#mounted combat

Infantry vs Cavalry situations and techniques

(images for attention)

May be relevant to students of history or historical fencing or those looking into writing/creating various sorts of art be it books or video games or imagery or to those standing up to police brutality in the modern age(albeit applicability to that aspect is lessened due to a different context from when the historical manuscripts and manuals were written).

Obviously historically in many cases these types of situations weren’t 1 on 1 dueling type situations but rather parts of a larger group fight-be it a skirmish with at least several or more folks up to a pitched battle in this or that era.

The exact tactics and strategy changed a lot over time but when actually facing a mounted fighter there are some general rules for an infantry fighter to lean on and vice versa.

A lot of it is about quickly deflecting and countering the cavalry attack, sometimes attacking the rider, sometimes the horse. The images in that link are specfically from the works of Paulus Hector Mair which you can find in the ‘‘Mounted fencing’‘ section of the page devoted to him. As are the two images headlining this post which you can find here and here and here.

The descriptions are as follows:

“[13] Yet another way of throwing the rider to the ground.If you are on horse, and you see the footman has armed himself with rapier and buckler, then spur your horse and ride swiftly toward him with sword drawn and the point aimed toward the opponent's face or chest. If you see your opponent ride at you in this manner, then remove his thrust with the long edge to your left and drop both rapier and buckler and run toward the opponent, grab hold with the left hand on the outside of his right arm, and the inside of his elbow, and pull down, and at the same time you grab hold with your right hand in the left side of his neck, and you will throw him to the ground without risk of injury.“

“[12] A way for the footman to throw the rider off the saddle.If you are mounted and you see your opponent footman using rapier, then draw your sword as well, and ride toward him and strike toward his head. If your opponent does this very thing, you lift up your rapier and remove his strike to the left with the long edge. Then you step forward as fast a you can with to his right side, and grab hold with your left hand in his right hand and push him away in this manner, and thus he will not be able to fight against you. Then you pierce his neck with your rapier as hard as you can, and in this manner the horseman will fall.“

”[8] A device where the rider has a spear and the foot-soldier has a halberd.When riding toward your opponent, do as follows: Hold the spear extended over your right leg in your right hand, and when you are about to attack, you insert the spear in the arret, and ride toward him thus. If your opponent comes at you in said manner, then step forward with your left foot and hold your halberd in a strike from above, and strike his spear away from left to your right side, and you have averted his attack. Then you take two steps toward him and hook him in the left side of his neck with the head of the halberd and pull forcefully to you, and you will throw the rider off his horse.” Here’s a few more later era examples that feature sabers and lances.

1 on 1 infantry sometimes actually has the advantage-manouvering a horse is something that takes a lot of skill and while horses absolutely can get accustomed to a lot and have historically participated in battles,even effectively attacking on their own not just being transport they generally speaking cannot outmanouvre an infantry fighter easily 1 on 1.

They can outrun one and a cavalry force may sometimes more easily outmanouver an infantry force because it’s faster but the ability to turn in place in a  controlled manner is lesser.

While still dangerous any cavalry force loses a lot of its potential for causing harm when not able to actually charge.

A horse that is standing can still kick,trample and even bite-albeit the likelyhood of that happening depends a lot on the horse and its training-it may happen because the animal is scared but it may happen if the animal is trained to do so(as many horses used for the military were historically). However a horse that was scared enough in one situation is unlikely to want to ever participate in such a thing again, this doesn’t necessarily require actual harm or pain to the horse-if they are unacustomed to it sometimes even loud enough sound is enough.

Also depends on what weapons is the rider using-is it a lance,a spear,a straight or curved sword or saber-do they also have a shield,or are they maybe throwing javelins,or shooting arrows from bows or crossbows? Or like in the 20th century a rifle or pistol sometimes alongside a saber. Or as in modern times do they have batons?

Even a lance can be used effectively very close range even when standing-even if it’s hard to thrust many cavalry manuals show effective use of it for hitting with like a quaterstaff from horseback in a way,albeit often one handed. It may make control harder but it can still hit with a lot of power.

Bows,crossbows,rifles obviously aren’t too advantageous at close range-not that they can’t be used but are still dangerous. Sword and sabers and batons function fairly similarly in that the mounted fighter generally tries to land strong hits from above,likely being able to reach the head most easily without much necessary focus on accuracy.

Generally infantry if there’s more of it can ‘‘always’‘ ‘‘simply’‘  swarm cavalry and unhorse the riders,but that only applies if the horse is standing in place or moving slowly-the faster the horse goes the harder it is to accomplish this as infantry,unless one is using a pike or similar-which can be very effective.

The obvious issue is the above noted horses ability to kick,trample and bite as well as the fact that the rider can still hit. Just as with combat generally being good at using proper timing,footwork and distance management can accomplish much. One may close in and wrestle the rider of the horse(as noted above),to dismount them(sometimes in order to mount their horse immediately after,but unlike in movies without proper training that’s not really as easily doable-especially being able to control the horse especially if said horse had a connection to that rider). One can do so by getting one or both of the riders legs out of the stirrups,or by pulling their reins(which requires care as to not pull the horse towards you or your infantry partners) and then pulling the rider down. There’s also a fair bit of wrestling one can do on horseback and variants of that can be applied from the ground as well.Here’s a video of some horse wrestling that’s still done in Kyrgyzstan As seen in the images above some of these techniques may be applied unarmed while others work only with weapons,while some can be more easily done if one can use a weapon or something else as a lever to pull someone off the horse.

Here’s a video of police showing how one can remain in control of their horse if attacked-and an infantry fighter would basically want to prevent the mounted fighter from being able to do any of it.

One could also theoretically “just” ‘lasso’ a rider and pull them down.

For more examples on the general topic it may be worth checking out these few posts, going through the treatise database and looking for cavalry manuals that may show more details as well as joining Horsy HEMA and the blog tag relating to it.

If the wrestling bit of the mentioned techniques sounds more interesting 

Ringen discussiongroup! is a good place to check out if you’re interested in historical wrestling variants, as are  HEMA Grapplers  and Scholars of Fiore dei Liberi.

The first group focuses on ringen, the second is about more general historical wrestling types,the third on armizare, the wrestling portion of which is called abrazare.

If you’re interested in learning about historical forms of boxing or as it was often called pugilism check out  HEMA pugilists

If you are interested in more modern forms of unarmed combat do check out Southpaw’s Mixed Marxist Arts Club

Good luck everyone.

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This may be a useful link as well.