt.cav.
Pic7> Enemy general and central Swodsmen are hit by my general and Lt.cav. My Lt.cavs from right wing smashed first Swordsmen and going to join left wing to be decisive factor to enemy general unit.
Pic8> Chasing the enemy, covering the field with enemy bodies.

[hellheaven1987]

Actually it seems quite good, except the last strike is quite... Why you don't surround the last unit and then charge?

[Dirty Harry]

The AI is so easy to beat with cavalry..way too easy, CA better fix this for MTW2. Instead of maintaining their formation which could easily resist a light cavalry attack, they send out units one at a time just to be swarmed before help can possibly arrive.

[Peter]

yeah i hate cavalry. Im always forced to set up a unhistorical formation just to beat them so they dont rout my units to fast.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

And what about the suicidal generals ? They still didn't disappear from my battles and I just put an unit of velites in front of my infantry line as bait, so the general in the center attacks them and gets surrounded and killed by my forces. The rest of the enemy just routs...

[hsimoorb]

Yeah, RTW equites have about the same power level as Feudal Knights in MTW. Nice victory though, from the diagrams you showed I would have thought you'd take many more casualties. Usualy when you carge a unit that's not engaged your cavalry gets bogged down pretty well. Nice victory.

[Bobby-The Centurion]

I think it was possible because every their unit was baited by one cav. and the other cav.unit hit side or rear of baited unit.

2DH: If is it waaay to easy, how would you solve this situation? As Roman or Gaul?

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

I've tried the same stategy of using one equites as bait while another hit the enemy swordsmen in the rear. Got a heroic victory like you. The AI is just too stupid and does not see when his swordsmen are about to be hit by cavalry. Wow, imagine this strategy with AI phalanx units. It would be a massacre.

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

Wow, imagine this strategy with AI phalanx units. It would be a massacre.

It is, particularly if you include your infantry and work a combined operation (see http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=41708 for a walkthrough I did, 4,147 dead on AI's side, 611 on mine).

As the Gauls you would have to lure in his cavalry:

- put your swordsmen together in groups of 2 (ie. stack 2 on top of each other).
- put the 5th one together with the velites
- then send these groups around the battlefield but keep them within supporting range.

What you want him to do is charge one of the blocks, you then immediately counter-charge with both your general and light cavalry together.

Stacked infantry is a serious cavalry killer.

Actually it seems quite good, except the last strike is quite... Why you don't surround the last unit and then charge?

if you do that you usually end up with them fighting to the death rather than routing, costs you a lot more casualties. You always need to give them somewhere to run to.

[Bobby-The Centurion]

I had option to accept fight or withdraw to another side of battlefield due to high cavalry mobility. Doing that clever way waiting for mistake during chasing me around the field (trying outmaneuver enemy force), strike occasionally and withdraw (make some kills with minimum losses) until time limit is gone - I was defending force, time limit on side of enemy. Maybe not heroic victory, but...

2Tacticalwithdrawal - Maybe generals with name "Amulius" are quite good/lucky, this victory was fought by Amulius Julius, ehm...Amulius Victor after this and next battle (also nice heroic victory).

[NobleNick]

Nice tactics. I enjoyed the "slide show."

There is another neat tactic that can stack with the one you showed, when you are the defender and you have a high mobility force with respect to the enemy (light cavalry versus enemy foot soldiers is excellent) : Let the enemy foot soldiers chase you all over the map, until they are all "very tired" and your horses are just "warmed up." Then do the tactic you showed, and the results should be even more spectacular.

[Slug For A Butt]

But that's a bit lame bacause the AI has no concept of how tired the unit is. That's exploiting the AI I think.
Nice tactics overall though Bobby.

[Myerus Linkus]

What is a better tactic when using cavalry : click on the intended target or to click past them ?