Spahis

Originally posted by ataman Originally posted by Evrenosgazi İt really seems unbelieveable, because with the impact of the lance ,the lancer will also loose its stability with the first clash(momentum: speed*weight, single arm power against the clash).But with the powerful clash the formation of their opponents would crack. Maybe 2 soldier at once could be but 3-4 is impossible   Here is the secret of the hussar manner of wielding the lance: http://www.radoslawsikora.republika.pl/materialy/husaria3.pdf Look at the second picture in the article. It is not the hussar's arm which has to endure the impact. It is the hussar's saddle where the impact is transfered. There are even accouts that hussar lances were able to pierce an armour in this way.   When hussars attacked unarmoured cavalrymen, they aimed enemy navels. Potocki describes that hussar lances at Chocim 1621 struck livers. This part of the body is very easy to penetrate.

This is more accurate but again let us think the lance penetrated to a man, how could the rider use its lance when it is inside the body of a man?(even let us think it is out of the body)

The point of the lance was to break up the formation a twenty four foot lance isn't much use 1-on-1 that is why hussars carried back up weapons

Originally posted by Count Belisarius BTW this thread is about Spahis not Hussars

Edited by ataman - 11-Jan-2009 at 07:43

Originally posted by ataman   My point is that silk armour wasn't better than metal one. I've mentioned winged hussars only to show you experience of battles, which prove my opinion.

The provincial sipahis were different in their origin. The other name was tımarlı Sipahi they were the backbone of the army. They formed the wings of the army.They were grouped as Anatolian and Rumelia. The Anatolian corps were mainly previous fief holders and they had managed to keep it. They were accepted to the ottoman army. With the imperial domination kapıkulus had tımars also, even noncombatant multezims were tımar holders. Initially Rumeli sipahis were mainly natives . Constantine Dejanovic and Marko Kraljevic were tımar holders at Rumelia and they died in 1395 for ottomans in Wallachia. Approximately the christian sipahis consisted 30% of sipahis at Rumelia in the mid 15th century. However most of them accepted Islam and with the 16th century no christian sipahi were left. The total sipahi numbers at a campaign in the mid 16th century was between 30-40000. The most of them were equipped with pistols through the late 16th century. Their number and importance were decreased in the 17th century, infantry were know the primary forces  

Originally posted by Beylerbeyi Thanks for the useful info, Evrenos. As we can see the number increased in years , maybe the rising number also could demonstrate the falling quality but I am not so sure. I think after the wars with Austria (ended in 1606) total number of cavalry in the army was reduced greatly, so the number of the timarli went down and infantry went up, janissaries and other gunpowder infantry as the Ottomans adapted to the new Western warfare. Probably the household cavalry increased along with the Janisarries. The quality naturally went down.  Also after 1600,  the country became less centralised, which means that local lords gained power and incorporated individual timars.

In 1596 Ottomans occupied Eger and when they were returning home their way was cut down by Habsburgs. Two army set against and wait for to fight. The first 2 days were clashs between the vanguard and in the 3rd day the ottoman army start to lost its cohesion and the imperial army started to penetrate through the encampment. The sipahis were one of the first who flee from the field. While the habsburgs were ravaging the ottoman camp Cağaloglu Sinan Pasa(The Cigalla`s from Genoa) attacked the habsburgs and win the war for the ottomans. Cağaloğlu Sinan Pasa disbanded a lot of sipahi after this battle and they were the major population who consisted the Celalis. This was the first splitting of sipahis from the state and their official decrease of importance

Sipahis were far superior to Hussars, especially Qapukulu Sipahis