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One interesting thing is that you hardly ever read of villages on a battlefield; perhaps generals choose battle-sites without such obstructions.

Or perhaps any buildings on the field were insignificant in how the battle panned out, so didn't make the history.  Wargamers perhaps make more of settlements on battlefields than armies in pre-horse and musket armies.

One interesting thing is that you hardly ever read of villages on a battlefield; perhaps generals choose battle-sites without such obstructions. Obviously if you are trying to reduce a tribal people like the upland Spanish or Thracians you have a lot of little hill-forts to storm, but I'm thinking of big field-battles.

We do of course lack any reference whatsoever to scythed chariots being used against Scythian armoured horses, and the only instances of scythed chariot use in classical literature - with three exceptions - are as infantry formation-breakers.

Xenophon's early scythed chariots appear to have full combat crews - the one-man version recorded as being at Gaugamela was a later development.

Or quite plausibly he might have been making a lot if things up. It is quite believable that Xenophon sought to explain how scythed chariots came to be used by the Persians by pointing out real ir imagined deficiencies in the previous use of chariots . So, if the scythed variety were designed to rupture and disorganise an enemy front then we it is  sensible that previous chariots had done that but improvements by their opponents rendered them ineffective, so scythes were adopted.

I do not think so: looking at Xenophon's account of Thymbra, he has the scythed chariots operate against outflanking Lydian wings, being launched initially and primarily against the opposing cavalry and chariotry, which makes tactical sense and accords with some of our rather fragmentary details of general chariot use.  Then the scythed chariots plough through opposing infantry - and in the case of the Egyptians in their very deep formation, into it but not out of it.  This is all consistent with the pattern of standard Biblical period chariot use, as far as I can establish, which suggests that scythes were added to give chariotry a 'cutting edge' as opposed to creating a new role or reintroducing chariotry as a shock weapon.  At Thymbra, the opposing (Lydian) chariots seemed to have no concerns about driving into battle despite lack of scythes.

What I see as important for Rodger's initial questions is the continuity of the large heavy four-horse chariot, the addition of scythes arguably if not necessarily giving it a new lease of life, and it subsequently developing into a specific - and apparently exclusive - new weapon type by the late Achaemenid period.

This brings us to the scythed chariot as specific infantry formation-breaker, and two further examples of it not doing this.  While we mostly meet the scythed chariot in an anti-infantry role, e.g. at Gaugamela, Orchomenus and Zela, we should note that in the latter two instances the scythed chariot user had considerable cavalry superiority and in the former Mazaeus used his scythed chariots against Parmenio's cavalry.

Specific use of scythed chariots to break cavalry also occurs in Mithridates' war against the Bithynians; his outnumbered vanguard uses its scythed chariots to disrupt the Bithynian cavalry, which is then broken by the Pontic cavalry.  The Bithynian infantry get trampled in the rush.

I think we can safely conclude that the scythed chariot was neither specifically an infantry formation-breaker nor specifically a cavalry formation-breaker, but - as traditionally with chariotry - a generic formation-breaker.

Or quite plausibly he might have been making a lot if things up. It is quite believable that Xenophon sought to explain how scythed chariots came to be used by the Persians by pointing out real ir imagined deficiencies in the previous use of chariots . So, if the scythed variety were designed to rupture and disorganise an enemy front then we it is  sensible that previous chariots had done that but improvements by their opponents rendered them ineffective, so scythes were adopted. That pises a question as to why the crew was reduced to one who may have bailed before impact. Perhaps the scythed chariot was actually a new answer to a new threat, Greek and Carian infantry who were firmed in a disciplined line that resisted Oersian archer tactics and so had to be disrupted to alliw Persianbarmoured cavalry to break into them. Xenophon wrote of the Persian infantry being separated out into different types so spears and bows were separate, yet Herodotus has them carrying both soears and bows. The alleged Persian formation of mixed spear and missile might accord better with Herodotus, but then Xenophon’s point is that he is is describing Cyrus as a military reformer and rational organiser and tgat is more important than historical accuracy because he is not  writing history.
Roy

Just to add: Xenophon's Cyropaedia appears to confirm the Neo-Babylonians used four-horse chariots themselves; their Syrian and Anatolian allies may have used lighter, two-horse models with two or three crew. 

Xenophon's ideas about Neo-Babylonian chariot tactics are hard to explain (he has them dismount their archers to shoot at oncoming foes) but this may have been an addition to the usual chariot repertoire and solely for use when foes were in ground difficult of access for chariots.