Chariots as equid battering rams

[Patrick Waterson]

I find I can't agree with your summation of Celtic chariotry.

But are we of the same mind as to what constitutes 'Celtic', and are we looking for a single common tactical doctrine?

It seems to me to work more in support of cavalry in most instances we have - the "Elephant victory" seems to be the exception, perhaps prompted by the opportunities afforded by (or adoption of traditional tactics for) scythed chariots.

What information we have concerning Sentinum demonstrates that in this particular battle the Gallic chariotry did not work in support of cavalry until it absolutely had to, i.e. it had been assigned a role which had nothing to do with supporting cavalry, and hence sat tight while the Gallic cavalry was defeated by the Romans not once, but twice.  Had it been in a cavalry support role, it would havce been committed either at the outset or at the very latest imediately after the first failed attempt by the Gallic cavalry to deal with their Roman counterparts.  So we can strike Sentinum off the cavalry support role doctrine shortlist.  The chariots did so, of course, but not by design.

The Britons are recorded as using their chariots and cavalry together, although the Roman cavalry seems quickly to get the measure of both in open fight.  Patrol and foraging work is another matter; Caesar's cavalry tend to get the worst of being lured off by subsequently dismounting chariotry (exactly how this worked I am not sure).  One feature to bear in mind about Britons is that they do not seem to have had good Gallic-style cavalry horses, but rather smaller pony types.  One could have effective period cavalry on small horses (Germans) but in a straight fight against Roman cavalry Britons on ponyback would be at a disadvantage.  In Caesar's accounts it seems to be more a matter of British cavalry supporting chariots than chariots supporting cavalry.  That said, the inadequacy of British cavalry in a shock role could explain why the Britons retained chariots when the Gauls had already dispensed with them.

But with such a small sample, separated by such a great geographic and time spread, a clear pattern eludes us.

Yes, we have a set of isolated seemingly one-off patterns and from this we attempt to extract some sort of cohesive common factor(s).  The difficulty we face is missing link syndrome: we lack parts of the story.