this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Warhorses are like a machine gun. Point it at the enemy, and they will have a bad time. Throw it spinning in the air, with the trigger taped and everyone near you will have a bad time.
Warhorses were trains to kick and bite when scared, rather than run away. They needed directing where to use that however. Take out their rider and you now have a lot of panic, with a tendency to bite and kick mixed in.
I think the long long long long long history of horses being used effectively in warfare shows that they are a very effective resource in battle and not something viewed as more dangerous for the person who has one when kept alive. They were trained to bite and kick people they didn't know who were up in their business and attacking them or their rider, not anyone anywhere around them at any time. They weren't only socialized to a singular person either. Saying "I leave their horses alive because horses get scared and go crazy in a fight" just kinda shows a fundamental misunderstanding about how effectively horses were used in warfare. If they were so dangerous to have for the person using them, then they wouldn't have been used to anywhere near the extent that they were in history, yet they've been seen as extremely vital tools of war since very early on in human history. Losing your horse was viewed as a huge loss in war because of how important they were. They're not a "pile of panic" because they're specifically trained not to panic in a fight.
In your seemingly expert opinion, what would a typical riderless war horse do in a battle?
It's also worth mentioning, in defense if the Captain, these almost certainly were typical farm horses used for carrying people and pulling wagons on outer rim planets, not highly trained military war horses.
Yeah in the context of the show it makes sense because they're specifically not trained horses, but the OP's title isn't related to the scene, they're only referencing the quote out of context referring to horses in general, even though the quote doesn't apply to all horses.
As for your question about a war horse without a rider, I think it depends on the setting. In more "modern" warfare when we still used horses on a large scale like ww1, in cases where the horse lived while the rider died (though horses were generally more likely to die than the rider), depending on the scenario the horse usually either continued to follow the rest of the cavalry or group, left the battlefield altogether if they could, or just stayed with its rider's corpse unless someone else (from either side) took the time to fetch it off the battlefield. They didn't tend to go around freaking out or attacking anything in sight, let alone their own side. Even if they got scared, familiar people and horses would actually more likely help them stay calm if they were nearby, and the horse would likely gravitate towards people and other horses they already knew.
In other eras and cultures it depended on a lot of factors, including how the horses were trained to respond, if they were trained for that particular scenario.
If you're specifically attacking farmers who aren't prepared and who haven't trained their horses for warfare, sure, the horses can certainly panic and cause issues, but that's a very specific situation. In an actual battle scenario where your enemy is prepared, chances are killing their horse is the right call from a tactical standpoint. Even a farm horse can be trained for war if their owner has prior warning, after all, most horses in ww1 came from farms originally.
Not a horse expert by any means, but horses are easily spooked herd animals. I assume a herd of riderless horses would probably form and try to escape from the battle, maybe towards familiar territory / other people and horses?