From: jaskew@spam.maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew)
Subject: Re: Altered history of warfare
Followup-To: sci.military
Summary: Some good points here but no summary
Organization: Statistics, Pure & Applied Mathematics, University of Adelaide
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 14:52:56 GMT


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.

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)

Good point about armour deleted. (Charles XII armour survived too - great big
bullet hole in it. This is a little late in armour development though)

>>>> Nor were their horses just carriers for the nobility either let alone aux-
>>>> iliary troops.

>Then when the commander-in-chief and the main combat troops are no longer Mong-
>ols and the Mongols serve only as allies or auxiliaries.

Ah that auxiliary word again. Back to my main point that Mongol Armies did
not use Cavalry as auxiliaries. There were the main force usually and when
they weren't people like them often were. eg Turkish horsemen.

>>How do you take into account mass but useless levies?
>
>It can be used as a tool of foraging, pillaging and intimidating the enemy.
>In actual combat it is little other use than lance fodder.

I meant if mass useless levies outnumber the Horse Archers does that mean
that they horsemen are 'auxiliary'. Clearly no I would have thought.

>>Isn't this roughly what I said? The Mongol Army was almost all cavalry - of
>>differing types true but cavalry none the less.

>Yes, but not 100% of light horse archers as often thought. They had their
>heavies too, lights tend to get hacked into pieces in melee.

>>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?
>
>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?

>>and they can often go around any infantry
>>if they are smart enough - no foot soldier moved 100 miles a day!
>
>"Mylord, the savages are in our flank and closing"
>"What thou sayest, thou knave ? Yes, they are there, indeed"
>"ATTEN-TION ! Pikes - UP ! Left - TURN ! Pikes - ON ! Butts - DOWN !"
>
>...and very soon we see those cav guys doing their sashlik imitations...
>
>Or, they can also be shot into pieces by the infantry archers as well.

When I said go around I meant that the Chinese Emperor could order his
entire Army to the West or North to fight, but if the nomads chose to
go aroung they still got to sack Chang-an or Peking or where ever.
It doesn't help much to march out to meet the enemy if they refuse to
stay around. Less of a problem in Europe as there are few other places
to go in Italy or even Germany - not really fit for Mongols.
Why fight if you don't have to? Of course pre-Modren Armies were much less
worried about their resupply routes, but Mongols always tried to get armies
that were on the move and strung out (and they often did) or when they
had encamped or even when they were tired from pursuit. Foot soldiers don't
have the same freedom of choice - if Nomads don't like the odds or the
situation they leave.
Good point about the pike though

>>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.

>>>After all, cavalry is nearly useless against steady, firm close-order infantr
>>>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.
>
>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

>>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.
>
>Legio - AN TESTUDO ! The Legionarii had their large shields, scuti, which were
>good countermeasure against the arrows. True, an arrow could penetrate it, but
>it usually got stuck into it, leaving the Legionarius unharmed, and mail is
>a good defense against the light arrows too. Horse archery is more a nuisance
>than a real threat for well-armored steady troops. And, again, light cavalry
>can do nothing against the pike phalanges.

Didn't other people just have an argument about the penetration of an arrow?
The Roman armour was very definitely incomplete. They had good shields but
their legs look a bit exposed to me. 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?
I am not sure the Early and Later (as opposed to much later) Romans ever
beat Horse Archers on their own ground.

>Ever wondered whether the Mongols would have been shot into pieces by the
>English longbowmen, just like the French knights were ? I would say they
>had been. Also one weapon the light cxavalry extremely detested was the
>crossbow: with its tremendous penetrative power and extereme accuracy and
>long range the horse archers were really in trouble, like the Lithuanians
>were against the Teutonic Order. The Romans did know the crossbow, Arcubalista
>(hence the medieval "arbalest"), too.

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?

>In fact, spurs are more important when controlling horses. The importance
>of the stirrups is often grossly overestimate. The only situation it really
>gives an advantage is when slashing downwards with a sword. Modern testings
>have also shown that fighting with a kontos (a kind of an Ancient two-handed
>lance) was, in fact, _easier_ without the stirrups. The cataphract lancers
>fared well without stirrups even before the era of chivalry.

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 :-)
Besides no stirrups didn't bother Alexander the Great!

>Your other points were good, though. When was the horseshoe invented ?

Don't actually know, the middle ages would be the obvious answer. The Romans
didn't have them Napoleon did somewhere between those two I guess :-)



Joseph Askew