From: jaskew@spam.maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew)
Subject: Re: Altered history of warfare
Followup-To: sci.military
Summary: Some serious misunderstanding here
Organization: Statistics, Pure & Applied Mathematics, University of Adelaide
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 13:10:29 GMT


From jaskew@spam.maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew)


Because of not getting sci.military this last week and a serious bout of the
'flu this reply is a little late - apologies all round to those who are bored
with this thread already, but I would like to correct a few points and I'm
afraid I'm one of those people who just *has* to get the last word :-)

In article <Bsw11M.EC@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen) writes:
>From c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen)

>In article <1992Jul28.125443.23382@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> jaskew@spam.maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew) writes:
>>From jaskew@spam.maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew)

>>In article <1992Jul22.170140.20249@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> Mike.Hoffmann@sniap.mchp.sni.de (Mike Hoffmann) writes:
>>>From Mike.Hoffmann@sniap.mchp.sni.de (Mike Hoffmann)

>>>In article <1992Jul20.134124.27197@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> ecrjbruce@economics.adelaide.edu.au writes:

>>>>The ideal draught animal would be fast and eat garbage.

>Goats ? ;-)

That's a thought - it would have to be pretty big though - 6 feet tall mutant
goat? I think it's something to think about :-) (But NOT do - have you ever
smelt a *3* foot tall goat?)

>>>In earlier times the cavalry had the status of auxiliary troops that didn't
>>>operate independantly (Romans-although I am aware that in the later Imperium
>>>this had changed a bit).

>>>Or the horses were simply carriers for nobility -
>>>who often as not than fought unmounted.

O.K. If you can actually keep up with these arrows then what I said was in
response to this guy whose name has been deleted. As you can see the Mongol
army did *not* fit the pattern he is descibing above. It is in this sense
that I use the word 'auxilary'. (No offense intended about the arrows - I
am having problems in keeping track). This is just so that everyone can see
the quibble about Cavalry below


              < Stuff about horses and armour deleted >

(One other point to remember which I don't think you mentioned in the
stuff I deleted is that modern reconstructions use as models those suits
which have survived. These tend to be 'show' pieces which were never
intended to be used in battle - dress armour if you like. Real armour
got battered and dented and so didn't get put into peoples homes as
interesting conversation pieces (and so aren't in museums nowadays).)

>>Ah, but you're thinking of European Cavalry only. The nomadic peoples who
>>were serious about horse warfare didn't have this experience at all. Mongol
>>horsemen were supposed to move 100 kilometers in a day! Regardless if this
>>is true or not
>
>True, indeed !

The Mongols hold a 'game' for their children to this day which involves being
tied to a horse (only for safety purposes!) and galloping (or whatever term
is used to describe the funny gait Mongol horses have) over a 100 mile course.
When the winner arrives he looks more dead and alive but they do it regularly.


This is where the main point is - this is why that stuff up the top is still
there - I would move it but I'm too sick to be bothered.

>> Nor were their horses just carriers for the nobility either let alone aux-
>> iliary troops.
>
>Close but no cigar. The Mongol field armies might have consisted of more than
>70 % of auxiliaries, varying from western and Armenian knights to Chinese
>and Korean force-levied infantry. These were used in various tasks, the
>commander-in-chief always being a Mongol, though.

O.K. This is a misunderstanding about the term 'auxilary'. The term to stress
is 'just' as in 'only'. The point was also about the cavalry itself - the
Mongol Armies were primarily cavalry of various types ie the *cavalry* was
not auxilary to the Army it was the primary force used. And I'm not sure that
the commander was always a Mongol - I have some memory of one of the better
Generals being from a closely related tribe but not quite a Mongol - Don't
quote me though I'ld want to look that up. As for auxilaries, when does the
army cease to be Mongol? By the time of the Yuan Dynasty was first set up
they were but by the time they were overthrown? This is another Roman cavalry
difference between early practise and later times. I take the point about
the infantry - more Koreans than Mongols in the invasion of Japan I believe.
Just how effective they would have been (weather permitting) is another
matter. How do you take into account mass but useless levies?

>>They were fast and the Mongol (Turkish/Uighur/Kirghiz/Manchu/Arab/insert other
>> here) army had little else.

>Please re-read your history books. The Mongol armies had up to 60% of their
>army light horse-archers, which were used mainly as skirmishers, 20-50% heavy
>lancers which were the striking force of the army (after the skirmishers had
>had the enemy tired and disorganized in vain charges), the rest being extra-
>heavy lancers (for difficult cases, like at Liegnitz), infantry (like against
>the Siamese), naffatun etc.

Isn't this roughly what I said? The Mongol Army was almost all cavalry - of
differing types true but cavalry none the less. I certainly consider the
Horse Archer to be cavalry as is the Lancer - although I think that the 20-50%
you quote shouldn't be called 'heavy'. They weren't that seriously armoured
surely? Certainly not at the beginning. Hmm, maybe I said they were almost
all archers...In that case humble apologies, I do know they weren't *all*.

>The steppe hordes were more a nuisance than a real threat for a good general.
>They could be shot into pieces by infantry archers or rolled over by lancers
>when caught. The Huns won only in Hollywood !

I would qualify this to say that Steppe Hordes were a nuisance to well
organised countries only. Whenever the agricultural states broke down so
far that they couldn't buy intimidate or even effectively fight them they
rolled over everyone. As to being rolled over by lancers they are usually
very hard to catch, these nomads, and they can often go around any infantry
if they are smart enough - no foot soldier moved 100 miles a day!

Besides I thought the Huns won in Italy too - they were bought off by the
Pope weren't they - else Rome would have been just a smoking ruin. And their
close friends the Goths got to sack Athens, the Visgoths got to rule Spain,
the Vandals of course *did* sack Rome and the Franks got to keep France to
this day (well sort of).

>Arab armies relied heavily on spear- and bow-armed infantry, their cavalry
>being medium cav lancers and javelin-armed light cavalry (which were, in fact,
>more effective than mounted archers). Bow-armed light cavalry were almost
>totally absent in Arab armies.

The Arab armies that first left Arabia and invaded Syria and Persia was
pretty much all cavalry - of varying types. The Arabs didn't think much
of infantry at all giving them a much smaller share of the loot. I agree
that Bow-armed cavalry was pretty much absent but javelin throwers on
horse back are similar in nature. But do you really think that you could
throw a javelin further than an archer could shoot? More accuracy perhaps
but I'm not so sure of that either. How do you judge efficiency?
(Historical note - the Arabs allowed converts to Islam to be infantry only
for many years. The Cavalry was reserved for the 'pure' blooded Arabs. This
must be a sign of it's importance)

>After all, cavalry is nearly useless against steady, firm close-order infantry.
>The best countermeasure for mounted knights were dismounted knights with axes
>or two-handed swords, and as good infantry finally was developed, the knights
>fought primarily dismounted from about 1330 onwards, and the knights were, in
>fact, even more efficient as infantry than as cavalry.

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.
If the infantry can't get to grips with the horsemen they are just going
to get cut up - if the horsemen can fire at them. I'll agree that cavalry
doesn't often cut through well ordered infantry lines but if you line your
infantry up against horse archers who shoot and run (aka Parthian shot) then
you're in real trouble. You may as well just cut their throats for them.

>Armor was extremely important for medieval armies (both infantry and cavalry)
>before the evolution of efficient firearms. It had nothing to do with cavalry,
>it is only question of firearms.

Ah but the question asked was would it be *more* important. I don't think
it would matter much either way but come down on the side of 'slightly but
less'. As I said soldiers usually carry their own armour not having horses
wouldn't make them carry more. And I agree it has little to do with cavalry
hence not having horses wouldn't change much.

>>The Romans didn't use cavalry very much and it can be pretty much ignored.
>
>False. The importance of cavalry rose in course of time, until during the Late
>Imperial times the percentage of heavy cavalry in the armies could exceed 50%.
>Later, the Byzantines relied almost exclusively on their kataphraktoi.
>Roman cavalry just can not be neglected, although it is often denigrated.

Yeah OK I was sloppy, the Roman Republic and Early Empire didn't much use
cavalry. It was only when they were on the defensive that it became so
important. The important thing to remember is that the Romans didn't have
adquate horse collars, stirrups or horse shoes. Their horses couldn't move
along those roads because of no shoes nor could they be really controlled
without stirrups. My main point is that the lack of Horse power would not
have stopped the Romans conquering most of the known world thus countering
the speculation that lack of horses would mean smaller countries.

>>and the Chinese didn't go for horses
>>much because they couldn't fit them into their argicultural systems very well.
>>You try to raise a horse in a rice paddy and see how far you get. The Chinese
>>had to buy them from the very people they used them against
>
>...like Son Ze tells in his "Art of War"...

Also those places where horses were bred were inevitably the places where the
Nomads first appeared. In the late Tang period when the Tibetans invaded they
carried off 10,000's of horses from the Imperial breeding grounds which were
of course right next to the Steppe.... Serious problems for later Emperors

>>The interesting question is not what would no animals be like but what if
>>Europe had a *better* animal. The Romans used wheeled waggons in North
>>Africa, but when the Arabs took over they brought the Camel with them.
>>Camels work better than waggons so the road system fell out of usage and
>>the camel ruled. Europe couldn't use camels so they had to come up with
>>canals, then railroads then cars etc. If the camel didn't hate snow and rain
>>so much then the modern world would be very different. The Arabs gradually
>>stopped using wheeled transport very much while England had to think up
>>something better.
>
>Just tell that to the Spanish Hidalgos that a camel is a better beast than
>a horse ,- well, they showed the opposite being true. Camels are of little
>combat value, but as transport animals they are good, mules are still better.
>Elephants ?????

Noone who has *ever* had any experience with camels would say that they are
anywhere near donkeys even as animals but they are very good beasts of burden.
They carry a lot and for quite some way - they are better than mules even.
The point was not about military animals but about transportation - if Europe
had a better beast of burden than oxen et al then the wheel may have been
forgotten, as it was in North Africa, as far as transport was concerned.

As for elephants, people who should know tell me that they are pretty bad.
They can move a lot but only for short periods of time and that they eat
too much and need too much rest. Besides Elephants don't readily breed in
captivity so you need to live next to a tropical rainforest to constantly
restock! As for their military value I have seen pictures of Khmer Rouge
soldiers travelling on the back on Elephants. I don't see they would be
much use to anyone.

>Tuomas Viljanen

Joseph Askew
jaskew@spam.maths.adelaide.edu.au

Newsgroups: sci.military