Talk:Horse archer

Suggested links http://www.intlhorsearchery.org/ International Horse Archery Festival http://www.atarn.org/chinese/horseback/chinese_horseback_archery.htm Very nice site on Chinese practices. Quite detailed.

Countering horse archers Ancient armies used combinations of light (and fast ) infantry armed with spears or bows and light and/or heavy cavalry. light infantry restricts horse archers' maneuver field and gives an opportunity to friendly cavalry to charge against them. horse archers' power comes from their speed and hit&run tactics. If a horse archer group lose these advantages they become ordinary cavalry. But this is a hard work. 'cause horse archers mostly evades this kind of situations and play the game by their rules. mkayapali

I think mounted archer term is much relevant to dragoons or mounted infantry who rides to battlefield on horse, then dismount and fight as a regular infantry. But a horse archer is a horseman who uses composite bow on horseback, attacks by volleys of arrows then runs back. This is the difference between horse archers and mounted archers. (In my opinion)mkayapali


 * It is a combination of both. They shoot volleys of arrows and can ride back to shoot more or can engage the enemy on horseback with a melee weapon or dismount and engage in melee.

question: how do you stop horse archers in ancient warfare?

is this even the right title? in my understanding, a "horse archer" is an archer who is also a horse... normally, they are called "mounted archers". I admit that "horse archer" gets some non.WP google hits, but at first glance not very authoritative ones. dab 20:38, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have seen the term 'horse archer'used in Paul O'Connels 'Soul of the Sword'. This book is however dreadfully unreliable. If someone can prove that 'mounted archer' is a more appropriate term than 'horse archer' I will change the title of this article (and of the link in the Military History page which predated it).

"horse archer(s)" is more common in the internet (7000 hits) than "mounted archer(s)" (3300 hits). It is the more recent term, however, and probably most prevalent in American English. "horse archery" and "mounted archery" rank equally around 800 hits, and there is about a dozen hits for the pedantically correct "horsed archer". I still think "mounted archer" is the more "educated" term, and therefore preferable for the purpose of an encyclopedia. As an indication of this, combining searches with "Yabusame" (with the intention of weeding out gaming and fantasy pages), "mounted archer" gets 28 hits, and "horse archer" only five. I suggest a move to "mounted archer", but since "horse archer" is widespread, it's certainly not wrong to leave the title as it is, we should just place redirects for all the other terms. dab 07:24, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Would this article benifit from say addition of Pre-Columbian North American i.e. AmerIndian bow use?

Mounted archers are refered to as mounted because they are, well, mounted. Mounted on a horse. I see no problem in calling them horse archers, but mounted archers is the more correct term.

Firearm-equipped cavalry
I have expanded the article, adding the tactical uses of cav archers in ancient warfare and reorganizing the sections into 'Appearances in History' and 'Technology'

"Horse archers were eventually rendered obsolete by the development of modern firearms  The 16th century Cuirassiers were heavy cavalry equipped with firearms.." ''

These sentences I left intact, because I was unsure of what to do with them. The development of modern firearms did not necessarily put an end to cavalry tactics, but it did see the gradual replacement of bows with firearms, leastways in Europe. I don't have much information on firearms in respect to cavalry archers in the east, so I can't really replace this statement with anything. The latter statement, I have just checked, is correct. I'll add a part about Dragoons, another type of cavalry equipped with firearms. --LordHoborgXVII 02:27, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Cavalry Archers
I believe the correct title is "cavalry archers".And the primary way to counter cavalry was by formations of pikemen or phalanxes. However though with the introduction of firearms the usage of cavalry gradually lessened in importance (and I think replaced the pike?), because a peasant armed with a musket with a little bit of practice could easily kill a knight with years of training. 72.197.133.100 20:44, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Horse archery tactics perhaps used as late as the Napoleonic era...
Supposedly Napoleon's French invasion force encountered horse archers in Poland or Russia. There doesn't seem to be too much mention of this somewhat obscure fact but it might be worth mentioning in the article as an interesting exception to the common belief that the tactic had died out during the 16th century.

Here is a link, if any other sources can be found then this could be worth incorporating into the article.

[]

"Archers appeared in civilized warfare as late as 1807, when fifteen hundred " baskiers," horse-archers, clad in chain armour, fought against Napoleon in Poland."

"Horse archers in Hannibal's army"??? The light cavalry of the Carthaginians was made up of Numidians which were experts in handling the light javelin. There are no records of them using bows. They DID use horse archer tactics but they lacked the bow which defines an archer.

And regarding "horse archers" and "mounted archers". "Horse archers" is the correct therm since the cavalry corps of an army was called in the past "horse" or the infantry "foot". A mounted archer might meen a mounted infantryman using a bow but that might not use the horse in combat but only for transportation (ex: mounted infantrymen = dragoons).