Mounted Warfare

Questions or discussions about Almea or Verduria-- also the Incatena. Also good for postings in Almean languages.
Post Reply
ils

Mounted Warfare

Post by ils »

Just in response to these points about mounted warfare from Glenn Kempf:

GLENN:
"With regard to Bronze Age warfare and horses: it's true that before the invention of the stirrup, fighting from horseback was difficult to do."

...although this doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't done. The Macedonian army that came under Alexander the Great's command had developed the art of fighting with the lance from horseback even without stirrups, making Alexander's armies (and those of the Successor States) unique on the battlefields of the ancient world in that they had heavy cavalry as their most decisive arm rather than infantry. So it can be done, albeit rarely.

GLENN:
"There seem to be two main solutions: [snip, Glenn talks about the use of horses for creating more mobile infantry and about the indisputable historical importance of the war chariot]"

A third and very important solution needs mentioning, which is light cavalry armed with bows -- a method that constituted the bulk of the uses of cavalry up until the invention of the stirrup and that retained much popularity even afterwards (the Muslim horsemen of the Crusades, frex, like the Mamluks and the Saracen Faris, were basically light cavalry on this mould). The cavalry archer was more maneuverable, and less expensive to maintain, than a chariot, and good light cavalry armed with bows could be devastating in the hands of an able commander.

ils

zompist
Boardlord
Boardlord
Posts: 3368
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2002 8:26 pm
Location: In the den
Contact:

Re: Mounted Warfare

Post by zompist »

ils wrote:A third and very important solution needs mentioning, which is light cavalry armed with bows -- a method that constituted the bulk of the uses of cavalry up until the invention of the stirrup and that retained much popularity even afterwards (the Muslim horsemen of the Crusades, frex, like the Mamluks and the Saracen Faris, were basically light cavalry on this mould). The cavalry archer was more maneuverable, and less expensive to maintain, than a chariot, and good light cavalry armed with bows could be devastating in the hands of an able commander.
I'm reading a few books on ancient warfare, and I'm still struggling to understand the uses of chariots vs. cavalry. My understanding so far is that chariots were most popular precisely in the epoch before horses alone could be used in battle: the chariot allowed mobility and firepower, while horse riders at that time couldn't be used to do much more in battle than throw spears or maybe run down lone footmen.

Chariots seem to have been very expensive, and rather vulnerable (all that exposed horseflesh on the front); surely they were also less maneuverable than a horse and rider. So, if I understand the sequence well, as soon as even light cavalry was possible, chariots were given up.

ils

Re: Mounted Warfare

Post by ils »

zompist wrote:I'm reading a few books on ancient warfare, and I'm still struggling to understand the uses of chariots vs. cavalry. My understanding so far is that chariots were most popular precisely in the epoch before horses alone could be used in battle: the chariot allowed mobility and firepower, while horse riders at that time couldn't be used to do much more in battle than throw spears or maybe run down lone footmen.
I confess I'm not totally clear on the sequence of things myself. The military advantages of the chariot are clear (a stable platform from which to hurl death), but the drawbacks seem more numerous than those of light cavalry at pretty much <i>any</i> point in history, which makes the whole thing something of an enigma. So there must be other factors involved in the use of one over the other. A few possibilities occur off the top of my head:

1. Cultural factors. Perhaps chariots were prized in some situations not strictly for their military use, but also because they provided conspicuous displays of wealth and status. Military historians are starting to gain an appreciation of how powerful this kind of cultural influence could be -- often powerful enough to trump practical considerations far longer than one would expect. (Needless to say, this would also complicate a timeline of transitions from one technology to the other.)

2. Perhaps there are technologies less well known than the modern stirrup that contributed added stability and accuracy to the light cavalryman, like the toe stirrup, and without which light cavalry just wasn't as effective as chariots. (This argument seems strained to me, though; the basic technologies involved are all prehistoric, and some of the best light cavalry in history -- the American Plains Indians -- rode bareback.)

3. An answer could lie in the size of horses themselves. It could be that horses that could pull a chariot in teams were not necessarily robust enough to carry a single rider on their backs without getting winded quickly. In that case, cavalry would have awaited larger breeds of horse to make its appearance.

I'd guess you're looking at a combination of these factors. No doubt there are many more I haven't thought of.

User avatar
Jaaaaaa
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 165
Joined: Fri Sep 13, 2002 6:01 pm
Location: Illinois, USA
Contact:

Post by Jaaaaaa »

Uh... I know NOTHING about ancient military tech, so can someone tell me exaclty whathow heavy cav is diff form light an vicey versey?

Guest

Post by Guest »

Emai! On board again at last…

I should note that I wrote my initial post on chariots and mounted warfare more or less of the top of my head, based on previous reading. I have certainly read passages (mostly in praise of the Mongol/Turkic peoples) claiming that a mounted archer with stirrups was far more effective than one without (primarily due to the added stability, enabling them to twist and bend without fear of falling), but there’s also the Plains Indians example…drat.

With regard to chariots, I think ils has it right on all of the major factors listed—chariots do indeed seem to be associated with kings and champions, and there is clearly a prestige factor involved. Size and breed of horses definitely played a role as well; the type of horses available helps dictate what you can do with them. The heavily armored European knights of the later Middle Ages required huge beasts the size of modern draft horses to carry all that armor, while their Arabian counterparts breed smaller, but swift an agile steeds.

(An aside: in The 13th Warrior, an otherwise indifferent movie (I preferred the book), one of the nice touches of Antonio Banderes as the lone Arab in a party of Norsemen is his Arabian horse, which looks like a miniature pony next to the Vikings’ larger mounts. Another nice touch, not in the book, occurs near the end, when Banderes removes his Viking boots in order to pray barefoot as a proper Muslim before the final battle.)

Finally, chariots do seem to fade away once large-scale cavalry became effective, but I’m not sure exactly when or how (or whether they were gradually turned more into devices of sport rather than war).

I leave tomorrow on a four-day train journey to attend a workshop Russia; back in two and a half weeks. In the meantime, I’ll mull it over on the train…

Ad onlelan,
Glenn

Glenn
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 316
Joined: Mon Sep 16, 2002 3:43 am
Location: Virginia, USA/Tiolu, Kiarlon

Post by Glenn »

Hey! I ain't no guest!

Sorry--I seem to have logged off inadvertently while sending the message above. :oops: Good thing I signed it. :)

My previous posts also don't seem to be listed in the index yet--probably just a matter of time. That's OK, though; I can wait, and I'm not hungry for credit. :)

Take care,
Glenn

ils

Mounted Warfare

Post by ils »

Jaaaaaa wrote:Uh... I know NOTHING about ancient military tech, so can someone tell me exaclty whathow heavy cav is diff form light an vicey versey?
The way I'm using the terms here, "light cavalry" basically denotes lightly armoured, highly mobile cavalry armed with ranged weapons who were used to harry and demoralize an enemy in order to create decisive openings for the infantry. They could also be used effectively for recon and to pursue a retreating enemy. Light cavalry didn't necessarily need the "modern" stirrup to work, because it was possible (albeit probably more difficult) to employ their most effective tactic -- sniping from a distance -- without it. We've mentioned a few examples of light cavalry already.

"Heavy cavalry" by contrast (at least to me) signifies cavalry used as hand-to-hand shock troops, to charge and decisively rout a massed enemy. The medieval European knight is the canonical example of this; I should think the Japanese samurai and the cataphracts of the late Roman Empire also apply.

-
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 485
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2002 2:13 am

spectacle and the ghosts of war

Post by - »

Anonymous wrote:Finally, chariots do seem to fade away once large-scale cavalry became effective, but I?m not sure exactly when or how (or whether they were gradually turned more into devices of sport rather than war).
A good example of the transition to devices of sport is, of course, the hippodromes of the Roman Empire (esp. the Byzantine Empire, paralleled none-too-subtly in Guy Gavriel Kay's Sarantium novels).

To bring things back to Almea... this seems like a good time to ask Mark if he's thought about the cultures of sport / spectacle in the major cultures of Erelae, be it Cadhinas, Xurno or even Munkhash / Dhekhnam.
Oh THAT'S why I was on hiatus. Right. Hiatus Mode re-engaged.

User avatar
JT_the_Ninja
Sanci
Sanci
Posts: 50
Joined: Fri Sep 13, 2002 1:54 pm
Location: Nowhere
Contact:

Post by JT_the_Ninja »

I was actually thinking of eliminating horses from the Athanire scene, for the sole reason that I can't see a race that would need them. Why have them, if no race is going to take advantage of them?

zompist
Boardlord
Boardlord
Posts: 3368
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2002 8:26 pm
Location: In the den
Contact:

Post by zompist »

JonathanaTegire wrote:I was actually thinking of eliminating horses from the Athanire scene, for the sole reason that I can't see a race that would need them. Why have them, if no race is going to take advantage of them?
Hey, planets aren't just for the Thinking Kinds. There's always a niche for large grass-eating herbivores.... though they don't have to be horses. In the Andes, it was llamas and similar animals; in Australia it was kangaroos. (At least, I think that's their niche.)

User avatar
So Haleza Grise
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 432
Joined: Fri Sep 13, 2002 11:17 pm

kangaroos

Post by So Haleza Grise »

Yes, that is largely true as far as I know. Of course, they don't usually nowdays live in the few big grassy plains we have (in New South Wales, mainly, around the Blue Mountains) since these have long been taken over by sheep. Some kangaroos can subsist in semi-arid areas - or at least i assume they can, since a large number of indigenous groups hunted them.

And no, you can't ride kangaroos. They're not really big enough, for one thing.

I know that wallabies (which of course, are smaller cousins of the kangaroo) like to live in bushland and scrub, and of course then there are the rock wallabies (to say nothing of the rugby-playing kind).

Note that modern-day kangaroos are nothing compared to the megafauna that used to wander around here . . . kangaroos twice as tall as a man, massive, horse-sized wombats.

Jared Diamond blames the extinction of the megafauna on the arrivial of the aboriginal population - they were hunted to extinction within a very short space of time.

User avatar
Jaaaaaa
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 165
Joined: Fri Sep 13, 2002 6:01 pm
Location: Illinois, USA
Contact:

Post by Jaaaaaa »

Jaaaaaa wrote:
Uh... I know NOTHING about ancient military tech, so can someone tell me exaclty whathow heavy cav is diff form light an vicey versey?


The way I'm using the terms here, "light cavalry" basically denotes lightly armoured, highly mobile cavalry armed with ranged weapons who were used to harry and demoralize an enemy in order to create decisive openings for the infantry. They could also be used effectively for recon and to pursue a retreating enemy. Light cavalry didn't necessarily need the "modern" stirrup to work, because it was possible (albeit probably more difficult) to employ their most effective tactic -- sniping from a distance -- without it. We've mentioned a few examples of light cavalry already.

"Heavy cavalry" by contrast (at least to me) signifies cavalry used as hand-to-hand shock troops, to charge and decisively rout a massed enemy. The medieval European knight is the canonical example of this; I should think the Japanese samurai and the cataphracts of the late Roman Empire also apply.
Ah, I see! Thanks!

User avatar
JT_the_Ninja
Sanci
Sanci
Posts: 50
Joined: Fri Sep 13, 2002 1:54 pm
Location: Nowhere
Contact:

Post by JT_the_Ninja »

Oh, there are definitely grazing animals on Athanire. Don't know if there are any big enough to ride though. Much of the continent upon which exists Tegireserana is a plain / grassland.

All I'm saying is that the races of Athanire don't have a need for beasts of burden. Likely an early development of the wheel, coupled with a tradition of hand-pulled carts. Still rather rough.

Post Reply