""blown" or "fatigued" horses" Topic

This one`s for the "horsey people" out there!

I`ve seen horses completely knackered after a modern horse race and they don`t look like they`re going to be up for much for quite a while afterwards!
How long did it take for napoleonic horses to recover… if at all?

TIA for any light shed on this question.

Mike.

It can be quite a while--depending on how long they've run. Cavalrymen made quite an effort to avoid any serious 'fatigue'. One reason cavalry brigades were deployed in two and three lines, and sent in by line, in waves.

How long does it take for you to recover from a race? Extrapolate.

Well the answer is "days" Bill, but I`m no race-horse!

Well, unlike horses Mike, I am sure you know when to stop running and start recuperating. Horses will literally run until they die, which is the real danger of 'blown' horses. They won't stop when they're tired. Which means a horse can ruin itself if not stopped.

A horse run at a easy gallop for 10 miles [about twenty minutes] and it's done for the day.

Cavalry horse weren't galloped for more than three hundred yards in a charge, and many nations only trotted heavy cavalry, including France. Blown horses [to whatever degree] was not such a battlefield occurrence as some rules would have you believe.

So, its probably a better option to limit the movement of horses, rather than apply a rule for fatigue.

Sorta a tangent. In game design the terms fatigued is often a stage that represents the condition of both the horses and the organization and cohesivness of a unit to conduct a new military task.

Cavalry typically maneuvered at a slow trot. They would not get tired at that rate. As they closed to effective musket range, the pace quickened. At 30 yards or so, it was an all out charge.

Didn't the cavalry also have in reserve something like 3 horses per trooper for fatigue reasons?

Given that blown cavalry or their riders being uncontrolled and rushing in pursuit I think it is a good idea.

Maybe a bit too "Old school for sme folks?"

Maybe a bit too "Old school for sme folks?"

Could you elaborate on this a little more? Not sure what you are trying to say. Just curious, that's all.

I've been playing some In The Grand Manner games recently. Peter Gilder would have the cavalry "return to own lines" in most instances after a melee and then they would go into "Walk About" for two turns to reorganize. Then they could get back into the action. So this removes the cavalry unit from action for approximately 4 game turns: the two turns that it seems to take to return to your own lines plus the two turns of walkabout. This seems to simulate the amount of time that a cavalry squadron would need to recover and reorganize after a melee.

Of course, the "tail end of the bell curve" post melee results could also result in "uncontrolled pursuit" or "rally on the spot", both of which have a low probability.

In our game yesterday, the winner of the cavalry melees was often the side that had a second or third line of reserves to throw into the scrum. That seemed to be fairly realistic to me.

I had forgotten about the ITGM mechanisms for handling cavalry and how much they seem to capture a lot of what you read about in H&M cav fights from Marlborough up through Napoleon. And they're really easy to implement which is nice.

I recall the destruction of the British corps of cavalry in the 2nd Boer war. They dashed for little reason to releive kimberly, arrived a day or so earlier than they would have normally and had to destroy almost all the horses. That was a dash of ten miles.

Reorganizing cavalry after a charge could be a longer task, but to have an entire cavalry unit, regiment or brigade 'blown' would be an indication that the commander was a particularly bad manager, or that the unit had been run into the ground by the demands put on it by the higher ups.

Part of the problem is that 'blown' isn't a yes/no condition, where one minute the horse is fine, then next exhausted [If we only hadn't galloped that last twenty yards…] And there is the emotional toll--yes, for a horse. Being in a battle where men and horses are bleeding and dying can be exhausting for a horse in very short order.

So managing the horse flesh was major concern for cavalry men. That managing allowed the French cavalry to carry out charges for over an hour and a half at Waterloo, and still have something left to support the last attacks on La Haye Sainte and the Imp. Guards' last effort.

Bill

Michael .

Balck Tactics Vol 2 pp32-34 is worth a look.

I summarise.

The focus is on the rate of breathing of the horse (and Balck is about military horses here not racing thoroughbreds).

At rest the horse will take 8 to 12 breaths per minute (bpm) and at maximum speed the horse will be up to 130 bpm. After that you get "congestion of the lungs". It can of course breath at rest all day long but can probably manage the maximum rate for only one minute at a time.

There is a table which (for a horse with field kit) that gives for the trot a breathing rate of 56 bpm after trotting for 1km, then 60 bpm after 2 km and 62 bpm after 3 km and over longer distances topping out at 79 bpm. This is all on the flat – uphill pushes up the rate and downhill gives some reduction.

Recovery is mentioned going from 55 bpm down to 17 bpm after 20 minutes.

Some other notes mention a maximum endurance of 60 km in a day at the walk (but the rider will probably not manage this and will become fatigued losing his posture and unbalancing the horse). To trot all day is too exhausting for the horse so on campaign you will get a mix of the walk and the trot.

Apparently the French horses were trained to manage 10 km at the trot or 6 km at the gallop without exertion. (remember this is early 1900's so probably better trained and fed than 1805). Von Bredow (Vionville / Mars la Tour) managed 5-6 km in the famous "death ride" in 1870.

Bear in mind that the different gaits are approximately 100m per min for the walk, 220m per min for the trot, 350-400 for the gallop and 400 – 500 for a fast gallop so you get more distance for your exertion.

For the wargame I would consider allowing cavalry a normal movement rate that is a mix of the walk and trot which is used to get from place to place and to form up for an attack. When the cavalry move fast for a sustained period then you have to ask whether the cavalry are fit enough to accelerate whilst keeping cohesion and how fatigued are the cavalry at the end of this action. The precise mechanism might depend on the groundscale and timescale of a turn on the table. If a turn is 20 minutes you have time to make an attack and recover to some extent.

My suggestion on this is to allow movement on the level at the walk / trot combination to be without penalty. If a unit of cavalry moves at a fast pace or engages in combat then give it a fatigue marker at the end of the turn. If this is significantly uphill or on heavy ground then make it two markers.

For the walk/trot you either slow down when going uphill or you take a fatigue marker.

A cavalry unit remaining static for a turn may remove one marker. If it makes a walk/trot move on level or descending ground then use dice 50:50 for recovery.

Use the fatigue markers as yet another combat modifier to be balanced with other factors.

Finally any unit carrying a fatigue marker is at risk if defeated or pursued or seeks to move fast to evade combat. Use some dice mechanism and exact a heavy loss if the test is failed.

For a skirmish game with small numbers of cavalry it might make sense to use the "Ever Decreasing Number Allocation" or EDNA mechanism. This would mean that the horse becomes progressively fatigued and is more prone to get worse once it starts breathing more heavily.

Just to add to Mike de M.s post, the mail coach in England would trot horses for twenty miles, then change out the horses. That is a six horse coach in about forty to fifty minutes. The Pony Express was twenty miles at a gallop, depending on the terrain.

The basic SOP for a cavalry charge to start out at 400 to 1200 yards at a walk, then when within canister range/600 yards, a trot and with a gallop for only the last 100 to 200 yards max. Heavy cavalry in the French and Austrian armies never galloped, but sacrificed speed for order, charging at a trot.

Bill

In the South horses for the Stage lines were changed out every 10 miles. i live only a few miles from the Central Federal road that passedthrough the Alabama. It was composed of half-sliced logs to form a smoother surface.

Most small towns including are still about 8 miles apart accounting for straighter paved roads of today. Many of the maps of the late 1800s have names like Munford Station whic is today just Munford. It is located 10 miles from talladega and Anniston (Blue Mountain then). Surther on down the Central road is Winterboro located 10 miles from talladega and Sylacauga. Ten miles further was hanover Station and then 10 more to Rockford. So you can see the 10 mile increments can be identified in Alabama and over much of the South.

The closer the station, the more horses changed and faster the trip…

Has anyone got an example of a Cav unit being used over and over in a single day?

TW.

IIRC, there was the case of multiple cavalry charges at Quatre Bras when a lancer and Chasseur Rgts repeated charged british infnatry (28th and 42nd ??). I think it was in or near a cornfield.

This is just one of several that I seem to remeber without my books to check.

Be interesting to learn the distances involved .. how they regrouped etc… I guess this is all "nuts-and-bolts" stuff..

TW.

It also depends upon three other items

Temperature
the hotter, the harder to breathe, the colder the loss of bodyheat has a huge effect on the horse

Stock Feed
What has the horse eaten is the last 24 hours. oats is best, cracked corn tends to overheat the horse, lucerne hay is ok, better if has dried a little, grass is almost hopeless

Fitness Unfit horses are like humans, hopeless, very fit horses can walk and trot all day long with little effect. Trotting is the best way to get a horse fit.

cheers
matt

I often read of accounts of several successive attacks being made in the case of both infantry and cavalry.

I do wonder though whether the language is sometimes misleading. "They came at us eight times without success" may refer to different squads/battalions within the same attacking brigade?

At Rossbach during the SYW, Seydlitz opened the battle with a charge into the Austrian vanguard cavalry, and after defeating them, he retired and reorganized the cavalry in some hidden dead ground for another charge into the French infantry columns that were coming up behind the Austrian cavalry.

It all depended. *Most* cavalry brigades, regiments would deploy with reserves. A British Brigade's Standard Operating Procedure was to deploy with at least three successive lines of squadrons, some 100 yards apart. Not only did the cavalry go in waves, but each wave won't stay very long. But in other situations, the British cavalry would just charge, particularly in the beginning of the war, everything at once. And of course, at the end of the war at Waterloo… A weakness of the British mounted arm.

A good cavalry commander was trying to defeat the enemy while managing the condition of his mounts. And yes, a unfit horse did limit a cavalry unit's performance.

acarhj. No, the opposite really. Most cavalry units were 'underhorsed', more riders than rides. Especially later into the period.

Marbot mentions how in a light cavalry brigade one regiment would be working hard as outposts and patrols whilst the other acted as the support (and presumably getting some rest). Roles reversed the next day.

blown…snigger