it's true the image of heavy cavalry barreling straight through static defenses laying waste to all around them is romance/hollywood
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Replying to @alicemazzy
but they were often decisive in that a heavy cavalry charge is utterly terrifying and lines would break up in anticipation
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Replying to @alicemazzy
which would often instantly result in a total rout. whether or not they're dueling on horseback or whatever is immaterial, the goal is to win, and slaughtering a fleeing foe is easy and low-risk
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Replying to @alicemazzy
infantry discipline can beat this, eg charles martel famously won at tours without horses against very skilled umayyad heavy cavalry
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Replying to @alicemazzy
but martel drilled them for a decade to accomplish this and also just happened to be one of the more brilliant military minds in history. it's no small feat
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Replying to @alicemazzy
for another example there's this pop narrative of the hundred years war as the end of the knight that actually isn't true
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Replying to @alicemazzy
I forget why but french men at arms fought on foot mostly at that point and both famed english victories at crecy and agincourt were mostly because of incredibly favorable terrain
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Replying to @alicemazzy
but after that french heavy cavalry was pretty dominant and widely feared through much of the 16th century, and pike and shot formations evolved in large part to prevent getting assfucked by them
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Replying to @alicemazzy
but this is all heavy cav. if we bring in light cav the argument is a joke, societies organized around horse archer skirmish tactics have long been the bane of civilized society
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Replying to @alicemazzy
most notably the mongols, but the magyars and xiongnu et al fought in much the same style
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and the switch from hanfu plus chariots to nomad dress plus horse archery was a rather momentous turn in the warring states period and a big part of how qin rolled everyone so fast
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