Equine Battering Rams? A Reassessment of Cavalry Charges in the English Civil War

According to traditional narratives the tactic of shock charges imported from Sweden replaced the caracole, a maneuver which involved successive ranks of cavalry advancing, firing their pistols, and retreating to reload, during the English Civil War. A successful cavalry charge was supposed to depend on close order and momentum to maximize the shock of impact. But this theory of shock is anachronistic. Physical shock is largely absent from early seventeenth century English drill books and eyewitness accounts of Civil War battles. The laws of physics and evidence from racing accidents show that if close-order shock charges could be achieved they could not give any tactical advantage. There is similarly little evidence for the continued use of the caracole into this period.