From: c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen)
Subject: Re: Altered history of warfare
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 16:35:09 GMT


From c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen)

In article <BtHx7C.C50@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> phs172m@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au (Stephen Harker) writes:
>
>From phs172m@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au (Stephen Harker)
>
>In article <BtGJ80.12p@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM>, c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen) writes:

>>>This surely depends on the type of cavalry deployed. Crassus had *lots* of
>>>steady firm close order infantry - the Parthians still cut him to pieces.
>> 
>> It was the Parthian _cataphracts_ who rolled them over, _not_ the skirmish-
>> ing horse archers. Besides, Crassus was a poor general, and let his troops
>> to go disorganized in pursuing the lights, thus being easy fodder for the 
>> Parthian super-heavy cavalry. Crassus was an amateur ! Later, the Romans
>> burned and sacked Ctesiphon so many times they got bored with it.
>
>	Actually no it was not the cataphracts.  Surena had a large number
>of horse archers and a small number of cataphracts.  He used the
>cataphracts to threaten the Romans so they did not charge the horse
>archers, and to destroy their cavalry and supporting infantry who did sally
>out.  However the damage was done by the horse archers due to the small
>number of missile troops Crassus had.  The Roman legionaries at
>Tigranocerta (about 30 years before) had charged Mithridates of Pontus's
>cataphracts and defeated them.  Later Parthian attacks agains Rome with
>more cataphracts and fewer horse archers were equally unsucessful.  On the
>whole the Romans had fewer problems with cataphracts than with horse
>archers as the former were less mobile and so easily charged by their heavy
>infantry.  All Roman accounts of Carrhae give the cause of their defeat to
>the horse archers.

I commented about this for Mr. Askew in my posting to him (my previous article)
and it was the cataphracts who finally rolled the Romans over, the horse arch-
ers were used to cause steady stream of casualties (not great, but casualties
still) to the Legionarii, and to irritate the Romans in a rash charge; as the 
Romans became tired and disorganized for charging in vain, they fell as easy
prey for the cataphracts, but this is not to say, that the horse archers did
not have any part for the Roman defeat. Wheen retreating, the Romans were no
longer steady nor firm nor close order foot, and therefore fell easily to the
cavalry. But charging headlong against the Legiones with the lights would
have been something next to suicide, and the lights simply did not have
enough firepower to mow the infantry down like the English did for the French
chivalry; it would have taken too much time, and the Romans could have had
used their own missile troops if the Parthian heavies had not driven them off.

>> Legio - AN TESTUDO ! The Legionarii had their large shields, scuti, 
>	This _was_ one of their problems at Carrhae, the Parthian bows were
>more powerful than those they had faced before and the legionaries found
>the arrows penetrated their shields and armour!  

Yes, and one could also imagine that the equipment used in the East was not as
heavy and protective as it was in Europe, where the climate was not so hot.

>	As the Mongols used heavy armour piercing arrows and could fire as
>fast as the English foot archers the question becomes one of range. 

Not only of the simple range: also the question of the effective lethal
range and the density of fire, in which the massed longbow is superior.

>Because of the superior design of the composite bow they could quite

The construction of the bow is not a factor of how good or how bad a bow is.
A bow is simply a machine of restoring the muscular energy of the archer, the
composite construction only allowing it to be reduced in size. The real problem
is, that most of the 'self' bows are, in fact, of composite construction; the
wood of the bow has been cut off near the surface of the tree, therefore comb-
ining the heartwood and sapwood, improving its properties.

>possibly achieve accurate fire at the same ranges.

Accurate - not; the horse archer can not use his whole musculature as the
foot archer can; he has to also control his horse wit his legs, this again
reducing the accuracy of his fire. Also fire from a moving, bouncing
platform is never as accurate than from steady foot: third, a horse and
a man is much larger target than just a man. 
  
>What evidence I have seen suggests that Mongol bows were comparable in
>range and penetrating power to longbows.  I also suspect that the Mongols
>would have used their mobility to avoid the favourite set piece battles of
>the English, unlike the French who allowed the English time to set up their
>formations and then made frontal attacks.

Certainly, but is there room to manouevre in the Central Europe ? No. Also
I would think that the castles would have become a great problem for
the Mongols, who lacked sufficient siege equipment. The only places
manouevre cavalry warfare vould have successfully employed are Spain, Russia
and Hungary, where there is enough plains to manouevre, elsewhere a pithc-
ed battle will happen sooner or later. Would Tulughma tactics have worked
against well disciplined English, that is another question.

>Stephen Harker			phs172m@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
>Monash University		Baloney baffles brains: Eric Frank Russell


  ++ Tuomas Viljanen                     ++ For a battle like Crecy, you do  ++
  ++ Lahderanta 20 A 19                  ++ not need a military genius like  ++
  ++ SF-02720 Espoo 72 FINLAND           ++ Edward III. All you need is an   ++
  ++ 358-0-592175 or c34657b@saha.hut.fi ++ idiot like the Duke of Alencon.  ++

Newsgroups: sci.military