>>50098297>Historically, Horse Archers have been GOAT, they really did not have a counterWrong. Other horse archers for one thing. And well entrenched infantry. Nomads are highly susceptible to Combined Arms.
>until the matchlock firearm/pikemen formation was adapted.Wrong again. Pike & Shot was only ever effective in close confines (i.e. Yurop). In Asian Steppes? Nope. Way too slow moving. In Asia, the civilizations of the Persians, Russians, and Chinese all developed anti-nomad tactics based on 1) A huge cavalry force and 2) a mostly ranged infantry force.
Cavalry fights the duel of horse archers in the steppes. Infantry is there with their crossbows, bows, and later on, guns & cannons to provide covering fire (while entrenched) to returning allied cavalry. Nomads meanwhile can't attack this and are forced to flee. While the rearmed & rested civilized cavalry can chase them to their families and killed them.
Huge blocks of pike &shot is too slow for that shit. Case in point: both Japan and China had pike and shot tactics. But only Japan developed theirs due to Europeanlike conditions of fighting in Japan, while the Chinese didn't really develop it and favored whole bleeding lines of muskets & crossbowmen & archers.
Interestingly, Russians and Chinese also developed mobile fortification tactics for defending infantry while they wait for cavalry.
In the end, the Nomads really weren't ended by gunpowder, but by the double penetration of Tsarist Russia and Ming/Qing Chinese expansion.
tl;dr Horse archer invincibility is a meme. Shit has been there for millenia. Don't think the civilizations of Asia were idiots.
