Image: Wikimedia Commons

cavalry

Soldiers or warriors fighting from horseback

Conceptbranch of service occupation military organizationQ47315

Also known as horsemen · cavalry, trooper · The Cavalry

Instance of: branch of service
, occupation
, military organization
Subclass of: branch of service
Part of: army

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Cavalry are groups of soldiers or warriors who fight mounted on horseback. Until the 20th century, cavalry were the most mobile of the combat arms, operating as light cavalry in the roles of reconnaissance, screening, and skirmishing, or as heavy cavalry for decisive economy of force and shock attacks. An individual soldier in the cavalry is known by designations depending on era and tactics, such as a cavalryman, horseman, trooper, cataphract, knight, drabant, hussar, uhlan, mamluk, cuirassier, lancer, dragoon, samurai or horse archer. The designation of cavalry was not usually given to military forces that used other animals or platforms for mounts, such as chariots, camels or elephants. Infantry who moved on horseback, but dismounted to fight on foot, were known in the early 17th to the early 18th century as dragoons, a class of mounted infantry which in most armies later evolved into standard cavalry while retaining their historic designation.

Overview

All data

54 statements · 22% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Different from: Calvary
calvary
cowboy church
Depicted by: Return of the Cavalry

On other databases

42 identifiers linking cavalry across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

22%

externally sourced

Source last edited October 13, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). cavalry (Q47315). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/cavalry-Q47315