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The infantry sets their spears, meaning bracing them against the ground, to present a barrier to the charging horsemen. The long spears, also known as pikes, when held in a tight formation provided a spiked wall that would challenge mounted opponents. Some horses would balk when encountering the pikes while others would be impaled. The goal was to unhorse ...

What you are referring to is commonly known as the "French Column". I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that English movies and the English version of Wikipedia are pretty dismissive of it. After all, that was the opinion of everyone's favorite English General, Wellington. And he was certainly able to back it up. The first thing you have to realize is that ...

Using Aubrey/Maturin, beefed up with "Naval life in the time of Aubrey and Maturin" type texts: Shock and Awe. Few men died in most naval battles in the age of sail. Morale failure was a key structure in battle. Broadsides significantly reduced the numbers of boarders in a single wave. Three fast broadsides and board was an ideal to secure a prize by ...

WWI was a pivotal time in military tactics due to the number of technological advances in warfare that had been relatively unused until that point in time. Machine guns had developed to a point that isn't much different from modern designs; field artillery had gotten a lot bigger, was capable of indirect fire, and had many different munition options; ...

Napoleon loved forward momentum - and he got it with the heavy column. The formation forced his infantry forward, the front ranks constantly pushed to the fore by the ranks behind them, and made opponents break formation to get the hell out of the way. This worked, because Napoleon was an artilleryman - he would disrupt opposing line formations with ...

This is basically oblique order. The idea is to crush one flank of the enemy with the strong force, turn it 90° and defeat the enemy in detail. The remainder of your troops keep the enemy busy on the other flank. You put your heavy troops on the strong flank because they need the most strength (they need to break the line). The light troops are more ...

Columns are an aggressive formation, that work best against "inferior" (slower-firing, -marching) opponents. That's because at the point of contact, the column is very deep, which means that it has a good chance of breaking the enemy line. It's weakness is that against a well-drilled opponent, the defender will pull back the line on either side, let the ...

I would disagree with Tom Au's answer. The first examples of "modern warfare" engagements where both sides expected to prevail in battle with ranged weapons took place a few months into the US Civil War. The key is the development of the rifle versus the musket. Prior to that, firearms didn't have an effective range sufficient to counter an infantry ...

One theory from Delbrueck: Hannibal wanted to win the battle with his infantry, which was superior to the Romans, and distract the Roman cavalry. Therefore, he wanted the cavalry clash to happen first, the idea being that his cavalry would be routed, the Roman cavalry would pursue them and be out of the battle, and he could start the infantry battle. ...

The battle of Zama was a seesaw fight for much of the battle. The result of a Roman victory resulted largely from the "fortunes of war." The Carthaginians had more infantry, the Romans more cavalry, but the Carthaginians hoped to turn their elephants to their advantage. This didn't work, because the Roman Scipio, suspecting that the elephants could only ...

Infantry square I believe that the most obvious tactic against cavalry is the infantry square formation, which was used by ancient Romans, and later revived during Napoleon wars. But of course the main reason for their creation was to prevent any attack from behind. Still, there was a rule regarding horses in particular, not to shot too late, as wounded ...

It was more accidental than anything else, but the first "shooting" battle treated as such by history was the battle of Crecy, in 1346, during the 100 Years' War. This was waged mainly between 6,000-7,000 longbowmen on the English side, and 6,000 (Genovese) crossbowmen on the French side. The English had perhaps 3,000-6,000 non-bow infantry and cavalry, ...

Generally they were used as cavalry would have been. They would sit on one flank and move to attack the side of the enemy's phalanx where they would do the most damage. Clearly, this was a dangerous tactic since elephants were prone to panic and run amok. Another formation, like at Zama, they were used in the initial phase of the battle to try to shatter ...

I'm looking at the list of battles involving war elephants The Battle of Ipsus wikip page, a conflict between some of the successor states of Alexander the great, has an interesting passage on elephant-cavalry interactions: "The ancient sources repeatedly emphasise the effect of elephants on horses, which are alarmed by the smell and noise of elephants and ...

This was an expression of the "traditional" order of fighting, elite troops, in the position of order on the right; lesser troops on the left. The battle of Leuctra cited in another answer was an exception. But many military dispositions were not so rational. In the battle of Camden in the American Revolution, the British-trained American general, Horatio ...

The first thing to remember is that Napoleon prized speed over everything else. Most of his campaigns he faced much larger armies led by different nations and leaders. When Napoleon arrived the opposing armies would be near one another but not yet (His apposing armies were separated due to forage and supply needs, or were traveling to meet one another at a ...

There's already an answer on tactics. But there are a few quite interesting anti horse pieces of equipment that are worth mentioning. Like the Cheval de frise, an anti cavalry obstacle. Or the Caltrop: "sharp nails or spines arranged in such a manner that one of them always points upward from a stable base", designed to puncture the soft feet of cavalry ...

"Guns firing on their own" may be a better tactic, particularly at the beginning of the battle, when what matters is the total rate of fire. Broadsides are better when the order of the day is for concentrated fire. That usually happens later in the battle, when the idea is to do something decisive, or achieve "critical mass." A broadside is better when the ...

Spears are (relatively) long ranged weapons to use against cavalry. Bows and arrows are even better (as at Crecy and Agincourt in France), but only if they can be fired at a high rate, and at long range. Most infantrymen were not skilled enough to do this, which is why they used spears. They could try to kill the horse or the rider, but usually the horse was ...

Both Scipio Africanus: Greater Than Napoleon by Basil Liddell Hart and The Punic Wars by Adrian Goldsworthy are good sources. Alternatively, wikipeadia... In a nut shell: superior tactics and strategy.