If you serch for photos of the Dragao and the Squalo, you will see how too many similarity he have with the Squalo. Probably I will use this as "a Dragao".
Handy in the pike and shot period of fighting. Being able to rapidly deploy an entire pike block to a certain area in the midst of a large battle can swing things quickly.
And, in the form of mounted rifles, for quite a while after that. Use horses for mobility (there are several advantages to that: way better cross-country capability than early wheeled vehicles, don't require spare parts or techniczed rear echelon, and "fuelling" is easier too). Dismount, fight on foot, remount for maneuver. Downside: you tend to lose about 1/3 of your manpower effectively (somebody has to keep the horses in the rear area, available and ready for quick re-mount. Practice indcated that one man can take care of two extra horses in this fashion, in addition to his own), and when on horseback, this type of troop is pretty vulnerable to gunfire, especially with high-ROF weapons. You can also use the option of mounted charge, though it typically requires a very specific set of circumstances to be successful in the post-Napoleonic era.
Technically dragoons weren't trained for mounted combat, but it would happen in a pinch if needed. Their use was one of the reasons lancers stayed useful for so long too. They were a great target for a lightly armored strike force.
Lancers, Cuirassiers, Hussars are all mounted warfare, iirc. Dragoons were designed to dismount, but a guy with a cavalry saber coming at you is still no joke. Carabiniers could go both ways as I recall.
Yep different levels of armoring. Though that is getting further out of my 16th century wheelhouse. Carabiniers tend to be horseborn as a long gun is much a more difficult to shoot from horseback. As with the dragoons though, necessity in the heat of the battle could lead to...adaptation, but that would be infrequent. Also worth noting that early carabiniers were the most technically advanced guns. You really don't want to be dealing with match while on a horse so they would get the nifty wheel-locks.
There was a cavalry pursuit/charge within the last 20 years in Afghanistan, by American Special Ops troops. More chasing broken/fleeing troops than an actual charge, though.
thats kinda the point. bershebs was a charge and one on the order of magnitude that a Special forces operation just really doesnt get too.
Tooting my own national horn, I know, but I'd say it really worked at Schoenfeld as well. Which it was quite a few years later than Beersheba. And Komarów (twenty five years before Schoenfeld) deserves a mention, too...
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that went into horse stuff really fast :D thanks for all your answers and suggestions for proxies. I rarely play, I just liked the Acon starter miniatures and wanted to paint them one day, so i guess I will have to hurry and get a pack of them before they become ancient and too expensive. now back to horses please!