I have "Knights and warhorses" but that's mostly about political implications rather than practical.
> PS. As far as I know the "warhorse" that kicks and bites in
> combat is a b-fantasy myth. Suvi, that knows a lot about
> horses suspects that the secret of a knights horse charging a
> wall of humans lies mostly in the wicked spurs that the
> knights use on them.
A couple of oft repeated stories from the local
wargaming/medieval re-enactment community are
a) The only recorded horse charge that broke a formed up pike
block happened when a leading horse was shot and killed dead
just short of the pike heads, and with its momentum rolled
through the pikes, causing a gap that the following horses
could exploit - horses could not otherwise be made to charge
home against long sharp pointy things.
and
b) at a waterloo re-enactment in France, a unit of foot ran
away from a unit of horse that they _knew_ (from the script)
would not charge home, because a hundred charging horses is
really terrifying at a visceral rather than intellectual level.
According to the script the foot were supposed to stand fast.
Note that I have no idea where these stories came from, so they could be complete rubbish, but I think they suggest that a horse charge on prepared infantry with spears/pikes is a battle of morale (bravery?) If the infantry break, they are in really deep trouble. If they don't then the cavalry is not necessarily going to do very well.
IIRC Williams cavalry at Hastings were repelled repeatedly by Huscarl footmen, and only penetrated the wall when it broke the line to charge the retreating cavalry (too much bravery? too much recklessness?) so those are the sorts of contests I'd probably run for a cavalry vs infantry contest.
Stephen
-- Stephen Rennell steve_at_... Wellington, New Zealand GPG fingerprint - CD0F 78C6 1AAE 8726 803A F1D0 F123 8486 062F 0317
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