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


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

In article <BtJo0B.9q8@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> jaskew@spam.maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew) writes:
>
>From jaskew@spam.maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew)
>
>
>This is rapidly becoming the thread that wouldn't die. Still once more into
>the breach and all that.

The thread that refused to die ? :)
>In article <BtGJ80.12p@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen) writes:
>>From c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen)
>
>>In article <BtC4LH.5Lt@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> jaskew@spam.maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew) writes:
>>>From jaskew@spam.maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew)
>
>>>In article <Bsw11M.EC@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen) writes:
>>>>From c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen)
>
>>I would call mail or lamellar armor as serious armoring, though Eastern mail
>>is made in different pattern than Western, it is lighter and more flexible,
>>but weaker and less protective.
>
>Weaker and less protective? That's what I thought. Certainly not armoured
>on the scale of European Medieval Knights - you know head to foot. How about
>we compromise and say that they were heavish or medium?

OK. WRG classification is:

Light - no armor at all
Medium - non-metallic or light metallic armor
Heavy - metallic armor like mail, lamellar, segmented or jazeraint
Extra heavy - full mail (as knights) or partly plate
Super heavy - full plate

>>>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).
>>
>>Yes, but Goths and Vandals were mostly heavy cavalry (the state of Visigoths
>>is the very ancestor of that of what we today know as the kingdom of Spain:
>>Visigoths - Asturias - Leon - Castilla- Castilla-Leon - Castilla - Spain, and
>>the oldest Spanish noble families trace their roots back to the Visigoths)
>>, not lights like Huns. Franks were amost all close order infantry.
>
>Yeah I like that. Still I won't mock. I sometimes read a Greek guy who traces
>*his* family back to Alexander the Great and Pericles. The Visigoths also gave
>their name to Andulasia. Still I have my doubts about how heavy all these guys
>were - especially the Goths. I have a recollection of them stealing armour
>from Dead Romans because they couldn't make it themselves. Still I'll have
>to look that up.

Ok, say, shock cavalry instead of Hunnic missile cavalry. (BTW, it was the 
Vandals who gave the name to Andalusia (Vandalutia -> Andalucia).)

>>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.

>No! It was Mounted Archers who even had more arrows brought up by camel.
>As for the Romans sacking Ctesiphon surely they only did it twice more
>Trajan and Julian the Hellene? I am pretty sure that the Romans responded
>to the Parthians by forming a circle, but the arrows got to them anyway.
>True they may have been finished off by heavies but it was the Archers
>who forced him to a stop and wore them into the ground

Ian Heath gives us this account in his "Armies and Enemies of the Imperial
Rome 150 BC - 600 AD" about Carrhae 53 BC:

"Crassus, invading Parthia with 28,000 heavy infantry (7 Legiones), 4,000
light infantry, 4,000 western cavalry and 6,000 Arab cavalry, which deserted
at the firs sight of the enemy, was met by a Parthian army of 1,000 cataphracts
and 10,000 hose archers.

Crassus formed his troops into a hollow square, screened by skirmishers.

The cataphracts charged to drive off the screen, then withdrew to let the
horse archers to shoot. A counterattacking Roman force of cavalry, archers
and 8 Cohortes was lured out of touch of the main body and destroyed by
the cataphracts and arrows.

The rest of the Roman army held till nightfall, when the Parthians drew off,
then retreated back to Carrhae. The town was not provisioned, so that another
retreat was necessary. This was intercted: Crassus was killed during the peace
negotiatings (deviousness often bears fruit in warfare, my own comment), 5,500
of his army fought out, 10,000 was killed, the rest taken prisoners".

Therefore, it seems, IMHO, very logical that the horse archers irritated
Romans to a rash charge, they became disordered, softened by bowfire
and the cataphracts rolled them over with lance. They were, indeed, worn
down by bowfire, but it was the heavies, which gave the coup de grace,
the result with lights could have been too uncertain.

When the Roman infantry lost its supporting troops, it became demoralized
while retreating, disordered and fell as an easy prey to the Parthian
cavalry, which killed the routing Romans at will. Against disordered foot
and routers even lights are good, not to speak about lancers...

>Didn't other people just have an argument about the penetration of an arrow?

I don't know, I came into this thread in a very late stage.

>The Roman armour was very definitely incomplete. They had good shields but
>their legs look a bit exposed to me.

Yes: one could also imagine that the armor was less heavy and complete in the
East, where the climate is much more hot than it is in Europe.
 
> Did the Romans ever beat the Parthians
>in battle? Later perhaps and they did get to move about Iraq pretty freely
>but did the Parthians come out with Horsemen and Bows when the Romans did?

About each and every time after that thereafter. Carrhae is the most notable
Roman battle against the Parthia, just like Cannae against the Carthaginians
and Teutonburger Wald against the Germans: they were all defeats, and they
were remembered perhaps because of the Romans' ability to use these as "do-not"
-examples and their ability to learn from their errors. Who remembers Zama,
Idstavisio and Ctesiphon anyway ?
 
>I am not sure the Early and Later (as opposed to much later) Romans ever
>beat Horse Archers on their own ground.

They never encountered them on open field ! The Romans were not idiots, though
and did not give the enemy that advantage, but tried to fight at their own
terms and force the enemy to dance by their tune.

Horse archers are not shock troops, but skirmishers: they do, indeed, work
best at open field, in close terrain they are ineffective due to the reduced
mobility.

>I have a recollection that the Mongol bow outshot the English long bow which
>brings up another thread that has died down. Did anyone come to a consensus?

Says who, and by which standards ? Even so, the density of fire is greater
with foot bows, and a horse is much larger a target than a man. I would have
tha recollection that the English longbow with bodkin arrows had longer
effective (lethal) range than any other bow except the crossbows.

The longbow was deployed en masse, while the cavalry bows are employed as
loose swarms. Therefore the density of fire (and its lethality) is smaller
with cavalry archery than with foot archery

>Stirrups are important of nomadic archers as they stand up in the saddle
>to fire. I've seen Mongols do it with AK-47's instead of bows :-)

Still the infantryman with an AK-47 (not to speak about RK-62) has the 
advantage over him. Especially if he is in a foxhole :-) Also, the accuracy
of the fire suffers as the cavalryman still has to control his horse with
his legs, while the infantryman does not have any such problems.

>Joseph Askew



  ++ 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.  ++

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