"Not e'en the Centaurs - - offspring of the Cloud
Were horsed more firmly than this savage crowd.
Brisk, lithe, in loose array they first come on,
Fly, turn, attack the foe who deems them gone."
- Marcellinus
My impression of the Huns [and all the images I can find seem to suggest this is so] is that of the steppe nomad light cavalry warrior, wreaking havoc from the back of a horse. Light cavalry eschewing any body armor, using primarily the horse-bow as a weapon while also being able to close with the adversary using lance and short sword, but always fighting from horse back.
THIS IS NOT SO?
From the book: "THE FALL of the ROMAN EMPIRE" by Arthur Ferrill.
". . . nomadic horse nations require enormous stretches of suitable territory for the support of their horses. To get the speed, mobility and range necessary for effective raiding, nomads needed many remounts for every cavalryman . . . If one assumes that the Huns used ten horses per cavalryman for large-scale horse campaigns and that the Great Hungarian Plain (with some 42,400 square kilometers of pasture) could have supported only about 150,000 grazing horse, then there were enough for approximated 15,000 cavalry."
"'when the Huns first appeared on the steppe north of the Black Sea, they were nomads and most of them may have been mounted warriors. In Europe, however, they could graze only a fraction of their former horse-power, and the chiefs soon fielded armies which resembled the sedentary forces of Rome.'"
Is is reputed the Mongol Horde on the advance more than anything else resembled a moving menagerie or stockyard. Four to five remounts [?] per warrior, sheep, camel and oxen pulling the platform mounted yurts of the most senior commanders.
At Chalons for instance, the Hun fielded an army mostly of men-a-foot and not cavalry? This is so? Devoted readers who know about this can comment?
coolbert.