Explain to me the joys of mounted combat...

[Scorponok]

I'm looking for a discussion on both the historical tactics of mounted combat as well as mounted combat shown in films, and the accuracy of D&D when it comes to the re-creation of mounted combat scenarios.

In a lot of TV shows and movies, the general consensus seems to be a mounted rider will win a one vs. one encounter against a foot soldier, unless you have super crazy skills like Daario Naharis from GoT. But how big is this advantage?

On an open field of 10 mounted and fully armored riders vs. 20 fully armored foot soldiers, who wins? Besides the obvious battlefield control of the knights being able to dictate where the battle will take place, would it be a complete slaughter of the soldiers?

Also, if you were one of the soldiers, wouldn't it be effective to target the horse with your crossbow? Does the horse continue charging even if it has been hurt?

As a knight, you have the advantage of speed plus a 2000 pound animal running down a soldier. If the soldier doesn't get trampled, you would probably either have a long sword ready to strike as you ride by, or shoot a crossbow or bow. You could deal a fatal blow to the soldier while the soldier using his weapons might get your legs or assuming he has a halberd, be able to drag you off your mount.

[Kelb_Panthera]

At the low levels (below 7) a mount can prove invaluable. The creature offers a speed advantage and effectively allows the rider to fight from higher ground. Add in a lance for damage or a bow for kiting and you're basically at the peak of mundane combat.

In mid-level (7-12) an effective mount requires a special one. Either a class feature or a creature superior to a horse is necessary for it to avoid being a liability and this requires character resources that make operating without your mount a bad option. It's viable but not ideal. Go for it if you're really into being a mounted character.

At high-levels (13-16) the expense in both gear, opportunity costs, and vulnerability just outweighs the advantages that aren't really showing anymore.

At pre-epic (17-20) forget it. A mount is a liability that no longer offers any tangible benefit unless you've gone full supermount.

[WalkingTheShade]

Real and history points.


In a lot of TV shows and movies, the general consensus seems to be a mounted rider will win a one vs. one encounter against a foot soldier, unless you have super crazy skills like Daario Naharis from GoT. But how big is this advantage?
Actually, in the end it depends on equipment and skill of both fighters. Whereas impossible in a unit-vs-unit case, in a one-on-one scenario, it's not impossible to dodge a mounted charge, making it a less efficient maneuver.
IRL, rebelious peasants would use superior numbers, pole-arms and spears to wound the horse and/or dismount the rider, then finish him on the ground.

D&D 3.X wise, here are the equivalent actions :
Dodging : readying an action against a charge to make a lateral move action away from the charger.
Pole-arms and long spears give reach, permitting to ready an attack against a charge (and doubling the damage in case of spears).


On an open field of 10 mounted and fully armored riders vs. 20 fully armored foot soldiers, who wins?
Depends. Obviously, there never was any instance of medieval heavy cavalry encountering a phalanx of Greek hoplites, but I'd bet on the later rather than the former. However, the amount of armor and barding the cavalry has might reverse the odds.

Even at the apex of medieval knight heavy cavalry, the cavalry charge's main strength was psychological. The first impact of the charge was used to break units that were already wavering, not to engage an enemy unit frontally.
The first use of such tactic was made by Alexander the Great's companion cavalry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companion_cavalry).
In particular, the use of that unit (that Alexander himself was directly leading in battle) in the various battles against Darius' Persian army (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_Alexander_the_Great), are good (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Issus) examples (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaugamela).
(An interesting point is that Alexander is able to use the heavy cavalry charge again and again, simply because his enemies had never seen cavalry used in such a way and fail to counter its use.)

So, correct timing and smart use of the psychological impact cavalry charges would change the flow of a battle, potentially routing enemy units one after the other.

A badly done cavalry charge would nearly always mean defeat. One thing to take into account is that medieval European cavalry was composed only of noblemen. Losing a cavalry unit meant losing a lot from the ruling class, and as such, odds had to be desperate for a commander to contemplate the sacrifice of such a unit.
One of interesting example of cavalry use (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tours) I can think of is in the skirmish battle of Poitiers Tours, where more disciplined and heavily armed soldiers make a good use of terrain to withstand a charge.


Besides the obvious battlefield control of the knights being able to dictate where the battle will take place, would it be a complete slaughter of the soldiers?
This was never so easy IRL, see the above example of Tours. Cavalry has an advantage in mobility (and thus choose the moment of the charge), but foot soldiers may be able to choose the place where they are charged.
A better example of cavalry able to dictate where the battle will take place is the Mongol army (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_military_tactics_and_organization). Those guys kicked ass so utterly much that they mopped the floor with medieval Europe. It's fascinating.


Also, if you were one of the soldiers, wouldn't it be effective to target the horse with your crossbow? Does the horse continue charging even if it has been hurt?
Hence, horse barding. However, crossbows (and longbows) were a late addition to medieval warfare. Both accelerated the decline of medieval cavalry, for this exact reason.
The economic and political cost of heavy cavalry was very high. Equipment, training, upkeep of a professional cast of warriors was much higher than that of simple peasants who could use longbows (English yeomen) or trained quite fast to use a crossbow.
Now, on a battlefield, a team of crossbowmen might inflict heavy damage to a charging body of knights. After a first salvo, if the knights didn't break and the charge managed to contact, a unit of peasant crossbowmen would probably get massacred.
But even then, the opportunity cost of a unit of crossbowmen against half a unit of knights would be enough to make heavy cavalry a bad choice economically.

D&D wise, there's the Heavy Cavalry teamwork benefit (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=58ivv0hk7re13ro4mpaoo451c5&topic=4862.0;msg=68838).

[Darrin]

Historically, there were several counters to the "Heavy Cavalry Charge":

Shield Wall

You need disciplined troops and either heavy shields or tower shields, but very effective. I'm a little fuzzy on the Battle of Hastings, but by some accounts William's cavalry unsuccessfully charged Harold's shield wall three times. Harold got to pick the terrain and the Norman cavalry had a short field charging uphill, so maybe it's not an ideal example. After the third charge, the Norman's retreat was disorganized, and Harold's forces were either tired, confused, or overconfident... they broke ranks and followed the Normans down the hill. Without the discipline of the shield wall, however, William rallied his cavalry, and by standing up in their saddles and stabbing down at the disorganized footmen, they wound up slaughtering them wholesale.

D&D models this with the following feats:
Formation Expert (Complete Warrior)
Phalanx Fighting (Complete Warrior)
Shieldmate (Miniatures Handbook)
Improved Shieldmate (Miniatures Handbook)

Crossbows/Archers

Put your spearmen/footmen in the middle, then put your crossbows/archers on each flank, angled forward in a U-shape to create a crossfire kill-zone that the cavalry has to charge through. The crossbow was popular in Europe, as it was somewhat easy to use, and given primarily to untrained peasants or cheap mercenaries. It was thus considered a dishonorable "peasant" weapon and reviled by (higher class) knights. The English went one step further, and forced all able-bodied men to train with the longbow, which came in quite handy when the English utterly demolished the French and their Genoese crossbowmen at the Battle of Crecy, and then rubbed it in even further at Poitiers and Agincourt.

Other than Rapid Shot and Rapid Reload, this is not modeled all that well in D&D, as nearly all mounted knights and even the horses can shrug off a few pesky arrows.

Halberd

If you're looking for a single weapon designed specifically to utterly destroy a cavalry charge, then this is it. The crossbar is designed to get under and lift up the charger's lance/spear, at which point either the horse or rider can be impaled with the spearpoint. If the spearpoint misses, then you snag the rider with the hook and pull him out of the saddle, and once he's on the ground, a good two-handed chop with the axe will cleave through whatever platemail he's wearing. The halberd itself is very cheap to produce, but requires well-trained and disciplined troops to use effectively. It also has some advantages over the shield wall, as your halberdier isn't weighed down by the shield and is still dangerous when not in formation. Not so good against arrows, though. Notable for singlehandedly bringing down Charles the Bold (and possibly Richard III), but what doomed the Duke of Burgundy was not the halberd but the next innovation.

There's some argument over whether the D&D rules should have made the halberd a reach weapon, like several other related polearms, but historically the typical halberd was 5 to 6 feet long, and was designed to attack adjacent opponents rather than at a distance. The longer halberds many people have seen are either ceremonial weapons (popular with the Swiss Guard) or "fancy" pikes designed for a different style of warfare (see below).

D&D has a few feats that work well with the halberd:
Improved Trip (Core)
Knock-Down (SRD Divine Section)
Formation Expert (Complete Warrior)
Hold the Line (Complete Warrior)
Spinning Halberd Style (Complete Warrior)
Haft Strike (Dragon Compendium)
Long Strike (Dragon Compendium)

Pike Square

This had much more to do with the death of the heavy cavalry charge than muskets. Pikes are even cheaper than halberds, and training is much simpler: "Stand next to this guy, and stab the horsey!" You can even skimp on the discipline by conscripting peasants, giving them a long sharp pointy thing, and sticking them inside a large group where it's nearly impossible to break ranks and run away. They could be somewhat unwieldy in the open field, where you can cut them down with archers/crossbows or use terrain against them. However, in an urban setting with paved streets, buildings blocking off their flanks, and a plentiful supply of "citizens" to conscript, they were unstoppable up until muskets got reliable enough for massed volley fire, at which point the pike square became a turkey shoot.

D&D models this mostly through the "reach weapon" rules with polearms, but the designers have deliberately shifted the odds in favor of mounted cavalry by giving mounted lances a damage multiplier. It's difficult for a group of spearmen to impale a charging lancer with more than three spears at once, and the lancer will destroy any typical footman that he hits with the lance. Some pole-arm related feats:

Formation Expert (Complete Warrior)
Hold the Line (Complete Warrior)
Phalanx Fighting (Complete Warrior)
Short Haft (PHBII)
Haft Strike (Dragon Compendium)
Long Strike (Dragon Compendium)
Pike Hedge (Dragon Compendium)
Shorten Grip (Dragon Compendium)

[WalkingTheShade]

Other than Rapid Shot and Rapid Reload, this is not modeled all that well in D&D, as nearly all mounted knights and even the horses can shrug off a few pesky arrows.
That's one of the reasons why I feel like D&D nerfs projectile weapons. The Crossbow Sniper can help with the damage, however.
Moreover, if we're talking about a team of bowmen, there's a teamwork benefit (see link in my previous post) that can help when concentrating on one target.


Halberd

If you're looking for a single weapon designed specifically to utterly destroy a cavalry charge, then this is it.

Pike Square

This had much more to do with the death of the heavy cavalry charge than muskets.
Thanks! I'll do my homework and double check those points, but I feel I might have learned new things today!

[Telonius]

You might also look into Dragoons (not the jump-and-kill kind) and light cavalry. Even after a heavily-armored cavalry charge became kind of obsolete, horses still had an important function in transporting troops. They could go faster and farther than people on foot, and that gave a very big advantage. Even after the steam engine was invented, they could get to places that the railroad couldn't. It wasn't until the 20th century that mounted units disappeared from armies altogether, with a few (mostly ceremonial) exceptions.

[WalkingTheShade]

Even after a heavily-armored cavalry charge became kind of obsolete, horses still had an important function in transporting troops.
Similar to the function they also served before.


It wasn't until the 20th century that mounted units disappeared from armies altogether, with a few (mostly ceremonial) exceptions.
And even now, horses are still used for crowd control, by a few police forces.

[Hawkstar]

Other than Rapid Shot and Rapid Reload, this is not modeled all that well in D&D, as nearly all mounted knights and even the horses can shrug off a few pesky arrows.

Actually - it's modeled quite well. Individual arrows don't do much... but with a range increment of 200', you can get lots of archers shooting one mounted combatant, especially if you have rough terrain between the archers and knights.