Lancers - LC or HC?

Should Lancers be LC or HC?
I have read that they had a similar impact as heavy cav.

Thanks,
Chris

Originally Posted by FOW1918

Should Lancers be LC or HC?
I have read that they had a similar impact as heavy cav.

Thanks,
Chris

Dividing them by role, I've always seen lancers as light cavalry. They were used for scouting, harrassing the enemy, and pursuit (light cavalry roles), not for attacks on formed infantry (the main heavy cavalry role).

But I'd be interested in hearing of instances where they were used to attack formed infantry.

- Jack

I suggest your question is too imprecise. Troops are defined by purpose rather than technology.

Knights are armed with a lance and are treated as....err Knights. Lancers carrying lances with a view to fighting are cavalry; lances carried by scouts means light cavalry.

Originally Posted by hammurabi70

I suggest your question is too imprecise. Troops are defined by purpose rather than technology.

I guess I assumed that he was asking about those mounted troops identified as Lancers and Uhlans during the Napoleonic wars, and whether they would be classified as light or heavy cavalry. But that's reading a significant amount between the lines.

- Jack

Lancers in the Napoleonic Wars varied not only by function, but by quality. Comparing cossacks to uhlans in the tsar's forces is a nice example. Uhlans could, and did, fight in many aspects as LC, but also provided a bit more punch vs infantry and HC than most hussars and dragoons. Cossacks, lances and all, rarely participated in formed charges.
Prussian Uhlans and Landwehr cavalry were of different quality as well. Yet the oft maligned Landwehr did charge in formation into the cuirassiers at Ligny, buying the Prussians critical escape time. (How did Blucher get them to do it?!!!!)
Good examples of lancers used to bust infantry formations were seen at Quatre Bras (captured in a nice Black Watch painting), and guard lancers gave more than a needle prick to the heavy cavalry of Wellington's union brigade (Scots Greys amongst them).
Bottom line, lancers had a lot of diversity in quality, the looser formations naturally become LC...but the best of them often served as LC and HC, depending on what was needed at the moment.
"Vorwarts, meinen Kindern, Vorwarts!"

Bryan