For those of you who wish to see the survivors of the Charge of the Light Brigade see Roger Fenton's fine early photograph made in the field. Go to my Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/finnegansword/5536163144/
and for those who wish to hear the bugle call that rallied the men, why not try https://archive.org/details/EDIS-SWDPC-01-04

Lord George Paget (who led the 4th Light Dragoons in the Charge) makes a similar point in his memoir. To wit (p. 205):
[The Light Brigade] attacked a line of 18 field guns, and they disabled them.
Cavalry, I conceive, cannot
take
guns, in the light of
retaining
them. [emphasis in the original]
When they have disabled guns, it is all that can be expected of them, and this they did, and it cannot be construed in the light of a defeat that they could not retain them.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Paget%2C_George_-T he_Light_Cavalry_Brigade_in_the_Crimea%281881%29.pdf
Not to take away from the question of whether the Charge should have happened in the first place. But worth considering.
"The melancholy truth was that his glorious golden head had nothing in it."

The main goal is to achieve your objective, not to kill as many enemies as possible.
"No man is just a number"

It may be noted that the number killed in the charge was nothing compared to the 16,000 British troops who died from dysentery in the Crimean War.
Hygiene at that time was appalling and clean water was something people talked about.

Not to mention Kut and the first two Battles of Gaza.
"Away, laddy - or I'll burn you to a crispy noodle!"

More Turkish troops than British troops were killed at Balaclava. The Turks were described, unfairly, as cowardly by British media coverage. Tennyson? He was nowhere near the place.
British contempt for the Turks led to Winston Churchill's underestimation of Turkish willingness to defend their own country, leading to the catastrophic invasion of Gallipoli during World War I.
The Turks lost many battles in Palestine, but defended their home patch valiantly. Churchill later got it right about Hitler, but he was dead wrong about Turkey in 1915.

Old post, I know, but still worth answering.
I don't think anyone questions the British cavalry's performance at Balaclava; it's the staggering percentage of casualties - and the failure to accomplish anything - that makes the Charge such a grievous blunder. Of 673 mounted men that began, 247 were killed or wounded; when the missing are added in, the number is 297. 297 of 673 is
44 percent casualties
. That's appalling. After regrouping, only 195 men were left with mounts. Well over 400 horses were killed. And, all this loss of life was basically for naught. The guns captured by the Russians, and retaken by the French (
not
the Light Brigade), had already been spiked, and were useless.
So, I must respectfully disagree. IMHO, I don't think it's inaccurate to term such a futile, fruitless deed - however valiantly carried out - a disaster, especially when it resulted in so much senseless loss of life.