Similar question has been answered by u/vonadler in the following topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5bxwou/polish_winged_hussars_were_known_for_being/

Winged hussars of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were indeed renowned for their combat prowess, but, of course, they were not invincible neither they were universally useful. They posed great threat to dense lines of unprotected infantry, were able to break the lines of musketeers and even the pikemen, commonly used by Swedes in 17th century, but proved much less capable in battles against Tartars (who utilised predominantly light, highly maneuverable cavalry) and Cossacks (often resorting to wagon fort tactics and field fortifications). In above cases hussars were unable to use their most effective tactic, i.e. the frontal charge. In 1665, Sebastian Cefali, secretary of Jerzy Lubomirski, Polish field commander in his 'Summary of political and military condition of Poland' wrote as follows: 'Hussar regiments were almost completely neglected during the wars with Cossacks and Tartars, as they were of limited use against the enemy who didn't know the proper way of fighting. But when the war with Sweden and Muscovy started, hussars returned to their former standing'.

Hussars were rather unique among other European and Middle Eastern forces in late 16th and 17th century because they retained some characteristics of the medieval cavalry, at the same time employing modern strategy and tactics. In other words, when other cavalry regiments were reducing the amount of protection provided by armours, and transformed into dragoons or light cavalry, often using firearms and caracole tactics, hussars swore by relatively heavy armour and long lances with the frontal charge as their main type of attack, at the same time adopting maneuverability typical for lighter troops.

One of the distinctive tactics used by Hussars and generally not utilised anywhere else was conducting charge in very loose formation, decreasing the vulnerability to enemy fire (both in terms of actual wound chance and tripping over obstacles including fallen soldiers or horses) and to maintain unit cohesion. Ranks were closed immediately before clashing with the enemy lines. This gave the hussars unparalelled maneuverability, and enabling them to break the charge and return to initial positions almost to the last seconds of charge. Loose formation also made in easier to perform movements with entire regiment.

One of the most commonly trained maneuver (and thus assumed to be most crucial) was stopping and turning 180 degrees within the circle of small diameter, simulating withdrawal in a dense formation. Horses were extensively trained so that they were able to make a full turn in the 10-foot wheel. After that, horse was considered to be able to take part in mass training, conducted with either full regiment or its substantial part. This was important, because hussars were usually charging multiple times during a single battle; during the Battle of Polonka hussar regiments were successfully charging the enemy up to 6 times, and 8 or even 10 consecutive charges were not unheard of. This, along with the descriptions of the tactics I wrote above, gives a strong assumption that hussars were attacking the enemy with long lances, initially disrupting him what helped them to avoid immediate retaliation, then were withdrawing to replace broken lances, change horses and take care of the wounded and then were repeating the assault, whittling the numbers and morale of the enemy. Given the resilience and speed of the horses, these maneuvers could be repeated quite quickly, leaving enemy infantry little chance to send reinforcements or even withdraw in formation.

One might wonder wheter such tactics were not too risky, as every attack meant the possibility of harm to horse or the rider (either was usually eliminating the soldier from attack). Officials rosters of the hussar regiments give us interesting data detailing the number of killed and wounded during combat. Despite good development of 17th century firearms, casualties during charges against enemy musketeers were surprisingly low. For example, during the Battle of Gniew in 1626, two regiments of polish hussars attacked positions of two musketeer squadrons (roughly 600 soldiers) supported by 6 field guns. Polish cavalry made three assault attempts to no avail, yet despite almost 1800 bulets and around 20 artillery shells fired by Swedes, Polish side lost only between 25 and 40 cavalrymen (i.e. about 10 per attack, amounting to 5% of the total strength). Polish Historian Radoslaw Sikora, analysing such reports gives an estimation that in the 17th century, for one hussar killed in action, there were 3 wounded soldiers, 2 killed horses and 4 wounded horses. This is important because despite relatively low numbers of fatalities, the attack could be stopped, if in charge 60 riders out of roughly 300 were unable to continue the attack. Bartosz Paprocki in 1578 writes: 'Military exercises have to train the soldier so that he is able to properly stand in the formation, move quickly where ordered to and move apart or together as necessary'.

Another important element of the hussars' tactics was the use of the long lance, directly derived from the medieval knight's lance (in English and German historiography, the word lance/Lanze mean two different weapons - one is the earlier, heavy and long weapon used by medieval heavy cavalry, the other is much shorter, thin weapon used until 20th century and still utilised by parade units, here we are talking about the first one). This weapon was usually hollowed inside on almost whole length (this was usually achieved by cutting the shaft in half, hollowing the halves and them gluing them together and reinforcing them with leather straps of hemp and pitch) what allowed to produce weapon that was relatively long while maintaining low weight. Preserved specimens are usually about 5 meters (15-17 feet) long, but contemporary sources mention lances reaching 3 Polish fathoms (6.2 m or almost 20 feet). As mentioned above, such weapons were very light, as the specimens preserved in Kórnik, Poland measure 4.6-4.8 meter with a weight between 2 and 2.5 kg (4.5-6 lbs). This also meant two important drawbacks of this otherwise great weapon: it was rather brittle and was expected to break after the initial attack and tedious production process made it rather expensive (16th-century hussars' lance was, on average, ten times as expensive as the footman's pike).

It should be noted that hussars' armament was very diverse, and the soldiers themselves were usually very well trained, adding to their versatility. Depending on the circumstances, hussars were using long lances for the frontal charges, but they were also skilled in the use of much shorter spear (traditional weapon of other heavy cavalry units), sabres and pistols. This versatility, compounded with good training, unique equipment (among their contemporaries, at least) as well as its cooperation with other types of troops made winged hussars notably efficient.

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