Context: The Winged Hussars were an elite shock cavalry fielded by the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. It demonstrated to be extremely effective during the 16th and early 17th centuries. However, it became obsolete as european armies started employing bayonets, which allowed them to remove pikemen from their formations.
Even though bayonets were actually less effective than pikes in fending off cavalry, what shifted the balance of power was that bayonets and purely musket armed infantry allowed them to be deployed in lines and fire by rank, making it so an entire formation could mantain continuous fire. Because of this, even though they were more vulnerable in melee, the increase in firepower made a head on charge absolutely suicidal, at least before the infantry had engaged in battle and lost cohesion due to the received volleys, which impacted it’s ability to mantain it’s rate of fire.
Correction: the deluge did not refer to the Polish Lithuanian crisis of the 18th century, as I had thought. It refers to the crisis of the 17th century, which means that the hussars were still at their height. Disconsider the title.
Femto-Griffith on
The most effective cavalry in history is the Mongols.
That is not up for debate.
Pelinal_Whitestrake on
gunblades were technically real and technically effective (ignore the previous attempts at attaching a gun to a sword/axe)
3 Comments
Context: The Winged Hussars were an elite shock cavalry fielded by the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. It demonstrated to be extremely effective during the 16th and early 17th centuries. However, it became obsolete as european armies started employing bayonets, which allowed them to remove pikemen from their formations.
Even though bayonets were actually less effective than pikes in fending off cavalry, what shifted the balance of power was that bayonets and purely musket armed infantry allowed them to be deployed in lines and fire by rank, making it so an entire formation could mantain continuous fire. Because of this, even though they were more vulnerable in melee, the increase in firepower made a head on charge absolutely suicidal, at least before the infantry had engaged in battle and lost cohesion due to the received volleys, which impacted it’s ability to mantain it’s rate of fire.
Correction: the deluge did not refer to the Polish Lithuanian crisis of the 18th century, as I had thought. It refers to the crisis of the 17th century, which means that the hussars were still at their height. Disconsider the title.
The most effective cavalry in history is the Mongols.
That is not up for debate.
gunblades were technically real and technically effective (ignore the previous attempts at attaching a gun to a sword/axe)