Napoleonic Heavy Cavalry & Dragoon Tactics

During the Napoleonic Wars the supreme battlefield shock weapon was the heavy cavalry – the French cuirassiers, and their British, Austrian, Prussian and Russian counterparts.

Big men mounted on big horses, the heavy cavalry were armed with swords nearly a metre long, used for slashing or thrusting at their opponents; many wore steel armour, a practice revived by Napoleon. They were tasked with smashing a hole in the enemy's line of battle, with exploiting a weakness, or with turning a flank...