Slitherine

Heavy weapon used mounted? What somebody posted earlier is probably the best reason Hvy Wpns are not as useful on horseback. They are to big to swing without falling off your horse. Cavalry maces are much smaller than a normal mace used on foot for exactly that reason. Swing to hard and you come off your horse. cavalry bows are also smaller, but I don't know why. In the perfect world you could have even heavier, bigger weapons on a horse because it has to do the carrying, but it appears, at least in the western world not.

In the above the guys on the horses get off to use the weapons

philqw78 wrote:Heavy weapon used mounted? What somebody posted earlier is probably the best reason Hvy Wpns are not as useful on horseback. They are to big to swing without falling off your horse. Cavalry maces are much smaller than a normal mace used on foot for exactly that reason.

There is record of a Fatimid cavalry formation that used lutat maces - these were usually at least 3' long and used two handed.

Moslem accounts often make comment of the weight of maces used - although these are often overstated to make the user sound more heroic as they are usually accounts of the ruler or great warrior.

The maces used by the Byzantine katafraktoi were heavy as well.

philqw78 wrote:Heavy weapon used mounted? What somebody posted earlier is probably the best reason Hvy Wpns are not as useful on horseback. They are to big to swing without falling off your horse. Cavalry maces are much smaller than a normal mace used on foot for exactly that reason. Swing to hard and you come off your horse. cavalry bows are also smaller, but I don't know why. In the perfect world you could have even heavier, bigger weapons on a horse because it has to do the carrying, but it appears, at least in the western world not.

Han Chinese cavalry used the ji/halberd from horse back, and later Chinese and other nomad cavalry used polearms from horseback as well, so it would appear that they can wielded. Whether they could be used with the same effect as when used on foot however is more debatable i.e. could they get enough of a swing to nullify an opponent's superior armour or give an advantage against foot at impact (as modelled by FoG)?

I remember reading somewhere about a depiction of Han Chinese cavalry hooking opponents off their horses with their ji/halberds, but nothing else about how these were actually used. I think the video link Draka posted provides interesting interpretations, but doesn't give much insight into how they were used from horseback, nor in formations rather than 1 vs 1.

Perhaps the opponents they fought would be a better way of classifying them. For example, Han Chinese were always fighting the Xiong Nu, light horse/cavalry types, so as (under FoG) light spear/swordsmen combo are more effective against these than heavy weapon, perhaps they should be classified as such.

I have to say though, as a gamer I'd love the idea of heavy weapon armed cavalry - could be pretty nasty against infantry, including spears. This would be balanced by having no impact factor against mounted. It would also give far eastern cavalry a special 'flavour' - although some might say a rather 'cheesy' one!

I think the effect against infantry of Heavy Weapon is going to be a main reason why it will probably not be adopted. It would make HGan cavalry effective against infantry and it appears that it wasn't until the advent of steppe style armoured cavalry (man and horse) of the Xienbei, etc. dynasties that cavalry gained a real dominance over infantry within China as opposed to on the steppe.

The main reason I use that particular video is to show what the weapon looks like - and to start discussions. As you have pointed out, all the combat footage in there is one-on-one, both foot and mounted. I have no idea how it was used in a formation, but what documentation I have seen is that it was developed to hook people off chariots, then extended to do the same to cavalrymen. Also remember that this is the period before stirrups, so it may have been easier to knock someone off a horse - altho in that regards the four-horned saddle I have also read about kinda off-sets that.

Until the late Han and early Three Kingdoms era, I don't think cavalry was used to charge frontally on foot based on trying to imagine a lance-like charge with this weapon - it would be used when hitting flanks or rear where you are moving parallel to a line of troops as opposed to hitting the front straight in - but again, I have no hard proof of any method. And also remember that it would be useful against the standard horse archer steppe nomad (Hsiung-nu et al) that were the arch-enemy of the Chinese. Once you got close enough, that is! A whole 'nother matter .....

nikgaukroger wrote:I think the effect against infantry of Heavy Weapon is going to be a main reason why it will probably not be adopted. It would make HGan cavalry effective against infantry and it appears that it wasn't until the advent of steppe style armoured cavalry (man and horse) of the Xienbei, etc. dynasties that cavalry gained a real dominance over infantry within China as opposed to on the steppe.

I think that's reasonable - giving cavalry a heavy weapon capability would give them a spurious and over-powerful effect against infantry.

Going to get back to painting my Han Chinese mounted crossbows now!

Just as a side note - since the two weapons that most typify the Chinese in this era are the crossbow and the ge, and both are two-handed weapons, this may in part be the reason that we have no record of cavalry using shields - as the Chinese seemed to have used the crossbow initially then got stuck in with the ge after the enemy was disrupted by missile fire.