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Old 11-12-2019, 08:03 PM   #1
seycyrus
 
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Default Realistic ? Cavalry (lance) charge?

I was watching some youtube footage on cavalry charges and it got me thinking about how they are more deadly in real life than in the way Gurps would represent them. Please help me reconcile this and point out what i might be missing.

Let's consider a solitary lancer (knight) and assume he is armed with a spear and that the lancer's spear is longer than his target's weapon. Let's assume his foe is an average guy.

We have the lancer moving forward for enough time that he is at maximum speed. He faces an individual foe, and let's say he hits (succeeds in attack roll) center of mass.

Now an average joe at light encumbrance has a dodge of 7. If he retreats that gives him +3, for an effective dodge of 10, which will enable him to get out of harms way 50% of the time.

Now I know that internet videos are not real life and they might be sensationalizing the deadliness of the lance part of the cavalry charge (compared to a followup slam by the horse - would this be correct?) but still this seems to be too high to me. I don't think we envision half of the targets of a cavalry charge avoiding the initial attack, do we? Especially if the targets are unskilled commoners.

It gets worse for the lancer (better for the target) if the target has a shield and/or is at no encumbrance.

What is the lancer doing to decrease his target's ability to defend? Would it be all out attack (feint and attack), a deceptive attack or something else? Does his high speed decrease his opponents chance to defend?

Last edited by seycyrus; 11-12-2019 at 08:06 PM.
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Old 11-12-2019, 08:24 PM   #2
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Default Re: Realistic ? Cavalry (lance) charge?

Dodge especially is a bit high in order to encourage PC survivability.
But in the situation you describe I would expect the lancer to try deceptive attack.
Seems to me though dodging,especially if your not armored, can see the attack coming, and have plenty of room to maneuver a dodge is not unreasonable.
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Old 11-12-2019, 08:30 PM   #3
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Default Re: Realistic ? Cavalry (lance) charge?

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Originally Posted by Refplace View Post
...
Seems to me though dodging,especially if your not armored, can see the attack coming, and have plenty of room to maneuver a dodge is not unreasonable.
Perhaps this is part of the equation when it is a group of lancers charging a group of soldiers. Perhaps they cannot retreat if they are in tight formation?
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Old 11-12-2019, 08:41 PM   #4
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Default Re: Realistic ? Cavalry (lance) charge?

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Originally Posted by seycyrus View Post
Perhaps they cannot retreat if they are in tight formation?
Of course they can't retreat, there's nowhere to retreat to, the guy behind them is in the way.
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Old 11-12-2019, 08:43 PM   #5
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Default Re: Realistic ? Cavalry (lance) charge?

Dodging backwards is probably less effective against a mounted charge than against a mostly stationary soldier on foot. I'd give it a +1, not a +3. Also, getting full dodge when in formation is odd, and I'm a little surprised your guy has no encumbrance.

On a different note, we don't actually know how military charges were resolved. We don't know what actually happened at the moment of "Impact", and there are a lot of different theories.

It could have been the deadliness of the spear. It could have been the impact from the horse. It could have been that one side or the other almost always broke ranks and either fled or disengaged. It could be the cavalry rode along the edge of the formation trying to skewer individuals. We don't know.

If the charge made full contact with the infantry formation, I have a hard time convincing myself that the spear tips did most of the work: you can only aim at one person at a time, and formations come in rows. I do think the spear would be more lethal, and was very useful when engaging armored targets, but you don't need to kill the enemy, only prevent him from fighting effectively, and breaking his formation is often enough to prevent that.
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Old 11-12-2019, 08:46 PM   #6
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Default Re: Realistic ? Cavalry (lance) charge?

Also, if the conrois is bearing down on the foe, he's likely to be attacked by more than one lance, and his retreat is only good for one.
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Old 11-12-2019, 09:08 PM   #7
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Default Re: Realistic ? Cavalry (lance) charge?

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
...I'm a little surprised your guy has no encumbrance. ...
I was just trying to minimize the possibilities of the discussion by stating that they were at light encumbrance.

Last edited by seycyrus; 11-12-2019 at 11:44 PM.
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Old 11-12-2019, 09:10 PM   #8
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Default Re: Realistic ? Cavalry (lance) charge?

Does anyone have any actual numbers on hit probability for the lancers? Even 50% casualties from failing that Dodge 10 in the first impact would be astounding. (Military units rarely retained any cohesion over 25% casualties, and they didn't take that in one blow.)

Disrupting the enemy formation is one of the major points of the charge. It's not directly killing the enemy that matters as much as destroying their ability to fight together (after which you can directly kill them). An enemy retreating defense is a victory.

Last edited by Anaraxes; 11-12-2019 at 09:27 PM.
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Old 11-12-2019, 09:49 PM   #9
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Default Re: Realistic ? Cavalry (lance) charge?

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Originally Posted by seycyrus View Post
I was watching some youtube footage on cavalry charges and it got me thinking about how they are more deadly in real life than in the way Gurps would represent them. Please help me reconcile this and point out what i might be missing.
The big point that your missing is that cavalry were most effective due to their psychological effect on the enemy.

A cavalry charge against a formation of enemy infantry which kept discipline and morale resulted in the horses stopping short of contact or flowing around an isolated unit (e.g., one formed up in a square) with little damage to the infantry other than victims of random cavalry pistol shots or lance thrusts. Meanwhile, the infantry could shoot at the cavalry more effectively.

But, a cavalry charge against a fleeing foe allowed cavalrymen to hack or shoot down fleeing foes at will. In GURPS terms, someone attacked from the rear doesn't get any defenses. That makes it easy to hack them down with a sabre or gut them with a lance.

Additionally, someone on horseback is going to be attacking from at least 3' above a foe on foot. That shifts hit location significantly towards head/brain hits. On average, that means a greater chance of hits which incapacitate or kill the foe due to hit location modifiers.

On a tactical/strategic level, the ability of cavalry formations to move very quickly over short distances allowed them to move ahead of fleeing enemy troops to shut off "the golden bridge" which allowed an enemy army to break contact, reorganize, and recover morale. On the rare historical occasions where that occurred, the tactical and psychological effects were devastating. (E.g., one of the reasons that Gen. R.E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox is the fact that Gen. Sheridan's cavalry had gotten behind the CSA lines, making it impossible for the Army of Northern Virginia to retreat any further without being defeated in detail.)

While the actual battle effects of shutting down "the golden bridge" might not be so severe, the morale effects might be sufficiently devastating that most of the retreating troops surrender without a fight.
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Old 11-13-2019, 12:07 AM   #10
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Default Re: Realistic ? Cavalry (lance) charge?

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Originally Posted by Pursuivant View Post
The big point that your missing is that cavalry were most effective due to their psychological effect on the enemy.
I agree that there is a psychological component to it, but I wonder if the relative value of it is the same, before and/or after the advent of firearms. Regardless, I guess I'd be interested in using Gurps to model this as well.

But in terms on non-psychological effects, I had meant to discuss lancers versus non-firearm infantry.

It seems to me that the lowest level of standard defense versus a lance attack was 50% which seems to be a bit high to me.

We have discussed the possibility of reducing the benefit of retreat which would lower this % which seems to make sense. Active tactics by the lancer to reduce the target's defense have also been mentioned.

I wonder if there is something else, in terms of Gurps, that would affect this probability in a similar fashion that has not been discussed in defending against a lancer on horseback coming in at 25 mph with a 15 foot lance.

Is parry affected in some way?

Anything else I am missing?

Last edited by seycyrus; 11-13-2019 at 12:12 AM.
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