A horse archer (or horsed archer, mounted archer) is a cavalryman armed with a bow. Because using a bow requires a horseman to let go of the reins with both hands, horse archers need superb equestrian skills. Horse archery is typically associated with steppe nomads. Peoples known to have employed horse archers include the Scythians, Sarmatians, Parthians, Huns and Mongols. In Japan mounted archery is called Yabusame.

Drawing a bow requires of an archer to put weight behind his bowarm i. e. standing still. Arrows however have a relatively low lethality, and are useless at close quarters. Foot archers were therefore highly vulnerable, especially against armoured opponents. Horse archers, with their weight resting on horseback could nock and loose arrows in motion. A famous tactic was the Parthian shot, turning away from an enemy while continuing shooting (for this reason, the term parthian arrow can also apply to a particular nasty parting remark).

The weapon of choice for horse archers was the recurve bow, because it was compact enough to shoot from a horse and retained sufficient range and penetrating power. The only threat to horse archers were arrows and they could wheel away out of bowshot after every attack. They therefore needed little or no armour and could ride light mounts such as ponies. This made them cheap to equip and increased their strategic mobility.

A drawback of horse archers was that the movements of a running horse disturbed the accuracy of the shot. After the invention of the stirrup, horse archers would stand up in their stirrups to absorb the motion of the horse. Another method to facilitate accurate shooting was to time shots between the strides of the horse.

Horse archers played a pivotal role in the battles of Carrhae and Liegnitz. In both cases horse archers won the day because their opponents depended on direct contact. Horse archers were eventually made obsolete by the development of modern firearms.

See also:

• Yabusame
• archery
• Hun bow
• composite bow
• Hungarian bow
• horseback migration