Harqubusiers, Cuirass, pistol type cavalry

[hazelbark]

Can someone tell me what was the historical nature of these and hother cetnreal euorpean horse uniits are in the run up, early or mid TYW time frame?

I see them in Tim's battle reports and not quite sure what the historical coutner part.

Were they historically separate formations?

The Cuirassier in the TYW was really more pistol/firearm armed wasn't it?

I bascially trying to get a simpley understanding of who these types are in the early 17th century,

[nikgaukroger]

OK, simple version for the TYWish period.

Harquebusiers were 1/2 armoured cavalry with carbine, pistols and sword who would primarily shoot with their firearms from a distance and then close when suitable. Armour was increasingly discarded over the TYW.

Cuirassiers were 3/4 armoured cavalry with pistols and swords who would charge the enemy using their pistols at short range and in the ensuing melee along with their swords. Again armour declined in use over the period with 1/2 armoured cavalry ("demi-cuirassiers") becoming the norm.

They were separate formations with the harquebuiers supposed to "shoot in" and support the cuirassiers.

[deadtorius]

are there any similar POA's for Harquebusiers that the commanded shot gets for cav support, working off the AAR's on this one as the rules have not arrived yet

[nikgaukroger]

No.

[david53]

Harquebusiers were 1/2 armoured cavalry with carbine, pistols and sword who would primarily shoot with their firearms from a distance and then close when suitable. Armour was increasingly discarded over the TYW.

I took two armoured units of them to Britcon did'nt like them being average and having to get within 3 inchs to shot people leaves you stuck when facing something thats not average.

I am sure other better players will be able to use them, not picked them for Roll Call next month.

[Scrumpy]

Well it pays to ring and ask abou the books I ordered ! They turned up in the post about 5 mins ago along with an army I brought off ebay.

Should have rung them last weekend !

[Blathergut]

ooiiii...still waiting on the dogsled....dang....all i can say is, the thing better not be led by a poodle when it gets here!!!

[devilforrest]

Good question and helpful answer.

[DanielS]

Just to confuse things there were several diffrent schools of thought regarding the Harquebusiers. The main points of contention was wether or not they should be armoured and their actual role on the battle field.
Giorgio Basta who had commanded cavalry in the Spanish army of Flanders and later on became and Imperial senior commander & commander in chief in the "Long" War with the Ottomans 1593-1606 wanted Harquebusiers to be light cavalry, unarmoured and mounted on good quality horses. On the battlefield they provided support to the real "battle cavalry" i.e lancers and cuirassiers as well as performing traditional light cavalry duties such as screening flanks and pursuing defeated enemies.

Dutch & German military men like Johann von Nassau-Siegen and Wallhausen tended to view the Harquebusier as a jack of all trades medium cavalry., hence they should have at least helmets and breastplates. Appart from the traditional support duties this was to make them more usefull as a sort of light battle cavalry. This view had a fair bit of impact on the Protestant states of Germany due to the cheapness of the Harquebusier compared to the Cuirassier. Christian of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Aka the Mad Halberstadter) raised a cavalry force almost entirely of Harquebusiers, Mansfeld also fielded mostly Harquebusiers but it is hard to tell how much this was driven by a lack of money and equipment and how much it was a deliberate choice. In the end a fair number of his men were lucky if they went into battle with any kind of arms & armour other than their swords.

The army of Christian IV also contained a lot of Harquebusiers, most of the members of the Lower Saxon Circle were rather less wealthy than Christian and could ill afford to raise Cuirassier regiment. Still Christian's Harquebusiers included several hard fighting regiments such as Count of Solm's and Rhinecount Otto Ludwig's regiments.

Tilly regarded Harquebusiers as unfit for serious duty on the battlefield, he prefered cuirassiers for battles and Croat style cavalry for harassing the enemy. Wallenstein on the other hand liked arquebusiers quite a bit to begin with, proably because he focused on "stomach strategy" rather than decisive battles as Tilly did. Harquebusiers were cheap and easy to raise compared to Cuirassiers so you quickly got a sizeable force of cavalry to controll wide areas and their revenues.
And when the enemy mostly had Harquebusiers as well then the choice was not so risky. However after the failure of his unarmored caracoling Harquebusiers Wallenstein learned the hard way about the limitations of that type of cavalry.
So he quickly introduced armour and abolished fthe use of carbines & caracols.

[Scrumpy]

If 13 year war was called the long war by the Spanish, what was the 80 yr war against the Dutch judged as ? The eternal war ?

[DanielS]

The spanish had no name for the 13-Years war as they had little to do with it. "Langer Türkenkrieg" was the name given to it by the Germans to distinguish it from the other wars with the Ottomans (the Türkenkriege) hence the 5th Austrian war with the Ottomans 1683-1699 is the "Great Turkish war" (Großer Türkenkrieg) and so on.

[rbodleyscott]

Just to confuse things there were several diffrent schools of thought regarding the Harquebusiers.........

Tilly regarded Harquebusiers as unfit for serious duty on the battlefield, he prefered cuirassiers for battles and Croat style cavalry for harassing the enemy. Wallenstein on the other hand liked arquebusiers quite a bit to begin with, proably because he focused on "stomach strategy" rather than decisive battles as Tilly did. Harquebusiers were cheap and easy to raise compared to Cuirassiers so you quickly got a sizeable force of cavalry to controll wide areas and their revenues.
And when the enemy mostly had Harquebusiers as well then the choice was not so risky. However after the failure of his unarmored caracoling Harquebusiers Wallenstein learned the hard way about the limitations of that type of cavalry.
So he quickly introduced armour and abolished fthe use of carbines & caracols.

The rules reflect this dilemma on the tabletop. Unfortunately, this means that, in the light of hindsight, like the historical generals, most players (given the choice by their army list) may prefer not to use Harquebusiers much. (Especially as the strategic factors do not come into the equation).

[puster]

The rules reflect this dilemma on the tabletop. Unfortunately, this means that, in the light of hindsight, like the historical generals, most players (given the choice by their army list) may prefer not to use Harquebusiers much. (Especially as the strategic factors do not come into the equation).

Imho that only means that you have done it right.

In setup historical battles they will still be used, and tt-efficiency should reflect their historical role.

[hazelbark]

Thank you all.

So was the caracolling cavalry a pre-TYW tactic?

I must admit a yawning gap in my knowledge except on the turkish and russian areas int he 17th century.

[timmy1]

Dan

Yes.

Caracole was introduced as a response to Pike blocks. Stand off and blow a hole in the formation and charge in (though over time the reiters tended to forget the last bit). Foot response is to add arquebusiers to the pike block to shoot back. Reiters then start fighting just other reiters. This works fine until the Swedes encounter the Poles. They charge home with lance and sword. Over time everyone switches to horse charging into contact. (Please understand that I have shrunk two centuries of military evolution in to one paragraph. If you want the expanded version read Oman's History of the Art of War in the 16th century.)

Hope that helps.
Regards
Tim

[DanielS]

Or do your self a favour and avoid reading Oman given that the work suffers from a lack research as well as the author having some rather heavy biases against the French and Germans. Hence the later two are portrayed in as poor a light as possible, success on their part is ignored, skilled use of tactics is left out of battle accounts and so.

Actually the Swedes got into trouble against the Poles because they were fighting without body armour and were used to reciving Russian cavalry at the halt in order to shoot it into disorder with carbine fire (The Russian cavalry did not like to confront firearms) before using pistols at close range to rout the Russians. Reiters & other pistol armed cavalry charged into contact as early as 1555 and the Reiters mauled French Gendarmes more than once in the mid-16th C. Then for some reason, probably a decline in unit quality a lot of Reiters started delay closing to point blank range and instead used fire by ranks at a distance before going in. This was a bad idea and rapidly ruined their reputation in more than one place. By 1590 Henri IV had his Reiters charging into contact again and the habit spread quickly as it was helped alogn by the writings of La Noue and the example set by the French Cuirassiers (Gendarmes with pistol instead of lance)

[timmy1]

Dan, I was about to point you at some of Daniel's work when I got called away - I can see that Daniel got in before me. He knows much more about this than I do, so follow his lead.

[nikgaukroger]

Or do your self a favour and avoid reading Oman given that the work suffers from a lack research as well as the author having some rather heavy biases against the French and Germans.

Oman remains the most accessible and readable single volume on the C16th in western Europe for anyone looking to start with the history of the period in the region. He is of his time, like any writer, and you need to bear that in mind, and understanding of history moves on, however, he is the most likely to inspire newbies to the period IMO and I'd still recommend him to them before any other work.

[timmy1]

Nik, so would I.

[DanielS]

Well it certainly is a readable volume and the nationalistic biases are certainly to be found among all writers of the period to a greater or lesser extent. And I'll give credit were it is due and recognise that Oman is certainly not trying to puff up the English. But even allowing for the this the scholarly quality is lower than that of many similar works from the period.The problem is that the combination of a narrow range of sources, the erronous maps and the rather profound bisases of the author leads to so many factual errors that the value of the work is seriously reduced. Any one of these would have been survivable but together they result in some chapters being pretty bad.

For the critical reader this can all be over come with more extensive reading but as an introduction it will leave the newcomer to the period with too many misconceptions for my taste.