Warfare Swedish Cavalry

[maciek]

So the Swedish cavalry should have bigger mounts than dragoons. Am I right ?

Were there any other differences beetwen these two arms ?
- type of sword ?
- type of firearm ?
- number of belts, cartridge box etc ?

[Russian James]

Smaller horses would also useful for Scots and Norwegian mounted units...

[Dfogleman2]

Were there any other differences beetwen these two arms ?
- type of sword ?
- type of firearm ?
- number of belts, cartridge box etc ?

Others may chime in, but I don't think there was much difference in the appearance between the Swedish horse and dragoons. I think the dragoons would have been armed with a musket or musketoon rather than a carbine, and might have had a bayonet. Maybe Dan Schorr or Tacitus could give us their thoughts.

[Tacitus]

The book of reference on this subject is "Hästen i det karolinska rytteriet" (= The horse in the Carolean cavalry) by Henry Waxberg from 1973. It is however not so comprehensive as it is mainly focused on the "indelta" cavalry regiments. Therefore I can not say if there was any difference between proper cavalry horses and dragoon horses. The book does not mention such differences and it would (at least to me) appear as if the regional supply of horses mattered more than troop type. Those newly raised regiments which were issued "klippare" were the tremänninge, fyrmänninge and femmänninge regiments. These were proper cavalry regiments and not dragoon regiments.

As far as I know dragoons and cavalry men had very similar equipment. The main difference, as previously mentioned, was that cavalry men were equipped with a short carbine while dragoons had muskets with bayonets (but these muskets were still shorter than the infantry musket). The cavalry could have cuirasses but these do not appear to have been that common, although Västgöta cavalry regiment is reported to have had them at the battle of Helsingborg.

Some additional facts:

In october 1710 seven companies of the Södra Skånska cavalry regiment (South Scanian) should have had 875 horses. Of these were no less than 633 "klippare" and only 73 were of the regulated size (169 horses were "vacant"). This was an extreme case since Scania had suffered greatly from the recent Danish occupation and warfare.

In october 1714 on the other hand was the 1 505 men strong Life regiment reported to have had 1 287 proper cavalry horses and only 200 "klippare" (18 horses were vacant).

[maciek]

Thanks Tacitus for in-depth analysis.

And how about swords ?
In most armies horse regiments were armed with heavy "pallash" sword, while dragoons had infantry type swords, what IMO made a big difference in melee.

[Tacitus]

I just found a reference to dragoon horses and it states that they used the larger "klippare" for dragoons (and artillery trains). The maximum height for a klippare would be about 140 cm.

Swedish dragoons are generally not well documented in the litterature. Only two dragoon regiments survived the war, and this combined with the fact that dragoons were mostly of German ethnicity could explain why they have gotten so little attention by Swedish historians. The latter usually restrict themselves to only study the "indelta" regiments.

It is quite possible that Swedish dragoons had smaller swords, but the Swedish army generally favored longer cold steel weapons. In the infantry: swords, bayonets and pikes were all longer than those used by the Russians.

The Russian horses were also of considerably lesser quality than the Swedes, as the English envoye Jeffreys witnessed during the Russian campaign.

An additional note: The restored Småland cavalry regiment was in 1709 issued infantry swords as a temporary solution until proper cavalry swords could be obtained.

[obriendavid]

The Russian horses were also of considerably lesser quality than the Swedes, as the English envoye Jeffreys witnessed during the Russian campaign.

Is that not because the majority of Russian cavalry were dragoons and would therefore be on poorer quality horses anyway?
Cheers
Dave

[Tacitus]

Is that not because the majority of Russian cavalry were dragoons and would therefore be on poorer quality horses anyway?
Cheers
Dave

I do not think they had inferior horses just because they were dragoons. It must have been in the best interest of the Russian army to get the highest quality of horses available. And this regardless of troop type, even though the few proper cavalry units most likely got to pick first.

The Russian dragoons performed badly against Swedish cavalry and this is probably the reason why they so often fought on foot, as well as the attempts to increase their fire power with handmortars and various forms of horse artillery.

[maciek]

Is that not because the majority of Russian cavalry were dragoons and would therefore be on poorer quality horses anyway?

AFAIK it was quite the opposite: they were formed as dragoons becase of lack of heavy horses. Only in 1730' heavy Holstein mounts were imported to Russia and first regiment of cuirassiers was established.