What is the point of 16 ranks in a pike phalanx?

[Justin Swanton]

I imagine that ancient generals would have liked nothing better than to put the war cart before the vulnerable horse, but if they never did so there must be a good reason. The reason that immediately springs to mind is the fact that such a vehicle is a) very difficult if not impossible to steer, and b) puts undue strain on the horse, which is obliged to push rather than pull. I am not an equestrian expert, but I suspect that the fact that horses pulled carts, chariots, carriages, etc. from the dawn of equine domestication to the present day, and never pushed them, is due to the fact that there is a radical problem for horses pushing a load.

[Jim Webster]

Actually anybody who has had to get a wheelbarrow across a bumpy garden or soft ground will soon realise that you pull rather than push.
If you pull you draw the wheelbarrow over the bumps and automatically pull it out of soft ground. If you push you thrust the wheelbarrow into the base of the bumps and dig it deeper into soft ground.

That's the simple reason why horses pull.

Jim

[Patrick Waterson]

But if a cavalry attack is possible, I would like to use these armored chariots rather than normal cavalry. I think that, if the ground is plain and with no caltrops, they are unstoppable, even if enemies have speard or pikes, and that makes them better than usual cavalry. Is that only my idea?
I think they would be the ancient counterparts of modern tanks of ww1.

It might be worth remembering just how vulnerable and subject to breakdown the tanks of WW1 turned out to be.  Athough proof against rifle and machinegun fire (though this caused occasional casualties from 'spalling' inside the tank) they were penetrated by German K (hardened) ammunition and easily knocked out by artillery.  This did not prevent them from being effective when used in mass and well supported by infantry, aircraft and, where possible, artillery.

I think the problem with the shielded chariot idea is not so much the concept (chariots had been successful against infantry with limited training for millennia) as the practicability: Italy has some good professors of classical engineering, and it might be worth discussing the idea with one or two of them to see what they think about the practicalities of the idea (and why it did not even feature in a work such as De Rebus Bellicis).

[andrew881runner]

Actually anybody who has had to get a wheelbarrow across a bumpy garden or soft ground will soon realise that you pull rather than push.
If you pull you draw the wheelbarrow over the bumps and automatically pull it out of soft ground. If you push you thrust the wheelbarrow into the base of the bumps and dig it deeper into soft ground.

That's the simple reason why horses pull.

Jim

in my job I have actually I pull and push heavy things on 2 or 4 wheels all day and I can assure you that there is almost no difference. Or better, Honestly I prefer to push rather than pull. I feel more effort in pulling and I have less control of inertia, especially in mild downhill. And I do that outside in a farm with uneven terrain.
Some if the things I pull or push look much similar to the things I described that could be attached to chariots or horses. And I as average size guy don't do a real effort even pulling or pushing uphill or downhill. I am sure that a horse could push or pull same weight with no effort at all. Wheels do their job.
As for the steer, it could be added with no problem. I, even if I'm not an engineer, could make a steer for the chariot linked to the wooden front armor on my own.

[Mark G]

You are not a horse.
Your upper body helps you push, horses do not. They are not the same

[andrew881runner]

believe me, a horse can pull or push very heavy things. If it usually pulls it does not mean that it could not push. pushing seems less natural since it means putting something in front of him which prevents his vision. Pulling things is more natural. But this does not mean a horse cannot push. OK, I have arms helping me but try this if you can: pull something on wheels attacked at your back. Now push something on wheels attacked at your upper body. Tell me if you find any problem. From a physical point of view the Muscolar force is the same, only the place where it is applied changes. Like having a car with front or back engine with same power.

[Mark G]

Aside from renaissance fantasy weapons, can you give any examples of horse pushed vehicles?

[Patrick Waterson]

Like having a car with front or back engine with same power.

Steering would seem to be a problem, though.  Chariots, wagons and carts were steered by encouraging the horse(s) to change direction.  Putting the cart before the horse will not allow the horse to guide its direction.  Try it. 

[andrew881runner]

Like having a car with front or back engine with same power.

Steering would seem to be a problem, though.  Chariots, wagons and carts were steered by encouraging the horse(s) to change direction.  Putting the cart before the horse will not allow the horse to guide its direction.  Try it. 

as I already said 2 times, it would not be a great deal since the thing I am talking about would hav3 the purpose to roll down a phalanx or other battle formation. So simply face the chariot in front of it, attack the wooden shield in front, then let the horses run forward. In most cases it will work on my opinion.
OK, there could be horse traps, but these are visible. And horse traps were not so much used in ancient battles in percentage, maybe because most times armies met in a field of battle they had not the possibility to prepare. So, let's forget horse traps and imagine the typical field of battle: armies tended to meet in more or less plain areas to have enough space to deploy. This is especially true if we are talking of rolling down a pike phalanx. A pike phalanx needs flat ground to operate. So let's forget the battle in mountains[emoji6] which surely would not be good for chariots.

Secondly, I think that steerable models could be made without particular problems (I have an idea but cannot explain without a drawing), but again, they are not necessary.
I know there is not a source talking about this but this does not mean this idea is stupid.

[Patrick Waterson]

I know there is not a source talking about this but this does not mean this idea is stupid.

Agreed.  The question is whether it is workable.  To evaluate this will require either a working model or some engineering calculations, otherwise it becomes an encounter of faiths which can fill posts with form but not substance.

So simply face the chariot in front of it, attach the wooden shield in front, then let the horses run forward.

This requires the wooden shield to be brought up to the battlefield, presumably by engineers and/or infantrymen, and then attached securely to the yoke and/or pole of the chariot.  (First problem: enemy missilemen would find it very tempting to interfere at this point.)  It needs to have enough space in front of the horses to allow then to use their legs, which means it is not tight-fitting and so will waggle independently and place significant stresses on the chariot pole as the whose assemblage moves.

If the wheels are free to turn (like castors) they must be well clear of the horses' legs otherwise they will collide with them.  This means they must be forward of the horses and/or at least 1 1/2 wheel diameters to the side of the horses.  This requires a construction wider than the horse team and hence probably heavier than the chariot.  It imposes loads on the chariot pole and the yoke that neither is designed to bear.

Step one in adopting this system thus requires a redesign of the entire chariot to strengthen the pole and yoke arrangements.  The key question is how strong - and hence how massive - these will have to be.  If they have to be like ships' masts then the whole arrangement may weigh too much to be usefully movable on the battlefield.

It is to resolve this essential question that we really need the input of a qualified materials engineer.

The next question to consider is the moments of forces - instead of a chariot behind a horse team, we have a chariot-equivalent before and behind the horse team.  Because of the momentum imparted by a turning movement and the inertia of a weight at both ends of the chariot pole, once a turn has started it may be very difficult to stop.  Again, one really needs a qualified engineer to consider this question.  Also, will movement produce oscillation of the shield and chariot bodies that set up a standing wave which stresses and eventually cracks the chariot pole?

Chariot design, as recent re-creators have found, is quite a demanding profession and small weaknesses can make or break a design (most spectacularly when a British Museum team tried to recreate an Assyrian four-hourse chariot and were unable to prevent the yoke from breaking in normal use).  Hence, while one can suggest a concept, only detailed applied engineering will determine whether it would have been successful.

[andrew881runner]

What I am talking about is very simple to make. I don't think you would need engeneers, as you don't need engeneers to make a simple robust wagons for farmers.
Put 2 robust wooden shafts at the sides of the horses driving the chariots (surely they must be long enough to not interfere with horse movement, that is obvious and does not need an engineer....). Put a 1 inch thick wooden plate (ratio about 2 : 5? to give an idea) attacked to the ends of the shafts. Add 2 wheels (same size as ones of chariot) to the wooden shield, directly in the sides of it. I really don't see what kind of technical problems could be in this. It is a rather primitive and simple thing to do.    And I don't see the problem in carrying 2 shafts and a wooden shield and 2 wheels in the army's baggage train with all other things. Or carried by some volunteer horse. Or whatever they carried this kind of things, I am sure they would have found a way.

If you got what I mean, you should get that this thing would be attached to horses, not to chariots, so it would be totally independent from chariot and chariot design. You don't need any hard calculation of stress on chariot.

My idea is that even if it could slow a bit the chariot, you don't need any high speed to roll down a pike phalanx. Even an hypothetical slow speed like 10 miles per hour would be enough, but I think that it could easily reach 20 or more. Since the kinetic energy of the horses and shield together would have enormous amount of impact even at slow speed. Probably able to roll down even some fixed wooden obstacle in the path.  Have you ever seen in war movies horses pulling down wooden walls in forts? That is to give an idea of the immense power a horse has applied in rolling down things.

I am thinking right now, you don't need the chariot. You can add the wooden shield on wheels to each horse[emoji6] and put a rider on it.
Easy and effective.
I would have added those things to the first line of cataphracts units for example.
To give an idea, change the wagon with a shield on 2 wheels. http://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?p=6592506

[Mark G]

Why would the horse gallop directly forward, when all it can see is a huge wooden wall one step in front of it?

How do you cope with a small dip in the ground which the wall runs into?

[aligern]

Byzantines came up with the menaulion , a special thick spear designed to stop charging cataphracts who would otherwise break the long but slim spears of the infantry. If the horses were carrying some sort of board between them then all that would happen would be that instead of hitting say two spears per horse they would hit three or four per horse at the same time and be much less likely to break them. Far better to put decent armour on the front of the horse and a man on top of it who could use his spear to jab at the opposing pikes and put them off.
As others have said pushing a vehicle will not work unless the ground is perfectly flat otherwise states would have devised push vehicles with long spears on them that could punch through opposing formations.
Roy

[andrew881runner]

wooden frontal armor could be angled like the front "thing" of this train is http://james-redhare.blogspot.it/2009/01/bill-board.html?m=1 (watch pic of the train). So it could deflect on the sides all the Spears, even if very thick.
Horse would run into the pike walls because he would not see the pike walls so not having the life preserving instinct which prevents the horse to run into a pike wall. The horseman would push (with a stick or whatever) the horse to run forward.
A line of these things could roll down an ancient (or modern, Swiss or lanzkenekt) pike phalanx in seconds. Normal cavalry (or fast infantry or chariots with blades maybe) would  run behind to get rid of pikemen now in a broken formation so very vulnerable. That s all folks.

[andrew881runner]

Why would the horse gallop directly forward, when all it can see is a huge wooden wall one step in front of it?

How do you cope with a small dip in the ground which the wall runs into?

exactly as ancient chariots coped with them. You can either create suspension system or, and it is preferable on my opinion, make robust large wheels which will be able to tolerate dips.
Anyway chariots somehow coped with them, and chariots had man above. This thing would be only a wooden panel which must resist the time of a single battle so it does not matter if it jumps a bit during the charge.