Light cavalry

Light Cavalry

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Light cavalry

Light cavalry refers to lightly-armed and armored troops mounted on horses, as opposed to heavy cavalry

Heavy cavalry

Heavy cavalry is a term referring to a class of cavalry whose primary role was to engage in direct combat with enemy forces . Although their equipment differed greatly depending on region and historical period, they were generally mounted on large powerful horses and armed with some kind of sword....
, where the riders (and sometimes the horses) are heavily armored. The missions of the light cavalry were primarily reconnaissance

Reconnaissance

Reconnaissance is a military and medical term denoting exploration conducted to gain information. Militarily, its shorthand Australian, Canadian, and British form is recce , its American usage form is recon ....
, screening

Screening

Screening, in general, is the investigation of a great number of something looking for those with a particular problem or feature. One example is at an airport, where many bags get x-rayed to try to detect any which may contain weapons or explosives....
, skirmishing, raiding

Raid (military)

A raid is a military tactics or operational warfare mission which requires the execution of a plan where Principles of War is the principal desired outcome of the attack....
, and most importantly, communications, and were usually armed with spear

Spear

A spear is a pole weapon consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a sharpened head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with bamboo spears, or it may be of another material fastened to the shaft, such as obsidian, iron or bronze....
s, sword

Sword

A sword is a long, edged piece of metal, used as a cutting, thrusting, and clubbing weapon in many civilizations throughout the world. The word sword comes from the Old English language wikt:sweord, cognate to Old High German swert, Middle Dutch swaert, Old Norse sver? Old Frisian and Old Saxon swerd and Dutch langua...
s, bow

Bow (weapon)

A bow is a weapon that projects arrows powered by the elasticity of the bow. Essentially, it is a form of Spring . As the bow is drawn, energy is stored in the limbs of the bow and transformed into rapid motion when the string is released, with the string transferring this force to the arrow....
s and later pistols.

Light cavalry was used infrequently by the Greeks

Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
and Romans

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
(though Roman auxiliaries

Auxiliaries (Roman military)

Auxiliaries formed the standing non-citizen corps of the Roman army of the Principate , alongside the citizen Roman legion. By the 2nd century, the auxilia contained the same number of infantry as the legions and in addition provided almost all the Roman army's Roman cavalry and more specialised troops ....
were often mounted), but were popular among the armies and hordes

Hordes

Hordes may refer to:*Social and military structures of nomadic Turkic peoples in the Middle Ages; see:**Golden Horde**Tatar invasions*The miniature war game Hordes ...
of Central Asia

Central Asia

Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south....
.

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Encyclopedia

Light cavalry refers to lightly-armed and armored troops mounted on horses, as opposed to heavy cavalry

Heavy cavalry

Reconnaissance

Screening

Raid (military)

Spear

Sword

Bow (weapon)

Ancient Greece

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
(though Roman auxiliaries

Auxiliaries (Roman military)

Hordes

Hordes may refer to:*Social and military structures of nomadic Turkic peoples in the Middle Ages; see:**Golden Horde**Tatar invasions*The miniature war game Hordes ...
of Central Asia

Central Asia

Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south....
. The Huns

Huns

The Huns were a confederation of Central Asian Eurasian nomads or semi-nomads, who had established an empire in Eurasia. The Huns may have stimulated the Migration Period, a contributing factor in the collapse of the Roman Empire....
, Turks

Turkic peoples

The Turkic peoples are Eurasian peoples residing in northern, central and western Eurasia, and who mostly speak languages belonging to the Turkic languages....
, Mongols

Mongols

The name Mongol specifies one or several ethnic groups, now mainly located in Mongolia, China, and Russia....
and Hungarians

Hungarian people

Hungarians are an ethnic group primarily associated with Hungary. There are around 10 million Magyars in Hungary . Hungarians were the main inhabitants of the Kingdom of Hungary that existed through most of the second millennium....
were all adept light cavalrymen and horse archers.

With the decline of feudalism

Feudalism

Feudalism, a term first used in the early modern period , in its most classic sense refers to a Middle Ages European political system composed of a set of reciprocal law and military obligations among the warrior nobility, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs....
and knight

Knight

File:Gothic armor 2.jpgKnight is the term for a social position originating in the Middle Ages. In the Commonwealth of Nations, knighthood is a non-heritable form of gentry....
hood in Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
, light cavalry became more prominent in the armies of the continent. Many were equipped with firearms, as their predecessors had been with bows. European examples of light cavalry included stradiots, hobelar

Hobelar

Hobelars were a type of light cavalry, or mounted infantry during the Middle Ages, used for skirmishing. They generally rode Irish Hobby, a type of light and agile horse....
s, hussar

Hussar

Hussar refers to a number of types of light cavalry created in Hungary in the 15th century and used throughout Europe and even in Americas since the 18th century....
s, chasseurs à cheval, cossacks, chevau-légers

Chevau-légers

The Chevau-l?gers was a generic French name for several units of light cavalry, roughly similar to lancers in the armies of other states during the Napoleonic Wars....
and some dragoon

Dragoon

A dragoon is a soldier intended primarily to fight on foot but trained also in horse riding and cavalry combat, especially during the late 17th and early 18th centuries when dragoon regiments were established in most European armies....
s.

Historical use

The ancient frontier war between Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
and Germania

Germania

Germania was the Latin language exonym for a geographical area of land on the east bank of the River Rhine , which included regions of Sarmatia as well as an area under Ancient Rome control on the west bank of the Rhine....
made use of Light Cavalry as patrolling squads, or armed scouts, and often had them in the front lines during regional battles.

During the Punic Wars, one of Carthage's main advantages over Roman armies were it's extensive use of Numidian Light Cavalry. Partly because of this, the Roman General Scipio Africanus

Scipio Africanus

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus also known as Scipio Africanus, Scipio the Elder, and Africanus the Elder was a general in the Second Punic War and statesman of the Roman Republic....
recruited his own cavalry from Sicily before his invasion of Tunisia during the Second Punic War.

During the Crusades

Crusades

The Crusades were a series of religious war waged by much of Christian Europe against external and internal opponents. Crusades were fought mainly against Muslims, though campaigns were also directed against Paganism Slavic peoples, Jews, Eastern Orthodox Church, Mongols, Catharism, Hussites, Waldensians, Old Prussians, and political enemi...
between the Arabians and the Europeans, Light Cavalry were often used as foot-troops; the first of the military lines to charge into the conflict. The purpose of this was to establish room for the heavier warriors to attack and to provide tactical benefit.

Light cavalry

Historical use

See also

External links