A question on sword shape and strength

[Sea Skimmer]

I thought is would have been pretty certain from the context of this very thread what I was talking about, especially as I also said firearms are superior. You really think I claimed a lance was of more use than a repeating carbine? How stupid do you think I am?

I think you made a dumb argument and are now refusing to even address it. Your initial premise isn't even correct, as the US Civil War saw very extensive use of cavalry and very little use of lances. Is the USCW no longer part of the 19th century? Was the US poor with its dozens of ironclads and second largest railroad system on earth? Hell the Confederates alone still had the third largest system on earth. In fact it’s telling that the few regiments of union lancers that did exist were almost always populated with elites from the cities who wanted to emulate European armies and equipped themselves. Some of those lancer units were actually forced to convert to other weapons without ever seeing combat.

Personally I suspect the biggest reason lancers persisted so long in Europe aside form shear stupidity was that the lance worked very well for suppressing rioting civilians.

[Thanas]

I thought is would have been pretty certain from the context of this very thread what I was talking about, especially as I also said firearms are superior. You really think I claimed a lance was of more use than a repeating carbine? How stupid do you think I am?

I think you made a dumb argument and are now refusing to even address it.

Oh, of course you know my mind. Yessir.

Your initial premise isn't even correct, as the US Civil War saw very extensive use of cavalry and very little use of lances. Is the USCW no longer part of the 19th century? Was the US poor with its dozens of ironclads and second largest railroad system on earth?

The US which had no real cavalry tradition to stand on compared to European military at the time? The US army which had only fielded dragoons before? In the age of revolvers and carbines, the lance got outclassed. Again, nothing earth shattering, nothing new here.

However, back to the point - the lance was superior to purely sabre-equipped cavalry. Do you want to dispute that? If so, show evidence. If not, just shut up before you try to force me to make an argument I I never made, have no interest in making etc.

[open_sketchbook]

The lance was great for mounted combat, I'm not disputing that. However, the lancer as a combat unit had lost it's utility on the battlefields of Europe around the same time bayonet drill was perfected, because they were only really effective against other mounted units. Techniques used by infantry to ward off calvary had become effective enough that mounted units, with swords or lances, could only threaten infantry if they broke ranks, in which case the cutting weapon was more effective. Lances seemed to be effective because they were great against mounted troops when fighting in formation, but what was actually happening was the lancers were fighting off calvary deployed too soon who would have been seen off (probably at less risk) by the infantry. They were great at a job that didn't actually need to be done.

[Sea Skimmer]

The US which had no real cavalry tradition to stand on compared to European military at the time? The US army which had only fielded dragoons before? In the age of revolvers and carbines, the lance got outclassed. Again, nothing earth shattering, nothing new here.

Except that this is totally contrary to your earlier claim. Concession accepted. Not all armies valued the lance, and the existence of lancers is not proof of anything specifically, let alone that lancers made any damn sense. That was my whole damn problem with what you said. Now you might want to go the fuck back and rethink the basis your argument against open sketchbook since you have retracted your assertion on that and didn't provide much of anything else.

[Thanas]

The lance was great for mounted combat, I'm not disputing that. However, the lancer as a combat unit had lost it's utility on the battlefields of Europe around the same time bayonet drill was perfected, because they were only really effective against other mounted units. Techniques used by infantry to ward off calvary had become effective enough that mounted units, with swords or lances, could only threaten infantry if they broke ranks, in which case the cutting weapon was more effective. Lances seemed to be effective because they were great against mounted troops when fighting in formation, but what was actually happening was the lancers were fighting off calvary deployed too soon who would have been seen off (probably at less risk) by the infantry. They were great at a job that didn't actually need to be done.

On that I would not disagree, except for the situation in the Napoleonic wars were one did not want to use the infantry or had to shatter the enemy cavalry quickly. Infantry can defend, true, but if one needed to eliminate the enemy cavalry lest they reengage while the infantry was occupied fighting other infantry, dedicated cavalry to that point was useful.

Also, Napoleon used his lancers quite effectively as a terror weapon against infantry. Though disciplined infantry could hold them off, not many regiments were that disciplined - especially spanish ones had their problems with that. So in the context of that, I think the lancers made sense, although of course their usefulness was eventually coming to an end.

The US which had no real cavalry tradition to stand on compared to European military at the time? The US army which had only fielded dragoons before? In the age of revolvers and carbines, the lance got outclassed. Again, nothing earth shattering, nothing new here.

Except that this is totally contrary to your earlier claim. Concession accepted.

By all means, crow about your "victory" against something I never claimed. Apparently, that counts as a concession in your mindframe. Had a bad day or why are you harping on this after I clarified it several times?

Not all armies valued the lance, and the existence of lancers is not proof of anything specifically, let alone that lancers made any damn sense. That was my whole damn problem with what you said. Now you might want to go the fuck back and rethink the basis your argument against open sketchbook since you have retracted your assertion on that and didn't provide much of anything else.

My point: lance cavalry (with lancers in front and sword/sabre cavalry ranks in the back) is superior to pure sabre cavalry. That was my whole point. I never claimed they were superior to people equipped with carbines or using them as standard weapons as this thread is about melee weapons.

If you want to argue otherwise, feel free to post sources. Specifically from the Napoleon period, because that was the only time lancers really attacked non-lance using cavalry (and the Battle of Komarów though I would hesitate to use it as an example as the Russian equipment varied wildly).

[Sea Skimmer]

By all means, crow about your "victory" against something I never claimed. Apparently, that counts as a concession in your mindframe.

Right sure you never claimed it.

If you think lancers were superfluous, please explain why every army that could afford to field them did (most often in combination with saber cavalry in the rear ranks btw).

So you didn't claim this? Funny since it came from your account. Now you could have modified the statement to be at least a little more accurate but you didn't do it then and you just started ignoring it afterwards.

Had a bad day or why are you harping on this after I clarified it several times?

If I was having a bad day I would not be wasting time on SDN like this. But your word don't need clarification. You made a very clear statement and one which is very clearly wrong. Your response to being shown this is just to dismiss the evidence and ignore the 'every army' claim you so clearly made.

So either your accepting the the statement was false and thus conceding, or just trying to dodge with bullshit. I assumed it was a concession, but now it seems that your indeed just trying to ignore your own post. That I don't like out of someone who is supposed to be not only a moderator but a moderator of history.

My point: lance cavalry (with lancers in front and sword/sabre cavalry ranks in the back) is superior to pure sabre cavalry. That was my whole point. I never claimed they were superior to people equipped with carbines or using them as standard weapons as this thread is about melee weapons.

But you did claim that all armies that could afford lancers used them, and that this is proof of the utility of the lance. The first isn't true, and thus the second can't be and also is lacking in other external support. Of course you could argue from other basis, but that is not relevant to my point. But you continue to insist you claimed no such thing. Sorry but I'm not some dumb shit who can't look back a single page. And yeah I did add stuff that is not about melee weapons, this was to reinforce the point that the of the persistence lance had no real tactical basis and that the answer lay in other factors.

[Thanas]

Oh for the sake of Jove, Skimmer. Everybody but you got my point. Everybody but you understands or understood what I mean. Every army that fielded large, regular cavalry forces did field lancers, with the exception of the Americans. The original point I tried to make (which everyone but you got, but I am happy to clarify it for you a thousand times) is that in a cavalry fight, lancers beat sabres. There.


But then again Americans also did not use large amounts of saber cavalry in the European fashion, so that point is moot anyway. Lancers were used to defeat sabres in cavalry vs cavalry fights as well as engaging infantry etc, the first which did not happen because the US lacked the tradition, practice as well as having an enemy against those tactics would be effective. Unlike, say Napoleon. You want to argue he was an idiot at warfare as well?

[Sea Skimmer]

Oh for the sake of Jove, Skimmer. Everybody but you got my point. Everybody but you understands or understood what I mean. Every army that fielded large, regular cavalry forces did field lancers, with the exception of the Americans. The original point I tried to make (which everyone but you got, but I am happy to clarify it for you a thousand times) is that in a cavalry fight, lancers beat sabres. There.

All right fine. But you know; this is why one should stick away from claiming anything as absolute in history. Rarely can they be true.

But then again Americans also did not use large amounts of saber cavalry in the European fashion, so that point is moot anyway. Lancers were used to defeat sabres in cavalry vs cavalry fights as well as engaging infantry etc, the first which did not happen because the US lacked the tradition, practice as well as having an enemy against those tactics would be effective.

We certainly did use large amounts of saber equipped cavalry, maybe not the European fashion but this just reflects how painfully obsolete European tactics had become by even 1861 and how much they ignored shit like tree’s or fences getting in the way. The US and confederates had roughly corps strength cavalry units and if you can’t find a compelling place or need for lancers in units that large fighting each other then it’s a rather blatant endorsement of the concept being obsolete. The US didn’t suffer from inertia. It needed ideas that worked.

Unlike, say Napoleon. You want to argue he was an idiot at warfare as well?

He lost didn't he? Twice over in fact and this is only after the British let him come home from Egypt which should have been his early end. Waterloo has never struck me as being a shinning example of cavalry in action either. Reminds me of the endless claims of the Germans having better generals in the world wars.

Napoleons best idea was mass conscription, and that was the mark of the end of the road for cavalry perhaps more so then any other. The bigger the armies the less cavalry would ever matter because the lines become so extended and the formations so deep. The horse was only good for one strong charge, and that mobility advantage didn’t scale up with the armies. The horse was still only good for the same distance. In strategic terms meanwhile marching infantry always had better endurance unless you had multiple horses per rider like the Mongols. But that runs back into the cost issue.

[Stuart]

Personally I suspect the biggest reason lancers persisted so long in Europe aside form sheer stupidity was that the lance worked very well for suppressing rioting civilians.

Remember also that many of the European powers had substantial colonial interests and lancers were very effective when dealing with native unrest in said colonies. Now that can be considered a "special case" of the suppressing rioting civilians but there was rather more to it than that. The native opposition in said colonies usually had serious problems in holding its ground once they came under heavy fire. They would usually break and the lancers turned out to be very effective in turning a retreat into a rout. That's why the Indian Army kept its lancer regiments around for so long.

By the way, the British Lancers actually scored one of the few tactical victories of the British army in the Boer War. At Elandslaagte, the lancers got into the Boer riflemen (more or less by chance; the Boers couldn't believe that anybody would use cavalry to charge infantry armed with magazine-loaded Mausers and thus believed that the cavalry was friendly) and cut said riflemen apart. The bayonet-equipped rifles weren't much use against lances in that kind of melee.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

From John R. Elting, Swords Around a Throne, pp 242- 243;

Organisation of the French lancers went slowly...as usual, there was difficulty obtaining horses, and the War Ministry was still dithering about their uniforms and equipment in January 1812. Moreover, the lance was an unfamiliar weapon to Frenchmen, requiring careful training.

Eventually most if not all regiments went back to the traditional Polish system, the front rank armed with lances, the second with carbines.
Against other cavalry, lancers were highly effective so long as they could keep closed up so that swordsmen could not break into their formation- the lance, unless handled by an expert, was an awkward weapon in a hand-to-hand melee. Against infantry, their long weapons gave them an advantage, especially when bad weather made muskets too wet for firing.

Where would the American armies have obtained their skill with the lance? I can easily believe that part about careful training, and unless handled by an expert- spears are much the same in that, easy to use, much more challenging to use well. For a European army, with at least a cadre to build on, raising and training skilled lancers would have been much more feasible for Union or Confederacy, and worth doing, and in the ACW it was not.

Pre- 1812, Lancer regiments in the Napoleonic armies were essentially a Polish allied contribution, the six French lancer regiments were converted from dragoons, hence the carbine. They were originally supposed to carry all three each, lance, sword, carbine- with bayonet, yet.

Look at the campaigns of 1813-14, and how often Napoleon was hamstrung for the want of cavalry for scouting and pursuit- as he himself said, sorry I can't find the exact wording, the rewards of victory are gathered by the pursuit after the battle. Those years are full of victories without reward and battles blundered into.

Anyway, I was rather dismissive of curved blades- thought them largely an affectation- until having the dubious pleasure of coming up against one. In the hand of an expert, true, but I still got thrashed all over the training hall floor. A quick, simple twist, and the point of the sword is a foot and a half away from where you were expecting it.

[Simon_Jester]

Personally I suspect the biggest reason lancers persisted so long in Europe aside form sheer stupidity was that the lance worked very well for suppressing rioting civilians.

Remember also that many of the European powers had substantial colonial interests and lancers were very effective when dealing with native unrest in said colonies. Now that can be considered a "special case" of the suppressing rioting civilians but there was rather more to it than that. The native opposition in said colonies usually had serious problems in holding its ground once they came under heavy fire. They would usually break and the lancers turned out to be very effective in turning a retreat into a rout. That's why the Indian Army kept its lancer regiments around for so long.

It seems to me that the one thing a European army fighting a colonial war would never want to do is get into a close quarters engagement on equal terms with native armies, because that's the one area where the natives are liable to be roughly as good as they are and far more numerous.

Which means if you're going to close to hand to hand at all (sometimes necessary even into the late 19th century), you want an edge that lets you plow through your sword and spear-armed opponents... and from what you're saying, the lancers' specialized shock tactics were that edge?

By the way, the British Lancers actually scored one of the few tactical victories of the British army in the Boer War. At Elandslaagte, the lancers got into the Boer riflemen (more or less by chance; the Boers couldn't believe that anybody would use cavalry to charge infantry armed with magazine-loaded Mausers and thus believed that the cavalry was friendly) and cut said riflemen apart. The bayonet-equipped rifles weren't much use against lances in that kind of melee.

Were the Boers in close order? If they were fighting with their usual skirmish tactics, I'm not surprised they didn't manage to repel the charge, bayonets or not.

[Black Admiral]

By the way, the British Lancers actually scored one of the few tactical victories of the British army in the Boer War. At Elandslaagte, the lancers got into the Boer riflemen (more or less by chance; the Boers couldn't believe that anybody would use cavalry to charge infantry armed with magazine-loaded Mausers and thus believed that the cavalry was friendly) and cut said riflemen apart. The bayonet-equipped rifles weren't much use against lances in that kind of melee.

Were the Boers in close order? If they were fighting with their usual skirmish tactics, I'm not surprised they didn't manage to repel the charge, bayonets or not.

Quoting the summary of Elandslaagte from Into the Jaws of Death (Lt. Col. Mike Snook);

While Meyer and Erasmus were engaged around Dundee, General J.M. Kock pushed south down the railway at the head of the Johannesburg Commando. Unwisely he overreached himself, isolating his command ahead of the other commandos just long enough for French and Hamilton to wreck it utterly with a set-piece demonstration of combined-arms tactics. The day after Talana Hill, Hamilton entrained the 1st Devons, 1st Manchesters and 2nd Gordons at Ladysmith and steamed in the direction of the railway halt at Elandslaagte. The infantry rendezvoused short of the objective with General French, two batteries of field artillery and single squadrons of the 5th Lancers and 5th Dragoon Guards. Kock had acted injudiciously in surging too far ahead of the rest of the invasion force and, after looting the railway station and drinking the hotel dry, had taken up a defensive position on three nearby koppies. The ensuing British attack was perceived to be such a model of all-arms interaction that it was used as a case-study by the German General Staff for a number of years afterwards. Once the infantry had fought their way over the koppies, the battle reached its bloody climax with a hard-hitting cavalry charge into the left flank and rear of the routing Afrikaners.
- pg. 342

Basically, they caught the Boers in the process of legging it after being ejected from their positions by Hamilton's infantry brigade.