English Civil War - Cavalry charge!

[spanner570]

Excellent 'Butchery' Peter.

In the heat of battle with all the noise going on, horses could well be wounded and at best frightened to death.
Surely Tim, with a few hundred souls trying to slaughter each other in a relatively small area, the animals (and/or riders) could not be 'Type cast' to behave as they should?

Just a polite thought.....

Ron

 

[Tim Marlow]

Ron, I understand what you mean, but cavalry were probably the highest trained military formations of the day, and followed either the Dutch (trotters) or the Swedish (gallopers) models of training. Horses were also acclimatised to gunfire before being taken into front line service. Behaving to type is exactly the point of this training. Not saying what you describe didn’t happen, but that military discipline was designed to minimise it as much as possible.

These tactics were considerably different to the flat out gallop with sabres swinging cavalry charges most of us are familiar with from Napoleonic and Crimea war battles, by the way. Those tactics developed from experience derived from this war, amongst others.

Trotters advanced (usually six ranks deep) at a fast trot to within pistol shot range of the enemy, discharged their pistols and wheeled away so that the next rank could then fire. When all ranks had fired they drew swords and rode into contact with the enemy at a fast trot, keeping formation knee to knee.

Gallopers did charge (three ranks deep) in at a faster pace, but, they didn’t use swords until after contact. Again they charged knee to knee, sometimes literally locked together to maximise shock. At the point of contact they fired their pistols into the enemy, then drew swords to fight hand to hand. Galloper tactics became more common as the war progressed because it was seen to be more effective.

In both cases cavalry received an opposing charge at the halt, to maximise the effect of their carbine fire on the charging opponents. Cavalry almost always fought the opposing cavalry, by the way. After all, charging home against a pike block would be all but impossible.

Very interesting period. I used to work with a sealed knot reenactor and borrowed and read quite a few books from him. He was late for work on a Monday once. He had come straight from a reenactment at the weekend, and as he had pikes on the roof of his camper and swords in the back the MOD police wouldn’t let him on site

All irrelevant though, however. No matter how Peter puts this together it will look superb I’m sure

 

[spanner570]

.........good grief!

 

[Peter Gillson]

Hi Tim - great explanation of the role of cavalry.

As you say there were two tactics, it was the Royalists under Prince Rupert which first used the 'gallopers' tactics while the Parliamentarians tended to use the 6 rank tactic of the 'trotters', at least at the start of the war. As they came to understand the Royalist tactics they did start to adopt them.

since the cavalry on both sides tended to be situated on the flanks their first objective was to destroy or reduce the effectiveness of the opposition cavalry, thereafter being able to consider the opposition infantry, especially if they could outflank infantry which had not fully 'squared'. At the battle of Marston Moor, Cromwell defeated the Royalist cavalry before turning on their infantry. Then amazingly he then crossed the battlefield to assist the cavalry on the other flank.

i think it is probably a case of cavalry v cavalry was planned, while cavalry v infantry was opportunistic.

Peter

 

[Tim Marlow]

Hi Tim - great explanation of the role of cavalry.

As you say there were two tactics, it was the Royalists under Prince Rupert which first used the 'gallopers' tactics while the Parliamentarians tended to use the 6 rank tactic of the 'trotters', at least at the start of the war. As they came to understand the Royalist tactics they did start to adopt them.

since the cavalry on both sides tended to be situated on the flanks their first objective was to destroy or reduce the effectiveness of the opposition cavalry, thereafter being able to consider the opposition infantry, especially if they could outflank infantry which had not fully 'squared'. At the battle of Marston Moor, Cromwell defeated the Royalist cavalry before turning on their infantry. Then amazingly he then crossed the battlefield to assist the cavalry on the other flank.

i think it is probably a case of cavalry v cavalry was planned, while cavalry v infantry was opportunistic.

Peter

Cheers Peter. Yep, tactics were certainly in flux around that time. Marston moor was a bit of an outlier though wasn’t it. Edgehill was more common……especially for gallopers. The cavalry charge, get overexcited, then can’t be recalled or reformed. This made them a bit of a one shot weapon. Happened to the Greys at Waterloo as well. Due to the adrenaline of the charge getting them wound up I suppose.

 

[Steve-the-Duck]

Now, there's some well-read background stuff from Tim.
Isn't it interesting that cavalry are supposed to receive a 'charge' static, yet one of the reasons stated for the destruction of one of the cuirassier units was they were unable to manoeuvre to receive a charge against them. Is that hindsight analysis? Can't remember if that was the 'lobsters' or the other regiment
For info purposes, cuirassiers of the pike and shotte period wore full armour, everywhere but the back of the legs just about, unlike say Napoleonic cuirassiers with 'just' breast and backplate and helmet

That's what I like about this forum is all the xtra info shared

 

[Peter Gillson]

That's what I like about this forum is all the xtra info shared

Agreed. Always more to learn.

 

[Peter Gillson]

One thing with these major conversions is the time it takes for the putty to cure, so it makes sense to work on more than one horse at a time. Yesterday I started on one of the galloping horse, one with virtually no convirsion work to it - other than detailing.

One of the great advantages of using Historex horses for conversion is that the type of plastic is a softish type of hard plastic, which is easier to cut and carve that the type used by other manufacturers such as Airfix. This does have a down side - I have had horses snap at the ancle, so some surgery is needed, even on a horse which is otherwise 'out of the box:

firstly a channal is cut in the inside of one of the legs which touched the ground:



then a paperclip is threaded into place, and glued;


Finally putty is used to securle the wire in place and to rebuild the musculature of the leg:



now I have a horse half which can take any amount of weight and manhandling without any risk of snapping.

Peter

 

[scottie3158]

Peter,
I'm in mate. I wish I had your confidence to cut and shut the figures the way you do.

 

[Peter Gillson]

Peter,
I'm in mate. I wish I had your confidence to cut and shut the figures the way you do.

It's nice that Historex sell the horse parts individually so you don't have to buy a whole kit so the loss of messing up is not as bad as it could be. It is also surprising what filler can hide.

for me a key is not to rush. For instance filling over the paperclip took 2 evenings: the first was to roughly fill the channel Let the putty cure overnight, then add the surface musculature. Taking it one step at a time takes time which is why i work on more than one horse at a time - more time is spent waiting for the putty to cure than actually applying the putty.

Peter

 

[Peter Gillson]

The other weakness in the historex horses is surprising given the high level of details in the rest of their parts - the hair at the bottom of the legs, around the fetlock is pretty well none existent:



I was wondering how to illustrate the way the hooves need to be detailed when I came across an illustration in a copy of Military Modelling from the 1970's by Mike Thomas:



many years ago I bought a pyrograve from Historex Agents, sadly it 'died' some years ago so I purchased this from a local craft shop:



after sharpening one of the tips with a file I was able to detail the hair:



It gets a bit too hot for plastic so it was a matter of heating it up, turning it off snd using it for a couple of legs before repeating the process. i cannot complain since I bought the cheapest one they had. More expensive ones exist which have temp controllers, but for the few occasions I will use it, this one is fine.

peter

 

[Jim R]

What an interesting thread. The information about the roles of different riders and how they trained to fight was new knowledge for me. Your approach to horse "butchery" is very well explained.
Like Scottie though I think confidence is as important as the knowledge.

 

[Davethehat]

Just came across this post today good luck with this project going to be keeping an eye out for your progress

 

[Peter Gillson]

Hi Guys

the butchery is progressing. All five horse have been converted up to the stage where mains and tails need to be added. These will be addd after the equipment is added; for the mains - so that the bottom part falls on the equipment. For the tails - so I bon't knock them off!

the final positioning is not decided but here is a group photo:






the eagle eyed may notice a sixth horse - one just standing still. It is a while since I converted and painted horses so this is my 'tester'. It will be the first one to have the harness etc added, - a practice run before the main five are worked on.



the reason two are elastic banded together is that only one of them will be pinned to the base - the second will be leaping in the air with no hooves touching the ground. He will be linked to the first so that only one of the 8 legs of two horses will actually touch the ground.

next - the harness etc.

 

[Neil Merryweather]

Love it Peter- bring it on!

 

[Peter Gillson]

I have decided to try something a little different. In the past i have fitted the harness and saddle before painting - its easier to get a good fit. but this time I am going to have a try at making the saddle etc to be removable so I can paint the horse and saddle separately and then put the painted items together. More complicated to sculpt but easier to paint.

 

[JR]

Most interesting Peter. Those horses look good .
The work on the lower leg looks most realistic, shall follow this and lean .

 

[Peter Gillson]

Most interesting Peter. Those horses look good .
The work on the lower leg looks most realistic, shall follow this and lean .

Thank john - historex horses are so good, and so many poses that it makes the rest pretty straightforward.


Peter

 

[Graeme C.]

Hi Peter, I've never seen anyone doing a cavalry charge, the conversions on the horses are interesting, watching to see how you do this.

 

[Jim R]

Bloody marvellous Peter. To even contemplate this does you credit ( assuming you're not some masochistic madman ). I can't remember whether at a show or in a book but I saw a model where one horse was not touching the ground but was supported by an adjacent horse. Great work so far. Looking forward to the next stage.