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by inglor_cz 2054 days ago
In the right circumstances, yes, it could be a liability.

Here in Late Medieval Czechia we had a militant reformation movement called the Hussites. Of course, the rest of Catholic Europe sent in several crusades to crush the heretics, without much success.

One of the many reasons why the crusaders failed were so-called Wagenburgs [0]. Basically, the Hussite army would be underway with very heavy wagons and, if the scouts brought back information about an approaching enemy, would build a provisional fort out of them fairly quickly. Such a fort could not be swept away by a cavalry attack and if the defenders had enough guns (and by that time early firearms were already used in Europe), the knights tightly packed around the wagenburg would present a perfect target.

Plus, there were kids under the wagons with very sharp scythes, hacking at the unprotected horses' legs just in front of them, just as you mention.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagon_fort#Czechs_and_Hussites

1 comments

That is so cool to learn about. My first exposure to war wagons was in AoE 3 [1] and I always wondered how a fortified wagon drawn by horse was somehow a counter to cavalry when you would theoretically just kill the horse and render the wagon useless (a mobility kill). Makes much more sense when you consider that a bunch of them are essentially a portable fort.

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[1] https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/War_Wagon_(Age_of_Empir...