But how much actual experience in using or fighting against them he actually had? Besides, the terrain is never completely flat.Athos1660 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 19, 2020 2:51 pm Comparing Cuirassiers and Lancers, R. Montecuccoli (who was a connoisseur) wrote in his memoirs completed in c.1670 that if the terrain is not as smooth as a billiard table (if I can use that analogy), « the lance is useless most of the time » :« (…) si le terrain n’est pas ferme et uni, sans brouissailes et sans fossés, la carrière n’étant pas libre, la lance demeure le plus souvent inutile. »
The way I see it, his words are more of a testament to how low the art of the lance has fallen in his time. Moreover, there are plenty of authors from a similar time period that claimed that lancers are overall better than cuirassiers/harquebusiers.
So, the main reasons for dropping the lance in Western Europe were mostly social-economic which is confirmed by military writers of the time:
“The Lanciers proved hard to be gotten; first, by reason of their horses, which must be very good, and exceeding well exercised: secondly, by reason their pay was abated through scarcitie of money: thirdly and principally, because of the scarcitie of such as were practised and exercised to use the lance, it being a thing of much labour and industry to learn”
(source: John Cruso, Militarie Instructions for the Cavallrie or Rules and Directions for the Service of Horse, Collected out of Divers Forrain Authors Ancient and Modern, and Rectified and Supplied, According to the Present Practise of the Low-Countrey Warres. Cambridge 1632.)
French military writer written before 1577:
“One thing I perceive, that we very much lose the use of our lances, either for want of good horses, of which methinks the race visibly decays, or because we are not so dexterous in that kind of fight as our predecessors were; for I see we quit them for the German pistols”
(source: Monluc, Commentaries, translated by Cotton)
I may be wrong but I’d expect that, on rough terrain, a kuirassier would have less trouble wounding a horseman or his horse (or another enemy next to him) with his pistols than a lancer precisely aiming his lance at his target.
I honestly, don't see how a rough terrain, besides dense forest, could affect lancers more than cuirassiers.
I think what mostly decided the outcome of most cav on cav charges was the morale and ability to maintain a cohesive formation.
Johann Jacobi von Wallhausen in his treatise, titled "Kriegskunst zu Pferde" (the art of war on horseback), describes three positions from which to fire your pair of pistols; these are identical with the positions of the lance, and one could argue that he tries to compensate for the missing lance of the cuirassier by replacing it with his pistol. For Wallhausen, these soldiers are just less skilled "Lanzierer" (lancers).
He repeats throughout his book that, while fighting armoured or at least "bulletproof" cavalry (he makes this distinction but does not tell the reader how to recognize "bulletproof" armor) the soldier should aim for his opponent's horse by using the "Unterhuts" position of the pistol (aiming down).
He tells his readers to aim for the heart or brain of the horse; shooting at the armoured rider is considered a waste of ammunition.
