Hussite war-wagon fortress (vozová hradba)
Fortaleza de carros husita (vozová hradba)
- Date
- 1420 · confidence medium
- Place
- Tábor, South Bohemia, Czechia
- Credited to
- Jan Žižka and the Taborite Hussites
- Field
- Conflict
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A tactic in which farm wagons reinforced with planks, crewed by infantry with handguns and light artillery, form a mobile fortification. It let peasant armies defeat heavy cavalry during the Hussite Wars.
Wagon laagers had been used by steppe peoples and Central European armies before 1420; the Hussite contribution was to systematise them with firearms and a tactical doctrine. The Battle of Sudoměř (March 1420) is usually taken as the first use.
What it led to
- Hussite victories against five crusades between 1420 and 1431
- mass use of handguns and light field artillery
- adoption of wagon forts by armies in Central and Eastern Europe